Romney Is President

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

IT makes sense that Mitt Romney and his advisers are still gobsmacked by the fact that they’re not commandeering the West Wing.

(Though, as “The Daily Show” correspondent John Oliver jested, the White House might have been one of the smaller houses Romney ever lived in.)

Team Romney has every reason to be shell-shocked. Its candidate, after all, resoundingly won the election of the country he was wooing.

Mitt Romney is the president of white male America.

Maybe the group can retreat to a man cave in a Whiter House, with mahogany paneling, brown leather Chesterfields, a moose head over the fireplace, an elevator for the presidential limo, and one of those men’s club signs on the phone that reads: “Telephone Tips: ‘Just Left,’ 25 cents; ‘On His Way,’ 50 cents; ‘Not here,’ $1; ‘Who?’ $5.”

In its delusional death spiral, the white male patriarchy was so hard core, so redolent of country clubs and Cadillacs, it made little effort not to alienate women. The election had the largest gender gap in the history of the Gallup poll, with Obama winning the vote of single women by 36 percentage points.

As W.’s former aide Karen Hughes put it in Politico on Friday, “If another Republican man says anything about rape other than it is a horrific, violent crime, I want to personally cut out his tongue.”

Some Republicans conceded they were “a ‘Mad Men’ party in a ‘Modern Family’ world” (although “Mad Men” seems too louche for a candidate who doesn’t drink or smoke and who apparently dated only one woman). They also acknowledged that Romney’s strategists ran a 20th-century campaign against David Plouffe’s 21st-century one.

But the truth is, Romney was an unpalatable candidate. And shocking as it may seem, his strategists weren’t blowing smoke when they said they were going to win; they were just clueless.

Until now, Republicans and Fox News have excelled at conjuring alternate realities. But this time, they made the mistake of believing their fake world actually existed. As Fox’s Megyn Kelly said to Karl Rove on election night, when he argued against calling Ohio for Obama: “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”

Romney and Tea Party loonies dismissed half the country as chattel and moochers who did not belong in their “traditional” America. But the more they insulted the president with birther cracks, the more they tried to force chastity belts on women, and the more they made Hispanics, blacks and gays feel like the help, the more these groups burned to prove that, knitted together, they could give the dead-enders of white male domination the boot.

The election about the economy also sounded the death knell for the Republican culture wars.

Romney was still running in an illusory country where husbands told wives how to vote, and the wives who worked had better get home in time to cook dinner. But in the real country, many wives were urging husbands not to vote for a Brylcreemed boss out of a ’50s boardroom whose party was helping to revive a 50 year old debate over contraception.

Just like the Bushes before him, Romney tried to portray himself as more American than his Democratic opponent. But America’s gallimaufry wasn’t knuckling under to the gentry this time.

If 2008 was about exalting the One, 2012 was about the disenchanted Democratic base deciding: “We are the Ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Last time, Obama lifted up the base with his message of hope and change; this time the base lifted up Obama, with the hope he will change. He has not led the Obama army to leverage power, so now the army is leading Obama.

When the first African-American president was elected, his supporters expected dramatic changes. But Obama feared that he was such a huge change for the country to digest, it was better if other things remained status quo. Michelle played Laura Petrie, and the president was dawdling on promises. Having Joe Biden blurt out his support for gay marriage forced Obama’s hand.

The president’s record-high rate of deporting illegal immigrants infuriated Latinos. Now, on issues from loosening immigration laws to taxing the rich to gay rights to climate change to legalizing pot, the country has leapt ahead, pulling the sometimes listless and ruminating president by the hand, urging him to hurry up.

More women voted than men. Five women were newly elected to the Senate, and the number of women in the House will increase by at least three. New Hampshire will be the first state to send an all-female delegation to Congress. Live Pink or Dye.

Meanwhile, as Bill Maher said, “all the Republican men who talked about lady parts during the campaign, they all lost.”

The voters anointed a lesbian senator, and three new gay congressmen will make a total of five in January. Plus, three states voted to legalize same-sex marriage. Chad Griffin, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, told The Washington Post’s Ned Martel that gays, whose donations helped offset the Republican “super PACs,” wanted to see an openly gay cabinet secretary and an openly gay ambassador to a G-20 nation.

Bill O’Reilly said Obama’s voters wanted “stuff.” He was right. They want Barry to stop bogarting the change.

David Frum on Morning Joe: a remarkable 15 minutes of television

By David Atkins

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum made a remarkable appearance on Morning Joe, saying things even many progressives often won't come out and say. The video is below.

 

 He begins with this:

Mitt Romney's message is I am going to take away Medicare from everybody under 55, I'm going to cut Medicaid for everybody but about a third, and I'm going to do that to finance a giant tax cut for me and my friends, and the reason I'm doing that is because half the country contribute nothing to the national endeavor.

Then about four minutes in, something even more attention-grabbing after Scarborough bloviated about Thatcher and Reagan appealing to the common man:

Since the loss of the election, we have heard an enormous amount of discussion from Republicans on television and newspaper columns about immigration as an issue...but all of us who are allowed to participate in this conversation, we all have health insurance. And the fact that millions of Americans don't have health insurance, they don't get to be on television. And it is maybe a symptom of a broader problem, not just the Republican problem, that the economic anxieties of so many Americans are just not part of the national discussion at all. I mean, we have not yet emerged from the greatest national catastrophe, the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. And what are we talking about? The deficit and the debt. And these are important problems, but they're a lot easier to worry about if you are wealthier than you were in 2008, which most of the people on television now are again, if you are securely employed, which most of the people on television now are. But that's not true for 80% of America. And the Republican Party, the opposition party, needed to find some way to give voice to real urgent economic concerns held by middle class Americans. Latinos, yes, but Americans of all ethnicities.

None of the panelists on Scarborough--not Joe himself, not David Gregory, not Chuck Todd, none of them--dared to answer Frum's devastating indictment of them. Not of the Republican Party, but of them. It was uncomfortable, and then blithely ignored.

Remarkable.

After five full minutes of inside baseball speculation on Republican leadership games during which Frum looked like he might pull a Howard Beale (check out the look on Frum's face at 11:09 of the video!), he finally got a chance to speak again.

