By the end of August 2012, Steve Benen had documented 533 lies that Mitt Romney had told on the campaign trail. The general election is traditionally considered to begin in earnest after Labor Day. I’m sure Romney topped 1,000 verifiable lies by the time Election Day eventually came.
Having set the land-speed record for a politician telling lies, he’s really in no position to comment about Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness or Donald Trump’s character.
I laughed at Romney’s presser.
I also noticed that he was channeling a little Dubya in his delivery.
See my most recent post for an explanation.
PermaFix Backfires!!! Blows Itself Up Real Good!!!
Short story shorter?
Sure..
The controllers are getting desperate.
As well they should.
AG
Another “tracks and scats” sign of chaos and doom:
LOL, ‘cuz that worked so well last time I suppose. Needs a zippier name, though, don’t you think? “K-Street Texians” or something like that? Oh, spare me… This is like a bad reality TV remake of Mad Max: Thunderdome. More popcorn!
It a Mitt speaks, does anyone listen?
So very true, but then one realizes that there literally isn’t anyone in Rep leadership with enough credibility to convince voters to walk away from Trump.
Tonight’s debate may just end in Secret Service agents pulling candidates off each other.
Romney was probably never even aware that his lies were lies.
He’s only nominally more intelligent than George W. Bush.
He seems to have not even known that the President is elected by Electoral Votes, not the popular national vote – and had not hired advisers who knew, either. Right up till election day he thought he was winning. In reality, at NO time during the campaign did he have a winning number of electoral votes.
How could America even consider a man for President who didn’t even know about the Electoral College?
I also wonder if his advisers knew but didn’t think to tell him.
But dumb as a guinea hen.
Anybody who would accede to running against an incumbent President had better be a lot smarter – and luckier than Mitt the Twit.
The only successful challenge in my lifetime was Bill Clinton, and it’s not altogether certain that he would have succeeded had not Ross Perot been in the race. Clinton only ended up with 43% of the popular vote – a total that usually leads to a blowout loss.
But THAT was a good day for America…
Maybe not so much in hindsight? GWB might not have managed NAFTA or repealing Glass-Steagle if Dems had remembered how to be Dems. He was losing on NAFTA before Bill took it up.
GHWB
OT but great news
Democrat Patty Judge, a former Iowa lieutenant governor and agriculture secretary, will announce this weekend that she will run for Senate against Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The Des Moines Register later confirmed that Judge will launch a challenge to Grassley.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/patty-judge-senate-grassley
Go, girl.
Shed a tear (or whatever you do in response to a sad event. From The Nation — Berta Cáceres’s gunned down yesterday.
In real time, the most committed supporters of Obama and Clinton denied any USG involvement in the 2009 Honduran coup. Haven’t noticed that any of them have become more astute since then.
She just received the Goldman Prize. It is shocking how many environmentalists/conservationists are being killed in SAmerica these days.
https:/www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/how-many-more
Shocking only to those who do care about the environment and have yet to get that killing indigenous environmental and human rights activist is a feature and not a bug of global corporate hegemony.
Noted that the rabid Hillary fans at dKos are staying out of the Berta Cáceres’ diaries. What a collection of weenies.
It is all the fault of enormous wealth and no where to earn 30% ROI anymore. It’s is not just the concentration of great wealth that is evil, it is the things they are able to do with it.
And guess who was involved in business dealings with Micheletti post-coup (not talking about Clinton; talking about the slimiest of slime)?
If he is anywhere near her government (assuming she wins)…
And yet, somehow, I know he will be there.
Her repugnant little doppelgänger.
Of course he is/will be there (somewhere in the “bowels” where he won’t be seen by lefties). Tried and true perfect sycophants not above doing anything are hard to find, even for a Clinton. Plus, they are the most dangerous of all to throw under a bus.
Need some help persuading the public that your NFL team name and logo aren’t racist? Lanny Davis will be there.
Need some protection in your Starbucks and Whole Foods union busting (or anyone, really)? Lanny Davis will be there.
Need help empowering dictators? Lanny Davis will be there.
I see that is NarcoNews. Is Al G really pro-Hillary?
