Republicans Refuse to Leave La-La Land

By Cole

From the depths of his election-loss funk, Mitt Romney emerged for a conference call with wealthy donors who squandered big bucks on him and explained that Obama won because he gave so many “gifts” to young people, blacks, women, and Hispanics during his first term.

In RomneyWorld, any act that could give a non-millionaire a little financial relief or healthcare security is a “gift.”

If there’s any lingering doubt that Romney would have presided over the ritual rape and pillaging of the “have nots” so his fellow “haves” could have even more, this should erase it.

According to Romney, if you’re not rich, you deserve NOTHING. You’re a MOOCH.

It’s amazing Romney didn’t include the elderly on Obama’s gift list.

Oh, wait… wasn’t it George W. Bush who closed the donut hole on Medicare prescription drugs for them without having any way to pay for it?

Can’t go there.

And Romney’s faithful running mate, Lyin’ Paul Ryan, has been regretting that Obama got so much support in the most densely populated areas of the country — where the people are.

If cows and cornstalks could vote, Ryan would certainly be VP-elect now.

GOP denial began with Karl Rove’s meltdown election night when Ohio went to Obama. It was like Rove knew the voting there was rigged in Romney’s favor.

And John McCain, in what increasingly appears to be the onset of dementia, has been tottering through the morning shows, still blaming Obama for the attack on the Libyan Embassy and using it as an excuse to reject Susan Rice as the next Secretary of State. Like either of them had any direct control or knowledge on any of it.

Even though decisively defeated, Republicans are making it clear they have NO intention of pulling their heads from their asses and moving on with business. They want the world to see that their hatred of black cats and people of modest means runs really deep.

We should thank the 3.5 MILLION voters who denied Romney the Oval Office, because every time Romney opens his mouth, he still proves they did the right thing.

VOTE, or Maybe Not

By Cole

This is the last post I’ll write about this election. OK, maybe one more, but only if I get to gloat. I promise I won’t whine if Romney gets more votes. (I just can’t bring myself to call him a “winner.”)

Once again, we cats are forced to sit on the sidelines while the fate of our country lies in the hands of feckless humans, just because you have opposable thumbs.

But if cats could vote, I can tell you the only ones who’d be voting for Romney are pampered Persians with a sense of entitlement, and some Siamese who can’t see straight.

The Domestic Shorthairs, the nation’s most powerful feline contingent, which includes most strays and by far outnumbers purebreds, would be voting for the black cat.

So I hope everybody goes to the polls tomorrow to vote, UNLESS…

• You haven’t watched at least 500 TV ads (if you live in a swing state) and rolled in that mud.
• You didn’t bother to watch any of the debates, so you missed seeing Romney’s best flip-flops and outright lies.
• You think the country needs a president who believes there’s magic in his underwear (and I’m not talking about what’s IN his underwear, which all men believe to be magical, but his actual shorts).
• You think the country needs a first lady who’s more empty-headed than Laura Bush and has dedicated her life to breeding, either herself or through her offspring.
• You want to see our Commander in Chief, through sheer tactlessness, totally piss off China, Russia, most of Europe, South America, and Africa.
• You think the Middle East deserves a U.S./Israeli attack on Iran — just because it’s there.

In that case, you are too dumb to vote and you need to stay home watching the Cartoon Network. We’ll let you know how it turns out.

Romney Takes a Bayonet on Foreign Policy

By Cole

After 6 years of running full-time for president, voters have YET to see the “real” Mitt Romney. Last night’s 3^rd and final presidential debate, on foreign policy, was no exception.

The polls say Obama won it because Romney played DittoMan, agreeing with just about every policy Obama mentioned, even if it meant doing a 180 on his own positions, and having no ideas of his own except to “get tougher” with everybody except his BFFs in Israel.

Romney’s problem with debating — aside from never knowing which face of Mitt he should wear — is that he doesn’t comprehend the word debate.

He doesn’t hesitate to criticize and oppose the president everywhere else, but in a debate Romney turns into that JELL-O® you can’t nail to the wall.

