Whatever You Do, Don't Say Vagina

While teaching human anatomy in a 10th grade biology class in Idaho, the teacher is under investigation for referring to the female reproductive organ as vagina.

From Raw Story:

According to students who have set up a Facebook page to “SAVE THE SCIENCE TEACHER!!” certain parents may have had a political agenda in going after McDaniel. Sixty-six percent of church goers in Lincoln County, where Dietrich is located, are affiliated with the Mormon LDS Church, according to 2002 Glenmary Research Center data.

The Fold Blog would also like to point out that the Republican candidate, Willard Mittens Romney, easily won the Idaho county where the high school is located with almost 70% of the vote.  Is there not a sane one amongst them?

Boehner Promises GOP Balanced Budget by 2023

I cry because that's how much I love America

Last year the Republican-controlled House passed Paul Ryan's budget plan that dramatically reformed the American government's priorities namely by turning Medicare into a useless voucher system.  That budget also cut spending by $5 trillion over ten years and lowered tax rates.  This plan would eventually create a budget surplus in 40 years and gave no details about where the $5 trillion in cuts would come from.

This plan was so great and so fiscally responsible that Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate, thus adopting by proxy Ryan's budget vision for America: huge spending cuts, lower taxes, no details and a balanced budget in 40 years.  The American people didn't like this idea and easily reelected President Obama to a second term.

Having learned nothing from the election or from the national debate that almost entirely focused on the economy during the election, House Republicans have now promised the world they will provide a balanced budget by 2023.  Again, no details on how they will do it.  No mention of what programs will be cut.  And no word about Medicare or Social Security.  Just a promise and we're all supposed to smile and cheer.

Sarah Palin isn't gone, she's just waiting for those Reagan Democrats to turn out

Many people are saying that Sarah Palin's exit from Fox News means she's gone forever from American politics and society.  I disagree.  Either her and Fox will rejoin efforts later on; or somewhere someone will give her a platform to spew her stupidity.  Or if by 2016 she isn't getting the attention she thinks she deserves, she'll run for president to get back in the spotlight and to make millions again.  Also, I can see her running for office in 2014 just to get her name back in rotation if need be.  Politics is popularity and it's as addictive as any drug.  Palin is an addict.

Just because it's so easy, her latest delusional rant she gave the right wing America-hating website Breitbart deserves a mention.  Her reflections on Mitt Romney's loss:

Conservatism didn’t lose. A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working class Reagan Democrat and Independent voters who didn’t turn out for him as much as they did for the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008," Palin said. "Granted, those same voters also didn’t turn out for Obama as strongly either.

Huh????  So once again, after suffering a huge electoral loss on the national stage, Republicans still didn't lose.  This is insane and it takes someone just as insane to repeat such garbage.

Moreover, she says a "moderate Republican" lost because working class Reagan Democrats and Independents didn't turn out for him as much as they did for her and McCain four years earlier.  This is pure delusion.  Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan got 997,145 more votes than McCain and Palin.  This very easy and very simple math means more people turned out for Romney/Ryan than McCain/Palin.  She's completely senile.  There's no way you can possibly say Reagan Dems (whatever those are) and Independents didn't turn out more for Romney than McCain.

More importantly, if you're still running your electoral fortunes on the term "Reagan Democrats," you've already lost.  That was 32 years ago.  The electorate is no where near the same as it was then.  It's not even the same as it was in 2004. Democrats aren't even the same now.  And neither are Republicans.  Reagan supported gun legislation, raised taxes 11 times, doubled tripled the federal debt, grew government to enormous levels, ran chronic budget deficits every year, and supported amnesty for immigrants.  He could never get elected by today's GOP.

Waiting for those "Reagan Democrats" to turn out is actually right where I want the GOP to be.  Losing.

*Editor's Note:

The original publication of this stated Ronald Reagan had "doubled" the federal debt.  This is no where near correct.  Reagan TRIPLED the federal debt.  We apologize for the error.

Romney Barely Outperforms McCain

What if I had told you before the election that Mitt Romney would only get 800,000 more votes than John McCain?  I would have been laughed at forever, right?  But right now in the vote count, that's exactly where Mittens is at.  Barely surpassing the pitiful performance of John McCain.

Turnout is down about 2.2% from last election also.  This can almost be entirely figured in to the hurricane hitting the northeast just days before the election.  In fact, New York and New Jersey, the two states hit the hardest, both show a correlated drop in turnout.  It's probably safe to assume the drop in turnout from those two states greatly hurt the president way more so than Romney.  This election was just never really that close.  A hurricane hit the two states where Barack Obama's support is over 60% and he still wins by almost 5 million votes and 126 electoral votes.  Romney never stood a chance really.

