The wealthy executive who considered and then dropped a proposal to revive controversy over the relationship between President Barack Obama and his former pastor is a rising conservative maverick with ties to the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He’s also linked to a “super” political action committee that bankrolled an upset in Nebraska’s recent Republican Senate primary.
Mitt Romney convened a rare press conference Thursday to explicitly distance himself from a controversial, racially-charged ad campaign reportedly planned by a Republican super PAC.
Today we’re hitting the halfway mark of the second round. The bracket is .
1. RICK PERRY’S NIGGERHEAD RANCH (with Cain bonus!)
In the early years of his political career, Rick Perry began hosting fellow lawmakers, friends and supporters at his family’s secluded West Texas hunting camp, a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance.
“Niggerhead,” it read.
Original writeup .
Remember—this is a two-fer. It wasn’t just the fact that the governor of Texas had a ranch with this kind of name on it. But look when Herman Cain tried to make the supposedly uncontroversial point that the ranch name was offensive:
At RedState, Erick Erickson concluded, “It also seems to be a slander Herman Cain is picking up and running with as a way to get into second place.” Glenn Reynolds remarked that until now, Cain’s “big appeal is that he’s not just another black race-card-playing politician.” Over at the Daily Caller, Matt Lewis called Cain’s remarks “a cheap shot, and, perhaps a signal that Cain is willing to play the race card against a fellow Republican when it benefits him.”
Rather than recoil from the ranch’s name, the conservative movement rallied around it.
2. MITT ROMNEY THINKS CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE, MY FRIENDS
Original writeup .
Corporations are people, my friend… of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets. Human beings my friend.
Mitt Romney is qualified to talk about human beings, given that he, Mitt Romney, is also a human being, right?
Well, that’s debatable. But at least the Romneybot was honest with this. It’s not every day that Republicans admit to putting legal entities on the same level as real people.
Mitt Romney, asked this afternoon whether he stands by his use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama on Sean Hannity’s radio show in February:
Uh, I’m actually going to to, I’m not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. And with regards to, uh, I’ll go back and take at what was said there.
Yes, the the same Mitt Romney who earlier today he “repudiates” the use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama … now says he stands by his use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama. Even though he doesn’t know what his attack was. Or so he says.
: As several commenters have pointed out, in Mitt Romney’s defense, it can be hard keeping track of what you say when you’re lying all the time.
For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.
New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes in the nation’s racial makeup and the prolonged impact of a weak economy, which is now resulting in fewer Hispanics entering the U.S.
“This is an important landmark,” said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”
We did not know each other that well. He was the whiz kid. I was just in the back of the room.” Netanyahu tells Stengel he has seen Romney only a handful of times over the years and only once this year. They spoke for 10 minutes in March during his visit to Washington, mainly about Iran.
Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) thinks Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) did more harm than good by investing seven figures in a conservative candidate who finished a distant third in the Nebraska GOP Senate primary.
In an interview on Wednesday, Johanns had a blunt assessment of the race in which DeMint picked Don Stenberg and plunged $1.4 million from the Senate Conservatives Fund into the race, saying it was a “poor choice” by DeMint to get involved. [...]
Asked about DeMint’s efforts, Johanns said: “The question I’d get asked as I get around the state: ‘Who is this guy and why he is spending this money to elect people in our state?’ … I just think it was a poor choice of strategy. I don’t think they understood the state. People hate that kind of stuff in our state, and so they recoiled, they looked for an alternative.”
WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to honor and pay tribute to those individuals whose commitment and creative talents have contributed to the entertainment and cultural enrichment of their community and the entire State of New York; and
WHEREAS, Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, the rapper, musician, activist, film director and founder of the pioneering New York hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, died on Friday, May 4, 2012, in Manhattan at age 47; [...]
WHEREAS, The music and message of the Beastie Boys evolved over the years, but they can’t, they don’t, they won’t stop changing the face of hip-hop, of music, and of our culture; [...]
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to mourn the death of famed rapper and activist Adam “MCA” Yauch; and be it further RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to the family of Adam Yauch.
Is Sarah Palin underrated?
No. (This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.)
A Kansas middle school teacher has ignited a firestorm in the small rural Kansas community of Buhler after posting an anti-gay rant on Facebook in which he said same-sex marriage is akin to “murder, lying, stealing, or cheating.”
