Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the language of the Birther movement to slam a Federal Judge in Hawaii who ruled against Donald Trump's Muslim Ban. Calling the 50th state an "island in the Pacific," the AG also seemed to question the right of Federal Judges to uphold the checks and balances built-in to our government.
Hawaii became the 50th state of the union in 1959. The Birther movement, including President Donald Trump, often used the fact that President Barack Obama was born and raised in Hawaii to call into question his citizenship, even after Hawaii produced his valid long-form birth certificate.
“I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” Sessions said on conservative radio host Mark Levin’s show.
Sessions refused to apologize, calling his remarks "a joke."
@bethrenaldi@ericbradner@KFILE I bet he doesn't mind the Cayman Islands, the Seychelles, or Cyprus. It's only the islands that follow the Constitution that he doesn't like
According to United States Constitution, Ted Cruz is a natural born American citizen, and a natural born Canadian citizen. “Natural born” means that one is legally entitled to citizenship at birth.
Ted Cruz has a mother who was a natural born American citizen. She and Ted Cruz’s father, a man who was born in Cuba, both resided in Canada when Cruz was born.
Because Cruz had one parent who was an American citizen, this automatically gave him American citizenship. Because he was born is Canada, this also granted him citizenship as a Canadian.
On Monday, Cruz said he would renounce his Canadian citizenship. “I got my U.S. passport in high school,” he said in a statement reported by the Associated Press. “Because I was a U.S. citizen at birth, because I left Calgary when I was 4 and have lived my entire life since then in the U.S., and because I have never taken affirmative steps to claim Canadian citizenship, I assumed that was the end of the matter,” he added. “Now The Dallas Morning News says that I may technically have dual citizenship. Assuming that is true, then sure, I will renounce any Canadian citizenship. Nothing against Canada, but I’m an American by birth and as a U.S. Senator, I believe I should be only an American.”
Senator Cruz may have to wait eight months to stop being Canadian
OTTAWA - U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who says he recently discovered he is likely a Canadian, must win security clearance from Canada's spy agency, fill out a four-page form and then wait up to eight months to sever his ties to America's northern neighbor.
. . . A nonrefundable C$100 ($96) fee is payable in advance.
"It's very, very uncommon ... . I've been practicing 26 years and I don't think I've ever seen anybody renounce it," said Guidy Mamann, an immigration lawyer with Toronto law firm Mamann, Sandaluk & Kingwell.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada official Remi Lariviere said reasons for renunciation could include running in a foreign election or serving in a foreign military.
Canada keeps it simple for stupid: "In general, if you were born in Canada, you are a Canadian citizen." http://t.co/2057ZpCuoy@TedCruz
A rodeo clown at the Missouri State Fair put on a mask of President Barack Obama, and an announcer asked an enthusiastic crowd whether they wanted to see “Obama trampled by a bull,” according to a witness and video posted online.
Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, said through a spokesman that the antics were “disrespectful and offensive,” and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a Republican, said on Twitter: “We are better than this.”
~ NBC News
. . . voice is heard over the loudspeaker working up the crowd and saying, "We're going to stomp Obama now." "As soon as this bull comes out, Obama, don't you move," the second voice said. "He's going to getcha, getcha getcha, getcha." "Hey, I know I'm a clown," the second voice said. "He's just running around acting like one. Doesn't know he is one." ...
~ CNN News
I am amazed that in 2013, such hatred, intolerance and disrespect towards the President of the United States could take place at the Missouri State Fair. Our fair is supposed to showcase the best of Missouri, instead, it showed an ugly face of intolerance and ignorance to the world.
~ Congressman William Lacy Clay (D) Missouri
Poking fun at our president is a time-honored tradition in this country, but the incident Saturday night at the Missouri State Fair rodeo went well beyond the line. The concept of an angry bull attempting to trample a black man for the amusement of a crowd is neither entertaining nor funny and is not the type of behavior that our taxpayer-subsidized State Fair should promote.