The wealthy are the base for government policy and government programs

Gov. John Sununu laments on President Obama's ability to turnout the vote.

“They aggressively got out the base of their base, the base of their base that’s dependent, to a great extent economically, on government policy and government programs,” Sununu said during a forum with two other Republican former governors, Steve Merrill and Craig Benson, at Concord’s Grappone Conference Center.

Not only is this a rather ridiculous and totally false claim, it strikes at the heart of what Republicans truly believe.  For sure Mitt Romney's "47% comment" is the lede of this line of thinking.  That government moochers are sticking it to the wealthy or even middle class families who work every day and pay taxes are the people Obama is turning out and will benefit the most from his presidency.  But the president got over 51% of the vote from across all demographics, tax brackets and ideologies.  Yet that still misses the simple fact that this Republican line of thinking, a thinking that has morphed their party into a very radicalized caricature of its former self, suggests that only poor people depend on "government policy and government programs."  Nothing could be further from the truth.

As Spinner and I were discussing in this comment thread, wealthy people depend upon the government just as much if not more than the poor.  The wealthy people working and running the financial sector in this country are the most government-dependent people on the face of this earth.  Check this out:

**All of George W. Bush's bailouts from 2001-2009 total more than $1.78 trillion.  All but $43 billion went to the financial sector. [that doubles Obama's stimulus spending by the way]

**In addition, the financial sector received $7.7 trillion in secret loans from the federal reserve in 2008.

Add those two together and it totals about $9 trillion in federal "government policy and government programs" totally designed to benefit the rich.  That is by far more aid, more food stamps, more anything than poor people get in this country. It's the equivalent of three years of government spending on nothing but very wealthy people.  The poor could only be so lucky.

*Editor's note:

In the comment section, Spinner makes a very good distinction as to what he is and is not agreeing to.

"Chris - just as I don't want to equate being part of the 47% with being a moocher, we should not equate being wealthy with being one either. So I did not say and do not agree that "wealthy people depend upon the government just as much if not more than the poor". Most wealthy people do not derive their income and wealth from government assistance or government provided direct advantage."

There was no intention to misrepresent his views.  My wording was confusing and his point is well taken and noted.  Please read my reply also because I do disagree on the substance of utilizing government programs as being any different for the rich as it is the poor.

The Race Was Not That Close

A lot of people are giving Mittens some flack for his comments about the president giving out trillions of dollars in free stuff to minorities to win the election.  He's an idiot and he lost.  To me what stands out the most in his phone call to donors was his apologize and, again, just how wrong he is.

Romney told donors that he believed up to election day that he would win.

“I am very sorry that we didn’t win,” he said. “I know that you expected to win. We expected to win. … It was very close, but close doesn’t count in this business.”

Yes your polls were skewed and way off. Yes you lost. But the race was not "very close." It wasn't even close. Electorally it was 332-206.  That's a blowout.  Popularly, Obama is currently up 3.5 million votes and is sitting at 51.2%.  That's a bigger margin than George W. Bush won in 2004.  I guess it's some sort of solace for Republicans to think they only barely lost.  But just like their made up math, it's all pure fantasy.

Romney's Polling Lead That Never Existed

Big Romney fundraiser speaking to WaPo today:

“A lot of people feel like Christie hurt, that we definitely lost four or five points between the storm and Chris Christie giving Obama a chance to be bigger than life,” said one of Romney’s biggest fundraisers, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

What was Lie #2 I wrote about the day before the election that Republicans would use to blame for Romney's loss?

2. Hurricane Sandy was an October Surprise that blew the election to Obama's favor.  An election Romney was winning they think.

Just like I said.  Their irrational behavior is so easy to predict.

Except for the fact that no poll in the country showed Mitt Romney ahead by 4-5 points before the hurricane, then they would be right.  It's total farce to suggest Romney had a 5-point lead going into Frankenstorm.  No truth to it at all.  Only Fox News' "unskewed polls" showed Romney with that kind of lead.  None in the reality-based community ever projected such a spread.

They will keep saying this, though.  It makes them feel better.  It makes them think they didn't lose the election based on ideas and policy.  They lost it due to an act of God that no one could control; and from betrayal.

My Map 2012

With less than 5 days to go before the election it's time to unveil my map.