I give Obama 4 paws up for not punching this face…

Thanks to split-screen TV, the world saw Romney’s studied blankness whenever he wasn’t talking. Whether he was being praised, criticized, or called out as a liar, when Obama spoke, Romney rarely deviated from a fixed stare with a hint of smirk.

If Romney was doing it to placate women voters who hate confrontation, the effect was fake and creepy.

Obama once again found himself down the rabbit hole, trying to reason with someone who responded with irrelevant or erroneous factoids and flatly denied things he’s stated MANY times before — like Russia is our greatest threat and it’s a mistake to set a date for leaving Afghanistan.

Once again, Obama pointed out Romney’s reversals and lies, and even chided him — with the much-quoted “horses and bayonets” example — for ignoring our Navy’s current efficiencies while pining for the long-lost fleet of 1916.

It was telling that when the debate ended, both men stood and walked away from each other, when they were sitting within reach of an instant handshake.

And then Romney proceeded to pack the stage with at least 3 generations of his family, as if demonstrating his intent to personally repopulate the country with Mormons.

The president and Michelle stuck around just long enough to greet the Romney coven, shake a few hands in the audience, and beat it. But Romney and his wife lingered to milk the crowd — like he cared about them or something.

Debate 2: Romney’s Night of Magical Thinking

By Cole

At last night’s debate, Mitt Romney faced a feisty President Obama who wasn’t about to let Republican deceit, dishonesty, and distortions go unchallenged, and it was exhilarating to watch.

Romney’s beef with Obama seems to boil down to a naïve assumption that Obama failed to wave the wand Romney thinks is in the Oval Office’s top desk drawer. Mormons have great faith in magic, especially when it’s in their underwear.

Instead, Obama has been trying to reverse all of George W. Bush’s bad calls the hard way — by trying to work with obstructionist Republicans in Congress who would gleefully destroy this country if it would bring the black cat down.

Romney promises once he’s president, he’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act (on his first day) and replace it with all its good things and even more, create 12 million jobs, cut everybody’s taxes by 20%, balance the budget, get Iran to behave, and make China stop “cheating” (at what, exactly?).

Anybody who believes Romney can do all this without being anointed king is — sorry, but there’s no other way to put it — a f**king idiot.

Pollsters claim Romney’s closing the gap with women voters. WTF? Will they still love him after hearing how he sought out women “qualified” enough to serve on his state cabinet in Massachusetts, and seeming gobsmacked when he was presented with “binders full” of them?

We’re talking about Boston here, home of Harvard and MIT, one of the nation’s hottest hubs of higher education. DUH! Who would have known there’d be any smart women there?

As for Romney’s impressive display of faux concern for the 47% types in the audience, the New Yorker did a great job, so read about that there.

I’m surprised nobody’s picking up on the return of Old Miser Mitt, repeatedly asking Obama if he’d checked his retirement account lately. Obama blew him off by saying his isn’t as big as Romney’s, so he doesn’t check it often.

Didn’t you feel déjà vu to the debate where Romney tried to make a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry? Every time Miser Mitt mentions personal finances with the smug air of a guy who knows he’s got more money than anybody in the room — it makes my fur crawl.

But the best moment came when Romney stepped right into the shit with his closing statement, claiming he cares about “100%” of the people.

Obama sailed cleanly through that opening by reminding everybody it’s recorded on tape that Romney really believes 47% of Americans are lazy mooches.

Romney has backed out of appearing on The View on October 18, but he’s sending Ann alone. Apparently, chatting with a bunch of stupid women is not on his To-Do list — and he’s afraid of Whoopi Goldberg.

Rock’em Sock’em Joe Biden

By Cole

FINALLY, a Democrat had the courage to stop a Republican in mid-lie and distortion — 82 times in 90 minutes, the pundits counted.

Joe Biden’s VP debate with Paul Ryan was everything the first Obama-Romney debate was not. Biden actually laughed at Ryan’s persistent attempts to con American voters into buying the notion of a conservative middle-class low-tax Utopia that neither Ryan nor Romney themselves believe in.

