Sounds serious there. Sounds like they finally busted Mitt and they are preparing the graphics and music for the hour-long prime time special showing him doing the IRS perp walk.
Five paragraphs into the story you find out the amount is $1,700 dollars. Now, $1,700 is more than most recent Democrats candidates for president donate to charity in a year, but on Romney’s tax returns to find a missing $1,700 dollars is like finding a penny in the cushions that you forgot to report. I guess the dollar amount is not important (unless its somebody making too much money,) it’s the headline they were after here.
Better get top terrorist reporter Brian Ross out of the Caribbean and off to Switzerland to uncover this latest Romney plot.
NBC’s Brian Williams called Romney’s wealth “unimaginable.” Unimaginable? How you doing Brian in your luxury Manhattan apartment? Ask your neighbor Beyonce if you can borrow some sugar.
Better send that crew back to Mexico to see how the branch of the Romney family is doing down there and demand they tell you how much money they make off their citrus farms. You left that out of the last story you did on them.
When the South Carolina primary results revealed a blowout victory for Gingrich, Romney supporters and the Establishment Apology Brigade responded by borrowing progressives’s talking points against the tea party. That a sizable chunk of tea partiers, independents, and women voted for Newt Gingrich doesn’t make them “racists,” as I have heard suggested, or “bitter clingers,” or any other pejorative favored by progressives and suddenly subtly adopted by establishment types.
I know and respect many of these individuals and I don’t begrudge them their passionate support of the candidate in whom they believe; rather, I disagree with their chosen tactics in attempting to undermine their opposition’s support.
We spent three-and-a-half years protesting for limited government and were called nazis, racists, bigots, etc. by progressives, many of them sitting lawmakers. The above-mentioned apologists were right with us in denouncing such tactics. Now suddenly they’re echoing them simply because the majority of grassroots do not share their choice of primary candidate? Their strategy is to browbeat and verbally abuse grassroots into lining up behind an uncertain and not “inevitable” candidate? Isn’t that what progressives have been doing to grassroots for the past several years? We were called racists and “bitter clingers” for not supporting Obama. Are we now suggested racists and “bitter clingers” because we don’t support Romney? How does that work?
Let me put it another way: it wasn’t OK to call tea partiers “racists and hillbillies” when they opposed Obama’s big government, but it is OK to call tea partiers “racists and hillbillies” when they oppose the establishment’s pick for primary candidate?
What sort of bass-ackwards logic is this?
The South Carolina results have more to do with a repudiation of Romney than a widespread preference for Gingrich as a candidate. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any tea partiers who support Gingrich–to the contrary. There is simply a general, “damn the man” sentiment when it concerns the GOP establishment, and it’s of the establishment’s own doing.
If you didn’t watch tonight’s debate, let me sum it up for you: Why English as the official language in US? Your Thoughts on Terri Schiavo? When was America last great? Also, the Bush tax cuts didn’t work, explain to us why.’
Gingrich, who is usually good at rejecting false premises in questioning, punted and responded “it would have been worse without them.” Really?
… in May 2003 Congress accelerated the tax cuts to make them effective immediately. In addition to reducing marginal income tax rates, Congress also lowered the tax rates on capital gains and dividends.
It was at this point that economic growth took off. From May 2003 until December 2007 (when the recession caused by the global financial meltdown occurred) the economy created 8.1 million jobs, or 145,000 a month. By comparison, after the beginning of the 2001 recession and before the 2003 tax cuts, the economy was losing 103,000 jobs a month.
Bush tax cuts spurred growth and additionally stifled unemployment at 5.2% in the years following 9/11. Yes they worked. Gingrich should have answered better and the moderator asking the question should have been mocked on stage for presenting a presupposition as a legitimate, beyond reproach question.
I think we should have Republican debates every day. Every day.
We should demand the candidates meet in one place every 24 hours and just pound each other early and often. If they can’t make it, they attack each other on Skype. Now, two debates a day might be a little much, but I’m open to that option as well, just as long as it helps the media destroy the carcass of the last Republican standing.
