Senator Mitch McConnell decided to make an example of Elizabeth Warren. During the debate over appointing Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as Trump's Attorney General, Warren started reading from a letter written by Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King. In that letter, Coretta King states that Jeff Sessions is a racist and not fit to be a Federal Judge.
McConnell then made what could be the biggest blunder of his political career. Using an obscure parliamentary rule, he "silenced" Warren, then made a statement for the record that may go down in history as one of the greatest rallying cries for women:
“She was warned,” McConnell said on the Senate floor after the confrontation. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
It’s hard to imagine a pithier encapsulation of nearly every struggle for justice in the history of humanity. Without even trying, McConnell wrote the future epitaph of hundreds of people who have the phrase “nasty woman” in their Twitter bios.
It's the quote that launched a thousand Twitter and Facebook memes, and McConnell probably regretted saying it right away.
Of course, Warren fought back, continuing to read the letter in the hallway outside the Senate, then discussing it with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, who also read the letter on the air. Then she started tweeting back in defiance:
Governor Christie of New Jersey, who withdrew from the Presidential primary race weeks ago, appeared last week to give a surprise endorsement to Trump in front of a large Texas crowd. When it was over, a reporter with a microphone caught Trump telling Christie to "Get on the plane over there and go home," and Christie immediately obeyed. The episode was so dismissive and rude that everyone thought they would never be seen together again.
But late on Super Tuesday, after Trump had won multiple states, he held a press conference at his Mar-A-Lago Estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and Christie again appeared onstage to introduce "Mr. Trump," as he calls him now. Then he gave over the podium to his new lord and master, standing behing him with the strangest look on his face. To many viewers the flat tone in his voice and frightened demeanor reminded them of a hostage being forced to read a message to save their life or family. And he seemed suddenly overwhelmed with remorse or embarrassment as his face went through a strange metamorphosis. And it was obvious that like all uneven partnerships, whether Hitler and Mussolini, Voldemort and Wormtail, or Saruman and Wormtongue, Trump kinda likes pushing his toady around and making him squirm. It was bizarre and a little scary!
Of course it became a meme right away, and the hashtag #FreeChristie trended for many hours.
Donald Trump's famous hairpiece has always been a target of humor, especially since nothing could symbolize The Donald's giant ego and vanity more than his strangely shaggy toupee.
And now as he runs for the Republican nomination for President in the GOP Primary, Trump's hair has become even more famous.
In a special clip from "The Simpsons" cartoon show, Homer takes a walk through Trump's golden locks.
. . . a new clip, which finds Homer J. Simpson trapped in Donald Trump’s “hair,” or, as he calls it, “the ginger forest.” A criminally bald man himself, Homer’s a little jealous of Trump’s glorious(-ly horrifying) comb-over, which he says is both “as blond as a golden marmoset yet also as grey as a long-dead donkey.”
There's also a fun new hashtag called #TrumpYourCat on Instagram and Twitter:
Finally, there is TrumpWeb for Chrome a handy app that "finds any mention of Donald Trump on a website and adds an actual Donald Trump quote to his name."
Luckily, there’s a way to make reading about Donald Trump much, much better. We wrote a custom extension for Google Chrome that adds a ridiculous Donald Trump quote to every online mention of his name.
To be extra-clear: these are all real quotes that Donald Trump actually said, such as:
“Laziness is a trait in blacks.”
“We need global warming.”
“Somebody’s doing the raping”
You can install the extension at the Chrome Web store by clicking here. (Or just download the crx file if you’d prefer to install the extension manually.)
As soon as the extension is installed in your Google Chrome browser, go ahead and click refresh to see it in action. As you’ll see in the examples below, the extension turns reading about Donald Trump from a chore into a delight. (And when you feel like turning it off, you can disable it in the Chrome extensions window.)
A Latin Brewery Is Pulling Beer From One Of Trump’s Restaurants And Renaming It ‘F*ck Your Hair’ http://t.co/foM6Wh0qW9 via @UPROXX
On Mother's Day, Michelle Obama gave her weekly address in which she spoke about the 200 Nigerian girls who were kidnapped by the cruel terrorist group Boko Haram. Mashable tweeted a picture from the video of the First Lady holding up a piece of white paper with the twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls and it immediately drew fire from the right. Among the many critics of our FLOTUS was the ever-nasty Ann Coulter, right wing polemicist and caustic conservative. She took a photo of herself appearing to pout and holding up a piece of paper which read "#BringBackOurCountry," an echo of the conservative "I want my country back" nonsense started by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin in 2008.
As usual, Coulter's goal was to prove that somehow Conservatives are suffering much more than anyone else, certainly more than some frightened children forced by armed gunmen into child-marriages or God-knows-what in the jungles of Nigeria.
The insensitive Narcissism and Self-Pity in Coulter's tweet rubbed Twitter the wrong way, and her prank boomeranged right back at her through a hilarious twitter meme as people erased her original message and added their own. It couldn't happen to a nastier person. I hope it never ends.
