GOP Reaching Out With Fake Hipster-Doofus

The GOP has decided to their "outreach" needs to aim at Millenials in the 20-30-something age group, and in their infinite wisdom decided the defining trait of that generation is their ability to whine about every little thing. No really. Let's make a video about whiny self-absorbed and especially MONEY-absorbed hipster dude-bros and win people back into the Republican fold, because "we need the young." Epic Fail.

From Gawker:

Enter Scott Greenberg, a 30-year-old ad guy with a cool shirt, the sort of shirt Adam might wear on Girls. Scott is a hipster. Scott is young. Scott is concerned about paying for things. That's why Scott is a Republican, the face of a new GOP-sponsored ad campaign...
. . . likely, an old donor wants to see some youth outreach, and the RNC finds Scott, a young Beltway acolyte to provide them with a simulacrum of youth culture for a couple of shekels. We have the horn-rimmed glasses! The pomaded hair! A brick tenement across a city street! Talk of money problems and friends!

Parody from PriceOfOil.com



Parody from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver






No matter what your political persuasion, we think you'll agree that the ad is easily mockable. The man, Scott Greenberg, is dressed to the nines in hipster gear, oversize glasses, and a stubble beard. He also comes prepared with indignation and an inability to read cue cards with any amount of subtlety.
~ Yahoo News

Hipster republicans. You couldn't make someone easier for New Yorkers to hate unless you spliced DNA from Leona Helmsley and Carrot Top.
~ Nalano635 on Gothamist

Ok cupid date from hell
~ Ihuffglue91 on Gothamist

He looks like Waldo.
~ sunshine999 on Gothamist

I fuel my hybrid Tesla on kitten tears & racist poems. Take that, Obama!!! #TrumpPalin2016
~ UnfamousChris on YouTube

The Republicans tossed a hanging curveball to the satirists.
~ Garth H. on YouTube

DC has excellent public transport and bike lanes. There's even a bikeshare program all over the city.
~ Process613 on YouTube

This is like an SNL skit poking fun of an RNC ad targeting millenials.
~ IDontWantAChannel on YouTube 

The GOP doesn't realize most millennials, myself included, want to smack the smug off every hipster we see.
~ Edward M. on YouTube

I congratulate you, GOP, on this embarrasingly bad attempt to ingratiate yourself to hipsters. Or is this supposed to be "ironically awful?"
~ Patrick D. on YouTube

C'mon, at least try to make it less obvious that he isn't reading from a teleprompter right off-screen.
~ Blarghalt on YouTube

I can see the teleprompter shining in his glasses.
~ Noah T. on YouTube

I just realized that this is Mitt Romney's illegitimate son.
~ PacificCoast82 on YouTube

If you're spending soooo much of your paycheck on gas, maybe you should make a few sacrifices and take the bus. You seem to live in a busy city. What do you need a car for?
~ Draco Lupus on YouTube

The solution to the oil crisis is in that guy's hair.
~ Draco Lupus on YouTube

Hahaha! GOP thinks they can win over hipsters with a fake hipster! No wonder they most of that "party" hasn't seen the ball since kickoff.....
~ NeutronStar73 on National Journal

Don't hold your breath for an ad in which Scott helps his hipster cohort navigate the GOP position on marriage equality.
~ pdavidcATL on National Journal

Chuck Todd Jumps the Shark Over Voting Machine Link to Romney Family

The voting machine conspiracies belong in same category as the Trump birther garbage.
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 21, 2012

@scottg305 don't conflate voting machine conspiracy with voter access. Two different stories
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 21, 2012

From TruthOut

Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States.

In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House.

. . . As reported by Lee Fang of The Nation, Solamere was founded by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Papa Romney's campaign finance chair. Ann Romney and Mitt's brother G. Scott Romney are also invested. Mitt himself threw in $10 million "seed money" to get the fund going, and spoke personally to its first full investors conference. Solamere's public web presence has been reduced to a front page only, so a complete list of it's partners can not be found. But reportage by the New York Times, Boston Globe, Esquire and the Nation have slowly given us a partial picture of which funds are being funded by Solamere. Some $232 million has been raised so far, according to SEC filings and industry publications.