To be honest, I almost forgot to do it this year.  I was looking back through the posts to see my 2008 map and was not only shocked by the accuracy of it, but I did that one in June some five months before the election.  That's pretty brave doing doing such a thing so far out even if I do say so myself.  I think if I had done the same this year the map below would look very different.  Five months out, what was I even thinking?  Shows you just how close this year's election is going to be.

In case you can't see it, the results are Obama: 332 to Romney: 206.  If you click here you can see a much better image of my map.

Just like in 2008, North Carolina gives me fits.  It's close there and once again I hesitated to paint it red.  Also as you'll quickly notice, I've got Florida in the Obama category.  It's very close there as well.  Either of those two states could go either way.  

How the GOP Saved Itself and Made Mormons Christians

I have no problems admitting that I  believe Mormonism is not part of the Christian church and that many sects in the Mormon church are very much cults.  I've said this numerous times all over this site and stand by it.  My opinion of course.

I'm not alone in this regard either.  Up until just a few days ago, the most famous pastor in America, Billy Graham, agreed with me.  Except he was probably much more vocal and much more incendiary against the Mormon church than me.  He actually labeled Mormonism as a cult on his God-ordained website.  I'm not a pastor or anywhere near a self-proclaimed man of God like Graham [but the Fold Blog is ordained by God].  I simply have an opinion on the subject.  Whereas he's a leading cleric of the Christian faith.  He is the authority on the matter.  And he labeled Mormonism a cult-- a cult that was not based on Christianity.  Pretty strong stuff.

Republicans lining up to vote

This posed a problem for Graham and his political party the GOP.  Republicans like Graham have longed believed that they are the chosen leaders of this country.  A vote for them is a vote for Jesus and the Bible.  But a huge problem occurred.  The leader of their political party and the man they are voting for is Mormon.  Yikes!  The leader of their blessed GOP is a Mormon who believes God lives on Planet Kolob, the Garden of Eden is in Missouri and wears magic underwear.  What to do??

Simple really.  Just remove Mormonism from your list of cults on your website.  Wham bam it's done.  So now voting for Mitt Romney is just the same as voting for Richard Nixon or George W. Bush, you know God's plan for America.

Yet that doesn't tell us the whole story.  It's more than just a simple deletion of some text from a website that has saved the GOP from God's wrath.  What they are doing is completely rewriting the requirements of Christianity.  And it's all based on abortion and marriage equality.  As we all know, those are the only two issues Jesus ever spoke about.

Romney Hearts World Court

Greg Sargent has an excellent pickup from one of Romney's more "liberal" quotes from last night.

Romney told America that he wanted the president of Iran (who truly is a powerless person), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to be arrested by the International Criminal Court on the grounds of inciting genocide.

As Greg notes, this is the same court Republicans have been blasting for over a decade as being wimpy and a mechanism for the United States to lose sovereignty.   "Yet now Romney appears to be embracing it — or the “World Court,” anyway. And Moderate Mitt’s Makeover continues apace, this time in the realm of foreign policy, as Romney now plays footsie with dreaded liberal internationalism."

Remember it's only anti-American when Democrats do it.

*Update:

Romney Camp doubles down on new found love for World Court. Top Romney adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom:

“I think it would remove probably one of the most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, pro-genocide members of that regime in Tehran. I’m hoping that he would be indicted and that action would unfold following that indictment. Absolutely.”

If the president had said that instead of waging Glorious War on the evil islamofascist Ahmadinejad that we should instead push for a world tribunal to adjudicate him, I don't think Republicans would be so ecstatic.  Nope, such a recommendation by Obama would have only meant that he hates America, is soft on terrorism, wants the fate of Israel in the hands of a world body that hates it and wants to turn our sovereignty over to international courts.  But when tough guy Republican Mitt Romney says the World Court needs to try the leader of Iran it's a Very Serious proposal only demonstrating his Tough Leadership abilities that will guide us through this dangerous world. 

Flip Flop Master

No doubt Mittens told a number of misleading items last night.  His ability to flip flop seamlessly, almost in the same sentence, is quite remarkable, however.

On the use of unmanned drones to locate and kill our enemies: "I believe we should use any and all means necessary to take out people who pose a threat to us and our friends around the world."

On military action in the Middle East: "We can't kill our way out of this mess."

It's called, 'I'll do a better job of killing our enemies and getting them to like us,' foreign policy.

Post Debate #2

Because I have two-year old twin boys at home, I didn't get to watch the debate.  But I think this picture captures how it went.