I believe the Republican Party is a party of followership. The problem with the Republican leaders is that they're cowards....The real locus of the problem is the Republican activist base and the Republican donor base. They went apocalyptic over the past four years. And that was exploited by a lot of people in the conservative world. I won't soon forget the lupine smile that played over the head of a major conservative institution when he told me that our donors think the apocalypse has arrived. Republicans have been fleeced and exploited and lied to by a conservative entertainment complex....Because the followers, the donors and the activists are so mistaken about the nature of the problems the country faces the nature--I mean, it's just a simple question. I went to Tea Party rallies and I would ask this question: "have taxes gone up or down in the past four years?" They could not answer that question correctly. Now it's true that taxes will go up if the President is re-elected. That's why we're Republicans. But you have to know that taxes have not gone up in the past. And "do we spend a trillion dollars on welfare?" Is that true or false? It is false. But it is almost universally believed. That means that the leaders have no space to operate.

And to think that the guy who coined the phrase "axis of evil" is now the moral conscience of the Republican Party.

How low they have truly fallen.

Why Romney Never Saw It Coming

He was the numbers guy. But in the end his numbers were all wrong.

By John Dickerson

Posted Friday, Nov. 9, 2012, at 9:15 P.M. ET

Mitt Romney says he is a numbers guy, but in the end he got the numbers wrong. His campaign was adamant that public polls in the swing states were mistaken. They claimed the pollsters were over-estimating the number of Democrats who would turn out on Election Day. Romney’s campaign was certain that minorities would not show up for Obama in 2012 the way they did in 2008. “It just defied logic,” said a top aide of the idea that Obama could match, let alone exceed, his performance with minorities from the last election. When anyone raised the idea that public polls were showing a close race, the campaign’s pollster said the poll modeling was flawed and everyone moved on.

Internally, the campaign’s own polling—tweaked to represent their view of the electorate, with fewer Democrats—showed a steady uptick for Romney since the first debate. Even on the morning of the election, Romney’s senior advisers weren’t close to hedging. They said he was going to win “decisively.” It seemed like spin, but the Boston Globe reports that a fireworks display was already ordered for the victory. Romney and Ryan thought they were going to win, say aides. “We were optimistic. More than just cautiously optimistic,” says one campaign staffer. When Romney lost, “it was like a death in the family.”

How did the Romney team get it so wrong? According to those involved, it was a mix of believing anecdotes about party enthusiasm and an underestimation of their opponents’ talents. The Romney campaign thought Obama’s base had lost its affection for its candidate. They believed Obama would win only if he won over independent voters. So Romney focused on independents and the economy, which was their key issue. The Republican ground game was focused on winning those voters. “We thought the only way to win was doing well with independents and we were kicking ass with independents,” says a top aide. One senior adviser bet me that if Obama won Ohio, he would donate $1,000 per point to my favorite charity. (That would be a $10,000 hit since Romney lost Ohio but won independents by 10 points). In the end, Romney won independents nationally by five points—and it didn’t matter one bit.

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign was openly dismissive of the Obama ground game. Why are they wasting so much money with neighborhood offices, they asked? (In Ohio, for example, Obama had almost 100 more offices than Romney.) In retrospect, the Romney team is in awe and full of praise of the Obama operation. “They spent four years working block by block, person by person to build their coalition,” says a top aide. They now recognize that those offices were created to build personal contacts, the most durable and useful way to gain voters.

Romney advisers say it was impossible to compete against Obama’s huge war chest. They also envy his ability to leverage the presidency for his campaign. Young voters were told about new provisions for student loans and Obama’s support for same-sex marriage, an issue that appeals to young voters. Hispanic voters were wooed by the president’s plan to waive the deportation of children of illegal immigrants. One Romney aide also included the much-debated changes to welfare requirements as a policy aimed to win over African-American voters. “It was like they had a calendar,” said one Romney aide. With each month, the Obama administration rolled out a new policy for a different segment of their coalition they hoped to attract.

Though Romney said he was “severely conservative,” it was the Obama team that played its hand conservatively. They, too, planned for fewer Democrats to show up at the polls, but in their case it was so that their campaign organization would work twice as hard. On election night in Ohio, when turnout exceeded their intentionally conservative estimates in some districts, they knew that they’d win the state 45 minutes before the networks called it.

It’s not that the Romney camp failed to meet its targets. They say they actually met their voter outreach goals in Ohio. During the summer, they targeted more than 2 million voters who had not voted in party primaries. Those were the independents they believed would be the key to the race. Since the strategy seemed to be paying off with internal and external polls showing Romney leading among independents, the Romney team felt like they were working their plan. “We did everything we set out to do,” says a top strategist about the Ohio effort. “We just didn’t expect the African-American vote to be so high.”

African-American participation in Ohio jumped from 11 percent of the electorate to 15 percent between the 2008 and 2012 elections. "We could never see that coming. We thought they'd gotten a lot last time." But that wasn’t the only problem. Romney underperformed George Bush’s results from 2004 in the vast majority of Ohio’s counties, not just the ones with big African-American populations.

In the post-election analysis, the Romney ticket’s problems with Hispanic voters are well-known. During the primaries, Romney ran so far to the right on immigration he lost a platform to even woo Hispanic votes. But African-Americans are treated as if they are in a category altogether unaffected by the campaign. They were going to vote for Obama no matter what.

There’s a little John Sununu-like thinking in this. The former New Hampshire governor suggested that Colin Powell was supporting Barack Obama because of his race. (When Condoleezza Rice said that the party sent “mixed messages,” that must have been what she was talking about.)  It’s worth noting though, that if you were an African-American voter, there were plenty of other reasons to vote against Mitt Romney and the Republican Party.

Donald Trump has loudly championed that idea that Barack Obama is illegitimate. It was a goofy charge, but one that has cultural resonance with a segment of society whose members have often been discriminated against through  the types of disqualification-hunts that Donald Trump engaged in so vigorously. Mitt Romney embraced no other fundraiser with as much public gusto as he did Trump.

The energetic attempts by Republicans in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida to limit voting in a way that disproportionately penalizes African-American neighborhoods might also have helped turn out the Democratic base. What role these acts played is not entirely clear, but it certainly didn’t hurt the Obama team’s effort to inspire African-American voters.