“House Democrats will be asking House Speaker Tim Jones to immediately appoint an interim committee to investigate this incident and to consider whether continued taxpayer funding is appropriate for an event that allows such racist actions to occur.
~ Missouri House Minority Leader Jake Hummel (D) and Assistant House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty (D)
And it was just last week on this program where I . . . talked about Obama going on a comedy show to tell us something very serious about foreign policy, and I said this is diminishing the office of the presidency, the way Obama’s handling this, just totally diminishing it. He is reducing the office to the lowest common denominator, and I would suggest to you that whatever the truth of this thing is in Missouri, the clown putting on the Obama mask, is representative of the fact that there is a declining overall respect for the office of the presidency.
When the president of the United States more often than not connects with the American people on late-night comedy shows, what else can happen, other than the diminishing of the office.
~ Rush Limbaugh
The Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association would like to extend a sincere apology for the inappropriate act during the Bull Riding at the Saturday performance of the MRCA Rodeo. The MRCA Board of Directors and over 600 members do not condone nor approve of this sort of activity. The MRCA Board of Directors is dealing with the situation firmly and quickly as this type of behavior will not be tolerated. The Sport of Rodeo is not meant to be a political platform. We are taking measures by training and educating our contract acts to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. All Members of the Missouri Rodeo Cowboy Association are very proud of our Country and our President. Once again our apologies to the Missouri State Fair and the fans who were in attendance and we hope to see you at another rodeo soon.
The president of the rodeo cowboy association — who doubled as rodeo announcer at the event Saturday — said on Monday he was not aware that a “rogue rodeo clown” planned to stage the performance.
“The rodeo clown did an act that was not in the script, it was not approved by the board of directors of MCRA and it was not appropriate,” rodeo association president Mark Ficken told NBC affiliate KSHB in Kansas City, Mo. “We extend our apologies to the Missouri State Fair. Rodeo is not a political platform and will not be again. We are taking disciplinary action.”
~ USNews @nbc
Jonathan Karl, ABC News to Donald Trump: You said a lot of things over the years that people say make you not serious. One of the big things is on the birth certificates.
Trump: Why does that make me not serious? I think that resonated with a lot of people.
Karl: But you don't still question he (Obama) was born in the United States, do you?
Trump: I have no idea.
Karl: Even at this point?
Trump: Was there a birth certificate? You tell me. You know some people say that was not his birth certificate. Nobody knows. You don't know either. You're a smart guy, Jonathan, and you don't know either. Nobody knows.
Karl: I'm pretty convinced.
Trump: Ah! You said pretty.
Karl: Totally, without question, convinced.
Trump: You said you're pretty convinced, okay? Let's see what happens over time, but it's not my issue, Jonathan. My issue right now is much different. Wait a minute -- my issue is economic. Our country is being ripped apart by China and many other countries. That's my issue.
Karl: But on this issue, people thought you were out of line --
Trump: You said you're pretty sure. You can't be pretty sure, that's not acceptable. You have to be 100% sure.
Karl: I'm 100% sure.
Trump: I don't think you are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More Birthers Lurking Out There . . .
Protesters greet Obama's motorcade in Orlando with "Kenyan Go Home" signs (PHOTO): http://t.co/J8y2PvLxGW
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) August 12, 2013
. . . if [the birth certificate] is truly illegal, he (Obama) shouldn't be there and we can get rid of everything and I said I agree with that.
But is that the best way to spend our time?
~ Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, via Huff Post
Yoho recalled a conversation with House Speaker John Boehner.
"And then I had a little fun with Boehner," Yoho said. "I told him about the sun tanning tax. He goes ‘I didn't know that was in there.' I said, ‘Yeah, it's a 10 percent tax.' He goes ‘Well, it's probably not meant as that big of a deal.' I said ‘It's a racist tax.' "
At that point, the crowd at the joint meeting of the Gainesville, Gilchrist County and North Central Florida tea party groups erupted in cheering, laughter and clapping.