I have some thoughts on how this could be done and some of the questions that could be asked. I have been inspired by George Stephanopoulos and his questions in New Hampshire. Specifically, his brilliant question to Mitt Romney on whether states should be allowed to ban contraceptives. I was so happy to hear that question because it’s so relevant to us here in Nevada. I hope during the next debate somebody asks about prostitution and contraceptives. Nevada holds its caucus Feb 4th and there are certain counties in this state where they are just itching to get an answer to that burning question.
There are loads of great questions that could be asked in these new Daily Debates. (more…)
This morning on our CNN panel Will Cain and I discussed the “angry Newt narrative.” The question centered around Peggy Noonan’s latest column wherein she calls Gingrich an “angry little attack muffin“:
Right now Mr. Romney’s taking a beating. He’s everyone’s target, and in a way that speaks of something beyond the usual campaign ferocity. There’s something else going on, a taunting: “If you’re so inevitable how come I’m not afraid of you?” Newt Gingrich, angry little attack muffin, called Mr. Romney a liar.
This is why it has taken Republicans until New Hampshire to vet their leading candidate (and they didn’t vet him in 2008, either): criticize Mitt Romney and you’re called a meanie. Most of the people I’ve witnessed using this argument have been in politics longer than I’ve been alive, so unless the landscape has changed recently and I missed the memo, politics is still a bloodsport. No one is calling Romney an “angry little muffin” for doing exactly what Gingrich is doing; the difference is that Romney has a frillion groups and admirers doing it for him so he can keep his mitts clean and appear above the fray. If the tactic seems familiar, it’s because Barack Obama is famous for it. I’m not comparing Obama to Romney, just simply pointing out that they happen to share more in common besides health care.
The base is crying out for someone, anyone in this primary to stop pretending that Romney doesn’t have the gubernatorial record that he has. Those who pretend it doesn’t exist only kneecap themselves. They criticize ads from primary opponents which address Romney’s record. Instead of asking “Is this what the oppo will look like?” they howl over Gingrich quoting a NYT article.
Most media, and even the candidates themselves, coddle Romney at every debate and behave as though less offensive baggage from other candidates is somehow worse than socialized health care at the state level. I may have had my differences with Gingrich on different issues before, but this much I know: he’s not auditioning for a VP job in the event of a still uncertain Romney nomination.
Newt Gingrich is doing what the GOP would do, if they were smart, and testing the mettle of these candidates before the Obama machine does with good ol’ fashioned primary politics.
This was the most social issues-heavy debate of them all. In New Hampshire. It was no coincidence.
In an election cycle where the economy is more important to voters than it’s ever been, focusing on social issues not only lets Obama off the hook, but also paints Republican candidates as “extreme” due to the GOP’s backwards inability to effectively and attractively message values.
In one of the most bizarre debate moments of modern times, candidates were asked whether or not states should be allowed to ban contraceptives, based on the illogical presupposition of a Santorum stance, one which he was not given the courtesy of clarifying before moderators proceeded with their misdirected question. This discussion went on for nearly a half an hour.
Following this, the discussion of gay marriage, which both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry effectively shut down (and the moderators quickly changed subjects) when they pointed out the severe hypocrisy of talking equality in a country that discriminates against Christians, with the example of adoption and the Catholic Charities.
It took 3/4 of the way into the debate before candidates were asked about the economy. During a time when unemployment is, cosmetically, at plus-8% with hundreds of thousands giving up on the workforce entirely (before you celebrate the barely visible dip in the unemployment numbers by way of a shrunken workforce), quite frankly, no one gives a damn about gay marriage. People care even less about contraceptives, which no one believes states should or will ban.
Alan Colmes earlier today made a despicable remark about how the Santorum family grieved over their child, a remark for which he had to later apologize.