The Brad Blog

The Austin-based Hart company, according to VerifiedVoting.org's database, supplies electronic voting machines and paper ballot tabulators that will be used to tally votes in the Presidential Election this year in all or parts of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

I offered my point of view about those concerns earlier this month, explaining that it was not just the private ownership of Hart's machines by Romney backers which voters should be concerned about, but the private ownership of the similar systems in all fifty states that will once again be used to tabulate the results of this year's Presidential Election with little --- and very often zero --- possibility of oversight by the public or even by election officials.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chuck!Your network EMPLOYS Trump, gives platform! RT @chucktodd voting machine conspiracies belong in same category as Trump birther garbage
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) October 21, 2012

The Romney voting machines connection should be a bigger story. Just the idea of it undermines people's confidence in the election. @msnbc
— Joy Reid (@TheReidReport) October 21, 2012

Democrats have valid reasons to have distrusted the outcome of the 2000 election, based on a partisan Supreme Court.
— Joy Reid (@TheReidReport) October 21, 2012

Add to that the Sproulgate voter registration scandal, misdirection mailers giving Hispanic voters the wrong date, "True the Vote" tactics..
— Joy Reid (@TheReidReport) October 21, 2012

#DavidGregory Notice this clown along with,other clown #ChuckTodd won't touch the political maps They keep playing with polls WonderWhy #p2

— Reda StCyr (@StCyrlyMe2) October 21, 2012

@hardball_chris #ChuckTodd been drinking the #Romney Kool Aid.. Undercover RWinger!

— rvd4017 (@rdv4017) October 19, 2012

You've turned into a complete #DavidGregory toady #ChuckTodd and a right wing kabuki doll.

— Uncle Jimmy (@jimmywhiz) October 19, 2012

#ChuckTodd What the fuck are you thinking? Comparing voting machine ownership by candidate's son is "conspiracy theory"? IT IS TRUTH! #MSNBC

— K Kelly (@GrainOfSands) October 21, 2012

The problem with @chucktodd theory. . We know Birtherism is hate without facts . We also know Tagg Romney owns voting machines with facts

— redbird45 (@redbird45) October 21, 2012

RT @argylestyle: Imagine the news (@chucktodd leading the pack) if Obama had a grown son who owned voting machines in Ohio. Just imagine.

— Brad Friedman (@TheBradBlog) October 21, 2012

@gottalaff Am old enuf to hav watched Ed Murrow "Harvest of Shame" Thanksgiving 1960. He wud hav examined voting machine "conspiracies."

— Dave Kelley (@old_scribe) October 21, 2012

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

. . . I've heard a lot of false equivalencies from the Villagers, but this one might just take the cake. There are very real concerns about technology proven to be easily hacked without any trail, reports in every election about machines recording votes which are proportionately different from votes cast, and more. In 2008, Tennessee officials went to jail for jacking around with voting and election integrity.
. . . On the other hand, the birther conspiracy theories have been widely investigated, debunked over and over again, and now are the province of people living their lives in a constant state of denial in order to soothe their racist feathers over the fact that a black guy is in the White House.
Simply put, Chuck, there is NO equivalence. None. Zero. . . .
~ Karoli on Crooks and Liars

Heres a simple litmus test for knowing if the Romney's owning a voting machine company stinks like a 4 day old mackeral;
If the names were reversed and it was the Obamas with a straight line financial connection and conflict of interest to the 3rd largest voting machine comany, machines that will play a large role in the 2012 elections, would the Reich wingers be screaming to the heavens about conflict of interest and conspiracies? You damn well know they would be.
This nation has been subjected to 4 YEARS of these wingnuts and their birther nonsense, and the MSM in complicit in spreading the insanity. Funny how the MSM refuses to do any actual investigative journalism into real issues such as this one, and concentrating on birther nonsense.
~ comment by Cthulu on Bradblog

Silly Tucker Carlson Still Scared of Black People ~ Updated

Video of Obama from 2007 Here on Daily Caller

Tucker Carlson to Sean Hannity on Fox, via Daily Caller

At the time there were reporters in the room. I had a show on another channel, and I covered the remarks that were released. But it turned out that most of the print reporters writing on this story were writing from the prepared remarks given them by the Obama campaign.
. . . Obama goes off-script repeatedly and ad-libs and says things that we can't find him saying to any other audience in the course of this campaign. Remarkable thing.
'They don't like you because you are black.' That is the theme of the speech from front to back, from beginning to end, they don't like you because of your skin color. That is shockingly, that is a nasty thing to say, it's a divisive thing to say, a very clear case again on the basis of his racial solidarity with this audience that they are getting shafted by a racist federal government.
. . . Let me just be totally clear for anyone who just watched it and who has seen Obama speak in public over the last ten years will note, this accent is absurd.
This is not the way Obama talks — at least it’s not the way he’s talked in the dozens, the scores of speeches I’ve watched him give, or public appearances I’ve seen him make. This is a put-on. This is phony. That’s issue one. The second issue is he is telling a predominantly black audience something very clear: The federal government doesn’t like you because you are black.
. . . This is not a dog whistle, this is a dog siren. These are appeals to racial solidarity. . . . he said 'our people, our young people should have got the construction jobs to rebuild after Katrina but instead they went to Halliburton.' Right? So look, he's making a very clear case again on the basis of his racial solidarity with this audience that they are getting shafted by the racist federal government.