Yoho then continued. "He (Boehner) started laughing and he goes, ‘You know what? It is,' " Yoho said. "And I have an Indian doctor in our office the other day. Very dark-skinned. And two non-dark-skinned people. And I said this to him. And they started laughing. And I said 'Have you ever been to a tanning booth?' And he goes ‘No, no need.' So therefore it's a racist tax and I thought I might even go to a tanning booth twice so I can come out and say I've been disenfranchised. I got taxed because of the color of my skin. I mean as crazy as that sounds, that's what the left does. By God, if it works for them, it'll work for us."
~ Ted Yoho via Gainesville.com
I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue. The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into this and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.
You tie into a question I get a lot, if everybody's so unhappy with what the President’s done, why don’t you impeach him. I’ll give you a real frank answer about that, if we were to impeach the President tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.
~ Texas Rep Blake Farenthold at a Town Hall Meeting, via TPM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obama the Racial Divider
“This week I heard the president talk about phony scandals. There’s nothing phonier than the words that have come out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. about reuniting this country, bringing us together as a people. No, he’s not a uniter; he’s a divider. He divides us on race, he divides us on income. He picks winners and losers.
. . . Listen, I’ll tell you what: It’s self-evident. I don’t know if people who aren’t reading or not watching, maybe, don’t have the same opinion, but I think it’s pretty obvious where we’re going with some of this stuff.
. . . People tell me all the time, ‘the trouble with you people is, you just don’t understand.’ Let me tell you something: I understand. I get it. I’ve watched how much erosion we’ve had. I’ve watched how much our freedom and liberty is under attack. No, I understand it.
~ Pennsylvania Rep Mike Kelly, via Roll Call
Hundreds of protesters wielded signs, chanted slogans and argued with each other Tuesday outside Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, while President Barack Obama spoke about housing and the economy inside.
. . . Obama foes at one point sang, "Bye Bye Black Sheep," a derogatory reference to the president's skin color, while protesters like Deanne Bartram raised a sign saying, "Impeach the Half-White Muslim!" . . . “Obama is ruining American values. He is ruining the Constitution. He needs to go back to where he came from because obviously, he is a liar,” she said. “I am not racist. I am part Indian. Obama’s half Black, half White.” “He’s 47 percent Negro,” shouted Ron Enderle, a 77-year-old Chandler resident who said that he and his son served as Marines and his grandson is currently serving in the Marines.
Enderle criticized the president mishandling security at the U.S. Benghazi Embassy.
“My grandson is third generation Marine, and it bothers me to have this man as our commander in chief. I’m ashamed,” Enderle said.Judy Burris said that she blames Obama for racism in America reaching heights not seen since the 1960s Civil-Rights Era. “We have gone back so many years,” she said. “He’s divided all the races. I hate him for that.”
She said that she brought her 12-year-old grandson Christian Cabrera to the protests because she thought it would be educational.
“He’s Mexican,” she said of her grandson.
Cabrera said he wanted to accompany his grandma “so I could protest about impeaching Obama.”
Report: Arizona protesters shouted racial taunts as Obama visited high school http://t.co/MtGhVehnRG
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 8, 2013
There are some unforgettable sights of Election 2012, and I'm not even sure this list is complete or can do justice to what is here. But these are images burned into our minds and retinas forever.
Callista sat directly in front of me during our CafeMom Coffee Break with Newt Gingrich a few weeks ago, and I kept sneaking peeks at her hair throughout the event. Under the lights, it practically glowed. She looked like some sort of fussy, retro angel.
I'm just dying to touch that hair!
~ Lindsay Ferrier on The Stir
I Almost Got Callista Gingrich's Hair
. . . The color alone took three hours to achieve. Three hours of bleach and gloss and glaze and goop and my head being knocked about left and right. The gloss (or maybe it was the glaze?) burned my scalp; when I mentioned this, Pejman looked right at me and said, “Beauty tingles.” Holly Allen on Salon
Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog.
As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. ”Dad!” he yelled. ”Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.
As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.
~ Time Swampland, quoting the original Boston Globe story
Among those who professed shock at the story was Fox News host Chris Wallace. "I have a yellow lab named Winston. I would no sooner put him in a kennel on the roof of my car than I would one of my children. Question: What were you thinking?" Wallace asked the former governor.
Replied Romney with a nervous laugh, "This is a completely airtight kennel, mounted on the top of our car. He climbed up there regularly, enjoyed himself, he was in a kennel at home a great deal of the time as well. We loved the dog, it was where he was comfortable and we had five kids inside the car and my guess is he liked it a lot better in his kennel than he would have liked it inside."
~ Reported by NPR
HOST on CNN: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election? Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney Advisor: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-A-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all of over again.
~ Think Progress
What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.
. . . So Miss Fluke, and the rest of you Feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, and thus pay for you to have sex. We want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.
~ Rush Limbaugh talking about Sandra Fluke
I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.
~ Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock, R-Indiana (lost)
The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.
~ Vanity Fair
Today we’re learning more about Mitt Romney’s bets against America. Vanity Fair’s raising important questions about Romney’s offshore accounts in foreign tax havens, including his mysterious corporation in Bermuda, his funds in the Cayman Islands, and the Swiss bank account he opened. The question is, why? Was he avoiding paying his fair share of U.S. taxes? Was he hedging against the dollar? Until he releases his tax returns from that period, Americans will never know. This raises serious questions. If he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he just release his tax returns?
~ Obama Spokesman Ben LaBolt
BREAKING: In latest unscripted gaffe, Romney pledges to be a President for all "offshore tax havens" abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney…
— The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) August 29, 2012
BREAKING: Tagg Romney says I wanted to be First Horse less than any horse he's ever met. #NoFHOTUS
— Rafalca Romney (@RafalcaRomney) December 24, 2012
As a living, breathing, clippety-cloppeting, velvet-nosed and liquid-eyed avatar of Romney’s extreme wealth, she’s given her uncle Mitt the kind of handicap his advisers fear might make his path to the White House heavy going. That may be why the Republican presidential hopeful betrays scant interest in his wife’s four-legged protégé.
During Romney’s accident-prone sojourn in London in late July, he told NBC‘s Brian Williams that he didn’t even know when Rafalca would be appearing at the Games — “I have to tell you,” he said, “this is Ann’s sport.”
~ Time Magazine
Obama is going to need all the help he can get because Romney is surging, thanks in part to his new secret weapon. Long time viewers know that every year I declare a sport of the summer. Last year it was the elegant art of canoe dancing....Last week I declared that this year's sport of the summer will be Dressage, or "Horse Ballet."
. . . The Romneys are the proud owners of a German Oldenburg mare named Rafalca. There is no better way to dispel the myth that Romney is a detached patrician elite than competitive horse prancing. I mean, it's basically Nascar in a velvet top hat.
~ Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central
~~~~~~~~~~~~
8. The Romney Shambles
Americans: This Mitt person is some sort of American Borat, right? #romneyshambles
Romney could not have played more into the image of the callow American if he’d showed up at Buckingham Palace in Dockers. In his honor, the nation even resurrected a little-used epithet, “wazzock,” which refers to, as John Cassidy wrote, “a hapless idiot who blunders around saying or doing things he or she shouldn’t” (or, literally, a bull’s penis). This weekend, the BBC reported that, according to Harvey Weinstein, David Cameron, the Tory Prime Minister, has told people that Romney’s graceless performance has won him “the unique distinction of uniting all of England against him with his various remarks.”
~ Lauren Collins on The New Yorker
Who is this klutz, this clodhopper, this lawn sprinkler of national insult? Well, he`s Mitt Romney. Remember him, the guy who promised to restore and upgrade the special relationship with Great Britain and has instead barfed on the Buckingham Palace lawn?
~ Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball
— Path2Enlightenment (@Path2Enlighten) July 27, 2012
Is there anything about Romney's Rolling Ruckus that would inspire confidence in his ability to lead US foreign policy?apne.ws/Qrc0J0
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) July 30, 2012
We've given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life. . .
~ Ann Romney to Robin Roberts on ABC News
. . . The other thing they have to understand is that Mitt is honest, his integrity is just golden. We pay our taxes, we are absolutely . . . beyond paying our taxes we also give 10% of our income to charity, so we have no issues that way.
The only reason we don't disclose anymore is, you know, we just become a bigger target.
~ NBC Interview with Natalie Morales
This is hard and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now and it's an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.
~ Ann on Radio Iowa
Ann Romney has a hard life-she manages 4 homes, multiple maids, nannies + sometimes a broken car elevator. #Youpeople should leave her alone
— DC Debbie (@DCdebbie) July 19, 2012
My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in a paper format as claimed by the White House.
~ Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona via LA Times
He said he was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia… Now they’re saying it was a mistake. Just like his Kenyan grandmother said he was born in Kenya, and she pointed down the road to the hospital, and after people started screaming at her she said, ‘Oh, I mean Hawaii.’ Give me a break.”
~ Donald Trump on Daily Beast
Speaking about his Michigan roots, he said, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised." The joke was received with hearty applause by the audience. . . .
~ Mitt Romney Speaking in Michigan, via Huff Post
FACT: By FULLY embracing Donald Trump, Romney is legitimizing his insane birther conspiracy theories thkpr.gs/JqrubZ
— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) May 24, 2012
HH: Are you still running?
PR: Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or yes.
HH: But you did run marathons at some point?
PR: Yeah, but I can’t do it anymore, because my back is just not that great.
HH: I’ve just gotta ask, what’s your personal best?
PR: Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.
HH: Holy smokes. All right, now you go down to Miami University…
PR: I was fast when I was younger, yeah.
~ Paul Ryan Radio Interview with Hugh Hewitt as he lies about his Marathon Time
Runner's World checked 11 years of results for Grandma's Marathon, from 1988 through 1998, and found a finisher in the 1990 race by the name of Paul D. Ryan, 20, of Minneapolis.
Ryan's middle name is Davis, and he was 20 in 1990. The finishing time listed was 4 hours, 1 minute and 25 seconds.
~ Research by Runner's World Magazine proving that Ryan was Lying
On Paul Ryan's Republican National Convention Speech: "Three Words: Dazzling, Deceiving, Distracting"
. . . to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
~ Sally Kohn on Fox News
~~~~~~~~~~~~
12. Clint Eastwood Talks to an Empty Chair
If Clint Eastwood insisted on talking to an inanimate object he could've just chatted with Mitt Romney. #RNC2012
— daddyfiles (@DaddyFiles) August 31, 2012
I don't . . . I don't . . . I don't know . . . Clint Eastwood is 82 years old. And I don't know if that's what was going on there . . . That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life, and it will be the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen if I live to be one hundred.”
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC
I could never wrap my head around why the world and the President that Republicans describe bears so little resemblance to the world and the President that I experience. And now I know why.
There is a President Obama that only Republicans can see.
~ Jon Stewart on The Daily Show
Here was Romney raw and unplugged—sort of unscripted. With this crowd of fellow millionaires, he apparently felt free to utter what he really believes and would never dare say out in the open. He displayed a high degree of disgust for nearly half of his fellow citizens, lumping all Obama voters into a mass of shiftless moochers who don't contribute much, if anything, to society, and he indicated that he viewed the election as a battle between strivers (such as himself and the donors before him) and parasitic free-riders who lack character, fortitude, and initiative.
~ Journalist David Corn, who leaked the 47% video with the help of the Anonymous filmmaker and James Carter IV, grandson of President Jimmy Carter
All of us make mistakes. . . . What people want to know, though, is you're not writing off a big chunk of the country because the way our democracy works.