“I would say he’s a smart man,” Stein backtracked. “I mean, he’s not in the same league of presidential genius as Nixon, for example, but he’s smarter than the average bear, as they say.”
Donna Summer — the Queen of Disco — died this morning after a battle with cancer, TMZ has learned.
We’re told Summer was in Florida at the time of her death. She was 63 years old.
The $10 million attack-Obama put forth by the advertising firm Strategic Perception and exposed by the New York Times Thursday is catching a lot of heat. So much so that the “Ending Spending” Super PAC of Chicago billionaire Joe Ricketts that would be funding the attack felt compelled to issue a renouncing the proposal:
Joe Ricketts is a registered independent, a fiscal conservative, and an outspoken critic of the Obama Administration, but he is neither the author nor the funder of the so-called “Ricketts Plan” to defeat Mr. Obama that The New York Times wrote about this morning. Not only was this plan merely a proposal—one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors—but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take. Mr. Ricketts intends to work hard to help elect a President this fall who shares his commitment to economic responsibility, but his efforts are and will continue to be focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally.
That’s all warm and fuzzy and implicitly civic-minded. But it collides with what the proposal itself says about using the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to taint Barack Obama and reduce his chances in the November election. An attack along those lines failed in 2008. But only, the proposal’s authors suggest, because its full force wasn’t unleashed since John McCain was too weak.
The trouble with Ricketts’s denial is contained in the itself. On page 3, Ricketts is quoted as saying about a Wright-Obama slam that McCain rejected: “If the nation had seen that ad, they’d never have elected Barack Obama.”
And on page 46 of the 54-page proposal, the authors state:
With your [Ricketts's] preliminary approval at the New York meeting, we have discussed this plan in highly confidential terms with the following proposed team members. All are ready to jump into action upon plan approval.
Team Lead:
Strategic Perception Inc., Fred DavisStrategy and Grassroots:
Strate ic Perce tion Inc., Bill Ken onEarned Media:
Strategic Perception Inc., Brian NickPolling:
North Star Opinion Research, Whit AyresSocial Media/Web:
Campaign Solutions, Becki DonatelliMedia Buyer:
Smart Media Group, Kyle RobertsExternal Spokesman:
Larry Elder
So, what are we to assume about that New York meeting? That Ricketts gave preliminary approval to a mere “suggestion,” some skeletal proposal that made no mention of Jeremiah Wright but was something totally different than the polished, budget-detailed plan revealed by the Times? Puhleez. We may have fallen off a turnip truck. But it wasn’t yesterday.
Given all the recycled lies in the proposal, Davis’s operation ought to be renamed Strategic Deception. If somebody hadn’t leaked the firm’s rancid plan, quite possibly in hopes of killing it, there’s every likelihood we would be seeing it laid out as planned during the Democratic Convention. We still may. And if we don’t, with all the right-wing billionaire dollars floating around, there’s plenty of reason to believe we’ll see something just as bad or worse.
Man, “journalist” James O’Keefe stepped in it—over and over and over—in his effort to expose voter fraud in North Carolina during last week’s primary. There’s just one fraud here, and it’s clearly O’Keefe.
A brief recap: One of the voters O’Keefe accused of voting as a non-citizen in his latest exposé is . And the dead North Carolina voter: .
And now it turns out that another “non-citizen” the video highlights, William Romero, , a citizen who, along with his family, was harassed by O’Keefe’s people before the primary.
The video opens with O’Keefe’s cameraman walking up Romero’s driveway and confronting a member of his family about whether he is a citizen. O’Keefe points to court records from 2010 where Romero was excused from jury duty because he was not a citizen at the time. Therefore, as O’Keefe argues, Romero’s voter registration dated December 5, 2011 is fraudulent because Romero “is not a United States citizen.” [...]
In fact, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress he became a naturalized citizen in early 2011.
What’s more, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress that they had began receiving harassing telephone calls two weeks before the incident in the video asking if Romero was a citizen. They confirmed to the caller—it’s unclear whether they were speaking with O’Keefe himself or another individual—that Romero is indeed a citizen. Nevertheless, O’Keefe proceeded to ambush the family at their home and publish this video claiming he’s not a citizen.