Sure, today the opposition is crawling all over Biden for saying the White House was unaware that our embassy in Libya had asked for more security before it was attacked by terrorists on September 11.

Republicans, with their selective memory, like to think Democrats have a lock on massive intelligence failures.

At least when Obama doesn’t get the message, he doesn’t declare war on a different country, like dear old George W. Bush did after ignoring repeated warnings that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack us. Bush’s response was to fixate on Saddam Hussein and destroy Iraq, which had nothing to do with it.

To steal a choice phrase from Virginia’s former Republican governor, George Allen, Joe Biden came as close to shoving most of Paul Ryan’s misconceptions back “down his whiny throat” as anybody’s ever likely to get.

And it felt good. Real good.

To Ryan’s credit, he never backed down. Like a well-trained pit bull, he kept spouting the party’s worn-out lies and fact-free promises like he believes them. And he probably does.

Let’s hope Obama can maintain the momentum on October 16 in his foreign policy debate with Romney. It’s got potential as an easy slam-dunk, since Romney has already gone out of his way to piss off China (“cheaters”) and Russia (“our No. 1 geopolitical foe”), and talks like he’s itching for war with Iran and Syria.

First Debate: Mitt Gone Wild

By Cole

Just about everybody concedes that Mitt Romney “won” last night’s debate on the economy. Republicans are positively giddy.

Mitt’s bravura performance proved beyond any doubt that he’s the quintessential department store mannequin. Change the window-dressing, change the man. He has no genuine core.

Last night his handlers dressed and prepped him to be Elmer Fudd in camo, out to stalk and bag that “wascally wabbit,” Obama.

And Mitt did. So eager to make his points, he flouted the rules by repeatedly refusing to let moderator Jim Lehrer speak and keep things on track, and even talking over Obama.

At one point, Mitt even had the nerve to say, “Mr. President, you’re entitled to your own airplane and your own house, but not your own facts.”

This from the man with 5 houses and several Cadillacs with their own elevator, representing the most fact-free political party in history.

Mitt was so stuffed with numbers (few of which contained his actual PLANS), they exploded from him on every topic.

Obama and Lehrer found themselves playing with a statistical piñata.

Had Obama sunk to responding tit for tat, they’d have been ping-ponging so many incomprehensible figures, the audience would have tuned out.

By trying to keep it simple, Obama came across as “weak.”

What’s indisputable is that Obama got VERY bad advice as far as not calling out Romney on his everlasting bullshit or bringing up anything he’s ever said or done that might embarrass him (like dissing the 47%, or decimating American companies like KB Toys and raising employment in China while at Bain).

And Romney pounced on and gleefully rolled in those concessions like a dog in shit.

It seems Romney thinks he’s running to be anointed king. In his first term…

• He’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act, yet keep all the good parts — and replace the rest with WHAT?
• He’ll lower taxes 20%, but eliminate loopholes and deductions (WHICH ones?) — which may result in tax INCREASES for the middle class.
• He’ll to create 12 million “good-paying” jobs — HOW? Doing WHAT?

And Congress doesn’t exist in RomneyWorld. He’ll just wave his golden scepter and POOF! — instant Utopia where nobody’s unemployed, health insurers aren’t unfair, and the budget always balances.

Unfortunately, Obama handed Romney this one on a silver platter, and I hope today he’s kicking some of his re-election “experts” to the curb before they try to hog-tie and gag Joe Biden when he faces Paul Ryan on October 11.

Bill Clinton Knees the GOP

By Cole

If you go around talking trash about the Democrats, you’d better hope Bill Clinton doesn’t cross your path.

With wry wit and a casual, bantering manner, last night Clinton gave the Republicans a good one to the groin, refuting point for point — with facts — every lie they spouted at their convention.

It should be required viewing for all undecideds.

In the clearest terms, he laid out the choice voters face…

“In Tampa, the Republican argument against the President’s re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.”

The only gripe the talking heads had was that Clinton spoke too long. But I saw the speech’s length as a direct measure how much bullshit the GOP has been shoveling at us.

