C'mon, Willard

Have you actually reached the point where you don't even know when you're lying?

About that "Binder Full Of Women":

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"

And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort.

Not a true story.

What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

Read the whole thing from The Phoenix.

(hat tip =  Balloon Juice)

The Benghazi Gaffe

Willard stepped on his dick again at the "debate" last night when he tried to pull a gotcha on Obama regarding what the administration did or didn't say about the attack on our consulate in Benghazi; and/or when they did or didn't say it, and/or what actual words they used, and/or in what combination, and/or whatever the fuck he thinks he can get away with.



It's kind of a standard play for Repubs.  Whenever you're on the inside of The Bubble, you say whatever crazy shit you know the Party Faithful wanna hear, and then when you venture outside The Bubble, you can "correct the record" or you can say your comments were "taken out of context" etc etc; and sometimes you can just flat out lie.

If he says something to the Press Poodles (outside The Bubble) intended to make himself seem "moderate and non-threatening and mainstream", he can completely reverse himself once he's back inside The Bubble, knowing the rubes will either be unaware of what he said "out there", or totally understand that it's OK to lie to those Lamestream Media Assholes cuz they're a buncha evil Libruls, and we all know what's REALLY goin' on.  Wink wink nudge nudge say no more.

And Willard knows it works in both directions.  All you hafta do is change the phrasing a little.  It's what makes the Etch-A-Sketch imagery so dead-on.

I thought it was kinda interesting though that the Repubs ran into a bit of a major snag as they went after the Benghazi thing.  When they got to the part of the story that was all about what a horrible mess Obama made of providing security for places like the Benghazi Consulate, they suddenly remembered that a certain member of the Republican Majority in The US House of Representatives (a guy who happens to be the Veep Nominee, and who continues to pose for really stoopid photo ops btw) voted in favor of cutting $128 Million from Obama's request for Embassy Security.

It is predictable and not unreasonable for Republican nominee Mitt Romney to make an issue of the level of security at the diplomatic post. But he and his supporters are also walking a thin line, because Republicans – including Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan – have voted to cut security funding in the budget.  (Buffalo News)

Oops.

Here In Post-Racial America

And while you're at it, tell me all about how the Democrats do exactly the same thing.  Point me to the websites that mock Romney for anything he can't do anything about.  Show me.

 

 

 

 

Confirming

..what we already knew - but just to be sure:

David Stockman on WIllard's "talents":

Except Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way—out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn “roll-ups,” and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale—the faster the better.

The Tax Plan Explained

It's simple, really - just go to the site below and click on the button.

Romney's Tax Plan

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Gettin' It Done - 21

In some ways, violence is violence.  And it doesn't matter if you're dropping bombs from 50,000 feet, or launching air-to-ground missiles from unmanned drones, or damaging the prospects of school kids by depriving them of healthcare or food or opportunity or whatever.

One way or another, we're waging war against the Iranian people.  War is always about the people.   We can comfort ourselves by saying we're doing these things because the Iranian government is mistreating its citizens, but the effect - the intent, in my opinion - is that we're making things hard on the people in order to move them to change their government.

21. Tightened Sanctions on Iran: In effort to deter Iran’s nuclear program, signed Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (2010) to punish firms and individuals who aid Iran’s petroleum sector. In late 2011 and early 2012, coordinated with other major Western powers to impose sanctions aimed at Iran’s banks and with Japan, South Korea, and China to shift their oil purchases away from Iran.

The problem is that I don't know what else we're supposed to do.  There is, of course, an awful lot going on that we don't see, but while sanctions are risky, they're at least a bit less risky than goin' all Stoopid Cowboy on 'em and just shootin' the place up.

What I really don't think anybody needs is for Romney to put the NeoCons back in charge, which is exactly what he'll do, given what we know about his Foreign Policy team.  eg: I've seen way too much of Dan Senor lately, and it's just astounding to me that this guy even has a job now.  Senor is the fucking genius who kept telling us in about 2004 or 2005 that things were going just peachy in Iraq.

Let these pricks in the door again and we're right back in the shit.

Hey, Willard

...about that Book Of Mormon thing -



So, why have none of the Press Poodles asked Willard the question?  Why hasn't Willard had to do "the speech" thing - ala JFK and Obama - where he explains it all in nice neat language that settles it for everybody?  How come?

Professional Left Podcast Episode 149

(My rather poor attempt at decoding the html at Driftglass's blog, as I try to embed the podcast)

The Undecideds

Best thing I've seen on the subject in a long while.

Gettin' It Done - 22

Lotsa hand-wringing and pearl-clutching over this one, but here's what I don't get when I hear "conservatives" bitchin' about it:  isn't this what you always refer to as "Creative Destruction"?  If we decide to move from one way of doing something to another way of doing it, we generally welcome that as progress.  You guys have been saying exactly that for 35 years.

22. Created Conditions to Begin Closing Dirtiest Power Plants: New EPA restrictions on mercury and toxic pollution, issued in December 2011, likely to lead to the closing of between sixty-eight and 231 of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants. Estimated cost to utilities: at least $11 billion by 2016. Estimated health benefits: $59 billion to $140 billion. Will also significantly reduce carbon emissions and, with other regulations, comprises what’s been called Obama’s “stealth climate policy.”

It just makes good sense to acknowledge that an economy that's all Dig It Up, Burn It Up, Chop It Down, Break It Down is not something that can go on forever.  So y'know what?  Call it whatever you wanna call it - re-tooling for an economy that's pointed more towards sustainability is one of the best job-creating policies there is.