August 2012
July 2012
Republicans aren't just occasionally taking Obama quotes out of context; they're actually building their entire 2012 campaign strategy around sentiments the president didn't actually say. →
maddowblog.msnbc.com
As we discussed last week, at this point in the race, Republicans aren’t just occasionally taking Obama quotes out of context; they’re actually building their entire 2012 campaign strategy around sentiments the president didn’t actually say. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.
Let’s start a running count:
1. The Romney campaign took Obama out of context in its very first television ad of the race.
2. When the president told business leaders that U.S. policymakers have been “a little bit lazy” when it comes to attracting businesses to American soil, Republicans took that out of context and launched a series of attacks.
3. When Obama said private-sector job growth is “fine” relative to the public sector, Republicans took that out of context, too.
4. Obama said public institutions help businesses succeed, and Republicans continue to take that out of context.
And 5. Obama said Clinton’s tax policies were better than Bush’s, which the RNC is taking out of context.
Remember, in theory, none of this should be necessary. If the president were the radical leftist his attackers make him out to be, Republicans wouldn’t have to resort to cheap garbage like this. They’d be able to use real Obama quotes and real Obama policies.
Instead, we’re left with ridiculous tactics that treat voters like idiots.
E.J. Dionne: Mitt Romney and the go-for-broke election - The Washington Post →
washingtonpost.com
E.J. Dionne writes:
Here are the two great campaign mysteries at midsummer: Why does Mitt Romney appear to be getting so much traction from ripping a few of President Obama’s words out of context? And why aren’t Romney and other Republicans moving to the political center as the election approaches? Both mysteries point to an important fact about the 2012 campaign: For conservatives, this is a go-for-broke election. They and a Republican Party now under their control hope to eke out a narrow victory in November on the basis of a quite radical program that includes more tax cuts for the rich, deep reductions in domestic spending, big increases in military spending and a sharp rollback in government regulation.
In the process, the right hopes to redefine middle-of-the-road policies as “left wing,” thereby altering the balance in the American political debate.
What should alarm both liberals and moderates is that this is the rare election in which such a strategy has a chance of succeeding. Conservatives have their opening not because the country has moved far to the right but courtesy of economic discontent, partisan polarization and the right’s success in defining Obama as standing well to the left of where he actually does.
Update: 11 year old trans girl lost appeal →
translate.google.com
The above article is an update. Her mother went to appeal to keep her out of the psychiatric ward and lost. She will be institutionalized because of her expression of her gender. She will be held until she conforms to male gender and then released to foster care, not her mother who was supporting her.
Please, if you haven’t signed the petition, sign it, reblog it, ask your friends to sign it. We’ve managed to get 40K signatures for a pageant model, we’ve only gotten 11K for a little girl about to have her life ruined. Lets get on the ball and spread the word.
I literally just repeated the f-word until I ran out of breath.
Let me catch my breath. I may go on a cursing spree again as soon as I get it back.
Seriously people…
WHY THE FUCK AREN’T PEOPLE REBLOGGING THIS??
To think, people still ask why I seem so disgusted by humanity.
“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”
—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. (via riverran)
“I want all these young people to be getting a higher education, and I don’t want them loaded up with tens of thousands of dollars of debt just to get an education. That’s how we make America great.
Of course, that means all of you all have got to hit the books. I’m just saying. Don’t cheer and then you didn’t do your homework.
Because that’s part of the bargain, that’s part of the bargain—America says we will give you opportunity, but you’ve got to earn your success.
You’re competing against young people in Beijing and Bangalore. They’re not hanging out. They’re not playing video games. They’re not watching “Real Housewives.” I’m just saying. It’s a two-way street. You’ve got to earn success.
That wasn’t in my prepared remarks. But I’m just saying.” —President Obama today, keeping it real (via barackobama)
Of course, that means all of you all have got to hit the books. I’m just saying. Don’t cheer and then you didn’t do your homework.
Because that’s part of the bargain, that’s part of the bargain—America says we will give you opportunity, but you’ve got to earn your success.
You’re competing against young people in Beijing and Bangalore. They’re not hanging out. They’re not playing video games. They’re not watching “Real Housewives.” I’m just saying. It’s a two-way street. You’ve got to earn success.
That wasn’t in my prepared remarks. But I’m just saying.” —President Obama today, keeping it real (via barackobama)
“I’m not putting you down, I’m saying what you do is a form of pollution that makes us dumber and meaner and is ruining civilization. I’m saying, with all possible respect, that I would have more respect for you if you were a heroin dealer.”
—Will McAvoy
Newsroom (via rule110)
Newsroom (via rule110)
“
With a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium, has freedom! So out of 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.
And yea, you, sorority girl; Just in case you ever wander into a voting booth one day, there’s some things you should know, and one of them is there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force, and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending; Where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies! Now, none of this is the fault of a 20 year old college student, but you nonetheless are, without a doubt, a member of the worst generation ever.
So when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed. We cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We made big great things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy.
We reached for the stars, we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it. It didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed by great men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing that there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world.
” —Will McAvoy - The Newsroom (via nothingsatisfys)"The truth? Most of life is hell. It’s filled with failure and loss. People disappoint you, dreams don’t work out, hearts get broken, innocent journalists die, and the best moments of life, when everything comes together, are few and fleeting, but you will never get to the next great moment if you don’t keep going. So that’s what I do, I keep going."
-Elaine Barrish (Sigourney Weaver), Political Animals
- Black guy kills some people.
- Society: Criminal.
- Muslim guy kills some people.
- Society: Terrorist.
- Latino guy kills some people.
- Society: Criminal.
- White guy kills some people.
- Society: Mental illness. (lost soul, complicated psyche, quiet loner, misunderstood, frustrated with life, experienced recent, traumatic, life-altering events that set him off; not to mention all the positive descriptors that are attached to him, i.e. intelligent, PhD candidate, honor roll student, etc.)
Exchange of the Day →
politicalwire.com
Email from a conservative blogger to Putlizer prize winning journalist Connie Shultz on July 9, 2012.
Dear Ms. Shultz,
We are doing an expose on journalists in the elite media who socialize with elected officials they are assigned to cover. We have found numerous photos of you with Sen. Sherrod Brown. In one of them, you appear to be hugging him.
Care to comment?
Response on July 10, 2012:
Dear Mr. [Name Deleted]:
I am surprised you did not find a photo of me kissing U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown so hard he passes out from lack of oxygen. He’s really cute.
He’s also my husband.
You know that, right?
Connie Schultz.Guess that guy didn’t research his expose as extensively as he thought.
“If Sarah Palin were black, her daughter’s out of wedlock, “baby daddy drama” would have been presented as an example of both pathological behavior and a dysfunctional family that is symbolic of the social problems in that community. If Sarah Palin were black, never would the poor decision making by the Palin family be marked off as challenges overcome, or deeds to be valorized. If Sarah Palin were black, her neo-secessionist husband would have been the death knell for her political career, because as we all know you can’t trust “those people.” If Sarah Palin were black, her lack of intellectual curiosity, willful and cultivated ignorance, and lack of grace both written and spoken, would not be taken as “folksy.” Instead, Palin would be viewed as unqualified for any public office. If Sarah Palin were black she would be tarred and feathered as an “affirmative action baby.”
—
If Sarah Palin Were Black (via azspot)
Just goes to show how far Palin’s whiteness can take her. Zero intellect, two high school drop-outs, an unwed teen mother, a quitter of the one major job she had. Master of hateful coded language targeting opponents as not “real Americans”. Belongs to a church outside of the mainstream. Still a top GOP candidate.
(via liberalsarecool)
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama, a Princeton and Harvard Law School graduate, lawyer, and university dean who made over $200K/year, gets called “ghetto” and a “welfare queen”.
(via squee-gee)
Nice thesis/premise and the facts back it up!!!!!!
(via natural-queen-of-coarse)