Unfortunately, Clinton won’t end Romney & Co.’s lies because they have nothing else. God forbid they delve into Romney’s background as a CEO, governor, or tax-paying citizen for anything useful to brag about.

Now we can compare the two parties in a nutshell…

The Democrats are proud to showcase their smart past president, using the knowledge he gained in foreign policy, the economy, healthcare, education, you name it, as a verbal lethal weapon.

The Republicans are hiding their past president under a rock. And Romney’s ONLY plan is to resurrect all the bone-headed George W. Bush strategies that got us into 2 wars and devastated the middle class.

Romney is calling the Democratic convention a “celebration of failure.” But he didn’t watch Michelle Obama’s speech, and he’s obviously ignoring the dozens of speakers reeling off Obama’s achievements — which Obama pulled off in spite of intransigent foes like Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor constantly plotting against him.

Here’s an interview with Romney before Clinton spoke, reeling off all the shiny new statistics he’s just memorized for the upcoming debates.

(And notice his forehead is wrinkled again. Apparently, his eerily unlined face at the Republican convention was as phony as everything else about him.)

Michelle to Ann: Checkmate

By Adele

The Republicans’ Obama Bash was so long on lies and short on specifics except, “We’ll undo everything Obama did,” it was encouraging to see the Democrats come back swinging.

Massachusetts’ current governor, Deval Patrick, did a good job of explaining why Romney doesn’t brag about when he had that job.

But the real showdown was between Michelle Obama and Ann Romney.

Ann spoke at length about how desperate and downtrodden everybody is — especially women. Not that she would know. But she unwittingly revealed more than she intended in talking about life with Mitt…

“All at once I’m 22 years old, with a baby and a husband who’s going to business school and law school at the same time, and I can tell you, probably like every other girl who finds herself in a new life far from family and friends, with a new baby and a new husband, that it dawned on me that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into.”

And addressing the myth of her “storybook” marriage…

“Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long, rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once.”

Now let’s cut to Michelle, who spoke of her daughters only in loving terms, never alluded to feeling overwhelmed, isolated, or possibly even abandoned in her marriage. She clearly saw herself and Barack as partners every step of the way.

Talking about the pre-White House years…

“And the truth is, I loved the life we had built for our girls…I deeply loved the man I had built that life with…”

And about him during the White House Years…

“Well, today, after so many struggles and triumphs and moments that have tested my husband in ways I never could have imagined, I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are — it reveals who you are.”

Ann Romney personified the meek, obedient, perpetually-pregnant stay-at-home woman Republicans would like all females to become.

Michelle Obama came across as a confident career woman whose job today is to complement her husband and serve as a role model to her daughters that there’s more to life than going forth and multiplying. (The Romneys have 18 grandchildren and counting.)

The Obamas and Romneys are both wealthy families, but  unlike the Romneys, neither of the Obamas came from money. Barack made much of his fortune from his books. And the Obamas don’t own multiple houses, a fleet of cars, and Olympic-class horses. They openly pay their fair share of taxes and don’t bank in the Caymans.

As Michelle said…

“Barack knows the American Dream because he’s lived it…and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we’re from, or what we look like, or who we love.

And he believes that when you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity…you do not slam it shut behind you…you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.”

If Mitt Romney ever were to reach the Oval Office, you can be sure he’d slam the door shut behind him as a “Mission Accomplished” and forget all about who put him there.

GOP Convention: A Confederacy of Dunces

By Cole

The glassy-eyed, brain-dead fanatics on the floor of the Republican convention fascinate me. To see them gobble every crumb of verbal crap dispensed from the podium is like watching lemmings wolf down a last meal before they go off a cliff.

They have no idea that every one of them who isn’t a white male millionaire is in for a royal screwing if they get their wish and Romney wins.

In a cynical attempt to seem inclusive that fooled nobody, the GOP assigned U.S. possessions like Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa prime seats because their delegations look racially diverse — even though THEIR VOTES DON’T COUNT.

Ann Romney got to address the 32 percent of voters who, in a CBS News poll, claim they don’t know Mitt enough to form an opinion. She delivered a brilliant speech that made her fellow Stepford Wives mist over, and we learned that Mitt was a cutie in high school, but virtually nothing of substance beyond that.