The positive news out of this is that O’Keefe’s got himself into hot water in North Carolina, just as he has in New Hampshire, where a his stunt. North Carolina’s state elections chief, Gary Bartlett, says his agency will “investigate whether the people in the video who tried to vote in the name of another violated state criminal law by impersonating a registered voter.”
In the campaign, instead of talking about our respective ideas, what’s [Obama is] doing is trying to attack me on a personal basis.
And:
Character assassination has become the nature of [Obama's] campaign.
Even if this were true, even if the only thing Obama’s campaign talked about was Mitt Romney’s character … well, boo-fucking-hoo. Mitt Romney has spent a good chunk of this campaign impugning the character not just of President Obama but also that of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. And you know what? That’s politics. Character does count for something in a president, and it’s fair game to talk about it … when you’re telling the truth.
For example, it’s fair to say that Mitt Romney has demonstrated himself to be one of the most dishonest presidential candidates in history. But there’s a reason for that: it’s fair because it’s true—and because being a liar is bad. And it’s fair to say that Mitt Romney played by a different set of rules than everyone else when he ran Bain Capital—because it’s true, and because playing by a different set of rules is bad.
But the core of President Obama’s case for his reelection has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. He’s running on his own merits. Moving the country forward has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Continuing the economic recovery from the Great Recession has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Killing Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Ending the war in Iraq had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Saving the auto industry had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Hell, even Obamacare has nothing to do with Mitt Romney—although that’s more a matter of Mitt’s choice than anything else.
And to the extent President Obama’s case does focus on Mitt Romney, it has more to do with Romney’s ideas than his character. I’m not saying Romney’s character—or lack thereof—doesn’t matter. It does matter. A lot. But the fact that Romney would double down on the trickle-down economic policies of the Bush years matters even more.
So when Mitt Romney whines that it’s hypocritical for people to criticize him for making character attacks, he doesn’t understand the true nature of the criticism. People have a problem with Mitt Romney’s attacks when he lies. And when he claims that President Obama doesn’t love America, that’s a lie.
Responding to a local reporter’s , Mitt Romney said Thursday that he doesn’t oppose Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s attempts to drug test state workers:
“The states have rights under their constitution to do what they think is best,” Romney said. “The governor here is trying an idea, and I’m not going to disagree with Governor Scott. The idea of people being tested is something, which, we’ll see what the results are.”
Apparently, it makes no never mind to him what the courts have to say about this. They it’s unconstitutional.
Back in February, the all-but-crowned GOP presidential nominee wasn’t so weasel-wordy about the drug testing of another group of Floridians, welfare recipients, as by Laura Clawson:
Jeff Hullinger: [Lawmakers] have bantered about the proposition that welfare recipients should be drug tested. How do you feel about that?
Mitt Romney: Well my own view is, it’s a great idea. People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they’re not using those benefits to pay for drugs. I think it’s an excellent idea.
Of course, it’s a dreadful idea, as the courts noted in that instance as well. Either Romney is unaware of this or he just figured his audience was part of that cohort which thinks courts are illegitimate when making rulings not in lockstep with the latest authoritarian intrusion.
For once, however, you have to give him credit for not changing his mind from the time he starts a paragraph until the time he gets to the end. He’s been drug testing for at least the past 18 years, back to 1994 when he sought to unseat Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Republican wonder boy Rep. Paul Ryan, the guy who has a detailed plan to end Medicare, says from the Republicans this year if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act.
In their 2010 “Pledge to America,” Republicans vowed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare if they gained power. Though the GOP-controlled House has voted to repeal the law since taking power in January 2011, it has not yet offered replacement legislation. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to strike down the law next month, Republicans would receive increased scrutiny about their lack of a plan to replace it.
“We do feel obligated to articulate our vision for replace,” Ryan said when asked about the matter during an editorial meeting with the Washington Examiner. “Now, we’ve got nine weeks of session left. Do we want to cram through our own 2,700 page vision? No, that’s what the country hated. But do we believe in patient-centered health care and market-based medicine? A lot of us have put time and effort into this, yeah.”
Wow, I sure hope vision pays medical bills. Particularly since his budget cuts Medicaid to the bone. And nice that Ryan at least feels an obligation to sort of make a nod to a campaign promise.
Ryan’s position might be news to leadership, though, because POLITICO is .
House Republican leaders are quietly hatching a plan of attack as they await a historic Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law.
If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines.
If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place—like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say.
Is anybody actually in control of the House?