If you’re basing your entire campaign on white people, it leaves you little margin of error. That's where Romney’s troubles as a candidate hurt him. An operative in Ohio also admitted that the Obama abortion ads hurt Romney with women in the Columbus area. So too did the "Romney will raise your taxes on the middle class" ads and the ads attacking his tenure at Bain Capital. Romney couldn't afford to lose any of the white vote, and he did. Since the attacks came at a time when he was short of cash, he was not able to respond adequately.

In the final 10 days of the race, a split started to emerge in the two campaigns. The Obama team would shower you with a flurry of data—specific, measurable, and they’d show you the way they did the math. Any request for written proof was immediately filled. They knew their brief so well you could imagine Romney hiring them to work at Bain.

The Romney team, by contrast, was much more gauzy, reluctant to share numbers, and relying on talking points rather than data. This could have been a difference in approach, but it suggested a lack of rigor in the Romney camp.

On Election Day, the whole Romney ground-game flopped apart. ORCA, the much touted- computer system for tracking voters on Election Day, collapsed. It was supposed to be a high-tech approach to poll-watching, a system by which campaign workers would be able to track who voted. Those who had not yet voted could therefore be identified and then have volunteers tasked to finding them and getting them to the polls.

ORCA was supposed to streamline the process, but it was never stress-tested. Field operatives never saw a beta version. They asked to see it, but were told it would be ready on Election Day. When they rolled it out Tuesday, it was a mess.

People couldn’t log on and when they did, the fields that were supposed to be full of data were empty. “I saw a zero and I knew I wasn’t supposed to be seeing a zero,” said one campaign worker. A war room had been set up in the Boston Garden to monitor ORCA’s results, but in the end Romney and Ryan had to watch CNN to find out how their campaign was doing.  In the end, the numbers guy was deprived of his numbers in more ways than one.

Portland's Clear Channel-owned KPOJ Progressive Talk Station Flipped to Fox Sports

More progressive talk pushed off OUR PUBLIC AIRWAVES and, again, in one of the nation's most progressive cities...

 

By Brad Friedman on 11/9/2012, 5:29 P.M. PT 

[UPDATE: As of 6:00 pm PT, the KPOJ website has now flipped to "Fox Sports AM 620 Portland".]

This is horrible. Tonight, without warning, Clear Channel Communications-owned 620 AM KPOJ in Portland, Oregon, one of the most progressive cities in one of the nation's most progressive states, has flipped from it's years-long progressive news and talk format over to Fox Sports as of 5:30pm local time.

KPOJ was the only commercial progressive talk radio station in Portland. The city will still have several other Rightwing talk radio stations, including one owned by Clear Channel, and they already have two sports stations, but the Bain Capital-owned media conglomerate is now killing yet another progressive voice from our publicly-owned airwaves.

An earlier piece today in The Oregonian had reported that the station would be flipping as of Monday. An UPDATE in the Williamette Weekly, however, reports that the station, which had long featured Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann (who had broadcast for years out of KPOJ until moving his show to Washington D.C.) and other progressive talkers, will change to its Fox Sports format as of this evening.

The BRAD BLOG can now confirm that KPOJ has flipped its programming format and website to Fox Sports as of 6:00pm PT tonight.

This is hardly the first time that Clear Channel has done the same thing, in very progressive cities, underscoring once again that there is no real, "free market" competition in talk radio over our publicly-owned airwaves...

Last year, The BRAD BLOG detailed Clear Channel's plan to dump their progressive talk radio station, Green 960 in San Francisco, and turn it over to Rightwing talkers, such as Glenn Beck, whose radio show is syndicated by Clear Channel-owned Premiere Radio.

Listener complaints, and upheavals just days later at competing San Francisco talk station KGO, led Clear Channel to reverse course, partially, and to keep some of the progressive talkers on the station after all --- though they were scheduled to run delayed, instead of live, many hours later in the day and night. Beck, however, would still run live in place of the popular Stephanie Miller Show in the mornings.

Miller has told The BRAD BLOG that Beck's ratings during what had previously been her live 6am-9am PT time slot have been a fraction of what she had previously garnered during that time slot.

Nonetheless, Beck remains there, as his live clearance in the large city media market is key to his national ad sales for the syndicated program.

There is no "free market" competition in talk radio. Period.

In 1987, enforcement of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine --- requiring equal time to made available for opposing political viewpoints --- was done away with by President Ronald Reagan.

In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, President Bill Clinton did away with many of the limitations on the number of radio stations that could be owned by a single company in each market across the country. That would pave the way for mega-corporations like Clear Channel to take control of almost all of the bandwidth over our public airwaves, shutting out independent competing voices.

In the 1948 landmark anti-trust case, United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios, which owned many of the nation's theaters at the time, were in violation of anti-trust laws by controlling which movies would, and wouldn't, be exhibited in those theaters. Prior to the case, they had owned both the means of production and the means of exhibition.

The movie studios were forced, thereafter, to sell off their theater chains, allowing other, smaller studios, to compete in the marketplace.

There is no longer any such "free market" competition in talk radio. In fact, as we noted when Green 960 was being flipped to its new call letters KNEW in San Francisco, when progressive shows are allowed to compete head-to-head in the market place, they often out-perform their Rightwing competition, even on lower-powered radio stations, which is usually the case when companies like Clear Channel own both the "conservative" and progressive stations in the same market.

They also aggressively promote the corporate-friendly Rightwing shows, while failing to do the same with progressive shows. That is the case even with shows like Stephanie Miller's whose morning program often outpaces Laura Ingraham's, an extreme Rightwinger and regular Fox News Channel guest host, in the ratings in markets where they are broadcast live head-to-head. And yet, Miller's show is carried by just some 36 affiliate stations, while Ingraham's is carried by more than 300.

In 2012, major corporate conglomerates such as Clear Channel, and a just two or three others, control the licenses for almost all of our public airwaves, particularly in large markets, and are able to choke off all but the corporate-friendly voices from talk radio, while using those very same stations to promote radio shows over which they also have corporate ownership through their Premier Syndication arm.

A documentary film, Save KLSD, has been screening around the country this year. The film documents the ultimately unsuccessful 2007 fight to keep Clear Channel-owned KLSD AM-1360, the only commercial progressive talk radio outlet in San Diego at the time, from flipping to a Fox Sports format. The film details the dangers of media consolidation and "how corporate influence corrupts government regulation, limits the free flow of information, and adversely affects American democracy."