Al hates Hillary. However, Al views progressivism very much like Martin does.
A necessary evil as a check on the rightward drift of the “pragmatist” DEMs? Al may want check out how well that’s working.
Progressives (IMO is time to junk that and simply go with lefties) have stood in the same place since like forever. The “pragmatist” drift has now gone on for so long that they’re now to the right of Nixon. If he were to come back from the grave, they wouldn’t even recognize HHH as one of their own. Scoop (who was rejected by liberal DEMs) would probably have a tough time passing as well.
A caretaker gov, at BEST, imo, to last just long enough to destroy the state Dems in 2020.
But what does a “caretaker government” look like? Obama’s “grand bargain?” That would hardly meet the definition of caretaker. It would be accepting more of the GOP’s long-game agenda to destroy the New Deal.
Well, that would be at WORST.
Not understanding. Four years and the only thing the USG does in that period of time is complete the “grand bargain” with a “unity government” is the best we could expect from it. Worse for the people, but far from the worst that such a government could accomplish. Completing the balance of Obama’s agenda (TPP, Keystone, and the Grand Bargain) would be even worse. And we haven’t even touched on what the unity among the warhawks would do.
Hoping devoutly to avoid Grand Bargain, but she has the player in the wings…
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/social-security-privatizer-larry-fink-of-giant-asset-manager-
blackrock-is-clintons-treasury-secretary-in-waiting.html
Why would Al think independents will come out more for Hillary than Bernie? Her numbers are frightful. She is not registering newbies, either. Where does her majority come from?
RedDan’s dKos diary for anyone that doubts the connection between Berta Carceres’s assassination of the ’09 coup.
Benen did a service to the country during the 2012 election.
His damn near weekly post of Willard’s LIES was a service that some people don’t get.
Yes! Only Paul Ryan has out-lied Romney. That first 2012 Obama debate that he supposed won … he was lying so transparently and so often that he caught Obama completely off-guard. I remember screaming at the television – why wasn’t anyone calling him on his lies? If I had ever had any respect for the media, it vanished that week.
But what confuses me about today’s statement is his opening where he talks about Reagan’s 1964 endorsement. From what he said, I assumed that Reagan had endorsed Rockefeller and that Romney is saying Trump will lead the GOP off of a Goldwateresque cliff, but Reagan endorsed Goldwater in 1964! What’s Romney’s point? I’m missing something.
Here’s Mitt’s opening:
To anyone that knows their history all the way back to 1964, Mitt couldn’t have come up with a more deceptive and misleading intro. It’s a, “Hey, I’m like Reagan, the guy most of you remember as the greatest Republican President in the past century.” “What you don’t remember is that he too had to cajones to speak out to our party about what was at stake in the 1964 election.” No need to mention the infamous results for the GOP in that election because they know that. He just hopes that nobody recognizes that Reagan wasn’t forewarning impending doom with a Goldwater nomination but instead was one of Goldwater’s top surrogates. It was where and when Reagan began his public political career.
To be a stand-in for GOP politicians that spoke out against Goldwater as the nominee, he’d have to quote a John Lindsay or Edward Brooke, but few barely remember their names. That still wouldn’t be a great reference because those two had active political careers in 1964 and for years afterwards. Mitt has had a measly four year term as MA Governor that ended a decade ago, spent the subsequent six years running for the presidency, and has been politically inactive in the past three years.
Oh well, not many care about any Mitt has to say.
LOL No danger of anyone in the Republican party outing him on that. It has been re-written in their heads, if they even remember.
It’s why they have to keep a few liberals around; just in case one day they need the real story and not the fictional one they’ve been peddling and only liberals know the real one.
True, that.
I liken it to what I refer to as the “green eyeshade” folks in business. A few are kept around and ignored and chided for being so uncompromising. Their peers wish they’d just go away, but the “movers and shakers” know that if the proverbial shit hits the fan, only the green eyeshade folks can explain what went wrong and why. Then everybody pledges to “get back to basics” and play by tried and true rules. But soon enough a corner “must be cut” and then another (convincing themselves that these cuts aren’t anything like what was done in the past) and so on until — kaboom! again.