This is a big country. And people disagree a lot, but one thing I’ve never tried to do – and I think none of us can do in public office – is suggest that because someone doesn’t agree with me that they’re victims or they’re unpatriotic.
~ President Obama on CBS, The David Letterman Show
Today Mitt Romney Lost the Election
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney's campaign for president.
~ Josh Barro on Bloomberg
What things would I cut from spending? Well, first of all, I will eliminate all programs by this test, if they don't pass it: Is the program so critical it's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it? And if not, I'll get rid of it. Obamacare's on my list. ... I'm sorry, Jim, I'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I'm going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I'm not going to -- I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That's number one.
~ Mitt Romney to PBS Moderator Jim Leher during First Presidential Debate
Mitt Romney definitely looked poised and confident. Especially when he looked America in the eyes & threatened to kill Big Bird.
— Benari (@BenariLee) October 4, 2012
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.
~ Mitt Romney During Presidential Debate, via ABC News
The President talked about women as breadwinners for Americans families; Mitt Romney talked about them as resumes in a binder. #TeamBarack
And as the word "binder" left his lips, all comedians burst into tears of tender gratitude. #binder#debate
— Mike Doughty (@Mike_Doughty_) October 17, 2012
Mr. Biden, clearly delighted to come to President Obama’s rescue, relished his role, addressing his opponent as “my friend” but dismissing his arguments as “malarkey.” He laughed at Mr. Ryan’s remarks so often and so heartily that at times he seemed like a guest at a comedy club roast, not a vice president debating the fate of the nation with his opponent.
~ New York Times
It reminded me ... of watching a musk ox run across the tundra with somebody underfoot. And in this case, when it came to style, it was Paul Ryan underfoot....
~ Previoiusly Debated VP Candidate Sarah Palin
You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.
~ Barack Obama During 3rd Debate
When your sense of winning a debate depends on proving that horses and bayonets are still relevant, you've probably lost.
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) October 23, 2012
If President Obama wins re-election on Tuesday, the historical memory of the race might turn on the role played by Hurricane Sandy.
Already, some analysts are describing the storm as an “October surprise” that allowed Mr. Obama to regain his footing after stumbling badly in the first presidential debate and struggling to get back on course. Some Republicans seem prepared to blame a potential defeat for Mitt Romney on the storm, and the embrace of Mr. Obama by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and other public officials.
~ Nate Silver on the importance of Hurricane Sandy
The election isn't gonna be moved. It's gonna happen Tuesday. Of course, the opposite theory is, “What the hell is Christie doing? He's giving Obama a chance to look presidential, clean up a state, look competent, look like he cares and so forth. What's a Republican doing propping up Obama?"
~ Rush Limbaugh
Other states getting federal storm relief without kissing Obama's rear.Does Christie not know RINO's are an endangered species?
Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he's made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.
~ Dean Chambers, founder of Unskewed Polls, on Examiner ~ this paragraph has now been edited out of the article
Nate Silver: Patron Saint of Confirmation Bias
. . . When the left wakes up on Wednesday, surveying the electoral wreckage around them, they may regret allowing themselves to be lulled into such a false sense of security.
~ Michael Flynn on Breitbart
This is a bad day for Republican pollsters, and it’s something that they should be held accountable for. You have to tell your clients the truth, and you have to be accurate. And to miss so many states and to be this far off, your Fox News viewers ought to be outraged, because day in and day out they were told that Mitt Romney was going to win, and the fact is Ohio was never up, Wisconsin was never up, Pennsylvania was never up…the published polls were correct. Nate Silver was correct. But the Republican establishment polls were wrong.
~ Republican Pollster Frank Luntz
That happened (the re-election of Barack Obama). That really happened.
We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade.
There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.
We're not going to repeal health reform.
Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get health insurance.
We are not going to do that.
