Mitt Romney: Of Hurricanes and Ground Games and the Arrogance of a Fool in Denial

by Sunnyjane

I did not have sex with that papaya! *

Mitt's back.  Yay.  With hubby-hand-holder Ann. Oh goody.  Sadly, neither has gained a scrap of insight into the real reasons why Americans went to the polls and re-elected President Obama last November.  See, even Pat Robertson promised the Romneys that God said Mitt would win and serve two terms, and when you've got both Karl Rove's polls and God on your side, what could go wrong?  We know all about Rove's polls, but perhaps God was just having the Romneys on a bit, because Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachmann all proclaimed that God had told them to run for president in 2012.  Haven't we talked about keeping religion out of politics?  Yeah, I thought we had.

*In an interview with Miami’s most prominent Cuban-exile station during the 2012 campaign, Romney informed his hosts that he loves Cuban fruits and is a big fan of papaya.  Papaya is Cuban slang for, um, vagina.

Here We Go -- Again  

Like another former governor we could name, Mitt Romney has obviously not been perusing any of them, all of them reading materials during his self-imposed exile in one of his many homes.  Perhaps when he and Ann are not shopping at Costco, he's been spending his days building a new house in Utah or doing something or other to the house in La Jolla.  I dunno.  But had he paid any attention at all to the gazillion postmortems of his failed campaign -- including from his own party -- he would have had some inkling as to why he is not referred to today as President Romney.

And it's as simple as this: 

Moving Forward to the Past

Mitt is extraordinarily disappointed in President Obama's second term performance, so he's inserting himself back into the political arena to help shape national priorities.  Well, that's certainly a relief!  I mean, the stock market is at an all-time high and unemployment is going down, so certainly the nation needs his expertise.  Oh wait...

No, what the flip-flopper is hot on right now is helping the GOP with their Latino problem.  Well, who else could stop the Republicans from spewing the verbal diarrhea of their racism but their 2012 candidate?  Sure, he insisted on continually calling undocumented immigrants illegals and recommending that they self-deport and get in line in their own countries, but...

Although he was asked many times to state his policy ideas for immigration reform, he consistently hedged, at one point telling a Latino group that I will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president's temporary measure.  From the results of the election, it seems that the attendees were not particularly impressed with that illuminating revelation.

No Fair!  Obama Was Being Presidential!

Pandering to the smaller-government faction of the Republican Party has rarely worked out very well.  During one of the endless Republican primary debates of 2012, Romney answered Absolutely when asked if disaster relief should be transferred to each individual state and added:  Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction.

Still unable to acknowledge that it was his -- and his party's -- policies that turned the majority of Americans toward the Democratic candidate in 2012, Romney's has recently emerged to whinge about the reasons for his loss.  Of the several excuses he's given lately, what may be the most massive and destructive hurricane in our history arrived one week before the election and that haunts him still.  

It's not quite fair to say that Romney believes in the Alex Jones bullshit conspiracy theory that the government (read: Obama) has a weather disaster weapon, but it may have crossed his mind.  No, Mitt's beef is two-fold: #1, the hurricane came at a bad time for his campaign; and #2, the fact that FEMA is a big-government program allowed President Obama to fly into the affected states -- New Jersey and New York -- and act all, uh, presidentially.  So Mr. Romney learned a good lesson: be careful what you wish for; next time it may be a Republican president who has to be presidential during a natural disaster.

And what was the GOP candidate doing during this crisis?  He was soliciting canned goods and clothing for the victims, which were not needed or wanted.  The Red Cross was asking for cash, a commodity Romney certainly understands but one which he is always reluctant to hand over.  It never occurred to him to call the White House and say, Mr. President, what can my campaign and I do to help the people affected by this terrible disaster?  That would have made him appear presidential, at least to a small degree.  Mitt Romney simply has all the wrong instincts when it comes to political leadership.

Experts and Enthusiasts Conference -- What?

 Wanna kill some innocent skeet with Rand Paul?  Play putt-putt with Paul Ryan?  Split a two-foot hoagie with Chris Christie?  Sorry, you missed your chance.  Maybe next year.

But that's what potential puppets and puppeteers were doing at Romney's second-act shindig in Utah earlier this week.  For $5,000 you could have spent three days listening to Mitt tell attendees that they had to become less partisan and develop strategies for 2016.  And there was that Latino thingy, too, as you remember.  Well, telling Paul and Ryan to become less partisan is pretty much like telling a dog in heat to practice abstinence-only in her social life.    

Since it was a private conference, no media was allowed to report on it.  As a result, there's no indication on which of the Obama Administration's policies Romney was advocating for.  Healthcare?  Immigration?  Gun reform.  Yeah...riiiight.