Can you imagine if John Kerry spoke out in March 2008 against Barack Obama like this?
Or Al Gore against John Kerry in 2004?
Even if Mitt is completely irrelevant at this point, it’s almost unbelievable what’s happening here.
Dems are definitely in disarray this time.
But it’s fun right?
It’s completely riveting.
I can’t look away.
OMG!!! I have NOT EVAH had SO! MUCH! FUN!!!!!!! during ANY primary at any time in life.
ROTFLOL!!!! Too effen MUCH.
Oh oh… the hits just keep on coming!
I think I’ve developed a serious allergy to popcorn.
Mitt’s lil presser thingamabob was just OUTSTANDING!!!
MOAR please!!!!
BWA HA HA HA HA….
We are truly off the rails here. I’m watching the debate tonight, just to see if someone shoots someone else on national TV.
that’s the only thing that could make me regret not watching. I tried one of them and didn’t make ten minutes.
I’m guessing the Mittster figures there are different kinds of lies. There is his little white lies all in the spirit of fun and then there is the big whopper. He found the king of the whopper and is jealous since maybe he would have been pres if he was clued in.
You speak truer than you know. I have read that there are accepted rationales among Mormons regarding the severity of lies if outsiders are involved.
Okay, well now I am actually starting to buy the idea that some of the GOP establishment really are willing to throw the election to the Dems rather than go Trump. You cant walk back what Mittens did, not with video of it.
It certainly seems that way.
But I do remind myself that November is a long time away. Recall in 2008 we were dealing with the Reverend Wright issue, which was absolutely not a general election issue at all.
I’m not trying to suggest that the issues are in any way equivalent, but just that a big deal in March isn’t necessarily a big deal in November.
We are definitely in uncharted waters here.
Do you think this is a case of the Establishment trying to corner the market on a 3rd party run … and will quietly not make one? That would be -somewhat- intelligent.
Nah. forget it.
It would make sense for them to do so. A dem prez can’t really change anything of importance in the face of a republican house, and one has to suppose that Pres. Hillary will be easy to beat in 2020 after 12 years of democratic WH control. In contrast, if Trump gets in, the republican party won’t be around in 2020.
I think this is way more important for the general then the primaries. There’s a large portion of the electorate that are not the hardcore partisans that we are. They hate the ugliness and rancor and avoid it as much as they can but do their civic duty every 2 or 4 years. Imagine the effect of Romney’s speech being used in ads in the fall. Here’s that decent family man I voted for last election speaking out against the current nominee, which I am already uneasy about. Maybe I’ll vote the other way or just leave that one blank this year. Every little bit helps.
Yes, I agree with you. It’s amazing how cynical everyone seems to be about this.
That I woke up this AM to read a headline quote from Mitt, of all people, that I found myself agreeing with (the part about Donny) is to me absolutely incredible. I don’t even dare ask what happens next.Perhaps the alien mother ship lands at the debate tonight to endorse Trump?? Guess I better stay tuned.
Ok More popcorn
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/03/radio-host-asks-christians-how-can-you
“We live in an area that styles itself as being very Christian, lots of churches, evangelical voters, Baptists, Catholics, this whole area is dominated by religion,” McKay explained. “And I think they have to all ask themselves the question, do they want someone who gets up there and says that a former presidential candidate for their party got down on his knees and offered to blow him?”
In this case, it could re-confirm their preexisting opinion of Mitt. McKay might not know his flock as well as he thinks he does.
That this is an actual paragraph from a Politico article:
This debate is going to be a honk.
Is in the tank for a food-fight:
Mine to; let the ratings-fest begin. Eat your heart out Honey Boo-boo.
Wowzer. I must say, loathsome as racist Trump is, there are certain things he has said where I must doff my cap.
Reality hits the fan.
OK, but he’s Diogenes compared to the lot running this time ’round.
Alexander, thrilled to meet the famous philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. Diogenes replied, “Yes, could you move a little to the left, you are blocking the sun”.
On the road to perdition for the GOP. Another desperate ploy with no discernible positive outcome for the perpetrators.