Colmes faced off with National Review editor Rich Lowry, who responded to a question on whether or not undecided voters will truly stick by Santorum when it’s time to cast a vote. Colmes answered, saying that his rising support will stop short once people “get a load of some of the crazy things he’s said and done, like taking his two-hour-old baby when it died right after child birth home and played with it so that his other children would know that the child was real.”
Lowry cut off Colmes, calling the statement “a cheap shot.”
“To take something that is that personal and that hurtful as losing a child and mocking it like that … that is beneath you, Alan,” he said. “What you’re saying is contemptible.”
It was more than a cheap shot, it was using someone else’s tragedy to make a political point. The flippant way he described taking baby Gabriel home was an attempt to make light of a horrific time for the Santorum family. They did not take the child home to ”play with him” but because they felt before they sent him to his eternal resting place he should become a “real human being” to his siblings.
He and his wife, Karen, have seven children – including, as Santorum puts it, “the one in Heaven.” Their fourth baby, Gabriel Michael, died in 1996, two hours after an emergency delivery in Karen Santorum’s 20th week of pregnancy. The couple took Gabriel’s body home to let their three other young children see and hold the baby before burying him, according to Karen Santorum’s book of the ordeal, “Letters to Gabriel.”
Santorum’s wife described the aftermath to Gabriel’s death in a heart breaking way.
Gabriel Michael Santorum was born at 12:45 AM on Friday, October 11, 1996. He was a beautiful boy. He did not give a cry or open his tiny eyes. We baptized him, bundled him, and held him ever so close. We sang to him, held his little hands and kissed him. Gabriel lived for two hours. In those two hours something simple but profound happened. Rick and I became parents to a newborn baby and welcomed him into our family. That was all….but it was everything. His life was so brief, yet his impact so great. In two hours we experienced a lifetime of emotions. Love, sorrow, regret, joy—-all were packed into that brief span. To have rejected that experience would have been to reject life itself.
I pray that Colmes never has to face the pain of losing a child to learn what he would do in the face of such a horrible tragedy. He has no right to make light of the pain of others.
Then again, this is the same Alan Colmes who accused Sarah Palin of causing her son’s Downs Syndrome. via Prenatal neglect Not only does that belay genetics at the time it was the most disgusting thing I have ever heard from a liberal commentator. But today Colmes topped himself.
Apparently even Colmes realized he went too far. Santorum appeared on Hannity later in the day and said Colmes apologized.
The Republican presidential primary race isn’t news?
A serious question: is Fox supposed to ignore it? Is MMfA positing that Fox is deliberately excluding coverage of a Democrat primary due to bias? Can MMfA point to me who the Democrat primary candidates are since they suggest that Fox is not giving equal time? Can MMfA provide any clips of the Democratic primary debates?
What? They can’t? Why not?
Because there currently isn’t a primary for Democrats? Because Democrats have an unchallenged incumbent? Democrats have not held any primary debates?
William “Bill” Randall is running for Congress out of the North Carolina 13th. Randall, an African American, experienced what must be called a hate crime in the left’s vernacular. His campaign sign had racist graffiti spray painted on it including the letters “KKK.”
Now, usually this is the sort of story that the Old Media goes wild over. It is prof that racism is alive in America, as far as they are concerned. It is proof that tea partiers, and conservative whites are eeeevil. This is usually the kind of story that would go national, yet the media has delivered a collective yawn to the defacement of Randall’s sign.
Why? Because Bill Randall is not the liberal candidate in his election. He is the conservative Republican!
The Old Media doesn’t care if so-called hate crimes are perpetrated against Republicans. They only care if they are committed against folks on their own, far left, Democrat side of the aisle.
When Perry became a party to the hunting lease from 1997 to 2007, the property was described as northern pasture. His campaign told the press that the Governor hasn’t even been to the site since 2006. And Hugh Hewitt gets it right, “many, many people were interviewed for the story. Only seven recall seeing the rock, and not one of them connect Rick Perry to it, nor do any of the people …”
That’s not journalism.
Anonymous sources tell me that the Washington Post is dying and that race-baiting might accomplish its two objectives: 1) destroy the right-of-center movement, and 2) sell newspapers.