But the conference was also an opportunity for two hundred Republican donors to take a look at what may well be shaping up to lead the ticket in 2016.  I'm not sure which were the experts and which were the enthusiasts in this crowd, but it sounded much like giving two hundred wealthy donors an opportunity to choose which loser they would throw money away on come the next general election.

And although not one of them has solicited my advice, I have some...  

End Note

...Make sure you offer Republican  voters a better choice than was presented to them in 2012.

You're welcome.

Sandy as Metaphor and Message

by Blueberry T

Superstorm Sandy was a storm of epic proportions that has affected millions of people and caused at least $50 billion in economic damages. While the storm is now over, the aftermath and rebuilding will go on for months, or more likely years.  

As we saw directly here on Politicalgates, especially with sleuth1’s tireless updates of conditions throughout the areas that were affected, our readers' support for sleuth’s husband’s work crew that is restoring power in affected areas, and the ways in which our readers have tried to help and look out for each other, this crisis is a time for all of us to pull together and help one another to recover.

   

(More storm images here, here, here and on many other sites)

This is MrSleuth's crew, courtesy Christian Science Monitor and sleuth1

This week, we also saw Leadership with a capital “L”. We saw President Obama in the midst of this crisis: a strong, steady, capable, organized and effective leader who is also caring, compassionate and supportive. He ignored and bridged political divides and bureaucracy to get things done.  He put together a good team and assigned responsibility to tackle priorities.  First and foremost, he has focused on saving lives and helping those in urgent need. Next, get food and water to those who need it. Help get power restored. Coordinate the relief effort.  Get all the key people, federal, state, local and non-governmental agencies working together as a team. Get information to the people who need it, and keep it updated. Get skilled crews and essential resources to the places they are needed.  Get help from other areas of the country (and beyond). Help people cope with their sorrow, discomfort, frustration and the daunting tasks ahead. Make progress every day. Provide moral, physical, economic and logistical support. Comfort, console, and encourage those who have been hard hit. 

h/t sleuth1

I recognize that we are still in the midst of this crisis, and it’s not yet time to draw too many broad conclusions.  But I will say this anyway: what also strikes me today is that Sandy is an apt metaphor for President Obama’s first term. He came into office as the economy was in free fall, suffering the most extreme job losses, GDP and other economic indices since the Great Depression. It was an economic superstorm. Even before taking office, the President assembled a strong team to do triage, identifying the actions needed immediately to pull us out of the nosedive that the Bush Administration (and predecessors’) policies had engendered (along with corporate mismanagement and recklessness), and then developed a plan to rebuild the economy stronger and better. He has accomplished a great deal – here is a series of graphs showing how much the economy has recovered. He has also prevented the dire economic straits that plague European economies that are finding that austerity is not the answer. He is accomplishing as much as is feasible, given that the Republicans in Congress are not only uncooperative and obstructionist, but are deliberately trying to sabotage his economic recovery initiatives. Here is more on his plan going forward. 

The President also cautioned, even before the storm hit, that this storm would be a major disaster with potentially fatal consequences, that would cripple part of the country for some time, and it won’t be fixed overnight. Some people are lost forever and we are left to honor their memories; and some people lost everything they had. He reminded us that making sure that our neighbors are okay, and helping and supporting those who need our help or who have lost everything, is the top priority; we need to get people the food and shelter and care they need right away, get essential services restored, and we’ll get to the other items on the list of priorities as quickly as possible, but rest assured, we will get to them. We. 

Is it poetic justice that this happened just a week before the election, and offers such a stark comparison to the inept disaster responses of the Bush Administration? The contrast is striking: during Katrina, the Bush Administration seemed more a part of the disaster than the relief. During and after Sandy, most Americans see that the Obama Administration is doing everything in its power to help our people and our states in their time of great need.  But, just in case some people were too shell-shocked to connect the dots (and/or lost power and haven't heard too much news),  Michael Brown, Bush’s unqualified and utterly inept FEMA Director ("Heckuva Job Brownie") reminded us once again of what an idiot he is and how woefully inadequate he and Bush were during Katrina. 

At the same time, Governor Christie and Mayor Bloomberg put partisanship aside, and reminded us how much better we are as a country when we work together.  While downplaying the political, numerous reports made note of Mitt Romney’s comment that disaster relief is "immoral" and that he would transfer disaster relief to the states or, better yet, to private enterprise, where people like him and Jeb Bush could make fortunes off other people’s misfortunes. Let's not forget that he thinks we should get rid of firefighters and other first responders, and the Romney/Ryan budget would drastically cut not only disaster relief funding, but also funding for scientific programs that help accurately predict storms. (What are voters in "hurricane and tornado alleys" in the South thinking by voting for R/R?) Then there was Mitt's idea of non-political disaster relief, which would be comical if it were not so cravenly opportunistic.  (Where else has Mitt been cravenly opportunistic in the midst of a tragedy? Oh, yeah.)  

