News Roundup for 5/1/12

Mitt Romney

-Headline of the Day-
"Has Team Romney forgotten that the Bush years were terrible?"

They sure seem to have.

According to Ezra Klein, "Last week, when CNN asked House Speaker John Boehner whom Mitt Romney, the likely GOP presidential nominee, should choose as his vice presidential running mate, he named Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Daniels and Portman served as budget directors in the Bush White House. Perhaps more surprising, a variety of big-name Republicans have openly yearned for Jeb Bush to get the nod — and before that, to run for the nomination itself.

"Meanwhile, Romney’s campaign staff is thick with Bush administration veterans. Two of his economic advisers — N. Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard — served as chief economists for Bush. His policy director, Lanhee Chen, worked on health policy in the Bush White House."

Yeah, let's get Bush economic advisers back in the White House, because that worked out so awesome the last time.

Still, this should finally end the question as to whether Mittens is a "real" conservative. And not just because he seems to be running for Dubya's third term. See, when a real conservative starts talking about change, they mean they want to change things back to the way they used to be when they sucked -- e.g., the War on Women that would send women's rights back to the fifties.

On that score, Romney seems to be as real a conservative as possible. (Washington Post)


-Listen to the lady-



She's right on the money. (McClatchy)


-Bonus HotD-
"Romney’s Openly-Gay Spokesperson Resigns After Facing Pressure From Anti-Gay Right Wing."

More evidence that Mitt's a real conservative -- he's way too responsive to bigots. (ThinkProgress)

News Roundup for 5/19/11

President Obama

-Headline of the day-
"The 'death hug' strategy."

If you've been paying attention to early Obama campaigning, you've noticed something a little strange -- the president has been praising possible '12 GOP opponents. Mitt Romney got a nice thank you for laying the groundwork for healthcare reform, as did Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. And John Huntsman got a big round of applause for all the awesome work he did in the Obama administration.

You see what's happening here, right? According to the report, this "sort of political maneuver has colloquially become known as a 'death hug' for the frequency with which Obama and his allies have used it against Republicans." See, it seems the Obama administration looked out at the nutjobs who'll likely make the difference in the GOP primary and decided to use them. It's fiendish, in a fun sort of trollish way; don't paint your opponents as to far to the right, congratulate them for being so far to the left. Since "the left" has become synonymous with reality, this will leave only the frootloops unpraised. Then sit back, watch the crazies pick off the candidates you least want to run against, and win easily next November over the Bachmann/Cain ticket.

"Imagine it's 2003 and George W. Bush is praising certain Democratic presidential candidates, noting key areas of policy agreement with those candidates, and in one case, noting that one of the candidates was a member of his administration," Steve Benen explains. "Do you think this might affect the attitudes of Democratic primary voters about those candidates? I do."

Like all the nuttiness you've whipped up since Obama was elected, GOP? I hope so, because you're gonna eat it. (Political Animal)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, wanna know what it means to be American? let's ask the...




Click for animation

Stand up and salute! (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"What Bachmann is thinking about as she considers a run for president."

Let me take a stab at that!

I'm guessing it's "..." (MinnPost.com)

Stories to Watch: 2/28/11

I added a better popup blogger last night and it works great -- a little too great. I was trying to write my post this morning and nothing was working. Turns out I had to whitelist blogger. Oops! Seems to screw with Tumblr too, which is a minor problem. I haven't decided whether I'm sticking with it or whether I'll uninstall it. I guess it depends; if it's more annoying than the popups, out it goes. Now here's the news...


Scott Walker's resorting to efforts of questionable legality to keep crowd size down in the Wisconsin State Capitol. Last night's humiliation must have stung. That's not the worst of it. Follow the link to see just what assholes Wisconsin Republicans can be.


In related news, if we had a do-over on the elections, Tom Barret would be governor in a 7-point win. Keep that in mind the next time you hear Walker talk about his silent majority.


Meanwhile, Walker reiterates his threat to shoot his hostages.


Wisconsin really is ground zero in a war against the middle class.


RIP Frank W. Buckles, who was the last living US veteran of WWI.


And RIP Jane Russell.


Finally, it's official: the GOP is literally anti-jobs. A new report says the GOP's budget plans would cost 700,000 jobs and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels can hardly contain his glee.