Political Ruminations

Pictures of the Day

Good times at the RNC last night. Here’s Clint Eastwood lecturing an empty chair; the chair an apparent stand-in for President Obama. 

And President Obama’s response in the form of a tweet,  was a thing of beauty.

(Damn right it’s taken!)

UPDATE SEPT 2: Pres. Obama’s tweet which linked to the chair pic turns out to have been the most retweeted tweet of the RNC Convention according to Twitter.

Morning Quote: Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney tries to blame Democrats for the contraception wars (which culminated in the bombing of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin)  and blusters his way through an interview with the right wing website, Newsmax:

“But there's no question that over the past several weeks, that a discussion about religious liberty was distorted into a discussion about contraceptives. And there was the somehow Republicans are opposed to contraceptives. I think it was most unfortunate twist by our Democrat friends. I think this will pass as an issue as people understand our real position.”

There has been no misunderstanding by Democrats of Republican positions on women’s concerns, Mr. Romney.

And, apparently Independent women understand the Republican position as well. Taegan Goddard:

The Washington Post digs into the latest USA Today-Gallup poll of a dozen battleground states and notes that "among independent women -- a key group of swing voters -- Obama had been trailing Romney by five points in a series of surveys late last year. But that number shifted dramatically in polling conducted in February and March, and the president took a 14-point lead over the former Massachusetts governor, marking a net gain of 19 points."

When Reince Priebus,  the Chairman of the Republican National Committee feels free to publicly make a remark such as this one, it becomes crystal clear exactly how Republicans feel about women.

Morning Quote: Reince Priebus

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on the GOP war on women:

“If the Democrats said we had a war on caterpillars and every mainstream media outlet talked about the fact that Republicans have a war on caterpillars, then we’d have problems with caterpillars. It’s a fiction.”

Obama administration may create more jobs this year alone, than Bush did during his 8 years in office

There’s a GOP meme going round The Twitter concerned with who created more jobs……..Bush or Obama. As if. Hope this helps to clear it up. Via Think Progress:

While Steele is “almost confident” that Bush created jobs, the facts disagree. As the Wall Street Journal noted in the last month of Bush’s term — in an article that Burnett references on air while fact checking Steele — Bush’s job data “shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” A paltry 1 million jobs were created under Bush; that’s “a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration.” Even President Carter — who conservatives love to cite as the paragon of poor economic management, and who only served one term — created 10.5 million jobs. That’s more than three times as many jobs as Bush, in half as much time. More jobs may be created under Obama in this year alone than in Bush’s eight.

The Journal article doesn’t even account for the jobs lost after it was published due to Bush’s economic policy, and before President Obama’s began to take effect, as this chart demonstrates:

Someone tell me, please. Is it a requirement to be a liar in order to become a member of the GOP?