Sandy has another message: global warming is real, and it is a real, major threat to our well-being. No one is immune from the impacts (not even Wall Street).  Here is Nicholas Kristof from NYT on this subject. Mayor Bloomberg himself made this connection in crossing party lines to endorse President Obama for a second term. Al Gore also made the connection.  Here is the White House report on steps that Obama has taken to address global warming and a transcript of his recent comments on MTV. The National Memo wrote this piece on all that President Obama has done to address global warming.  Romney, on the other hand, has treated the issue with scorn. I wonder if Romney thinks his mocking remark about global warming is so clever now? Here is President Clinton, calling Romney's comments on global warming out.

(h/t Leadfoot)

With the election just days away, maybe Sandy is a message from the cosmos.  Please take heed. Please vote for President Obama, who has proven himself through the economic crisis, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars and challenges of every sort: he is the right leader for our times.

Election 2012: Week Two in Review

by Sunnyjane

Admiral Romney, the USS Pinafore's Ruler of the Navy: "A partnership is the only ship that I ever have seen!"

Military Madness

Readers familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan's delightful Victorian-era operetta HMS Pinafore will easily recognize and understand the correlation between that comedy's Sir Joseph Porter character and Mitt Romney.  Sir Joseph went on to say: 

      I grew so rich that I was sent 
     By a pocket borough into Parliament. 
     I always voted at my party's call 
     And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.  
     I thought so little, they rewarded me, 
    By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navy.  

The jab here, of course, is that too often people who are extremely unqualified are elevated to positions of power simply because they are wealthy and are willing to kiss the, uh, rings of their puppeteers.

Pinafore also pokes fun at the British class system of the period, to which we can all relate during this election cycle, when Sir Joseph states, A British sailor is any man's equal -- except mine!

Mitt Romney desperately wants the title of Chief in Command.  But during the final presidential debate on October 22, President Obama  proved conclusively that the Republican candidate's foreign -- and domestic -- policy expertise is limited to sending jobs to China, putting his money in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, and lying to get votes.  These things make him frighteningly incompetent to assume the position of Commander in Chief of the United States of America.

The Professor Puts the Dunce in the Corner
 

Um... Subs?  Aircraft carriers?
 Can I respond retroactively?

After about thirty minutes, the stench of Roasting Romney permeated the air in Boca Raton, FL.  Trotting out his well worn apocalypse-now whine that the United States has fewer naval vessels than it did in 1916, the President took the opportunity to do a little schooling: Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.  Obviously, Mitt  Romney's definition of naval supremacy means that the finest citrus fruit comes from Florida.  Yes, he's just that daft.

Romney also thought it a dandy idea to bring up the President's oft-debunked 2009 Apology Tour.  That was a mistake, a big mistake.   A little fact checking would have been helpful, but the Romney campaign does not care about facts or, as we know, the truth. But they thought their candidate could get away with this lie.  The President did, indeed, visit other countries -- Europe, the Mid-East, and Latin America -- after he assumed office.  It was not, however, to apologize for America, but rather to clean up the mess George W. Bush had made over the previous eight years, when our reputation went into the toilet.  Romney was especially gleeful to report that President Obama had skipped Israel.  The President did not hesitate to say he had been there as a candidate and I didn’t take donors. I didn’t attend fundraisers. I went to the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself of the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable.  The donors and fundraisers jab was, of course, in reference to Romney's embarrassing Geopolitical Magic Carpet Trip in July when he dragged along big-bucks Sheldon Adelson and scheduled a $50,000 fund-raising dinner on a sacred day of fasting in Israel. 

The President's Apology Tour -- which was actually a Mending Fences Tour -- seems to have been successful, since of the twenty-one countries listed here, only Pakistan would rather see Mitt Romney in the White House.

Map Maker, Map Maker, Make Me a Map

Iran: Big Green Blob, Two Big Waters.
Syria: Small Brown Blob, One Big Water.
Romney:  Big Gray Blob, No Clue.

Cartographers the world over are said to be popping antacid pills at an alarming rate, due to Mitt Romney's five-time claim that Syria is Iran's only route to the sea. 

Romney can spout all the correct words -- Syria, Assad, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iran, Israel -- without having a clue what he's talking about. 

Now, admittedly, I am not the sharpest needle in the pin cushion, but I've looked at this map rather closely -- far more than it deserves -- and if Syria is Iran's only route to  the sea, then I'm a two-year old Pop-Tart.  Did the only  candidate for president that the Republican Party could come up with sleep through the 1980s' Iraq-Iran War and the 1990s' Persian Gulf War? 

A Village in Indiana Has Found Its Idiot

I disagree with what the fool said, 
but I fully support what the fool said.