We are not going to give a 20% tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid's insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.
We'll not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you're on.
We are not going to redefine rape.
We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married.
We are not going to double Guantanamo.
We are not eliminating the department of energy or the department of education or housing at the federal level.
We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want.
We are not scaling back on student loans, because the country's new plan is that you should borrow money from their parents.
We are not vetoing the Dream Act.
We are not self-deporting.
We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt.
We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.
We are not going to have, as a President, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help, and there was no apology not ever.
We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton.
We are not bringing Dick Cheney back.
We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War.
We are not going to do it.
We had the choice to do that if we wanted to do that as a country, and we said no last night, loudly.
Ohio really did go to President Obama last night.
And he really did win.
And he really was born in Hawaii.
And he really is legitimately President of the United States, again.
And the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not make up a fake unemployment rate last month.
And the Congressional Research Service really can find no evidence that cutting taxes on rich people grows the economy.
And the polls were not screwed to oversample Democrats.
And Nate Silver was not making up fake projections about the election to make conservatives feel bad. Nate Silver was doing math.
And climate change is real.
And rape really does cause pregnancy sometimes.
And evolution is a thing.
And Benghazi was an attack on us, it was not a scandal by us.
And nobody is taking away anyone's guns.
And taxes have not gone up.
And the deficit is dropping, actually.
And Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.
And the moon landing was real.
And FEMA is not building concentration camps.
And U.N. election observers are not taking over Texas.
And moderate reforms of the regulations on the insurance industry and the financial services industry in this country are not the same thing as communism.
. . . And the if the Republican party and the conservative movement and the conservative media is stuck in a vacuum-sealed door-locked spin cycle of telling each other what makes them feel good and denying the factual, lived truth of the world, then we are all deprived as a nation of the constructive debate about competing feasible ideas about real problems.
Last night the Republicans got shellacked, and they had no idea it was coming. And we saw them in realtime, in real humiliating time, not believe it, even as it was happening to them. And unless they are going to secede, they are going to have to pop the factual bubble they have been so happy living inside if they do not want to get shellacked again, and that will be a painful process for them, but it will be good for the whole country, left, right, and center.
The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff.
The demographics are changing. It's not a traditional America anymore.
If Obama wins, Sandy will have something to do with it. He got more currency from Sandy than he got negative currency from Libya. That to me is amazing.
. . . If Mitt Romney loses Ohio, the president is re-elected.
~ Bill O'Reilly on Fox News
Election 2012: Karl Rove raving mad on Fox News Channel after his own network declares President Obama the winner
~ Headline on New York Daily News
"We have got to be careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to count,” Rove warned the Fox anchors, much to their dismay. “Even if they have made it on the basis of select precincts, I would be very careful about intruding in this process.”
. . . Several minutes later, (Megan) Kelly took the initiative to head over to the “Decision Desk” and hear from the network’s own number crunchers that Rove is wrong and Ohio most certainly belongs to President Obama in the 2012 election. She walked the cameras over to a conference room down the hall, and asked several analysts to confirm Fox’s surefire decision to call the election for Obama.
“You tell me whether you stand by your call in Ohio, given the doubts Karl Rove just raised,” she said.
“We are actually quite comfortable with the call in Ohio,” they responded. “We’re quite comfortable with the idea that Obama will carry Ohio.”
Chris Stierwald added: “There just aren’t enough Republican votes yet for Mitt Romney to get there.”
When Kelly asked the two analysts what percentage certainty they have that Obama has won, they responded: “99.95%”
I don’t mean to cross-advertise here, but on the conservative cable news network Fox News Channel – Fox News Channel called Ohio for Obama, but the on-air talent at Fox News Channel is refusing to concede that they believe it...
. . . (Rove) is now trying to get on air the Fox News Channel to rescind its call in Ohio in favor of the candidate that he has bankrolled to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a remarkable thing.
