Read Robert G. Ingersol’s piece on Abraham Lincoln written in 1894. This gives a clear perspective on a Republican leader who served the WHOLE country:
http://www.archive.org/stream/abrahamlincolnle00inge#page/n3/mode/2up
(ever wonder what Lincoln would have thought of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner?)
Both parties seem to think the full-fledged Presidential campaigns are now in force… Romney looks like the Republican favorite (although so many Republicans have appeared really edgy about his capability) and he is moving on Obama. Obama now seems to be taking on Romney.
…and all the special interest groups are letting folks know how they think:
like women…
…or dog lovers (Romney will never get past carrying his dog atop his car on a long trip)…
… and Republicans who are more and more dissatisfied with their party and its choice…
It’s going to be a long, uneasy road.
What fun!
- David Horsey in the LA Times.
• Lack of money when compared to Romney.
• Not much of an organization… in some states he didn’t even get on the primary ballot.
• Competition from Newt Gingrich who split some of the far right vote.
• Romney’s habit of saying and doing anything to win – including changing his statements ton agree with Santorum’s conservative from his established centrist position.
Having won in Wisconsin, Maryland and DC last night, Romney is being held up by all the pundits as the sure to be Republican Presidential nominee… even though he only has about half of the delegates for the convention.
Santorum is not a close second and would have needed Wisconsin to keep the possibility that he’d take the nomination at the convention. As for Gingrich and Paul, we have to wonder why they waste people’s money running.
We can expect Romney in the remaining primaries to ignore his competitors and focus on attacking the President.
The full scale Presidential campaign is about to have an early start.
This sums up where we seem to be heading:
The Florida “Stand Your Ground”/License to murder law is just lynching with a bullet – along with a get out of jail free card.
At a gun range courting the NRA vote in Louisiana, Rick Santorum took a couple of shots as a supporter shouted “pretend it [the target] is Obama.”
“Shoot to Kill” may soon be replacing “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States.
-Mark Karlin, Editor for BUZZFLASH
…and I remember when it was e pluribus unum.
Source: Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:
“You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”
– Rick Santorum, quoted by NBC News, suggesting Republicans may be better off with President Obama than Mitt Romney.
This reference to Romney as the “Etch A Sketch candidate” is showing up everywhere today… on public radio as I drove to my morning meeting, in my search for political cartoons for Sunday, on all the TV news shows today.
Here’s my favorite political cartoonist, Mike Luckovich’s view of the Etch A Sketch attack (and a pretty accurate view of the results):
So let’s be clear. The Repiglicants get closer and closer to nominating Romney, but clearly he is a candidate they wish was not there.
I wonder what toy you would compare Santorum to?
“If we’re able to come out of Illinois with a huge or surprise win, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that we will win this nomination.”
Guarantee? Is Illinois a “winner take all” state? Did everyone forget that the Santorum campaign failed to file a full slate of delegates in four districts in Illinois so odds are Romney will emerge the delegate winner despite who wins the state.
Politicians who make guarantees are worth ignoring.
Exerpts from “The Case for Crazy: What the GOP Would Learn by Picking Rick Santorum“
by John Avlon in the Daily Beast
A cleansing bout of craziness in 2012 could be just what the GOP needs.
I’m talking about a nominee so far to the right that conservative populists get their fondest wish—and the Republican Party is forced to learn from the result. Namely, that there is such a thing as too extreme.
…
If Mitt Romney does finally wrestle the nomination to the ground, and then loses to Obama, conservatives will blame the loss on his alleged moderation. The right wing take-away will be to try and nominate a true ideologue in 2016.
But if someone like Rick Santorum gets the nomination in an upset, the party faithful will get to experience the adrenalin rush of going off a cliff together, like Thelma and Louise—elation followed by an electoral thud.
