MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Saturday said "Republican audiences do not know that most people on food stamps are white." This occurred during his network's coverage of...
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Intelwar/~3/Hx67VJHgefk/lawrence-odonnell-republican-audiences-dont-know-most-people-food-sta
Was Ron Paul victimized by the establishment? (Thanks to Paul Gross)
Original Page: http://www.lewrockwell.com/politicaltheatre/2012/01/voter-fraud-in-iowa/
If Mitt Romney loses to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina's Saturday primary, it won't be from a lack television ad spending.
Just in the last week, Romney's Republican presidential campaign dished out $550,000 to run campaign commercials in the Palmetto State, more than any of his three remaining rivals for the GOP nomination, according to estimates by Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), a company that tracks and estimates the costs of campaign ads running on the air.
And a Republican source familiar with ad buys in the state told CNN that the Romney campaign has spent $1.9 million total on the South Carolina airwaves, while a super PAC backing Romney has spent roughly $2.5 million.
Gingrich, meanwhile, spent just $640,000 total on television here.
"Winning Our Future," a super PAC supporting Gingrich, has spent $1.76 million – far less than the $3.4 million the group promised to shell out for a hard-edged ad attacking Romney's record at the private equity firm Bain Capital.
That controversial ad only ran for a few days.
The most recent week saw the heaviest spending. The CMAG numbers indicate that Rep. Ron Paul of Texas shelled out more than $460,000 to run spots in the last week, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania spending more than $376,000 to put up ads on TV.
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Original Page: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/21/super-pacs-out-spend-campaigns-in-s-c-ad-war-blitz/
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Intelwar/~3/iZMtA26oqJ8/Why-does-Mitt-Romney-have-money-in-the-Caymans-Two-potential-reasons
Stephen Colbert's satirical campaign for "President of the United States of South Carolina" made headlines Friday, as he appeared with Herman Cain at the "Rock Me Like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary Rally." Colbert, who's not actually on the ballot on South Carolina, is using his pseudo candidacy to shed light on campaign finance reform and the Citizens United ruling. For his part, according to ABC News, Cain recited a few lines from the Pokemon movie.
Election seasons are great for comedians, but the following people did more than make fun of the candidates. They actually campaigned. And some ended up winning.
Everything about Icelandic comedian Jón Gnarr's 2010 mayoral campaign was a joke. That is, until he was actually elected mayor of Iceland's capital city, Reykjavik. With the help of his comedian and musician friends, Gnarr had formed the Besti Flokkurin, or Best Party. To join the party, one must have seen all five seasons of The Wire. They promised to halt corruption by participating in it, but transparently. Construction has yet to begin on the airport Disneyland he promised a kindergarten class.
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Original Page: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/114413
That reminds me of the ficus that ran for Congress when Frelinghuysen ran unopposed.
Claiming that the American people "deserve better," a potted plant, commonly known as "Ficus," is running for the Congressional seat in New Jersey's 11th District as a write-in candidate on both the Democrat and Republican Party ballots. [includes rush transcript]
AMY GOODMAN: We thought we'd end this segment with another story from there. Saying he wants to counter what he calls congressmen-for-life, guerilla filmmaker Michael Moore ran Ficus plants in congressional races around the country yesterday. He says most congressmen run unopposed in their primaries, and 95% are re-elected every time in the general election. Well, the Ficus for Congress campaign began with a Ficus in New Jersey, which is taking on Congressmember Rodney Frelinghuysen. And as Democracy Now! producer Jeremy Scahill reports, these campaigns could represent a new branch of government.
JEREMY SCAHILL:
Within twenty-four hours of the New Jersey Ficus plant's announcement, Ficus for Congress campaigns began sprouting up throughout the country. There are now more than twenty Ficus plants challenging incumbent congress members from Illinois to Wyoming to Texas. The Ficus top campaign strategist is guerilla filmmaker Michael Moore.
MICHAEL MOORE:
It's amazing to see this kind of Ficus fever sweeping the nation, and I predict that this will help boost the turnout at the election in the fall, an election that otherwise was going to be attended by the smallest number of Americans ever in our history. So hopefully the plant will do some good in bringing some people out, who — you know, unfortunately we don't have "none of the above" on our ballots in this country, so the plant is a good way to vote "none of the above," or as we like to say it's sort of a "Fic you" vote.
Original Page: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IAmNotAnonymousIHaveAName/~3/qTfxlKYhb_4/sounds-like-rick-perrys-sovereign-texas.html
Original Page: http://feeds.afterdawn.com/~r/afterdawn/~3/JJiOmXaYuOs/sopa_and_pipa_bills_postponed_indefinitely
Rick Santorum says the president wants to solve the budget deficit by picking the pockets of America's military veterans. In a debate on Jan. 19, 2012, in Charleston, S.C., Santorum said he grew up in VA housing and saw Vietnam vets who were badly in need of medical and psychological care. He said service members returning from war now should have better support. "We need to be much, much more aggressive. We have the president of the United States who said he is going to cut veterans' benefits, cut our military, at a ...