Barack Obama was talking about a quiet riot today. And no, it was not a reference to a 1980s heavy metal band, unfortunately. The senator waded into the controversial waters of race during a speech Hampton University in Virginia. He said the Bush administration has done little to quell a brewing storm among some black Americans. He compared the current tension to what fueled the L.A. riots in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.
~ Tucker Carlson on MSNBC in 2007, via Politico

In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney’s allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time. The only thing shocking about this is that they apparently think it’s wrong to suggest that we should help returning veterans, children leaving foster care and other members of Mitt Romney’s 47 percent get training that will allow them to find the best available jobs. If the Romney campaign believes that Americans will accept these desperate attacks tomorrow night in place of specific plans for the middle class, it’s they who are in for a surprise.
~ Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt, via Taylor Marsh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tucker Carlson Wants You To Enlist In Race War Against Jive-Talking President
. . . Having clearly become tired of waiting for the Romney Camp to do a GAME CHANGE its own inept self, Matt Drudge and Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity took it upon themselves to release shocking never-before-seen-or-reported-on video of the “president” talking like a common negro about Katrina and poverty and the LA Riots. (We are sure the Romney campaign is just thrilled with them.) How unreported was this story? Well, here is your Wonkette’s story reporting on it at the time. And how does Tucker Carlson know it was unreported back then (in 2007)? That’s easy. He knows it wasn’t reported on then, he told Sean Hannity, because he reported on it then.
~ From Wonkette

It's old news. This is well-covered ground. There's nothing in the speech, it seems to me on the surface of it, that's going to reset anything in the race. What it will do is create a conversation in conservative media about this event - the old tape here - as opposed to the expectations game that Mitt Romney's trying to control ahead of a really high-stakes debate performance.
~ John McCain Strategist Steve Schmidt on Rachel Maddow

What’s the ‘So what’ of this video? I don’t think it’s going to really go anywhere.
~ Republican Congressman Allen West on Fox News, via Politico

Tucker Carlson Fails at Trolling
. . . Carlson's descent from reasonably credible magazine journalist to inept race hustler is well mapped territory. He has not been the same man since Jon Stewart took him down. The ethering reverberates through the years with such force that we now find its recipient slathering yesterday's nothing-burgers in weak sauce, and serving them up as the daily special.
~ Ta-Nehisi Coates on The Atlantic


Obama's black. Who knew. Next thing you know the bow tie wrapped around a stupid will have an expose that FDR was in a wheel chair.
~ comment by No_Gravity on Wonkette

Watching Tucker's long, slow, excruciating fall from his never-deserved one-time quasi-celebrity is the freude that keeps on schadening.
~ comment by prommie on Wonkette

Jive-ass dude don't got no brains, anyhow.
~ comment by TheGyrus on Wonkette

The Decline and Fall of Tucker Carlson
. . . All that Carlson did is clip it to get an "angry black man" in the minds of Americans. It's at once one of the most desperate and lame and vile plays of the race card I can remember - an obvious recognition that the 47 percent tape can only really be countered emotionally with race-baiting.
. . . Carlson used to be a brilliant writer. He's now a racist demagogue. He's a story in one person of how degenerate and disgusting much of American "conservatism" has become.
~ Andrew Sullivan on The Daily Beast

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

David Gregory Draws Fire for Bay State Debate

David Gregory Dances Gangnam Style on NBC's Today
via securelyinsane.tumblr.com

Change.Org Petition to Fire David Gregory from Meet the Press

I was frankly disappointed in David Gregory's choice of topics. To spend so many minutes on this non-issue of the Cherokee ancestry and about a minute and a half on Afghanistan is about as bad a set of priorities as I've seen. . . . I don't think Mr. Gregory handled it well.
~ Senator Barney Frank on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show

The David Gregory Debate
After a full seven minutes or so of Cherokee chit-chat, Gregory apparently thought he needed to take us to an even less relevant topic, so he asked Brown about his mildly embarrassing assertion from last June that he’s met with “kings and queens” as a Senator. After that, Gregory tried to draw some more blood by asking Warren if she’s bothered that Brown paints her as an elitist by calling her “professor.” (She said it didn’t bother her.) It was about a third of the way through the debate when they turned to Warren’s record of defending/opposing asbestos victims.
~ Eric Randall on Boston Daily