…
Giving conservative activists everything they want in a presidential nominee would ultimately be clarifying for the Republican Party. It would break the fever that has afflicted American politics turning fellow citizens against one another. It would restore a sense of balance, recognizing that it is unwise to systemically ignore the 40% of American voters who identify themselves as independent or the 35% who are centrist. After all, a successful political party requires both wings to fly.
There’s nothing like losing 40 states to refocus the mind.
Education is a marvelous thing. Education by Experience can be devastating.
Hey… vote for Romney and he’ll get rid of Planned Parenthood (and Amtrak, too.)
What is WRONG with these guys?
Well, it’s the Tuesday of the Alabama and Mississippi Republican Primaries (and the Hawaii Caucus as well), and everyone is waiting to see who carries the South.
All of the remaining candidates have been sucking up in great Southern fashion (of course, Ron Paul remains in his same format… no need to change here.) Romney raves over “cheesy grits,” although I’m not sure they will ever get on his campaign plane’s menu. Santorum pushes himself as the “true Conservative”when he faces the Romney challenge. Newt knows he is from the south and needs to get at least one of the two states to maintain his position if there is a brokered convention.
Of course, all of them have to look squarely in the eye of the EDUCATED SOUTHERN CONSERVATIVE POPULATION! How educated? Well, as examples:
The poll of Mississippi Republicans found that 52% said they believed Obama is a Muslim, 36% weren’t sure and only 12% said they believed he is a Christian
_____________________
Alabama Poll
See? This is a thinking group of voters who are not held back by either truth or proof. They believe what they want to believe, right or wrong. How this relates to the current candidates, we will know tomorrow.
So the rumor is that Newt has picked Rick Perry to be his VP partner… Wouldn’t that make a swell team?
If there is any chance that a brokered convention, like the one the Repiglicuns are getting closer and closer to having, this could be the nominated package. You can bet the Democrats are saying “Good luck, guys.”
A Newt staffer said this, though:
“Gov. Perry thinks Newt Gingrich is the strongest conservative to debate and defeat President Obama and truly overhaul Washington. The speculation is humbling but premature.”
(underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)Who is joining hands with all the truly religious in America by following the last three or four decades of political history?
Guess..
Look at every race that’s been run over the past forty, thirty years, and you will see a divide between George Bush and Al Gore, between George Bush and John Kerry, between John McCain and Barack Obama, between people who go to church and people who don’t … We are the party that believe in values.
Got it?
Yeah, it’s Rick Santorum from a WLW radio show last Friday.
Deborah Brancheau over at RestoringTruthiness.org has an article: Rick Santorum to Abraham Lincoln: Oh You Infidel! that sums up the situation of the values party nicely.
“It seems like Republican primary voters will not vote for Mitt Romney unless they are forced into it. And the way they’re forced into it is when he beats the other guy senseless.”
- Nelson Warfield, Republican strategist
Of course, when there are none of them left, he’ll have to actually come up with a real policy plan.
Thinking of politics as leftovers, it looks like we’ll have a couple of Santorum wings and a Romney drumstick or two left over after Super Tuesday. That doesn’t leave much to serve at the great election 2012 dinner. (Did I say they are both Turkeys?)
George Will is releasing a column later today in the WaPo that pretty much says the Presidency will be out of reach for Romney or Santorum after they have destroyed each other… and that Repubs should focus on preserving their lead in Congress in order to compete against Obama for the next couple of years.
George Will!
If I were to counsel the Democratic Party I’d say Obama is doing a great job right now in sticking up for the worker, defending his record, and pushing for reelection. That should continue.
There has to be focus put now on recovering the House and maintaining the Senate… and as long as the Repubs keep their focus on Birth Control, ultrasound for pregnant women seeking abortion and all the other non-jobs, non-economic crap they are playing with, we have a real chance of booting them out of office.
Frankly, I’d like to see more jobs, less unemployment, a single-payer health plan and so many of the things we NEED to deal with the 21st Century. And we have the candidates to do it.
Summary: It’s better to be the Diner than the Dinner.
