8 reasons why Romney is more right-wing than Bush

From ThinkProgress - here's three of the eight:

1. Bush passed a huge tax cut plan, mostly benefiting the wealthy. Romney’s tax cut plan is four times larger, more heavily weighted to benefit ultra wealthy.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Passed $2.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, 12.5% benefiting the top 1/10 of 1%. [ThinkProgress, 2/22/12; David Cay Johnston. 3/1/12]

MITT ROMNEY: Proposing $10.7 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years, 33% benefiting the top 1/10 of 1%. [ThinkProgress, 2/22/12; David Cay Johnston. 3/1/12]

2. Bush signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Romney supports repealing virtually all campaign finance laws.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Signed into law the landmark McCain–Feingold campaign finance reform, which put restrictions on “soft money” and limitations on spending from outside groups. [White House, 03/27/02]

MITT ROMNEY: Strongly defended the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which overturned key provisions McCain–Feingold. Supports repealing virtually all campaign finance laws. [Mitt Romney, 2/18/10; ThinkProgress, 12/21/11]

3. Bush supported comprehesive immigration reform, a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants and provisions of the DREAM Act. Romney opposes all of it.
GEORGE W. BUSH: Supported comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for 12 million undocumented immigrants and provisions of the DREAM Act. [Reuters, 6/29/07; White House, 10/24/07]

MITT ROMNEY: Opposes comprehensive immigration reform and opposes providing a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants and the DREAM Act. [Fox News, 04/03/12; ABC, 12/31/12]

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Former DC Mayor Marion Barry labeled a racist for anti-Asian comments

The man appears to have series issues with Asian people.  There's just too much of a trend of nasty anti-Asian comments.  And he's a city council member of a minority-majority city.

At a hearing Monday on the University of the District of Columbia’s budget, he spoke about the need to train more African Americans to become nurses. In a video of his remarks aired by WTTG-TV, Barry noted a growing number of nurses are “immigrants” from the Philippines.

“[I]f you go to the hospital now, you’ll find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” said Barry (D-Ward 8). “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses, and so that we don’t have to go scrounging in our community clinics and other kinds of places, having to hire people from somewhere else.”

The National Federation of Filipino American Associations called Barry’s remarks “racist” and “bigoted.”

HuffPost puts the comments in the larger context of Barry's other nasty quips about Asians.

“We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops,” Barry said. “They ought to go. I’m going to say that right now. But we need African-American businesspeople to be able to take their places, too.”

Why write about this idiot? Because there's a larger history of bad relations between the black and Asian communities in this country, and the notion of Asian businesses somehow carpetbagging their way into black neighorhoods. That's what's likely influencing Barry's comments, and he's only feeding the racism, and mutual dislike and distrust, between the communities by speaking like this, repeatedly.

The man really is an idiot. I was asked by a Swedish friend last night how idiot conservatives were elected to parliament in his country. I told him that it happened in politics wordlwide. Marion Barry is a great, local, example. Read the rest of this post...

If the GOP candidates were teens on Twitter

From College Humor (an excerpt):

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Orszag on the impending "Taxmageddon"

Former OMB director Peter Orszag, who's now with Citigroup:

The nation is hurtling toward what has been called “taxmageddon,” the enormous tax increases and spending cuts scheduled for the beginning of 2013. At around the same time, we will also be spending some more quality time with our old friend: the debt limit.

At the end of this year, all the Bush tax cuts expire -- amounting to about $250 billion a year. The payroll-tax holiday, at more than $100 billion a year, ends too, as do expanded unemployment-insurance benefits. And we face other spending cuts of about $100 billion, from the sequester set up by the 2011 debt-limit deal. All told, this fiscal tightening adds up to about $500 billion -- or more than 3 percent of gross domestic product. The economy will be in no shape to handle that much of a squeeze. If we do nothing to reduce or stop it, the economy could be thrown back into a recession. As if that were not challenging enough, we are expected to bump back up against the debt limit, which currently stands at $16.4 trillion. Projections suggest we will approach the limit in the fourth quarter of 2012. Then, the Treasury secretary will take temporary measures to allow continued issuance of debt. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates those actions will get us to February 2013 -- at which point we will hit the debt-limit wall. If the economy is weaker than expected, it will widen the deficit faster, and we’ll hit the wall sooner.

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GOP committee chair calls Obama admin "most corrupt government in history"

And House Committee chair Darrel Issa knows a thing or two (or three) about corruption.

Last year Rep. Darrell Issa retracted his statement that President Barack Obama was one of the most corrupt presidents in modern history, saying he should have parsed his words more carefully.

Tuesday, the California Republican's more careful parsing apparently included declaring Obama's government the most corrupt in history.

"We are busy in Washington with a corrupt government, with a government that I said more than a year ago was perhaps -- because of the money, because of the amount of TARP and stimulus funds -- was going to be the most corrupt government in history, and it is proving to be that, just exactly that," Issa said in a Bloomberg television interview.

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Horrid House Blue Dog Tim Holden defeated by Progressive Matt Cartwright

In fracking-filled Pennsylvania (check this map), blood-red Blue Dog Tim Holden lost last night in his primary battle against real progressive Matt Cartwright.

First from AP (my emphasis everywhere and some reparagraphing, 'cause, you know):

U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, Pennsylvania's longest-serving congressman, lost his re-election bid in the Democratic primary[.] ... Holden, who was elected to Congress in 1992 and was one of its conservative, so-called Blue Dog Democrats, lost Tuesday to personal injury attorney Matt Cartwright, who spent nearly $400,000 in the race.

A lot of that money came from BlueAmerica. Here's Howie Klein, BlueAmerica treasurer, on the victory:

Something very rare happened tonight, something that will send a chill down the spines of members of the Democratic establishment: a true blue progressive unseated a tired Blue Dog congressman. We were told it was impossible. Pennsylvania's Matt Cartwright just proved them all wrong. ...

They had a choice and they chose the progressive candidate who would stand up for working families instead of corporations and who believes that individual liberty applies to women as well as men.

Here's something a little more direct (from the same Facebook page):

Tonight Democrats in Pennsylvania told Hoyer and Israel and Wasserman Schultz to go take a flying leap as they defeated their hackish corrupt Blue Dog, Tim Holden, and replaced him with progressive Matt Cartwright for U.S. Congress.

With 447 of 449 precincts reporting, Cartwright beat Hoyer's corrupt Blue Dog 33,102 (57%) to 24,871 (43%). Holden lost all the big population centers. Cartwright ran up solid majorities in Lackawanna (78%). Luzerne (71%), Northampton (55%) and Monroe (64%). Grassroots Democrats in other states should take up the banner.

Don't trust anyone endorsed by the DCCC. Check them out carefully first. Most will be worthless shills like the majority of the people on the Red-to-Blue List of Shame.

Hmm, DCCC ... DCCC ... Where have we heard that name before?

Ah yes, DCCC are the so-called Democrats taking "oppose the War on Women" money and then supposedly standing aside in the MI-03 primary — a battle between proven Planned Parenthood defunder Steve Pestka (yes, he actually cast that vote) and real progressive Trevor Thomas.

Two choices, folks — we can fight (as Matt Cartwright did) or bail (as many of us would like to do; I get that). Me, I'm in a fighting frame of mind. If you're the same, join the battle in Michigan and support Trevor Thomas. His primary is August 7.

Want to learn more on the DCCC and the Michigan-03 race? Go here; it'll curdle your morning milk. Yes, that DCCC.

(Update: Fixed donate link.)

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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It's art, but is it racist?

A mini-scandal here in Sweden over the Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, showing up at an event and cutting a cake that's a caricature of an obese African minstrel woman.  At first glance, it sure looks racist.

Of course, the issue is a bit more complicated.

The artist who made the cake is black (does that matter?). And he's actually the head of the cake.  Each time a guest slices a piece of the blood red cake, the artist moans in agony (see video below).  The message seems pretty clearly one lampooning the cake-cutters as racist, rather than a message that's racist against blacks or Africans.



But.

It's not entirely clear to me that, when a government official is presented with the prospect of carving up a caricature of a black person, the government official should happily oblige. I get that the art is intended to fight racism. But does it?  And what happens when a government official plays along with the joke/art?  Some have asked whether the government would play along with a cake carving up a Jew, or a Muslim?  How about a fetus?

I do think, first of all, that the minister is an idiot for carving the cake. She must have known what the optics would be like, and that the photos of her carving the cake would look per se racist. But is she racist for carving the cake and going along with the joke/political lesson? Of that I'm not so sure. In the end, the cake seems to have been made so that the guest would cut it up, and that the visual would send an anti-racism message. One could argue that the minister was simply a willing pawn in helping to spread that message.

In the end, is this a cake that was never intended to be eaten at all?  Wasn't the point to make the guests uncomfortable carving the cake, so that the only "good" person is one who refuses to carve the cake, period?  In a way, I'm starting to find the cake quite a brilliant statement. The guests who were willing to carve the cake with a laugh, less so.

What do you think? Take a look at the video and let me know what you think in the comments. Read the rest of this post...

The return of mad cow in the US?

Let's hope this is an isolated incident and nothing more. Besides the obvious health impact, this is likely to have a negative impact on US beef exports not to mention a slow down in the US.

Clifford, the government's chief veterinary officer at the agriculture department, had quickly called his counterparts in Mexico and Canada, the first and second-largest buyers of U.S. beef, to tell them about a California cow found to have an "atypical" type of the brain-wasting disease. Having taken up his post in May 2004, just six months after the first U.S. case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy was discovered, he knows that sharing information quickly during the next 24 hours -- and in the weeks ahead -- will be vital for reassuring consumers, both domestic and foreign. "It's critically important for the trust and continuing of the trade between those countries," Clifford said in an interview, trying to pre-empt concerns about the nation's herd that could send the multi-billion U.S. industry into another tailspin.

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Video: Mitt Romney's awkward bonding tour of America

This is awfully good.  And it just get worse and worse as the video goes on.  Watch the entire thing.

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Russian scientists search for only known white killer whale

You have to click through to see the video of Iceberg, the killer whale. It's amazing to see the what they claim is the only all white killer whale in the world. (Which sounds doubtful, but possible.) Read the rest of this post...