Shameful history repeats itself once again in Portland, Oregon tonight. Though, this time, Clear Channel did not make the mistake of letting the word get out until the very last minute, when the flip to the new format was already a done deal. Once word did get out, the reported plans to change the format on Monday were moved up to change the format immediately this evening.

That there is no major commercial outlet over our public airwaves for political voices other than those friendly to corporations like Clear Channel in most of the major media markets in the U.S., much less, as of tonight, in a progressive city like Portland, is simply another national disgrace.

We can only hope that a newly re-elected President, without the need to run for election again, may be able to direct his FCC to restore the public interest obligations of broadcasters who enjoy the privilege of being granted licenses to broadcast over our public airwaves.

Obama ready to deal – but what about Boehner?

MSNBC host Toure, The Grio’s Joy Reid, and The Hill’s Karen Finney discuss President Obama’s first post-Election Day speech and how he seems ready to make a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” – but why House Republicans seem ready to push the Mitt Romney plan that failed at the polls Tuesday.
 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fact checking conservatives makers & takers line

Democratic strategists Jimmy Williams and Julian Epstein take apart conservative pundits new line that Democrats are “takers” and Republicans are “makers” – and detail how it stems from Republicans’ moribund social policy.
 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mitt Romney in the 47's

By kos

 

Fade to black, please. But not before you hit 47%

As the vote continues to come in, Mitt Romney's numbers continue to head south.

The tally is currently 50.6-47.9.

But that's amazing is that according to CNN, California is just 71% reporting, Oregon 75%, and Washington 55%. Colorado is 90%, NM is 91%, IL is 93%, NY is 86%, and so on. In other words, there are plenty of Democratic votes still waiting to be counted.

All of this doesn't matter, except in one small way - if Romney's share gets down to 47.4, it'll get rounded to 47 percent. And if it does, it will be sweet, sweet poetic justice indeed.

(Via)

10:21 PM PT: In 2008, John McCain got 59,456,814 votes. And that was for a guy with no money who generated no excitement and had crap for a campaign.

Mitt Romney is currently at 58,487,232. And that's for a guy with a shit-ton of money, and lots of allies with a crap-ton more money, who was supposedly generating a butt-load of excitement and had built an ass-kicking GOTV operation.

There's enough uncounted votes out there that he may yet get the million votes to close the gap to McCain. But really, this just goes to prove that he was a dick that no one liked, and no amount of money was going to change that.

Fri Nov 09, 2012 at 10:39 PM PT: With the popular vote margin approaching three points, let's just take a moment to note, once again, that THIS RACE WAS NEVER TIED!

The People’s Bailout

This is a long post but it’s about something pretty interesting so I hope you’ll indulge …

Like many folks, Occupy Wall Street has been some doing good work in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, helping people on the ground.

Now OWS is launching the ROLLING JUBILEE, a program that has been in development for months. OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in order to forgive it. As a test run, we spent $500, which bought $14,000 of distressed debt. We then ERASED THAT DEBT. (If you’re a debt broker, once you own someone’s debt you can do whatever you want with it — traditionally, you hound debtors to their grave trying to collect. We’re playing a different game. A MORE AWESOME GAME.)

This is a simple, powerful way to help folks in need — to free them from heavy debt loads so they can focus on being productive, happy and healthy. As you can see from our test run, the return on investment approaches 30:1. That’s a crazy bargain!

Now, after many consultations with attorneys, the IRS, and our moles in the debt-brokerage world, we are ready to take the Rolling Jubilee program LIVE and NATIONWIDE, buying debt in communities that have been struggling during the recession.

We’re kicking things off with a show called THE PEOPLE’S BAILOUT at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday, November 15. It will also stream online, like a good ol’-fashioned telethon!




Friends, the line-up is insane. Performers include:
- JEFF MANGUM (Neutral Milk Hotel)
- JANEANE GAROFALO
- GUY PICCIOTTO (Fugazi)
- LIZZ WINSTEAD
- HARI KONDABOLU
- TUNDE ADEBIMPE and KYP MALONE (TV on the Radio)
- members of DAS RACIST
and other great talents including a group of radical nuns! I’ll be playing the role of JERRY LEWIS, emceeing in my tuxedo from MEN’S WEARHOUSE.

This will be a joyful, positive night about people banding together and subverting a predatory financial system in order to help each other. BOOM! That’s a movie pitch right there, goddamn why am I not a Hollywood mogul?!

Anyway, HERE IS THE INFORMATION about THE PEOPLE’S BAILOUT:

- The LIVE SHOW is at Le Poisson Rouge on THURSDAY 11/15, 8 - 11 PM. Tickets are $25 (each ticket buys $500 of distressed debt).
- The LIVE STREAM will be at http://rollingjubilee.org (you’ll be able to donate online)
- Here’s the FACEBOOK PAGE
- The HASHTAG is #peoplesbailout

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

- Spread the word! Share this info with your friends, family, and followers
- Donate money via http://rollingjubilee.org
$25 abolishes an estimated $500 worth of debt
$50 abolishes an estimated $1000 worth of debt
$100 abolishes an estimated $2000 worth of debt
$250 abolishes an estimated $5000 worth of debt
- Host a live-stream party! Get together with folks in your town and watch the show online and donate money and maybe even drink a beer if you’re feeling crazy.
- If you are Jerry Seinfeld or Bill Cosby: Call me about doing a set at the live show! We’ll fit you in.

Okay, that was a really long tumblr post. I feel very vulnerable right now. Thanks for reading.

Bye!
—David Rees

Romney Campaign Genuinely Shocked at Loss

Published on Nov 8, 2012 by TheYoungTurks

"Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

Cenk Uygur expresses his surprise that the Romney campaign was surprised they lost, in light of several signs (polls, election night numbers) that were readily available for quite some time.

 

Bob Murray made his miners be a Romney backdrop. Now he's laying them off for political points.

By Laura Clawson

Bob Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy who made his miners lose a day's pay to serve as a backdrop for Mitt Romney and who pressures his salaried employees to write checks to his favorite candidates, is just not ready to stop campaigning against President Barack Obama. And as usual, he's using his workers as pawns for his politics.

Robert E. Murray read a prayer to a group of company staff members on the day after the election, lamenting the direction of the country and asking: "Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."