Like millions of people across the globe, my husband and I are outraged and heartbroken over the kidnapping of more than 200 Nigerian girls from their school dormitory in the middle of the night.
This unconscionable act was committed by a terrorist group determined to keep these girls from getting an education – grown men attempting to snuff out the aspirations of young girls.
And I want you to know that Barack has directed our government to do everything possible to support the Nigerian government’s efforts to find these girls and bring them home.
In these girls, Barack and I see our own daughters. We see their hopes, their dreams – and we can only imagine the anguish their parents are feeling right now.
. . . These girls embody the best hope for the future of our world…and we are committed to standing up for them not just in times of tragedy or crisis, but for the long haul.
We are committed to giving them the opportunities they deserve to fulfill every last bit of their God-given potential.
So today, let us all pray for their safe return... let us hold their families in our hearts during this very difficult time…and let us show just a fraction of their courage in fighting to give every girl on this planet the education that is her birthright. Thank you.
The new Mitch McConnell campaign video features he and his wife making smiley faces for the camera over and over again, which sent comedian Jon Stewart into fits of laughter last week on The Daily Show. He and his crew then used different soundtracks to make the video even more funny, and he urged viewers to go out and make their own versions and post them under hashtag "McConnelling." And thus a hilarious new internet meme was born.
The History channel and executive producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey have responded to news reports picking up on the similarity between the actor and Obama.
“History channel has the highest respect for President Obama," a statement from the History channel read. "The series was produced with an international and diverse cast of respected actors. It's unfortunate that anyone made this false connection. History's 'The Bible' is meant to enlighten people on its rich stories and deep history."
“This is utter nonsense," Burnett said. "The actor who played Satan, Mehdi Ouzaani, is a highly acclaimed Moroccan actor. He has previously played parts in several Biblical epics -- including Satanic characters long before Barack Obama was elected as our President.”
"Both Mark and I have nothing but respect and love our President, who is a fellow Christian," Downey added. "False statements such as these are just designed as a foolish distraction to try and discredit the beauty of the story of The Bible.”
BURNETT: Twitter exploded over a comment about a character in the hugely popular History Channel show, "The Bible." The character was Satan. And the comment was Satan looks like the president of the United States.
Now, "The Bible" is produced by "The Survivor" and "Voice" producer Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey. It is, as the name implies, a retelling of the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.
This weekend, right wing radio host Glenn Beck tweeted something about the show. Quoting Beck, quote, "Anyone else think the devil in 'The Bible' Sunday on History Channel looks exactly like that guy?"
"That guy" is what Glenn Beck calls President Obama, maybe he doesn't respect him enough to use his title. According to Beck, Mehdi Quazanni, the actor who plays the devil in the series looks like the president.
Now, Beck has his followers, which is why his tweet took off. Since the broadcast, more than 20,000 tweets containing the words Obama and Satan have been posted. The producers of the show called any resemblance utter nonsense.
Today, Beck took to Twitter again and not to clarify. He said this: "Media, relax. Actor has been in similar roles before. Funny, nothing more. For different reasons, 'The Bible' is one of my fave shows. Keep watching."
Actor has been in similar roles before. In the world of Glenn Beck, that means he's definitely a ringer for the president because this isn't the first time he's made that comparison.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
GLENN BECK, RADIO HOST: Let me play devil's advocate, and may mean that literally, and argue for the president here for a second. Some of the Book of Revelation crazies out there actually believe that Barack Obama is the antichrist.
Is it possible that Barack Obama is the antichrist?
There are people and they said this about Bill Clinton that actually believe he might be the antichrist. The government is acting in the role of Lucifer.
Odds that Barack Obama is the antichrist.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
BURNETT: There are people, yes. At least Beck's not alone. There is one other person who compares the president of the United States to the devil. Not that guy. This guy. He said the United States has, quote, "entrusted themselves to the devil."
Despite what Beck says, his tweet had a purpose and it was dark.
Glenn Beck: "If the actor playing The Devil in 'The Bible' had a Hitler mustache, he'd look exactly like Obama"
I had never noticed Jack’s signature, and when this was highlighted yesterday in the press, I considered rescinding my offer to appoint him. Jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency.
~ President Obama
'OoooooooO!': Jack Lew's Insane Signature Is Going to Be All Over Your Dollar Bills, Soon
It is also not, strictly speaking, an autograph. It is a doodle. Or series of cursive O's (or, equally, of upside-down cursive E's)
~ Derek Thompson on The Atlantic
That’s your signature? Or are you just testing to see if the pen works? Hey Lew, here’s a tip: Stop signing all your checks on the teacup ride at Disneyworld.
~ Jon Stewart on The Daily Show
Is this even a signature, or did he just draw Charlie Brown and give up after the hair?
~ Stephen Colbert
I'll never get my 11 year-old to learn to write properly if Jack Lew starts signing our money.
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
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.