Same Old Tune, Fiddle and Guitar

Remember when Republicans told us the Bush tax cuts would pay for themselves by creating such awesome economic growth?

• "You Cut Taxes And The Tax Revenues Increase."  George W. Bush, 2006.

• "The deficit would have been bigger without" tax cuts.  George W. Bush, 2002.

• 'The entire package the president does believe will lead to growth, which will over time grow the economy, create additional revenues for the federal government, and pay for itself.' Ari Fliecsher, 2003.

• In 2001, the right wing Heritage Foundation concluded Bush's tax cuts would be so terrific, so awesome and lead to such unprecedented economic growth that it would create large streams of revenue "and the national debt would effectively be paid off by FY 2010."

Yeah it wasn't that long ago when Republicans were telling us tax cuts never needed to be offset, never had to gain any serious thought about being paid for and actually increased revenue; and would magically pay off our entire federal debt.  No joke. 

Of course none of that ever happened.  

click to enlarge

There were years of rising tax revenue as unemployment fell, but there was never, ever, not one year of unprecedented growth.  At least not growth greater than the previous decade where taxes were at Clinton rates and growth was much longer and stronger.  Also, the tax cuts never created a surplus or came anywhere near paying off the entirety of the federal debt.  The Bush tax cuts did just the opposite.  They took the largest surplus in history and turned it into the largest deficit in history.  Some $600 billion of today's budget deficit comes from Bush's tax cuts.  No new revenue was created.  Only revenue lost.  In fact, massive deficits created a federal debt more than double the size the Heritage Foundation said Bush would wipe out by 2010.  They weren't just wrong about what would happen.  They weren't even close.  What we got was the worse economic collapse since the Great Depression.  That's called epic failure.

Why does this matter now?  Because, once again, as predicted, Republicans led by Mitt Romney are claiming tax cuts, cuts much deeper than Bush's, will create super awesome economic growth and we shouldn't worry about numbers, math or what if everything they are saying is nuts.

But let's get this straight.  Romney says he's going to cut tax rates an additional 20%, add over $2 trillion of new spending and unprecedented economic growth will magically appear that will pay for all the tax cuts contained in his budget plan for America.  We've been through this before America.  This is exactly what the Bushies promised us just a few short years ago and it failed miserably.

Moreover, there isn't one serious study out there that proves what Mitt Romney is trying to sell.  Fox News isn't even buying his crap when he talks about having 6 studies backing him.  That should tell us all something.

Most importantly, allowing the very same people who were so blatantly wrong then to speak candidly now like they've been right all along is a disservice to the whole country; and frankly asinine.

The 47% Don't Die, They Just Fade Away

Mittens, today, yes he really said these words.

"We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

In his world full of billionaires with elevators for their cars, just borrow money from mom and dad for college, flee to live in a palace in France to avoid military combat, he's right.  Those people don't die because they don't have insurance.  For everyone else, for those of us who have never met a billionaire, whose parents have not a penny to give us for college, who don't even have a car to put on an elevator and could never imagine being so wealthy that you get to live in a French Palace all the while supporting the war you are too scared to fight in.  For us, 45,000 of us died last year because we didn't have access to insurance.  

We Can't Have Two Separate Versions of Reality

When you allow a liar to continue to lie as if everything he says is true and nothing he says is straight up called a lie, it just encourages him to lie more.

Mitt Romney in what his campaign is calling a huge foreign policy speech:

"The president has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years. I will reverse that failure."

Yes it's old.  Yes it's nothing new to have Mitt Romney smiling on teevee lying through his teeth.  But there's too much at stake to let him get away with it.

In the reality-based community, aka the real world, President Obama has signed three 3 new free trade agreements.  Anyone with access to electricity can easily figure this out.

I think we are past the point where we know Mitt Romney is going to lie every time he talks.  We also know Republicans are going to giddily cheer on his lies-- it's what they do.  In order to smear the president and make the last four years appear as failure, Romney and GOP has to lie.   It's all they have.  Though what we are seeing, which isn't right, is the media's outright failure to force facts into the presidential election.  There's no way anyone can possibly say President Obama has not signed a new free trade agreement.  It's like calling the sun a planet, there's simply no truth to it. 

FactCheck Hammers Mittens

One of the things that happens when you allow Mitt Romney to carry on-- unabated--  on nearly every domestic campaign topic in front of tens of millions of people is he talks himself in circles.  Clearly, some of his biggest "zingers" were flat out lies.