On Wednesday, Murray also laid off 54 people at American Coal, one of his subsidiary companies, and 102 at Utah American Energy, blaming a "war on coal" by the administration of President Barack Obama.

Yes, Lord, forgive Murray for firing people to make a bullshit political point the day after the election. That would be a good use of divine forgiveness. But anyone, deity or human, tempted to forgive Bob Murray for anything in his life should remember that this is who he is:

Besides American Century, Murray's company, the largest independent coal operator in the country, also owns, via a subsidiary, the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. Five years ago this month, six miners and three rescue workers were killed in that mine. Murray showed his true colors with his belligerent behavior after the accident.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration fined the operation more than $1.85 million for violations that it says directly contributed to the deaths. Murray had said the violations were trivial and lied about one of the them, withholding information from the federal government about a dangerous mining technique the company decided to use to meet its coal quota just before the lethal collapse.

Murray has lobbied against new safety regulations, arguing that these are "playing politics with the safety of my employees."

Firing 156 people and blaming it on an election is totally consistent with who Bob Murray is. He's evil. He's putting these people out of work just to make a political point without basis in fact, since coal industry woes come from the "free market" so beloved of Republicans, coal jobs aren't collapsing (Murray aside), and all this whining is stuff we've heard before from coal executives only to have their industry survive.

As a Reddit user who said s/he was among those laid off wrote, "Despite the fact that nothing has changed in the two days since the election they decide to lay off employees. I've seen how corrupt the company can be over the years and am fairly certain the layoffs are just a way to make the President look bad."

GOP Dreams of David Petraeus for President Crash and Burn After Affair Revelations

By Jason Easley 

Gen. David Patraeus abruptly resigned from his position as CIA Director citing poor judgment and an extramarital affair. Thus, another Republican dream candidate for president has self destructed.

Here is Patraeus’s resignation letter from NBC News,

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA. After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation.

As I depart Langley, I want you to know that it has been the greatest of privileges to have served with you, the officers of our Nation’s Silent Service, a work force that is truly exceptional in every regard. Indeed, you did extraordinary work on a host of critical missions during my time as director, and I am deeply grateful to you for that.

Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life’s greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end.

Thank you for your extraordinary service to our country, and best wishes for continued success in the important endeavors that lie ahead for our country and our Agency.

With admiration and appreciation,
David H. Petraeus


White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had no comment on the circumstances surrounding the Petraeus resignation:


 
President Obama did release a written statement that said in part, “By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end.”

Petraeus’s name has long been a favorite to toss around in Republican circles. Most recently, there was speculation surrounding whether or not Mitt Romney would select him as his running mate.

Some Republicans viewed him as a future presidential candidate, despite the fact that the General has referred to himself as a moderate Rockefeller Republican.

Of all the names being floated around as the first to leave the second Obama administration, Petraeus was not one of them. It is a bit of an out of the blue shock that he abruptly resigned, but it is also the move of a man who was trying to get ahead of a story that would have been a reputation destroying scandal.

Instead of dragging the president into his personal mess, Gen. Petraeus did the honorable thing and resigned.

A long career in public service has come to an abrupt end, and the Republican dreams of a political savior arriving from the military are dead and gone.

Refusing to concede, Handkerchief Head Allen West heads to court

By David Nir

• FL-18: So even though GOP Rep. Allen West trails Patrick Murphy by 0.8%—more than the half-a-percent margin which would enable him to seek a recount—and even though the remaining absentee ballots look very unlikely to change that picture, this is what he's doing:

West has filed an injunction against Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties supervisor of elections to impound their voting machines and paper ballots. West also is demanding a hand recount in St. Lucie County.

Allen West doing something crazy and contrary to the law? Unheard of! Anyhow, a court hearing was set to take place in Palm Beach late Thursday afternoon but was rescheduled for Friday; a hearing in St. Lucie may also happen Friday. While their position looks solid, Murphy's campaign has issued a fundraising appeal to help defray the legal bills they've suddenly started running up. (I don't know if it's happening in this case, but Republican law firms are notorious for deploying their associates pro bono to help candidates in need. More like faux bono, amirite?) We will of course keep following all developments here closely, so stay tuned.

The Loss Of "Traditional America"

Bill O'Reilly announces the end of "Traditional America" and instead of re-examining their policies, conservatives are lashing out at women and minorities. Ed Schultz talks with MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson.

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Rachel Maddow Has the Last Word

Rachel Maddow absolutely unloaded on Republicans and conservatives last night.
 

Romney shellshocked, because he believed his own bullshit

By kos

 

Shellshocked.

The GOP's reality-distortion field went all the way to the top.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior [Romney] adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

Thus, it was crushing when reality intruded their fantasy world.

Romney was stoic as he talked the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."

Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.

Why were they so certain of victory? Because they unskewed their own polls.

[T]hey believed the public/media polls were skewed - they thought those polls oversampled Democrats and didn't reflect Republican enthusiasm. They based their own internal polls on turnout levels more favorable to Romney.

And why did they think the public polls were skewed?

The huge and enthusiastic crowds in swing state after swing state in recent weeks - not only for Romney but also for Paul Ryan - bolstered what they believed intellectually: that Obama would not get the kind of turnout he had in 2008.

So let's recap their logic:
1. They got big crowds, therefore,
2. people won't turn out for Obama.
3. If people don't turn out for Obama,
4. then the public polls are skewed.
5. If public polls are skewed,
6. then Romney is winning.

Of course, the size of Romney's crowds had absolutely no bearing on whatever turnout Obama would get. But apparently, that idiotic and fact-free assumption is what made them so confident.

And hilariously wrong.

Rush rewrites Rush's election prediction

On Monday, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners that Mitt Romney would win "300-plus" electoral votes. The day after the election, he had a different story. But since Rush can never admit to being wrong, that story is complicated. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell explains.

 

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How the GOP spent millions building their own coffin

Cenk Uygur breaks down how much money Republicans like Karl Rove and Sheldon Adelson donated to losing the election.

Despite spending millions in anti-Obama advertising, a TV analytics company rated a Democratic ad which charges Mitt Romney with making factory workers “build their own coffin” as most effective spot of the entire campaign season.

Cenk says, “If you see the metrics behind it — it scored through the roof in Ohio. You know why? ‘Cause it’s true.”