The Randall campaign even made a little parody video about the incident.
Sunday morning is a fun time to rest, relax and get ready for kickoff.
I’ll sometimes watch CBS Sunday Morning to get my fill of artsy fartsy stuff, something funny from Bill Geist, and occasionally an interesting commentary from Ben Stein.
Then I see Nancy Giles do her commentary about Republicans at their recent debates, not so much about the candidates, but about the people in the audience “applauding at the idea of death,” as she says.
Nancy, let me say this as simply as I can, they were not applauding death; they were applauding justice. But, in your narrow, leftist world, that’s all you can see, the potential death of the murderer, not the victims needlessly massacred by a madman. In fact, victims were never mentioned in your little two minute bit. You used your time to mention how bad the crowd was for cheering, how the Republican candidates didn’t repudiate the crowd, and how this guy on death row should be seen as a victim of a crazed mob.
Day two of the CNN/Tea Party Express debate from muggy, sunny Tampa. I arrived on site early this morning for a 6am hit with “American Morning.” All was (mostly) quiet.
Romney and Perry front and center once again.
By the time I left to grab a sandwich, candidates were doing their final walk-throughs and staff was bustling about on golf carts ferrying people to the broadcast tent, loading in refreshments, or going over security. The grounds are absolutely enormous and it’s easy to get lost.
The 2012 Election is still sixteen months away, but the discussions about whether President Obama will be able to retain the same large portion of the Jewish vote as he did in 2008 remains a hot topic for the third straight week. Today the article comes from the Washington Post, whose fact checker Glenn Kessler wrote a piece about Jews and the presidential vote which contained major factual mistakes. These mistakes are designed to call into question the motivation of Republican candidates who support Israel as well as the American Jews who oppose the President’s Middle East policy.
The article, “Obama and Israel: stalled diplomacy or ‘suspicion and distrust’?” begins with quotations from GOP presidential candidates Romney, Pawlenty and Bachmann, all criticizing Obama’s policy toward Israel.
The latest Gallup poll shows that President Obama has 60 percent approval rating among Jewish Americans. Jews generally are a reliable vote for Democrats, and in the 2008 election, exit polls show Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote. That gap has sent GOP hearts aflutter, though the polling should be viewed with caution; 60 percent approval is still 14 percent higher than the president’s overall approval rating.
Still, GOP candidates for president sense an opening. A line attacking Obama and his policies on Israel is now a standard part of their stump speeches. The question is whether these attacks are fair or accurate?
Kessler has a logic flaw here. He is correct in saying that Jews are generally a reliable vote democrats (according to Gallup 66% of Jews are Democrats), since that is the case, why would he compare it to the total population of which only 45% of which are Democrats. Obama’s support from Democrats is much more stable than that of independent and GOP voters. If the Jewish support of Obama is compared to a re-weighted general population approval (66% Democrat) we find that Obama is losing Jewish support much faster than the general population (the full explanation and analysis can be found here).
Should Obama receive only 60% of the Jewish vote in 2012 (which is unlikely), it would be the lowest Democratic total since Jimmy Carter in 1980).
I would also take issue with Kessler’s contention that these candidates are attacking Obama on Israel because they see an opening. While my knowledge of Governor Pawlenty’s Israel history is weak, the other two candidate’s history of supporting Israel is very strong. Michele Bachmann spent time living in Israel on a kibbutz, and Romney made similar strong statements regarding Israel during the 2008 campaign, before Obama was even nominated. Maybe he can’t comprehend the fact that Israel is not just a “Jewish issue.” Some politicians even support Israel because it is the right thing to do for America. Granted it is a foreign concept for a progressive newspaper such as the Washington Post, but it does happen.
Solid Majority of Jewish Americans Still Approve of Obama Changes in approval among Jews continues to reflect broader U.S. patterns.
The problem with the headline is that it is Dishonest.
Assuming the overall Jewish American approval numbers are correct, they gave President Barack Obama a 60% job approval rating in June, down from 68% in May, but statistically unchanged from 64% in April and drastically below the 83% at the beginning of 2009, but its the comparison to the general population that is disingenuous.
Gallup’s monthly trend in Jewish approval of Obama continues to roughly follow the path of all Americans’ approval of the president, more generally, as it has since Obama took office in January 2009. The 14-percentage-point difference in the two groups’ approval ratings in June — 60% among U.S. Jews vs. 46% among all U.S. adults — is identical to the average gap seen over the past two and a half years. However, the monthly graph is somewhat variable due to the lower monthly sample size of Jewish respondents (around 350).
The problem with the comparison is that Jews can’t be compared with the total US Population, they are far more liberal-Democratic than the average voter. According to Gallup US Party affiliation as of May, broke down as follows.
“As yet, nothing wildly exciting has taken place, according to pundits and the analysts, inside the Republican field right now.”
That’s ABC’s Christiane Amanpour working hard to tell Republicans that their field for the presidential nomination sucks right now. Actually, she defers her comments to the “pundits and analysts” who somehow are experts in knowing what is exciting. What would she call exciting? Perhaps if one of the Republican candidates did a “Howard Dean Scream,” or if one of them had a “John Edwards Affair” with one of their staffers during the campaign? Oh ya, the activist old media kept that quiet during the 2008 campaign because apparently that wasn’t the type of “excitement” they wanted.
Did the media miss Herman Cain’s announcement speech in Atlanta? I suggest they watch it if they want to see excitement. The same media that was so captivated (and they still are) by Barack Obama’s race has virtually ignored Cain. Go figure? By the way, if the media loves great speech makers, as they say they do, they might want to watch Cain for that reason as well. He uses no teleprompter, no reverb, and no Greek columns behind him. Maybe if he had, they would’ve called it “exciting.”
Did they miss Mitt Romney raising $10+ million dollars in eight hours in Las Vegas? I was there. It was exciting. Apparently a Republican who has such tremendous support financially from the people doesn’t count as exciting in the minds of the activist old media. Instead Politico uncovers that Newt Gingrich has a revolving account at Tiffany’s in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and Chris Matthew calls it a “big mistake” and that Newt wasn’t “thinking ahead.” Seriously Chris, you want to talk about big mistakes and not thinking ahead? How’s that 14 trillion dollar debt clock workin fer ya? Watching the debt clock rack up faster than lap times at the Indy 500 must be exciting stuff in the minds of the media. Also, Newt used his money, Obama is using ours. (more…)
I don’t mind that Meghan McCain wants to redefine RINOism or, conservative liberalism, as “Republican” because no actual conservative takes it seriously. I do mind that she talks about the tea party without actually knowing the scorecard.
“I think the tea party is dying out a little bit, I think in the last election a lot of their candidates weren’t elected.”
“These people are not as relevant as they say they are,” she said. “I think my father would be president if they were really that powerful.”
No, your father isn’t president because the same people who opposed his nomination later came together to form the tea party (yours truly included). This why she bears it so much hostility. John McCain couldn’t even get enough Republicans to vote for him, to say nothing of independents.
You hear this mantra everywhere in the activist old media, “The Republican candidates for president are flawed,” “Republicans are not happy with their candidates.”
George Stephanopoulos goes to the “Smart Screen” on Good Morning America with the latest poll/editorial that tells us that Republicans are dissatisfied with their candidates for President. It’s all right there — if the Smart Screen says it, who can doubt it?
Nobody has declared for the White House on the Republican side and already the media is working as hard as it can to diminish the field. Humm, wonder why they would want to do that? Basically the media is saying, “We don’t know what the field is yet, but we know Republicans don’t like it.” What they are really saying is that they don’t like it.
I happen to rather like the field of potential candidates for President. No Presidential candidate in our lifetime has accomplished the things Mitt Romney has accomplished. Along with being a brilliant businessman, he saved the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and showed his ability to negotiate with foreign leaders when he convinced them to display the torn and tattered flag from 9-11 during the Opening Ceremonies (no flag is to be singled out during the Opening Ceremonies, this one was,) another accomplished businessman, Herman Cain has shown his ability to build a strong nation through free enterprise—imagine that? Godfathers Pizza has been rather successful over the years and it didn’t happen by accident.
If you’re tired of hearing me remind you that the corrupt MSM’s 2012 gameplan is to keep a relentlessly hostile spotlight on the Right in order to ensure Obama’s re-election, you’re going to get a lot more tired of it before this is all over. Simply put, if 2012 is a referendum on Obama, he loses, and so the media will stop at nothing to target the Right and make the election all about us for the next 19 months. Any narrative that can be created to destroy us will be, and as you’ll see below, the MSM track is already being laid to create an insidious wedge between Republicans and the crucial Independents Obama will need to recapture the White House.
We’ll start with the Today Show’s Matt Lauer. Please listen closely (you’ll have to scroll down some at the NewsBusters page):
“…and when you look at some of the things the Tea Party and others on the far right….”
One of the Left’s favorite rhetorical tricks is to oh-so casually state the most dishonest and outrageous things; the idea being to send a message that this is now a settled matter and no longer in dispute — a well-known, universally accepted fact. See how that works? Lauer knows exactly what he’s doing here. He’s sending a message to millions of Americans that the Tea Party is “far right,” is scary and extremist. And naturally this all fits into a larger puzzle the corrupt MSM is currently fitting together about the “scary” Republican Party as a whole — you know, as opposed to President Obama aka Mr. Calm, Cool and Reasonably Centrist.
The plan? Scare the crucial Independent vote back into the Obama 2012 camp. Isn’t that obvious?
Furthermore, do you think Lauer ever uses the term “Far Left” to describe MoveOn, Media Matters, or the Daily Kos? A good faith search of Google and Media Matters says no.
My next example is even worse. But first some background on one of my favorite “journalists,” who really should be one of yours… one Mr. Jonathan Martin of Politico.
When can you call the most powerful person in the world a victim of those conniving right-wing radicals in the US Senate? When you’re Chris Matthews and you have your own little silly Sunday show, you can.
Watch the video, it’s at the end and it’s almost lost in the debate over who should be Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.” Matthews goes with Mitch McConnell. Why? Because he is the person who made Barack Obama become the Cold Hearted Social Engineer that he is and thus helped the Republican sweep the November mid-terms.
“It’s Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader who forced the president to the left on every issue from health care to the stimulus. He made him into a left wing president because of Republican policy. It was brilliant. It allowed the Republicans to have a brilliant political year, I’m not sure it’s was in the country’s interest, but he made the big difference this year.”
Where to go on this one here? There are loads of fascinating peeks into the mind of Matthews in this one paragraph.
First, Matthews thinks it’s McConnell who “forced” Obama to the left. He must have never really been there to begin with, like an innocent child who is made to eat his broccoli; Obama was forced to take that radical leftist medicine that he never really wanted in the first place.
Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and Saul Alinskiy had nothing to do with who Obama is today, he never heard any of their speeches, read any of their books, nor believed any of their radical leftist ideals. Obama made more left turns than a NASCAR weekend at Bristol only after McConnell forced him there a few short months ago.
Who is this little weakling in the White House? What does it say about Dear Leader that he is being pushed around so easily by the guy whose claim to fame is that he runs the minority?
I should explain again as I do every week to the viewers as a kind of a viewer’s guide that this is the weekly Sarah Palin segment in which the impression is given that the whole of conservatism in America is encapsulated in this one glorious woman?
[...]
I think in the liberal imagination she is and will always be the only representative of conservatism of any importance.
On my Twitter account, I follow a few hundred mainstream media-types (keep the enemy closer, right?), and unless I've missed it (and I hope I have), not a single one has spoken out in defense of Roland Martin. Not one. How scary is that. The politically correct Groupthink...
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Got a Tip?