"[Chick-Fil-A] should send shivers down the spine of every Democrat in the land, for it indicates clearly that they are on the wrong side of history, morality and the American people. The Democratic Party is about to enshrine sodomy-based marriage in its official party platform, and announced its plans to do so in the same week that main street Americans demonstrated that same-sex marriage is not an American value. This ought to be an "Oops" moment for Democrats, but of course it will not. They will blindly follow the forces of sexual immorality into political oblivion.
Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Sen. Harry Reid caused a stir this week when he told an interviewer that Mitt Romney hasn't released more of his tax returns because "he didn't pay taxes for 10 years." On Wednesday, Reid doubled down on the charge.
In an interview published Tuesday, Reid said an investor in Bain Capital, the former private equity firm of the Republican presidential candidate, told him in a phone call that Romney had paid zero taxes.
"Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," Reid told the Huffington Post, declining to identify his source. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?"
Whether this is true or not is a matter for debate and the pedigree of the claim ("this one guy told me this one thing this one time") strongly suggests it's not all that true. This all has the strong scent of horsecrap (and not Olympic horse dancer Rafalca's horsecrap, which I'm assured smells like roses) -- which means it also smells a lot like a Republican talking point.
Nevertheless, National Review's Jim Geraghty asks -- nay, demands! -- that independent fact-checkers look into Reid's claim, but there's the question of how. No one at Annenberg or PolitiFact has access to Mitt Romney's tax records, so they're pretty much helpless here. The only way to prove Reid wrong is to take a look at those tax records Mitt Romney refuses to release.
What gets me about this is that Republican media feels they have the right to complain about it. I know, this is the party with several decks of victim cards forever at the ready, but still... You'd think there was some limit to the amount of hypocrisy they'd allow themselves. And after the birtherism, the accusations of Marxism and Nazism, the "secret Muslim terrorist sleeper agent" conspiracy theorizing -- in short, the entire rightwing anti-Obama messaging industry -- you'd think they'd be a little more prepared to defend themselves from the same post-truth politics they've unleashed on the nation. Were they foolish enough to introduce their poison into the American political system without first developing an antidote?
That would seem to be the case.
None of this is to say that Reid is justified in doing this -- although I have to admit to enjoying the "just desserts" aspect of the whole thing. But I am saying that Republicans have no right to complain about it. None at all. When you've decided the truth is irrelevant to winning, you don't get to complain that your opponent is being dishonest. In other words, don't dish it out if you can't take it.
And quit whining about being hoist by your own petard.
"Their moving love of human rights--which they exercise by rallying in support of some old-school gay bashers--doesn't seem to be an equal-opportunity kind of situation at all. I mean, if someone found a religious book that said conservatives should be stripped of rights and treated as second class citizens, would the Santorums be lining up to buy that person's chicken while calling themselves fierce defenders of the Constitution? No way. But in defending the hate mongering Chick-Fil-A, these people can hide behind their flag-waving, pseudo libertarian crap while backing an organization's bigoted views that just happen to mirror their own. Do they have a right to say that? Sure. And I have a right to yell bloody murder." - Michael Musto, writing for the Village Voice.
Mitt Romney has been through a lot. He's been hounded by the press and his regular life schedule has been interrupted by this whole running for president thing. He can't even discuss his Success® anymore. And like Tony Hayward, Mitt wants his life back.
To that end, he has hired a former aid to Hank Paulson and BP spokesperson to rehabilitate his image.
Michele Davis, a former top aide to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, has told colleagues that she will join the Romney campaign to lead a vigorous effort to defend his career in the private sector, a source told BuzzFeed Wednesday.
Davis is currently a partner at the Brunswick Group in Washington, D.C., a corporate public relations and strategy firm, where she was reportedly the firm's lead — alongside then-Brunswick executive Hilary Rosen — in managing the oil company BP's public relations effort in the wake of a giant Gulf of Mexico oil spill. [...]
But Davis will also bring some very high-profile baggage to Romney's campaign. She arrived at Treasury from Fannie Mae, the giant, government-backed firm that backs a large share of the nations mortgages. She was vice president for regulatory policy at Fannie Mae from 2002 to 2006, and is listed as a registered lobbyist for the troubled and controversial entity — which made a practice of keeping a bipartisan squad of Washington insiders on payroll — in 2004.
One of Paulson's top aides, who was also a spokesperson for BP and a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, is going to rehab Romney's image as a shady business man?
Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Treasury Secretary, stood in front of congress and presented them with a 3 page bailout bill which read in part "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
And I doubt I need to remind you or anyone else what took place between 2002 and 2006 at Fannie Mae. And Davis was the vice president for regulatory policy.
This person is going to make Americans feel better about Bain Capital?
This must be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by OFA. Team Romney couldn't possibly think this will help, could they?
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One reporter shares his experience of covering yesterdays "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day."
I have never felt so alien in my own country as I did today while covering the restaurant's supporters. The level of hatred, unfounded fear and misinformed people was astoundingly sad. I can't even print some of the things people said. …
It was like broken records of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and a recitation of half-truths and outright lies.
Conservatism is a mental illness.
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Following July's addition of 160,000 jobs, if the economy adds 105,000 more jobs per month for the next three months, the Obama administration will break into net job creation numbers.
In other words, more jobs will have been created than were lost during the earliest recession days of 2009 and 2010.
Considering the thousands of jobs that were being wiped out when the president took office, this would be a huge accomplishment. Now, can you imagine where we'd be if the stimulus had been larger and the Republicans hadn't filibustered every job-creation bill the Democrats have proposed?
Either way, the job losses will have been completely wiped out within a single term. That's significant.
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