Do not... DO NOT Defend Libertarians to me

By lalalu

Libertarians and new progressives are both charlatan groups.

Libertarians are racists who refuse to face their racism and hide behind supposedly free will policies. They are a bunch of phonies. They believe in laws and government intervention for their rightwing views only. To hell with everyone else. Ron Paul has been getting government handouts and living on government benefits for decades and the same with his son. Hypocrites.

New members of the progressive movement are Reagan democrats. They can't own up to the fact they helped Reagan destroy many progressive reforms and the country. Think Arianna Huffington who now behaves like she was the queen of the progressive movement and never knew Reagan.

Both groups are big mouth charlatans pretending to be something they aren't.

Republican Heads Are Exploding

Dumbass George W. Bush accidentally voted for Barack Obama

Former U.S. president George W. Bush accidentally voted for Barack Obama today at a polling place near his Crawford, TX home.

According to local reports, the two-term Republican was confused by the instructions on his electronic voting machine and mistakenly cast a ballot he intended to discard.

Witnesses say Bush argued with poll workers for several minutes afterwards in a effort to redo his vote, but in accordance with state law they ultimately denied his request.

The embarrassing incident may have gone unnoticed if it weren't for a local newspaper reporter who happened to be voting in the next booth. Suzanna Everett, a politics correspondent for the Waco Times witnessed the entire ordeal and crafted a cunning scheme to make it public.

Left On Red


Barred by ethics rules from using knowledge gained within a polling station, Everett waited for Bush to leave the facility and ambushed him with a trick question designed to fool him into revealing the news himself:

"Mr. President Fox News is reporting that you've accidentally voted for Barack Obama. Would you care to comment?"

Thinking that his mistake had already been found out, Bush sought to minimize the damage:

"Yes unfortunately because of the incompetence of the folks who designed the ballot, my vote counted for the other guy," Bush responded. He then attempted to explain exactly how the mishap occurred:

"First of all, everything was very mismaladjusted on the screen. You shouldn't put the senators and the congresspeople and the presidents all jumbled together like that. It's too crowded. Just confuses folks."

Bush then explained that after marking the wrong candidate, he sought to correct his error by clicking the red "Cast Ballot" button, thinking that it was designed to 'cast away' the ballot and bring up a fresh one:

"Usually red means stop and green means go. I thought I was stopping"

A New Legacy

Bush is no stranger to election day controversy, having been pushed into office himself by the Florida fiasco of 2000. In that election hundreds of votes intended for Democratic rival Al Gore went to protest candidate Pat Buchanan instead due to poor ballot design.

In an official statement released shortly after the event, former President Bush said his experiences today have inspired him to make electoral reform the signature cause of his post-presidency:

"Laura and I will be dedicating the next few years to fixing our electoral system. Every American deserves a clear, simple ballot when they go to the polling place."

However, the system Bush used has been deployed successfully around the country with little incident. A spokesperson for the company that manufactures the machines says they stand by their product:

"Until today we have never had a single instance of someone confusing the "cast ballot" button for a "cast away ballot" button. This is a problem unique to Mr. Bush, and we have no plans to change our machines."

The Biggest Comeback in the History of the House

By Alan Grayson

We won. And our victory last night was the biggest comeback in the history of the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2010, we lost by 18 points. In 2012, last night, we won by 25 points, 62.5% to 37.5%. That’s a 43-point swing, back to victory.

No one has ever done that before. We made history.

Our polling shows that we won every county, every municipality, every race, every age group, every language group and each gender. We won it all.

So to every voter, thank you.

To the 100,000 supporters who contributed this campaign, whether it was a dollar or $5,000, thank you.

To the volunteers who made more than a quarter of a million live phone calls to get out our vote, thank you.

To our brilliant canvassing staff of fifty, who have knocked on doors every single day since March, thank you.

To the thousands of people who wrote to us to give your advice or express your support, or forwarded our e-mails to your friends, or followed our campaign on Facebook, thank you.

To everyone who marches behind the standards of justice, equality and peace, thank you.

If you helped in any way, large or small, then you can savor this sweet moment. You made it happen.

Congratulations to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown and Tammy Duckworth. Goodbye, Allen West.

I have a feeling that this won’t be the only time that we make history. In fact, if we all work together this way, you can count on it.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

House Negro Allen West Defeated

West hasn't conceded the race yet

By: Jonathan Mattise, Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers

 

 

 

 

 

In a district that leans Republican by 2 percentage points, Jupiter Democrat Patrick Murphy should thank St. Lucie and Palm Beach counties' voters for helping him knock off U.S. Rep. Allen West .

Only consistently red Martin County performed up to its billing for West.

By 6 a.m., with 100 percent of precincts reporting according to Politico.com, a winner still had not been officially declared. Murphy garnered 160,328 votes to West's 157,872. That's a difference of 2,456. Percentage-wise, that's 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent.

West, who stormed into Congress on the 2010 Tea Party wave, hasn't conceded the race yet.

If a race is decided by 0.5 points or fewer, it automatically triggers a recount. But the final spread fell just outside that margin.

"I am humbled by the outpouring of support from the voters of the Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches," Murphy said in a news release. "I pledge to be a representative who will work across the aisle, listen to all points of views, and work to end the divisiveness in Congress. Our country faces many challenges, and by working together we will continue to move our country forward."

In one of Congress's tightest races — and biggest upsets — St. Lucie County picked Murphy over West by an 11-percent margin, matching Democrats' 43-to-32-percent registration edge in the county.

Palm Beach split its votes for West almost 50-50, even though Republicans outnumbered Democrats 37- to 35-percent over Democrats there.

Only Martin proved a stronghold for West, R-Palm Beach Gardens. The ousted congressman drummed up a 14-point win over Murphy in Martin, where registered Republicans trounce Democrats by 13 points and 78 percent of voters cast ballots this time around.

It was not until early Wednesday morning that NBC and Democrat Patrick Murphy declared that the Jupiter accountant had defeated West in one of the most-watched congressional races in the country.

"I think we won because the voters spoke, they are tired of the extremism and the divisiveness, and they want someone willing to put the country first," Murphy said. "That's what we represent, that's what this campaign is all about and that's who I am."

West's party shut down shortly after midnight, before additional results came in giving Murphy the lead.

West never left a separate room at the Hutchinson Island Marriott Beach Resort & Marina in Stuart, where he watched the results with his family. The 500 supporters who funneled in and out didn't get a glimpse of the congressman. Nor has his campaign commented on the race.

State Sen. Joe Negron and state Rep. William Snyder, both Stuart Republicans, played surrogate for West all night. Each gave sparse updates on the results, explaining why West hadn't appeared at the party and then assuring he'd be down shortly.

The West group called it quits just before midnight on their get-together, which started at 7 p.m. The latest update Negron gave had West up by a slim margin, with a few St. Lucie precincts and Palm Beach absentee ballots uncounted.

At his Double Tree Palm Beach Gardens party, Murphy took the stage grinning at about 12:15 a.m., claiming a slight lead. At 1:30 a.m., he declared himself the winner, per MSNBC's call.

"The entire political landscape posed challenges for Republicans, especially ones running statewide," Negron said at about midnight, when West still led slightly. "You look at Connie Mack (in the U.S. Senate race), state Senate races and congressional races."

Cheer Up, Republicans

By William Saletan

Dear Republicans,

Sorry about the election. I know how much it hurts when your presidential candidate loses. I’ve been there many times. You’re crestfallen. You can’t believe the public voted for that idiot. You fear for your country.

Cheer up. The guy we just re-elected is a moderate Republican.

I know how stupid that sounds. Barack Obama is the head of the Democratic Party. For five years, conservative politicians and media told you he was a raving socialist. In the heat of the campaign, when you’re trying to beat the guy, it’s hard to let go of that image of him, just as it’s hard for Democrats to see past the caricatures of Mitt Romney. But now that the campaign is over and you’re staring at a second Obama term, the falsity of the propaganda may come as a relief. By and large, Obama’s instincts are the instincts of a moderate Republican. His policies are the policies of a moderate Republican. He stands where the GOP used to stand and will someday stand again.

Yes, Obama began his presidency with bailouts, stimulus, and borrowing. You know who started the bailouts? George W. Bush. Bush knew that under these exceptionally dire circumstances, bailouts had to be done. Stimulus had to be done, too, since the economy had frozen up. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts. Once the economy began to revive, Obama offered a $4-trillion debt reduction framework that would have cut $3 to $6 of spending for every $1 in tax hikes. That’s a higher ratio of cuts to hikes than Republican voters, in a Gallup poll, said they preferred. It’s way more conservative than the ratio George H. W. Bush accepted in 1990. In last year’s debt-ceiling talks, Obama offered cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for revenue that didn’t even come from higher tax rates. Now he’s proposing to lower corporate tax rates, and Republicans are whining that he hacked $716 billion out of Medicare. Some socialist.

Yes, Obama imposed an individual mandate to buy health insurance. You know who else did that? Romney. You know where the idea came from? The Heritage Foundation. Personal responsibility—insisting that people carry private insurance so we don’t have to bail them out in emergency rooms and hospitals—was a Republican idea. Same with Wall Street reform: There’s nothing conservative about letting financial institutions gamble with other people’s money in ways that would force us to bail them out again. Even Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal echoed the market-based emissions-control policies of the 1990 Bush administration and the 2008 McCain campaign. And last year, when the EPA proposed a new air-pollution limit, Obama ticked off environmentalists by killing it on the grounds that it might jeopardize the recovery.

Remember how Democrats ridiculed George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq? Obama copied it in Afghanistan. He escalated the drone program, killing off al-Qaida’s leaders. He sent SEAL Team 6 into Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden. He teamed up with NATO to take down Muammar Qaddafi. He reneged on his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay. He put together a globally enforced regime of sanctions that is bringing Iran’s economy to its knees. That’s why Romney had nothing to say in last month’s foreign policy debate. No sensible Republican president would have done things differently.

Obama’s no right-winger. You might have serious issues with his Supreme Court justices or his moves on immigration or the Bush tax cuts. But you probably would have had similar issues with Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, or Gerald Ford. Obama’s in the same mold as those guys.

So don’t despair. Your country didn’t vote for a socialist tonight. It voted for the candidate of traditional Republican moderation.

What should gall you, haunt you, and goad you to think about the future of your party is that that candidate wasn’t yours.

Mitt Romney, now you can STFU

8:13 PM PT: NBC calls Ohio - and the PRESIDENCY - for Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney, now you can STFU.

Pray it Doesn't Come Down to Ohio

By Andrew Cohen

With just a few dozen hours left before polls open on Election Day, here is a candidate for the most important election-law story of the weekend -- a story likely to cross over into the general political debate Sunday through Monday. This early copy from the Associated Press offered a hint:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Voter advocates are criticizing an order by Ohio's elections chief dealing with the casting of provisional ballots. Advocates are saying on Saturday that the order by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted late Friday wrongly puts the burden of recording the form of ID used on a provisional ballot on voters, not pollworkers ....

Here's what happened. On Thursday, voting-rights advocates filed an "emergency motion" with a federal trial judge seeking his reassurance that provisional ballots in Ohio will be judged by the standard he endorsed (and Ohio reportedly agreed to) in a recent consent decree. That standard, the plaintiffs say, is "that a provisional-ballot form that has incomplete or improperly completed information regarding the type of identification proffered by a voter should be counted pursuant" to Ohio law, which, they say, makes the poll worker responsible for taking down the information. Here's a link to that motion.

Ohio has not yet responded to it with a filing in court -- the state's deadline is Monday. But it was a full day after this motion was filed that the secretary of state, at 6 p.m. on the Friday before the election, issued his contrary directive, the text of which you can read in this timely piece by Judd Legum. The issuance of the directive in turn prompted lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case to go back to U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley with an even more urgent request, filed late Friday evening:

This new Directive makes an affirmative change to the previous provisional ballot counting standard, beyond what was required to comply with this Court's and the Sixth Circuit's recent orders. Instead, contrary to this Court's October 26, 2012 decision, the Secretary's representations to this Court on October 24, 2012, and the Constitution, the Secretary is now ordering that county boards of election must reject provisional ballots when the identification information contained in Step 2 of the ballot affirmation form 12-B is incomplete.