“The bubble burst in housing because people couldn’t pay their mortgages because of $4 a gallon gasoline.” – Rick Santorum
Gee… I thought it was the big banks making unsupportable loans to unqualified people.
Thanks to The Smirking Chimp for this one:
I thought my head was going to explode last night when I saw this on Rachel Maddow‘s show. (Kudos Ms. R.)
So I want to share and hope you will share it as well.
So here we go. BTW… not a word of what you are about to read is true. Not one word of it. All easily verified. But you wouldn’t even know it happened if your only source of news is your morning paper. Okay .. first what Father Rick Santorum said:
“In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized – ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands – half of those people are u involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.”
— Former senator Rick Santorum, at the American Heartland Forum in Columbia, Missouri, Feb. 3, 2012Needless to say folks in the Netherlands are appalled. The person saying it wants to run the biggest country on the planet. And finally, that no one over here seems to care.
Here’s the actual cut from Maddow’s show:
Is there nothing this asshole won’t say?
This was over at queerty.com.
Rick Santorum made entirely from gay porn stills:
… of coursed, if elected, Rick will do away with gay porn stills. It will be an amendment to the Constitution.
Climate Change is…
“an absolute travesty of scientific research that was motivated by those who, in my opinion, saw this as an opportunity to create a panic and a crisis for
government to be able to step in and even more greatly control your life…
“When you have a worldview that elevates the Earth above man and says that we can’t take those resources because we’re going to harm the Earth; by things that frankly are just not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the whole global warming debate — this is all an attempt to, you know, to centralize power and to give more power to the government.”
-Rick Santorum speaking in Colorado
In his article in TPM on Santorum’s little speech, Sahil Kapur also put this in:
But lest you believe Santorum’s thinking is hitherto unseen in the GOP. Rep. John Shimkus, in a 2009 congressional hearing, cited the Book of Genesis as evidence that climate change is a hoax, pointing out that God promised Noah that man won’t destroy the Earth. Shimkus was subsequently rewarded with the Chairmanship of the powerful Energy & Commerce subcommittee on the environment.
Don’t you love the Religious Right? Isn’t the Book of Genesis the one that never explains where all the other people beyond Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel come from? And there’s a talking snake.
I don’t know if you read Margaret and Helen, but I do.
These two “friends for sixty years” bring their experience to bear on almost every contemporary situation… like Helen’s recent comment on Rick Santorum and his views on faith and sex:
He was in Texas this week talking about his faith… which always leads him to talk about abortion and gay marriage. I swear that man worries more about vaginas and who is sleeping with whom than any normal person should. I don’t think he is right in the head. He told his audience that his faith is a part of who he is and it will guide him in his presidency. Well good for him.
..and on the question of Republicans vs. Planned Parenthood:
If you really, honestly want to reduce abortions in this country, the last
And then I found this on line
thing you want to do is vote for a Republican. If you want to reduce abortions start in your own home by educating your children. Teach your sons to respect women and arm your daughters with information about birth control. If you are so outraged by abortions that your only criteria for a presidential candidate is that he be obsessed with my uterus, then arm your daughters with all the information she needs to protect herself from all those sons who were raised by politicians in Texas and Virginia. And if you really care, make a donation to Planned Parenthood or this other organization called Annie’s List. My grandson says that if you “click” on the underlined words in the previous sentence it will take you to a place you can make a donation on the internet. It couldn’t be any easier than that.
… to which Margaret responds:
Clicking on those words and you can make a donation? How fancy. I hope they know what to do with yours and my checks when they arrive in the regular old mail. Don’t forget. Stamps have gone up to 45 cents dear. Why isn’t anyone outraged about that?
So, my dear ladies, keep up the good work. I find you inspiring.
Andrea Mitchell got a big surprise when interviewing Santorum funder Foster Friess about Rick’s stand on banning contraception:
“Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”
As someone said on television this morning, it’s the kind of quote you can hear over and over again and just not believe someone said it… and certainly not on the air.
