Take Him Off The Fire, He's Done

The revelations derived from the now-infamous video of Mitt Romney speaking at a private fundraiser last spring have been sending shock waves throughout the media, across the entire political spectrum. Two questions dominate the talk: "Did he really say that?" and "Does he really mean it?"

YES, HE SAID IT, AND OF COURSE, HE MEANT IT.

Mitt, as I've said many times before, is Thurston Howell III, except that unlike Thurston, Mitt lacks a conscience. Jonathan Chiat at New York Magazine eloquently described the person now fully revealed:

The video exposes an authentic Romney as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party. He believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it. (“I have inherited nothing. Everything I earned I earned the old fashioned way.”)

Mitt really believes that he's earned everything that he has in this life, and now he thinks he's earned the right to be the President of the United States of America. President of just 53% of the population - the upper 53%, to be sure - but nonetheless President.

How could Romney have been so foolish as to speak so plainly and offensively? Easy. Mitt was in his element, amongst other plutocrats who all think that "they made it on their own," notwithstanding that first stock portfolio (Romney) or apartment building (Trump) that Dad gave them. Not a minority in sight, except for the waitstaff. Everyone relaxed after a nice meal (no rubber chicken for this crowd!), some 25-year-old brandy, and the comfort of being in a crowd of the "right" sort. None of those uppity blacks or pushy Jews that they have to pretend to tolerate at the office, just their old prep school buddies and fraternity brothers.

Among his own people, Mitt felt comfortable, a feeling that he can't seem to find on the campaign trail. He was able to relax and share his thoughts. Listen to the tape. There's none of the halting, uncertain rhythm to his speech that marks his public appearances. Here he was smooth, relaxed, thoughtful. Able to let his mind stretch and his thoughts teach out, able to really get into the strategy of his campaign and share it with his brethren. Fortunately, we have a record of that, this video.  

And now we know what Mitt really thinks of us.

We haven't seen all of the video yet; David Corn said Monday night on the Rachel Maddow Show that there are other sections of the recording that will be released today (Tuesday) and later this week. I'm sure that we'll hear other excerpts that will not only sink his campaign, but machine-gun the survivors floundering in the water. 

Take Mitt off the fire, he's done.

What To Do About Mitt

After today's revelations, something permanent and pervasive must be done. Just saying "fuck you, Mitt!" and voting Democratic isn't enough. We need to make the name "Romney" have a new meaning, the same way something similar was done to "Santorum." Google "santorum" if you don't know what I mean.

I'm open to suggestions, and I'll post the best ones. Let's go!

Older But Worth Noting

Illness has delayed my impressions of the DNC & RNC conventions, but I believe this piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates identifies the GOP's basic problem with Obama, upon which I'll expound later:

To paraphrase a commenter from a few years back, in GOP eyes, Barack Obama is a spellbinding orator always in need of teleprompter; the disciple of a radical Christian preacher who reigns like a secular-atheist determined to bring about a new era of Islamo-fascism; an Ivy-league wimp hailing from the gutters of Chicago; a white culture-hating racist who is not really black, but half-white; an anti-military peacenik who pals around with terrorists, who insists on killing terrorists, who insists on bragging about killing terrorists; an avowed Marxist specializing in the shadow arts of crony-capitalism and Leninist theories of banker bail-outs.

They've never figured Obama out. They have no contact with people who like him, or remain utterly blind to people like him, even as people like him become America.

Labor Day

Lies, Damned Liars, and Paul Ryan

Well, I didn't watch Ryan's speech last night because I knew I'd shout at the screen until  I was hoarse, but reading about it and watching video clips of it aren't doing my throat any better. Did Ryan say one word of truth beyond speaking his own damn name?

TPM:

The speech effectively rallied his supporters in the audience. But on the merits it was chock full of misstatements of fact that undermine his reputation for brave, big ideas — which has hastened his rise through the ranks of the GOP.

Here are the top five examples:

Medicare Ryan forged his reputation in large part by drafting and advancing an unpopular plan to dramatically cut and privatize Medicare. Though he didn’t mention that plan once on Wednesday, he included it in his last two budgets, both of which preserved the Affordable Care Acts cuts to Medicare — taken mostly from overpayments to private insurers and hospitals.
Instead, Ryan once again dubiously accused President Obama of being the true threat to Medicare.
“You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it.”
Obama did use those Medicare savings — in the form of targeted cuts in payments to providers, not in benefits to seniors — to pay for the health care law. Ryan’s budget calls for using them to finance tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and deficit reduction. But by now calling to restore that spending commitment to Medicare, Ryan and Romney are pledging to hasten Medicare’s insolvency by many years.

U.S. Credit Rating Ryan said the Obama presidency, “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.”
Standard & Poors downgraded the country’s sovereign debt rating in 2011 because congressional Republicans, of which Ryan is a key leader, threatened not to increase the country’s borrowing authority — risking a default on the debt — unless Democrats agreed to slash trillions of dollars from domestic social programs and investments. Ryan even briefly toyed with the idea that the country’s creditors would forgive default for “a day or two or three or four” as long as Democrats ultimately agreed to GOP demands.

• Janesville GM Plant Ryan criticized Obama for — yes — not using government funds to prop up an auto plant in his district.
  “A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years,’” Ryan recalled. “That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day.”
  Ignoring the inconsistency of a Republican chastising Obama for not bailing out more auto manufacturers, the plant in question closed before Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
  
• Bowles-Simpson Debt Commission Ryan chastised Obama: “He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.”
  Ryan sat on that commission. He voted against it. Following his lead, so did the panel’s other House Republicans.
  
• Protecting the Poor Near the end of his speech, Ryan claimed the campaign’s top priority is protecting the poor. “We have responsibilities, one to another — we do not each face the world alone,” he said. “And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.”
  Just under two thirds of the dramatic spending cuts in Ryan’s budget target programs that benefit low-income people. That plan also calls for large tax cuts for high-income earners.

Ryan lied so much, that even the mainstream media, with their reluctance to call out deceiving politicians, took notice. Salon's Joan Walsh went so far as to file a piece titled "Paul Ryan’s Brazen Lies." The New Republic asked "The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?" "Meet The Press'" David Gregory accused Ryan of having "ideological amnesia."

But remember, fact-checking isn't important to these people. We're in for a wild ride, folks. At this rate, I fully expect the President to be called a space alien before November.

Neal Armstrong First Human On The Moon, 1930 - 2012

The first human to walk on the surface of another planet died last weekend. Thank you, Neil, for that early morning walk on July 20, 1969. May we all have a life so accomplished, yet live so humbly. And may we not concede the universe to the Chinese!

"Neil Armstrong (1930-2012) was not entirely human. He was the spiritual repository of our spacefaring dreams & ambitions. In death, a little bit of us all dies with him. Farewell my friend. And now, perhaps more than ever, I bid you godspeed." --Neil deGrasse Tyson

Kudos to Chris Matthews!

This morning, MSNBC host Chris Matthews gave us a textbook example of how to talk to lying Republicans, backing RNC Chairman and escaped Muppet Reince Priebus into a corner and tearing off a piece. Matthews was incensed (and so am I) about the lying attacks on the President and the unfunny dog whistle Mitt Romney sent on Friday to the birthers. Romney gave a nod to the birthers in the form of an unfunny remark, and Mathews gave Priebus hell about it. Way to go, Chris! Here's the video, courtesy of ThinkProgress: