Political Ruminations

Morning Quote: Newt Gingrich

“We discovered last night that Mitt Romney has picked up Charlie Crist’s campaign manager. I thought that told you everything you need to know about this primary. As governor of Massachusetts [Romney] was pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, pro-tax increase and pro- gun control. Now that makes you a moderate in Massachusetts but it makes you pretty liberal in a Republican primary. That’s probably why he hired Charlie Crist’s staff.”

- In St. Petersburg, Florida, Newt Gingrich sought to tie Mitt Romney to Charlie Crist, the moderate former Florida governor who became persona-non-grata in the GOP as he became more liberal. Crist left the GOP in 2010.

Morning Quote: Newt Gingrich is Special

“I think that my ability to organize and orchestrate things would be vastly greater than a normal politician.”

- Newt Gingrich during an interview in Tampa yesterday. 

Via Taegan Goddard

Morning Quote: Newt Gingrich

David Gregory talks to Newt Gingrich on ‘Meet the Press” yesterday about Gingrich’s lobbying activities for mortgage giants, Fannie and Freddie:

“You are running against the establishment, you're trying to run as an outsider. You talk about housing in Florida. You were a consultant, or, depending on your point of view, a lobbyist for one of the mortgage giants. I'm wondering how you think you win that inside-outside game, given your history.”

A Gingrich now on the offensive, responds to Gregory, denying any lobbying activity ever. So there.

“David, wait a second, David. David, you know better than that. I was not a lobbyist, I was never a lobbyist, I never did any lobbying. Don't try to mix these things up. The fact is I was an adviser strategically and if you look at the only thing ever published by Freddie Mac, I said you need more regulations. If you look at the only article ever written about my talking to the Congress, it was in the New York Times in July of 2008, and I said do not give them any money.

Now I opposed giving money to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I think they should both be broken up into four or five much smaller companies and I've long felt that. And so I think that to jump from one to the other is simply wrong. In Florida, my case is going to be very simple. You have a clear establishment candidate in Mitt Romney. Look where his money comes from, look at his background, look what he did in Massachusetts. And you have somebody whose entire career has been a Reagan populist conservative going all the way back to the 1970s.

I think that's a pretty clear contrast, and I think Floridians would like somebody who speaks for them to Washington, not somebody who speaks to the establishment to them.”

Watch the video of Gingrich denying the lobbyist claim:

Media Matters weighs in on Gingrich’s "I was not a lobbyist" claim:

The holes in Gingrich's "I was not a lobbyist" argument have been demonstrated several times over. Politifact gave the claim a "Half-True" rating, noting that it's depressingly easy and common for "consultants" who provide "strategic advice" (which is how Gingrich's campaign explained his relationship with Freddie Mac) to essentially function as lobbyists without having to register as such. The Washington Post called Gingrich's denials of being a lobbyist "clearly misleading," laying out all the known details of Gingrich's dealings with the mortgage giant.

Morning Quote III: Newt Gingrich's Conservatism

“I'm clearly the more conservative candidate, by any rational standard. And, and I had a 90% American Conservative Union standing for twenty years. I helped Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp develop supply-side (trickle down) economics. I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress. I helped, uh, as Speaker of the House balance the federal budget for four straight years. Reform welfare as an entitlement. The first tax cuts in sixteen years. I mean…take whatever your list of what conservatism is, and I've done that stuff.”

- In an interview on Fox yesterday, GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich makes the case for his conservatism vs. that of Mitt Romney. Joe Scarborough doesn't buy it.

Quote of the Day II

Rachel Maddow on Speaker of the House John Boehner’s (R-OH) reaction to President Obama’s announcement that he has a jobs plan, soon to be released:

“This is what John Boehner is like as speaker of the House. The president announces job creation ideas that the speaker rejects. The president announces he`ll release a whole new big job creation plan, the speaker says plan? Where is this plan? Dude, that`s the point. That`s the announcement. When somebody says here comes this plan, expect it on this date -- you don’t respond with where is the plan? Who even does that?”

Watch (the segment that contains the quote is at approx. 7:11):

Idiot Quote of the Day - Michele Bachmann

Presidential hopeful, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), claims that her election as president would mean lower prices at the pump:

“The day that the president became president gasoline was $1.79 a gallon. Look at what it is today. Under President Bachmann, you will see gasoline come down below $2 a gallon again. That will happen.”

Is she right? Not in the sense of her implication that Obama is at fault.

Think Progress addressed this issue in June when Exxon claimed it had found abundant oil supplies in the Gulf. That “abundant supply” would provide only enough oil for 9 days worth of global oil consumption. 

Setting aside that big ‘if’, while 700 million barrels is enough to ruin the Gulf if we get another blowout, it represents only 9 days of global oil consumption — and roughly one month’s worth of U.S. consumption.

The discovery doesn’t prove we have ‘abundant’ oil reserves, as Hastings claims.  It proves the exact opposite, that ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ can’t solve our problems.  Steve Greenlee, president of Exxon Mobil’s exploration business, unintentionally admitted that when he said, “This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade.”

There just isn’t enough oil in the Gulf to make a dent in our addiction.  A 2009 report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Impact of Limitations on Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Federal Outer Continental Shelf” analyzed the difference between full offshore drilling and restriction to offshore drilling.

The EIA found that there is no impact on U.S. gasoline prices whatsoever in 2020.  Gasoline prices would be a mere three cents a gallon lower in 2030. So much for Drill, Baby, Drill.

The fact is that that oil prices have been soaring in spite of the fact that U.S. domestic oil production has also been soaring, “to its highest level in almost a decade,” as EIA’s own data shows:

And, you should know that Barack Obama is not the only president to have seen gas prices double during his administration, and as you’ll see laid out in the linked article, gas prices are affected by the economy, as well as by supply and demand in general.

In January 2005 when Bush was inaugurated for a second time, gas cost $1.83 per gallon. That bargain didn't last long.

Gas prices shot up rapidly as the U.S. economy heated up and oil topped $100 per barrel. Gas soared to a national average of $4.11 in July 2008. That's a rise of about 125 percent.

Then the bubble burst.

Currently, gas prices are high (oil is again over $100 per barrel) because demand is high due to an economy that's heating up.

The takeaway is that  an economy slowing or crashing means demand is lower so our gas costs less. An economy heating up correlates to higher prices at the pump as demand becomes greater.

Is that so difficult to understand?

Watch Rep. Bachmann spew:

Morning Quote: Rep. Joe Walsh

U.S. Congressman, Tea Party-Republican and deadbeat dad famewhore-freshman Liar, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) to President Obama in Walsh’s now viral video, emphasis mine:

“President Obama, quit lying. Have you no shame, sir? In three short years, you’ve bankrupted this country.”

“I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money.”

Rep. Walsh to his ex-wife’s lawyer who asked the judge to suspend Walsh’s  drivers license until Walsh-the-deadbeat-dad pays $100,000+(for his 3 children) in back child support:

“Have you no decency?”

Seriously. You can not make this stuff up.

Morning Quote: Sarah Palin

A History in Quotes of Sarah Palin’s TARP Hypocrisy

In an interview on Fox News last night, Sarah Palin’s TARP hypocrisy showed up again, as she denigrated President Obama for his support of TARP,  never mentioning that she had also supported TARP:

“Scaring the American people is exactly what President Obama is doing. In that bizarre speech that he gave last night, it reminded me of when he insisted that TARP had to be passed -- it was life-or-death, at that time, also.”

Palin on TARP in 2010, during a speech at the Tea Party Convention:

“Today, in the words of Congressman Paul Ryan, the $700 billion TARP has morphed into crony capitalism at its worst, and it's becoming a slush fund for the Treasury Department's favorite big players, just as we had been warned about. And while people on Main Street look for jobs, people on Wall Street, they're collecting billions and billions in your bailout bonuses. Among the top 17 companies that received your bailout money, 92 percent of the senior officers and directors, they still have their good jobs, and every day Americans are wondering, where are the consequences for they -- helping to get us into this worst economic situation since the Great Depression? Where are the consequences?”

Watch the video:

In 2009, Palin berated House Republicans who voted against TARP in her book,  Going Rogue:

“The House of Representatives rejected a Bush-backed economic bailout plan in a vote in which two-thirds of Republicans voted no. The impression this made on the electorate was not helpful to our cause. Millions of Americans were poised to go bankrupt or lose their savings, and the perception was that Republicans had failed to respond.” 

Palin on TARP in 2008 during an interview with Katie Couric:

“That’s why I say, I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in, where it is the taxpayers looking to bailout. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy—helping the—Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track… And trade we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.”

Watch the Video:

Palin on TARP in 2008, during an interview with CNN:

“Now, as for the economic bailout provisions and the measures that have already been taken, it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in playing an appropriate role to shore up the housing market to make sure that we're thawing out some of the potentially frozen credit lines and credit markets, government did have to step in there.”

Another Stupid Palin Thing

Sarah Palin is special. And other potential GOP candidates may not criticize her. Broadway Carl:

Newly hired Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins told us what he thought of Palin in no uncertain terms. "Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," she was pulled from obscurity and given the gift of a VP nomination, and she quit as Governor of Alaska when not being in the spotlight didn't suit her. All of what he said was true.

Palin’s response to Ed Rollins:

"Beltway political strategist Ed Rollins has a long, long track record of taking high profile jobs and promptly sticking his foot in his mouth," said Sarah PAC chief of staff Michael Glassner in an emailed statement. "To no one's surprise he has done it again, while also fueling a contrived narrative about the presidential race by the mainstream media. One would expect that his woodshed moment is coming and that a retraction will be issued soon."

Ed Rollin’s “retraction”:

Michele Bachmann adviser Ed Rollins' response to the sharp criticisms from Sarah Palin's world just now was to "let it go."

But he didn't go quietly, telling me, "I haven't lived in Washington D.C. in 15 years, and I've been taken to the woodshed by the big boys."

"As far as we're concerned, it's not" an ongoing fight, he insisted. "This was my one comment, which I shouldn't have made, at the end of the day this has nothing to do with Michele, Michele's campaign, or any of the rest of it. This was my transition from being an analyst to a political strategist, and I missed a step."

..."What's the retraction? I say she's serious?"

This would be funny if it weren’t so utterly pathetic.

If Sarah Palin can’t handle a little criticism, or perhaps unflattering commentary, she needs to go home and stop thrusting herself in to the public sphere.

Channeling Piper Palin

I am almost at a complete loss for words. The Conservative website, The American “Thinker”, has a post up wherein the author, Betsy M. Galliher, “channels” Piper Palin, Sarah Palin’s 10-year-old daughter.

As Oliver Willis said, “easily the creepiest thing you’ll see on the Internet today”, and “ick”.

“I’ve met a lot of nice people who really like my mom. They thank her for not being afraid to defend real, American values. Maybe that’s what the media can’t figure out — why so many people believe in my mom when the super-smart media tells them not to. It’s kind of like my 4th grade class elections. My friend Sally was running, but a group of really mean girls made up lies about her because they wanted their friend elected, and then everyone turned on Sally. I don’t think people even believed the lies, but they were scared those girls might say things about them, or make fun of them, so they just went along with it. Well, also Sally promised free ice cream to everyone in the lunchroom.

My mom isn’t so much bothered by what people think she is, especially the media. That’s why she’s not afraid to go to places like the East Coast, where probably not everybody likes her. I mean President Obama won’t even go on FOX News since the Super Bowl or visit a Tea Party rally. What is he so afraid of?”

Sickos.

Murdoch’s Tabloid Punks Mainstream Media

In the realm of the bizarre and stupid, did you happen to see the media blitz about the mom who was purportedly giving her 7-year-old daughter Botox injections? I did, I fell for it, and I was utterly furious at the mom, yelling at her on my television during an ABC broadcast.

Watch:

Today we learned that it was a scam, a hoax, a media invention. Media punking media. You’d think that the media would learn to investigate more carefully. From TMZ via Chris Weigant, emphasis mine:

TMZ has obtained a sworn declaration written by Sheena Upton, who claims she was recently approached by the British tabloid, The Sun, and asked "to play the role of Kerry Campbell" for a story called "I Give My 8-Year-Old Daughter Botox."
Upton now confesses The Sun paid her $200 adding, "I was provided with the story, instructions and a script to follow for a recorded interview."
After the story ran in The Sun, Upton says she was approached by "Good Morning America" and "Inside Edition" and claims she was offered  "a large fee" to appear on camera.  She went on both shows and re-told her story.
After the interview, child welfare officials took Upton's daughter away.
Upton now admits in her declaration, "The truth is I have never given my daughter Botox, nor allowed her to get any type of waxing, nor is she a beauty pageant contestant."
Upton says professionals agree with her declaration, because on May 17, she took her daughter to the UCLA Medical Center and says, "After my daughter received a full medical exam, the results indicated that she has not ever received treatments including Botox or other such injections."
We're told the UCLA reports were forwarded to child welfare officials, who then returned Upton's daughter to her, with the provison that a cousin would stay with her and the child for the time being.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the owner of “The Sun” is none other than Rupert Murdoch, also the owner of the much despised right-wing message machine, Fox Network.

Morning Quote: Rick Santorum

In March, GOP presidential hopeful and lunatic, Rick Santorum said we should go to war over “moral” values:

“America is about an idea, and it has to be about shared value, or what is it? What is it? And that's why these moral issues, that everyone says oh, maybe we should step to the side and have a truce on, you can't. It is who we are. It is the purpose of our country. And I have been out fighting the wars on these moral issues.”

Watch:

Rick Santorum is the anti-gay, anti-abortion guy who is running on these social issues. Never mind health reform or jobs. Or anything important or non-discriminatory, for that matter.

President Obama Releases Long Form Birth Certificate as the World Laughs at American Idiocy

Can you hear the sound of balloons popping all over the country as Birthers deflate?

Watch:

 

Morning Quote: Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca on the “accomplishments” of the 112th Congress thus far:

Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and John Boehner have introduced ideologically far-right, inconsequential and symbolic bills that kill Planned Parenthood and NPR. They've passed legislation that cuts spending for pregnant women. They've passed legislation that magically circumvents the constitutional lawmaking process. They refuse to raise taxes on the rich while trying to gut Medicaid and kill Medicare, even though supermajorities of Americans support both of these crucial healthcare programs -- including majority support from tea party Republicans.

Morning Quote: Nicole Sandler

Progressive radio personality, Nicole Sandler on Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget plan cause, and how Ryan's  insane plan would affect Medicare, emphasis mine:

The thing that everyone needs to be screaming/blogging/talking about is the fact that Ryan’s budget cause would do to Medicare what George W. Bush wanted to do to Social Security – kill it!  W failed in that quest.  Thank goodness.  Because if he had been successful in privatizing Social Security, he would have killed it – along with millions of seniors who would have lost everything when the banksters crashed our economy with the help and blessings of that administration.