Moderator David Gregory declared loser of Brown/Warren debate
Is there no end to the #NBCFail? David Gregory is being panned from both sides for his “Meet the Press”-style moderation at tonight’s debate between Mass. Sen. Scott Brown and challenger Elizabeth Warren. In fact, even the word “debate” is up for debate, as Gregory sat down with the two candidates for what he hoped would be a “healthy, cordial exchange.”
Gregory kicked off the night with a question about Warren’s supposed Native American heritage — the same topic which began the previous #MASEN debate — and asked if Brown’s use of “professor” in referring to Warren was meant as disparaging.
Gregory’s performance was so off-putting that even Warren supporters swore that the NBC hack was batting for the Republican.
~ Twitchy.com

The debate was moderated by David Gregory of Meet The Press who quickly revealed that he wasn’t interested in substance.
The first question went to Elizabeth Warren, and she was asked if she considers herself a minority. Warren delivered much of the same answer that she gave in the first debate that she is a person who has a Native American background.
. . . Nearly ten minutes passed, and Sen. Brown was still spinning his wheels on the heritage issue.
. . . Unlike their first debate, Brown and Warren were dragged down by David Gregory’s obsession with controversy
~ Jason Easley on PoliticusUSA

Gregory made such a terrible dog's breakfast of the his job that his performance can best be summed up by a question he asked late in the proceedings. "We've only got a few minutes left, so I'd like to touch on some other issues. The war in Afghanistan..."
. . . the performance of the moderator on Monday night finally put brought some clarity to my opinion of him: David Gregory is the last of the replacement referees.
~ Charles P. Pierce on Esquire

David Gregory Beclowns Himself With Awful Performance Moderating Elizabeth Warren-Scott Brown Debate
The NBC “Meet the Press” host used the badgering style of that show on both candidates, inserting himself heatedly into a hectic discussion that seemed to center on media talking points and playing “gotcha” rather than substantive issues. Viewers were neither amused nor informed.
. . . As he lobbed patronizing, irrelevant questions at both candidates, Twitter erupted into fury on both sides of the political aisle.
~ Lynn Parramore on AlterNet

Gregory is always worried how is hair looks on TV.
~ comment by jmmjr49er on Washington Post

David Gregory should be Banned from any further debates until he becomes a journalist.
~ comment by C.R.Eature on Wonkette

Brown is just awful. Strangely, Gregory manages to be worse.
~ comment by Doktor Zoom on Wonkette

David Gregory has been out of sorts ever since GEICO stopped using him in that caveman campaign.
~ comment by Self-Uploader on Wonkette

I see Gregory more as the Tom Grunick (William Hurt) character from Broadcast News. He's not really capable of grasping nuance or complex strategic considerations, and he's thoroughly consumed by his popular success. His natural tendency is conservative, which makes him feel more comfortable around Republicans, and he's too simple to understand the need to obscure that for the sake of at least a semblance of journalistic integrity.
~ comment by Imnop on Daily Kos

Gregory Makes Tim Russert look like Edward R Murrow.
~ comment by Notthemayor on Daily Kos

~~~~~~

Can't believe David Gregory is moderating this Warren-Brown debate. What a disaster #masen

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) October 1, 2012

David Gregory, aka The Dancing Fool, is a terrible debate moderator. #masendebate

— Greg Cybulski (@gregcybulski) October 2, 2012

MT @dbernstein I think Gregory was allowed to prepare for the Boston Herald debate by only looking at Boston Herald front pages #masendebate

— Lola (@naijaLola) October 2, 2012

I have no opinion as to who’s doing better. All I’m sure of is David Gregory is terrible. Overwhelms everything. #masendebate

— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) October 1, 2012

David Gregory is like beltway consensus bs brought to life, frankenstein-style
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) October 2, 2012

@davidgregory is being unfairly maligned. His Fox News audition was AWESOME. #actorsplayingjournalists

— mm62 (@markm1962) October 2, 2012

Gregory now polling lower than lawyers.

— Greg Mitchell (@GregMitch) October 1, 2012

The consensus on Twitter seems to be David Gregory is a dufus. #MASenDebate

— Steve Huff (@SteveHuff) October 1, 2012

Hey David Gregory, how about asking what Brown and Warren would do for Massachusetts? This is pathetic. #ModeratorFail #MASenDebate

— Zach Green (@140elect) October 1, 2012

Elizabeth Warren has to fight both Scott Brown & David Gregory, and still wins #MASenDebate

— Arrogant Demon (@ArrogantDemon) October 1, 2012

SHAME on @davidgregory for allowing LOTS of back and forth on his irrelevant Native American topic, but none on student loans. #MASenDebate

— Thomas (@curandaro) October 2, 2012

@davidgregory's Freudian-slip: Calls Mittens "President Romney." We know u Gregory. ALL OF AMERICA KNOWS ur a biased GOP-hack! #masendebate

— E.J. Mr. 47% Obama (@theosmelek) October 2, 2012