• Repeated over and over again that the president is cutting Medicare by $716 billion.  Not true says FactCheck.org
• Claimed rather forcefully that the president doubled the deficit.  Completely not true.  Total lie.
• Claimed his tax plan was supported by at least 6 studies.  Not true.  Most of those studies he mentions were written by Romney backers.  None were non-partisan. 
• Romney claimed many times that Obamacare contained a new board that would make decisions for people.  This board could deny them care, tell them what medicines and procedures they can or can't have.  This is a rehash of the Sarah Palin's Death Panels.  It's a complete and desperate lie. 

Now sure just like almost every other Democrat out there I would have liked for Obama to have called him on his lies way more than he did.  But letting Mittens talk and talk gaining more confidence every time he opens his mouth conjuring more and more false statements isn't a bad strategy either. 

Post Debate Rehash

Earlier in the comments section I made mention that I think the president's less than stellar performance last night was somewhat calculated and somewhat the nature of incumbency.  Obama has a wide lead, is winning every demographic except older white males and didn't really need to come off as hay maker Obama last night.  I'm ok with some bobbing and weaving.  I'd like for him to be firm in fighting for his policies but letting Romney talk forever may not have been such a bad thing.

On the other hand, I think TPM Reader LF sums it up really well:

Politically, it might have been advantageous if the President had kicked Romney in the balls, and certainly cathartic for a lot of people. But he the reason he did not do it was not because of any lack of intestinal fortitude, it was clearly a political judgment. We will see where it goes from here—maybe it’s a disaster-but it should be argued based on its merit as political calculation, not Democrats typical cries that he needs to be tougher.

Mittens told a number of untruths last night. Letting him talk and talk and talk I don't think is a bad decision on part of Obama's campaign.  The next step is now to make Romney own it. 

Hands Down Romney Takes First Round

There isn't much good to say about last night's debate for Team Obama.  And you have to be smiling ear to ear if you're a Romney supporter.  Will it change the campaign?  Maybe in the short term but there's still a long way to go.

Let the zingers begin

I'm going to try and live blog the debate tonight.  We'll see how that goes.

###

8:01pm CT: alrighty let's play pick the black man!

8:04pm CT: B.O. already looks more presidential, debate over.

8:10pm CT: This dark colored fella talking on my teevee doesn't sound negro at all.  What's going on?

8:11pm CT: I'm starting to think the president is using his white venecular tonight.

8:13pm CT: Could it be possible this is a presidential double in Obama's place.  Like did the campaign paint a white guy in blackface specifically for this debate?

8:15pm CT: Never mind, I got it figured out.  The crowd is all white thus Obama isn't speaking black tonight.  Whew....I thought they had switched him out.

If It Means Winning, Repubs Will Embrace Romneycare

There's been some talk lately that Mitt Romney is risking Republican support (again) by his latest embrace of Romneycare.  I'm going to disagree on this one.

Everyone knows Mitt Romney was the first person to enact mandated insurance coverage.  The success of his program led to Democrats and President Obama doing the exact same thing in 2009-10 when they reformed health care at the federal level.  As we all know, the individual mandate is a Republican plan.  Always as been.  The moment Barack Obama put it in his reform package, it drew the ire of Republicans.  It has ever since been the battle cry for a Republican take back of the White House.  Heck, it did win them control of the House in 2010.

There was no particular reason for Republicans to hate the very proposal they invented other than the president now had his fingerprints on it.  So for that last three years Republicans have spun themselves into convulsions trying to label the individual mandate as socialist tyranny. But things events have recently changed.

The mandate was upheld by the Supreme Court.  Republicans can cry all day (and they will) about it being illegal but the public largely knows it's not.  Also, Mitt Romney is sorely losing this race; and Republicans know it.  In order to prove Mitt Romney is not a callous billionaire that doesn't care about non-rich people, their best hope is to resort to Romneycare.  It's all they have.  If it means pulling 3-5% of independents his way and winning the race, they'll do it.

They will embrace Romneycare and the individual mandate with a straight-face just like the last three years never happened.  These are the same people who took the largest surplus in history and turned it into the largest deficit in history and are now complaining the national debt is too high.  These are the same people who added $7 trillion to the federal debt in 9 years and still call themselves fiscal conservatives.  If you don't think they would tepidly embrace a law they've compared to Soviet Gulags in order to win an election and send Obama packing, you're seriously out of touch with just how crazy this GOP truly is.  They wouldn't bat an eye, trust me.