. . . It’s worth looking at close races and I do not begrudge the Romney campaign for saying that they’ve got issues with what’s gone on with Ohio. But to decide that a result isn’t a result as long as you don’t like the outcome is something that means that we cannot work together as a country anymore. And we can’t go down this road very much further.
~ Rachel Maddow on MSNBC
I think the real story here is that Obama won, but he’s got no mandate. He won but by going very small, very negative, and we are left as a country exactly where we started but a little bit worse off.
~ Charles Krauthammer on Fox News
The realization at this point is that those Bain Capital ads that voters just got inundated with early on in Ohio, and some of these other areas as it pertained to the auto bailout, I think really hurt Romney.
This really is a catastrophic set back to our economy. And to any opportunity that we would have for Supreme Court justices to be appointed who strictly adhere to the Constitution.
. . . A win is a win. I cannot believe that the majority of Americans would feel okay with incurring more debt, not balancing the budget and and relying on foreign energy.
It’s a perplexing time for many of us right now, if things continue in this trend that we have seen earlier tonight.
~ Sarah Palin to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News
Donald Trump's Twitter:
We can't let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
Our country is now in serious and unprecedentedtrouble...like never before.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
Our nation is a once great nation divided!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
Deleted Tweets Calling for "Revolution" Via Salon.com
~~~
Now we're the shallowest country in the history of man. One photo-op walkin' over a two-by-four and all of a sudden he's handling a storm, which by the way hasn't been handled well.
~ Clueless Brian Kilmeade on Fox and Friends, cue SNL
Ted Nugent Twittery
Pimps whores & welfare brats & their soulless supporters hav a president to destroy America
Women. Let's start our own abortion industry. Let's go out and get the women's vote. The point is - I just want you to think about this - would that work? In this America today, would that work? It does for the Democrats.
~ Rush Limbaugh, 11-7-2012, audio here
Women voted Obama 55 to 43 for Romney. Massive gender gap. Unchanged from 2008. Unmarried women backed Obama 68% to 30%. They thought Romney was going to take away their birth control pills. Obama treats them like vaginas and they say 'He's my man.' Go figure.
~ Rush Limbaugh, 11-7-2012, audio here
~~~
Jennifer Rubin ~ Blame Everybody
Until October it was the Perils of Pauline campaign. It moved in fits and starts on foreign policy. The message was rarely consistent from day to day. Gobs of ads were aired to no apparent effect. The convention speech was a huge missed opportunity. Romney made a lunge now and then in the direction of immigration reform and an alternative health-care plan without giving those topics the attention they deserved. The communications team was the worst of any presidential campaign I have ever seen — slow and plodding, never able to capitalize on openings. It was hostile, indifferent and unhelpful to media, conservative and mainstream alike.
. . . Romney’s operation suffered from too many cooks in the kitchen, too much hesitation and too little creativity. For that the candidate ultimately bears responsibility. He did not direct a campaign with the single-minded focus needed to win, at least not until it was too late in the game.
. . . In the future, Republicans will have to find a way to appeal to the non-married, nonwhite, non-religious parts of the electorate. They must find a messenger or a message that is more than a standard conservative laundry list. They must figure out how conservatism can be presented as more than an abstract theory of the free market and as a compelling approach to addressing complicated problems.
. . . Republicans in this election cycle had many good candidates who chose not to run. Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and Rubio did not put themselves on the line, for a variety of reasons. No one can be forced to run for president, but they should be spared no criticism for preferring to sit out a winnable race. Of the candidates who did run in the primary, only Romney had any appeal to speak of beyond the Republican base. Really, does anyone imagine that Rick Santorum or Texas Gov. Rick Perry or, goodness gracious, Herman Cain, could have made it through the debates or presented an inclusive message? The Republican electorate selected the most plausible candidates from the available choices; the non-candidates bear some of the responsibility for an Obama second term.
~ Jennifer Rubin of Washington Post via her column which was used shamelessly to campaign for Romney, whom she still refuses to blame for his own problems