To listen to Ann’s litany of lovingly empty claims…

• Mitt loves his country (but not enough to stop dodging taxes)
• Mitt won’t let you down (unless he does — he’s prone to change his mind a lot)
• Mitt will get the job done (if he doesn’t eliminate or outsource it)

…was to stuff cotton candy in your ears.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s keynote address showcased him to the country as a pompous gasbag with life-threatening eating issues who probably won’t survive to run for president in 2020 if Romney wins and serves 2 terms.

They’re saying Condoleezza Rice’s rousing speech — and the only one to acknowledge the importance of education — will win her a seat in Romney’s cabinet. Let’s hope it’s his china cabinet back at Lake Winnipesaukee.

ALL of them have erased the George W. Bush years off the slate. They’re in total denial that the ruinous ideology Bush lived by, and they still embrace, started this country’s flush down the toilet.

And then they have the bloody nerve to accuse Obama of failing to stop it when all they want to do is KEEP FLUSHING.

But by far, the whopper topper was Paul Ryan’s Obama-bashing marathon. It was so jam-packed with deceit and deception, Karen could barely stop screaming at the TV. I won’t rehash it because a Fox News writer named Sally Kohn did it so well.

You know your lies have jumped the shark when even Faux News is crying foul.

From now until election day, the Republican strategy is to continue repeating the same thoroughly discredited lies (such as, Obama has eliminated the work requirement from welfare) and hope enough stupid, unquestioning voters believe them.

Tonight Romney’s got to pull off the grand deception of seeming like a credible, affable, empathetic, and competent man with a plan.

After his department-store-dummy reaction while Chris Christie was heaping praise on him like whipped cream on a banana split, I don’t think Romney’s got a prayer — or a clue.

Todd Akin Exposes the American Taliban

By Adele

Republicans have made it official: Their platform decrees that EVERY man’s sperm is sacred, including rapists’. If a woman is brutally violated and becomes pregnant, she should have no right to seek an abortion.

What will Republicans think of next — stoning to death women they suspect of adultery?

Missouri Congressman (and Senator wannabe) Todd Akin revealed the logic behind this Republican misogyny.

During a TV interview in St. Louis, Akin calmly and clearly explained how he learned from doctors that woman have a biological mechanism to “shut down” fertilization and avoid pregnancy when they are “legitimately” raped.

Democratic disgust was immediate. Republicans are fuming over having their deeply-rooted ignorance verbalized.

So Akin has apologized for using “the wrong words” and pretends to agree that all rapes are bad.

I think Akin’s only regret is being rightfully called out as a dumbass. He refuses to drop out of the race to unseat Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. Let’s hope sensible Missouri women do the right thing and crush Akin at the polls.

Since Akin specified “legitimate” (which he now says meant “forcible”) rape, what would he and his ilk consider “illegitimate” rape…

• A woman trying to escape a control-freak husband, who stalks and assaults her as “just punishment?”
• A woman who wears a tight, low-cut outfit into a bar and ends up gang-banged on a pool table because “she asked for it?”
• A little girl who doesn’t move or scream when Daddy climbs into her bed to teach her “how to be a woman?”

Romney’s trying to “distance” himself from Akin’s words, but his running mate Paul Ryan has worked with Akin in Congress on legislation to reproductively hog-tie women permanently.

Paul Ryan believes women should only have abortions if their lives are in danger, but they deserve to bear lifelong consequences for rape or incest.

Akin’s now saying he should continue in the Senate race because he misspoke “one word in one sentence in one day.”

WHICH WORD, TODD? YOUR WHOLE STATEMENT WAS INACCURATE!

Obviously, he still doesn’t get it. And prominent Republicans can pooh-pooh Akin all they want, but their actions — trying to make abortion and birth control crimes, forcing pregnant women to have unnecessary ultrasounds in Virginia — speak louder than words.

They just don’t like any one of their own to admit it.

BONUS: A great blog post on this topic at Forming the Thread.