On the same night Mitt Romney was demonstrating to more than fifty-six million American voters that he is unfit for the Office of the Presidency, the only Republican senate candidate he has endorsed in the 2012 General Election was telling the Hoosier State electorate that if a woman became pregnant as a consequence of rape, it was what God intended.  While Richard Mourdock made a small effort to, um, purify his statement, let's make one thing clear -- he meant exactly what he said: I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God.  And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.

Make no mistake, this is Romney's kind of far-right-wing Christianista nut job.  Mourdock is right up there with Rick Santorum who believes that rape babies are gifts from God; Paul Ryan who believes that rape is just another form of conception; and Todd Akin who believes that with a legitimate rape, the woman has magical powers to shut down conception. If there is a Romney/Ryan administration, every rapist will be assured that his violently conceived child will have an advocate in the White House.  Yes, seriously.

Hurricane "Superstorm" Sandy

The mother of all hurricanes hit the East Coast of the United States during Week Two, and  President Obama cancelled his scheduled campaign stops to take control of the situation.  Mitt Romney was taking advantage of that situation by running around Ohio campaigning, but keeping the people in harms way in his prayers.  Uh huh.   Then Romney decided that he had to get in on the action and started urging people to donate disaster relief items for the victims.  Never mind that the Red Cross does not want donated items.  

On behalf of all Politicalgates readers and commenters, special thanks to Sleuth1 for her devoted and far-ranging coverage of the hurricane.  Excellent and extremely beneficial effort, Sleuth1! 

       

Let's imagine a Romney presidency during this crisis:

Aide:  Mr. President, there's a huge hurricane coming that's threatening the United States! 

President Romney:  Really?  OK, get FEMA on the phone and tell them to handle it. 

Aide: Um, Mr. President, you got rid of FEMA.  You sent responsibility for disaster relief to the states so you could shrink government and save money. 

President Romney:  I saved money?  Well, money is more important than people’s lives, right?  I’ll take a nap now; call me when it’s over.  Oh, and if any governors want to whine to me about their state's desperate situation, switch the phones to the Call Center in India.

Remember Michelle Obama's statement at the Democratic National Convention:  Being President doesn't change who you are.  It reveals who you are.
 

A natural or national disaster is one of the best arguments for early voting in every state, no restrictions and no justifications required.

END NOTE

Courtesy of Rolling Stone

 We have a real leader in the White House.  Let's keep him there.

Who supports American workers, and who supports Chinese workers?  Just askin'.

  V  O  T  E     B  L  U  E

Congratulation to Politicalgates' newest citizen, Linda, who voted in her first ever U.S. election -- for the Obama/Biden ticket! 

Hurricane Sandy is on her way

By Patrick

Unless a little miracle happens, Hurricane Sandy will hit the East coast with full force. The very detailed and interactive "Google Crisis Map" currently shows this picture:

NASA provided stunning images of the storm.

From October 26, 2012 - already a few days old, but it provides a fascinating high-resolution view:

See this excellent post at Gizmodo with lots of other satellite images, more pictures and constant updates.

Also see the main article with live updates on Huffington Post.


When we looked for videos from today, we found the following:

We saw other clips on youtube in which New Jersey residents said that the situation at the coast already appears to be much worse then in 2011 with hurricane "Irene."

President Obama addressed the nation today:

In related news, Mitt Romney said during the campaign that he wants to get rid of FEMA and transfer its responsibilites to the states. Mitt Romney believes that Federal relief spending is "immoral":

But it is even worse: Mitt Romney also says in this clip that it would be "even better" to transfer these responsibilities to the "private sector." Mitt the twit just has the best ideas, hasn't he?

From HuffPost today:

UPDATE

Sunday, 10:04 p.m.-- A Romney official reaffirmed the former governor's position Sunday evening in an email. "Gov. Romney wants to ensure states, who are the first responders and are in the best position to aid impacted individuals and communities, have the resources and assistance they need to cope with natural disasters," the Romney official said.

 UPDATE II

Monday, 9:10 a.m.-- The Washington Post's Greg Sargent adds: "There’s another nugget here worth highlighting, though. In that appearance, Romney also suggested it would be 'even better' to send any and all responsibilities of the federal government 'to the private sector,' disaster response included. So: Romney essentially favored privatizing disaster response."

If only all these Obama-haters would actually listen carefully to what Mitt Romney has to say! Oh well...

But let's forget about politics right now. We do hope that all our readers will get through the "Frankenstorm" unharmed. Take all precautions and be careful. Please tell us in the comments about the situation. Good luck and stay safe!

UPDATE:

Sandy and planet earth (click for full picture):

The comparison of "Sandy" to "Irene" is quite a shocker:

GIZMODO provides the links to five webcams to watch "Sandy" live.

Link from USTREAM to several webcams.

The CBS News live stream is very good - watch:

Free live streaming by Ustream