Here’s what it looked like:
So far, Rick has not done TV commercials with the Romney-esque attack features. Then comes this ad called Rombo:
Now we’ll see what Willard comes back with. Oh these Repubs!
From Think Progress:
Santorum Remembers The French!
“Rick Santorum continued to rail against President Obama’s so-called war against religion during a town hall in Plano, Texas Wednesday night. The former Pennsylvania senator — who has spent the last several days criticizing the government’s requirement that insurers provide contraception coverage and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision striking down Proposition 8 — accused the administration of “crushing” religion and setting the United States on the path towards executing religious people by decapitation…”
Just go HERE and see what he said in his own words.
That may not be so bad, however. Newt Gingrich said that if Obama is reelected, on his first day of the new term he will destroy the Catholic Church.
Why is it that a Repub will say anything?
A question I would like an answer to:
Why Are We Fighting On the Same Side with Al Qaeda?
Posted on February 12, 2012 by WashingtonsBlogThe U.S. Is On the Same Side as Al Qaeda In Syria
Reuters notes that the leader of Al Qaeda – Ayman al-Zawahri – is backing the Syrian rebels, and asking his followers to fight the Syrian government.
Some of the main Al Qaeda fighters who overthrew Gadaffi – and now appear to be in control of Libya – are already helping the Syrian rebels.
This is curious, given that the U.S. is considering military options for ousting the Syrian government, American allies Britain and Qatar allegedly already have foreign troops inside Syria, and the U.S. has been planning regime change in Syria for over 50 years.
Mainstream reports also state that the U.S. and its allies are backing Iranian terrorists.
I thought Al Qaeda was America’s mortal enemy. Why are we backing terrorists?
I was asked by a radio caller last week if I thought we should charge back full force into the Middle East a la Rick Santorum and the right wingers. My answer was a simple “No.” Frankly, after the past 15 years or so of wondering what the hell we were doing there anyway, killing off our young soldiers and an immense quantity of Middle Easterners to keep our access to oil, the value of maintaining war there is invisible.
No matter that we have built a huge military industrial economy spread over many states in order to keep Senators and Congress folks voting to spend what’s left of the national wealth on tanks, planes, aircraft carriers and guns,guns,guns… no matter that we have been building a population consumed by fear of attack by Iranian nukes (caught that on the news this morning)… wanting to get out of all of this gets harder and harder.
Like the tri-national divided world in the novel 1984, the enemies of the country change constantly and become social buddies while previous friends become the enemies. It is an international trick to keep people under control. It is not far fetched to see Al Qaeda become our fighting allies.
I will say once again: Get out, get out, get out… oh, why bother repeating it? No one in authority listens and no one under that authority seems to be able to do anything about it.
From Public Policy Polling:
rICK sANTORUM (BEHIND HIM IS HIS MULTI-MILLIONAIRE FUNDING SOURCE, FOSTER FRIESS)
Part of the reason for Santorum’s surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney’s favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That’s a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28).
Santorum is now completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate, especially the most right leaning parts of the party. With those describing themselves as ‘very conservative,’ he’s now winning a majority of voters at 53% to 20% for Gingrich and 15% for Romney. Santorum gets a majority with Tea Party voters as well at 51% to 24% for Gingrich and 12% for Romney. And with Evangelicals he falls just short of a majority with 45% to 21% for Gingrich and 18% for Romney.
Not sure what Romney’s going to do now… look for really bottom feeding TV ads attacking Rick and lots of money spent by Mitt. This should be fun.
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Great idea... who else wants to come in on this?
Hmm, since we all use the words on these lists anyway, I think we should step it up and have a Blog
People need to realize that there can be two sides to a story People should not believe everything t
For too many Republicans, getting challenged in a primary by a Norquist supported candidate IS 'deat
The reality being the referee having blown his whistle & stopped play / not one player but whole
You know what scares me more than Armageddon? Stacey Pritchard
The reality is christians (the religious brainwashed) if they could get away with it would have all
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