There could be no surer insight into the panic and helplessness pervading the shredded remnants of the establishment and it’s concomitant gravy-train than Mitt’s pointless, ineffective declaration of war over a battle already lost. Who are the suckers now?
This must sting a bit:
I never used to enjoy Politico so much as I have been lately.
And the Clinton fans will cheer that Hillary can be the real bipartisan POTUS that Obama only dreamed of being.
A unifier. I would certainly accept that outcome; there’s more than a small chance that she would whip Trump convincingly, especially the way Republicans are managing this rodeo. I never expected we would come to a moment this abysmal for them so quickly. Third-party shenanigans? Down-ticket? A potential shambles for the GOP.
Well, it would put the final nail in the coffin of all those bothersome New Deal Democrats. Then the righties and lefties can just tune it all out and let our “betters” (aka oligarchs) rule without any interference.
Not sure I follow you but interested to know your thinking. I’m concerned Hillary and her team aren’t seeing the anti-establishment tsunami which is approaching but it’s a race-to-the-bottom for the GOP. If the establishment decides to wreck the party before Trump gets his hands on it it will be hard for him to stop them and pivot to the general election.
This Romney speech is a turning point for them; a signal they would rather lose than endure Trump for long.
to coin a phrase, both sides do it
Was responding to this: A unifier. I would certainly accept that outcome;…
Structurally, how does that work? Do the Congressional RWNJs suck it up, bolt and create a new party, or takeover the GOP by ousting the RINOs in the 2016 and 2018 elections? Under the threat of being ousted, how many of those RINOs will don DINO robes?
Are we on the left supposed to cheer a Clinton-McConnell-Ryan unity government? Fuck that shit. We’ve already seen what that delivers when informal arrangement and hidden from out prying eyes 1995-2000. Welcome the RINOs as the replacement to the ranks of the Blue Dogs? Yippee lots more Murphys to shove GOP crap through Congress.
How does the implosion of the GOP not result in the collateral damage implosion of the DEM?
Here’s a dissenting snippet from the emptiest suit in politics:
You heard it here first.
“Having set the land-speed record for a politician telling lies, he’s really in no position to comment about Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness or Donald Trump’s character.”
Au contraire mon frere. Takes one to know one.
No, but the two latest favorability polls show Clinton as -21 and -15 and Sanders is, I believe, +15 and +9.
Hillary supporters had better hope that Trump wins the Republican nomination, because he’s the only one that Clinton beats. And Trump’s favorability ratings are going up.
seems that is their hope, but it may not be enough. wish some of the the superdelegates would wise up
This is the zinger from Romney’s speech that I just guffawed at — and that deserves to be played again and again in ads heading into November:
Cute. But
Plenty of people have worthless degrees from for-profit colleges and are saddled with large student loan debt, but that’s a different line of business from the seminar racket.
A distinction which makes no difference to almost everyone who’ll hear it. They’ll hear “university” and think “degree” whether or not it applies, since not many people know the details of this particular scandal, only (if they’ve heard of it at all) that Trump had some kind of educational business that went belly-up. Meanwhile, it’s a snappy put-down line that zaps Trump with a funny, catchy, memorable punch line.
It’s odd that this should be a post today, because I was just studying parenting styles. There are four, authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved.
The best is authoritative in which the parents are involved with the children, war, sensitive, and and concerned about the child’s needs. They make reasonable demands based on the maturity of the child, listen to the child to the extent possible, and discuss decisions the child disagrees with and explains such situations.
The authoritarian parents are emotionally cold towards the child and frequently degrade him or her. they make coercive demands and enforce them with force and punishment. They rarely consider the child’s point of view.
The first kind of parent, authoritative, can depend on the atmosphere of trust they have built up when difficult situations demand giving unexplained orders. Such a parent would normally say they had to act quickly, but could discuss it later – please trust us. The authoritarian parents would not have any such reservoir of trust and would require more coercive decisions and punishment to enforce them.
Parents do not change their parenting style from authoritative to authoritarian.
Thanks for your contribution. Definitely more sophisticated and descriptive than a single scale from authoritarian to non-authoritarian.