The contours of the legal dispute aren't narrowing, as some legal disputes do at this stage of an election contest, but instead are growing. They are growing because the secretary of state has just doubled down on his position about incomplete provisional ballots. If he was wrong on Thursday, you could say, he was even more wrong on Friday. And that will likely mean a Monday ruling* from Judge Marbley which will then be appealed into Tuesday (and beyond) to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Folks, the legal fight for Ohio's votes is already here and here to stay. Here from The Columbus Dispatch are the money quotes:

"The bottom line is that (Secretary of State Jon Husted) designed a form that violates Ohio law by improperly shifting to voters the poll workers' information-recording responsibilities regarding ID to voters, and then he wants to trash votes where there is a problem with the form on the section he misassigned to voters," said Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra, who filed the motion ....
Husted spokesman Matt McClellan said the Friday directive actually was designed to concur with the Oct. 26 order of U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley in a legal dispute over provisional ballots. "We wanted to make sure we complied with those directions," McClellan said. Voters will complete the same form they did in the March primary and August special elections. We're not doing anything new," he said. "Voters have to provide ID when they vote provisionally."

This dispute is important for many reasons. First, it's probably the most direct evidence yet that Ohio will be counting its provisional ballots for days or even weeks past Tuesday. The blossoming argument above assumes as it must that there will be a great deal of anxious vote counting after Election Day. This scenario hasn't exactly been a secret. But here's an actual live dispute for us all to watch. It's also a reminder that anyone rooting for a resolution Tuesday night (or early Wednesday) ought to hope that it doesn't all come down to Ohio. If it does, it will be weeks -- and one judicial hearing after another -- before we have an answer.

The motion also is important for what it says these days about Husted and the way he is running the state's elections. Leaving aside the provisional ballot court fight for a moment, Saturday's early voting period was hectic, largely because Husted and his fellow Republicans succeeded this cycle in reducing the number of early-voting weekends from five to one. Indeed, they tried to eliminate all such early voting, which traditionally helps wage earners who can't vote during regular business hours on weekdays, but were rejected in this effort by the federal courts.

What does it mean on the ground and to the exercise of a registered voter's right to vote? From The Washington Post late Saturday: "In Cuyahoga, 36,578 had voted as of Friday; in 2008, that number was 54,340. In 2008, there were nine additional early voting days here, and 9,933 people voted on those days." And Husted? While I was searching for the above copy I found another Associated Press story, also dated Saturday, which noted: "Husted says in a statement that voting has gone smoothly in Ohio and he expects absentee voting this year to surpass 2008."

*We are now being told the deadline for the State's submission is late Tuesday, with reply briefs due from the plaintiffs on November 8 and a written order from the judge to follow. Even more reason to realize that if the election comes down to Ohio it will be a while before we know who has won.

Bishop Willard (R): a tax dodger and a draft dodger

Romney Paid Zero Taxes From 1996 To 2009

Source: Daily Kos

Using a tax shelter called a CRUT (charitable remainder unitrust) that was held by the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), Mitt Romney was able to pay zero taxes (legally) every single year from 1996 to 2009. Why did he stop in 2009? Because he would make public his 2010 tax return, that is why.

This tax loophole was killed by Congress in 1997. However those including Romney that were already using it were allowed to continue it. The way it works, is that Romney makes a "charitable" contribution to the Church of Latter Day Saints and it goes into a trust. Since the trust is held by the church, the money is tax deferred. Any capital gains, are non taxed because of the charities status. Like an annuity, the donor gets a charitable tax deduction and an stream of cash payments. When Romney dies, the church accepts full ownership..

Bloomsberg's attorneys estimate as the Romneys have received these payments, the money that will potentially be left for charity has declined from at least $750,000 in 2001 to $421,203 at the end of 2011.....

Romney has refused to answer any thing on this topic. His campaign puts out that it was all legal....

Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/04/1155381/-Breaking-Romney-Paid-Zero-Taxes-From-1996-To-2009

Romney doesn’t think rising oceans is funny, any more

MSNBC host Krystal Ball, The Hill’s Karen Finney and Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart have fun at Mitt Romney’s expense for saying he doesn’t think rising oceans is funny – despite using that as a punchline during the RNC – and then examine the GOP strategy of explaining away a Romney loss.

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Romney vs. Sandy

Published on Oct 31, 2012 by ForecastTheFacts

If this video makes you mad, take action at: http://climatesilence.org/romneyjoke

Much of the nation is still reeling from Hurricane Sandy. Our thoughts are with those who have been impacted. When Mitt Romney made climate change a punchline at the Republican National Convention, he mocked a real threat to the lives of Americans. We've turned this video into a television ad that is running in Ohio and Virginia right now! 

If you want to donate to expand the ad buy go to http://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=https%3A%2F%2Floudsauce.com%2Fcampaigns%2F416-share-romney-s-climate-joke-with-victims-of-the-frankenstorm

 

1 Not-So-Simple Pretty Funny Question for the 73% of White Evangelicals

By Frank Schaeffer

A question that deserves an answer before election day.

 

According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney.

If the polls are correct here’s the question I'd like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:

What’s the explanation for the fact that white American Evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart lapsed Roman Catholic Dinesh D'Souza their anti-Obama hero, embrace a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, are working to elect a job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against an exemplary modest faithful husband good father compassionate smart black evangelical Christian President whose major accomplishments include saving the economy, ending a war, killing our greatest enemy, giving health care to children and the poor and the "least of these" and who has tried to reduce the number of abortions by helping women escape poverty in a reenactment of the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Go figure.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Who do you trust to work with the other side?

As millions of people try to bounce back after Sandy, the two presidential campaigns get back into full gear. Democratic strategist Karen Finney joins Ed Schultz to examine the closing messages of President Obama and Mitt Romney.

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4 ways Democrats can combat Republican voter fraud and scare tactics

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich reveals how Democratic campaigns fight back against Republican attempts to disenfranchise voters without resorting to cheating. “Person-to-person contact will win the day here,” Kucinich says. “All this gamesmanship that’s going on, all the dirty tricks that are going on — look, an organized campaign can get past those things and can move on to victory.”

Romney silent with reporters for last 3 weeks

It's been 3 weeks since Mitt Romney's answered a question from reporters and Hurricane Sandy is bringing his transparency issues front and center. DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) joins Ed Schultz with reaction over Mitt Romney's silent campaign.

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