>> MoreOriginal Page: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/20/rick-santorum/rick-santorum-says-obama-wants-cut-veterans-benefi/
I don't follow the religious side, but definitely see that morality and virtue have been set aside to promote the success and happiness of a small minority of citizens in our modern republic.
I don't think we're in danger of getting a philosopher-king this fall, but the discussion regarding liberty and virtue is always timely. It goes way back, far beyond Frank Meyer's attempt at "Fusionism" some fifty years ago and more, and always caused an uproar at the ISI summer schools I attended. Here are some ancient observations I ran across while teaching a colonial history course last year:
John Adams, in a letter to his friend Benjamin Rush:
"The Bible contains the most profound philosophy, the most perfect morality, and the most refined policy, that was ever conceived upon the earth. It is the most Republican book in the world, and therefore I will still revere it. The curses against fornication and adultery, and the prohibition of fornication or libidinous ogle at a woman, I believe to be the only system that did or ever will preserve a Republic in the world."
Ogling of the opposite sex is a natural predisposition to the human situation, one whose suppression can lead to an unnatural state.
George Washington, in his Farewell Address:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."
Thomas Jefferson (who cited "The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" in the Declaration), in a letter to Correa de Serra in 1814:
"The order of nature is that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue…"
Original Page: http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/104008.html
Faced with an disintegrating American auto industry in 2009, President Obama opted to rescue General Motors and Chrysler from bankruptcy. His decision invited immediate derision from Republicans, but, after paying back millions of loans and adding thousands of additional jobs, GM and Chrysler are on track to sell millions more cars and hire thousands of workers in 2012. Indeed, GM rebounded to become the top-selling automaker of 2011.
That level of success, however, has done little to dislodge some Republicans' delusion that the auto rescue was bad for business. Today on C-SPAN, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum completely dismissed the necessity of a rescue, stating that "the greater meltdown over the long term for this country is having the government inject itself into the private sector" at all. GM and Chrysler should've "gone through a structured bankruptcy," he said. "You pretty much would've had the same company, maybe even a better company":
SANTORUM: I called for a structured bankruptcy from the very beginning. Look, I opposed the Wall Street bailout, which of course was the funding source for the auto bailout. I was the only one up on that stage — between myself, Gingrich, and Romney — that did on principle oppose it, even though people were saying there could be a financial meltdown. The bottom line is, the greater meltdown over the long term for this country is having the government inject itself into the private sector in such a huge way. Allow the capitalist system to work, and that's what I believe in. The same thing with GM and Chrysler, they could've gone through a structured bankruptcy and the only difference between those two companies coming out of bankruptcy and the bailout that Obama put in place was that the unions wouldn't have a big ownership share of the company…You pretty much would've had the same company, maybe even a better company, because they would've been stripped of even more legacy costs that frankly makes it hard for them to be competitive.
Watch it:
Santorum's obstinence in the face of such success is somewhat surprising especially given the fact that other Republican naysayers have been quick to about-face. Once calling on America to "let Detroit go bankrupt," his competitor Mitt Romney now insists that the auto rescue was his idea first. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who originally dismissed the rescue, suddenly is "very pleased" that Obama went through with a decision that turned out to be vital to his state. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) praised the government intervention and explicitly "warned GOP presidential candidates against criticizing the bailout."
The industry has now hired back just about everybody from the automotive side that had been laid off — a feat that would not have been possible without the auto rescue. If Santorum wants to continually denigrate that decision, he'll continue to do so without an ounce of evidence to back him up.
Original Page: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/20/407794/rick-santorum-we-should-have-let-the-us-auto-industry-melt-down/
Obama's Decision To Kill The Keystone Pipeline Reflects His Broken Promises To Create Jobs And Bring The Country Together
Writing for Cato At Liberty, Ars Technica alum Julian Sanchez has a timely redux of the research he did on how the made-up piracy numbers quoted during debates about SOPA and PIPA come from, and how little relation they bear to reality. It seems like every discussion of SOPA/PIPA includes a phrase like "Everyone agrees that piracy is huge problem," but in fact, the "huge problem" they're agreeing on has been inflated to farcical proportions through the most transparent financial funny business.
Siwek takes an estimate of $6.1 billion in piracy losses to the U.S. movie industry, and through the magic of multipliers gets us to a more impressive sounding $20.5 billion. That original $6.1 billion figure, by the way, was produced by a study commissioned from LEK Consulting by the Motion Picture Association of America. Since even the GAO was unable to get at the underlying research or evaluate its methodology, it's impossible to know how reliable that figure is, but given that MPAA has already had to admit significant errors in the numbers LEK generated, I'd take it with a grain of salt.
Believe it or not, though, it's actually even worse than that. SOPA, recall, does not actually shut down foreign sites. It only requires (ineffective) blocking of foreign "rogue sites" for U.S. Internet users. It doesn't do anything to prevent users in (say) China from downloading illicit content on a Chinese site. If we're interested in the magnitude of the piracy harm that SOPA is aimed at addressing, then, the only relevant number is the loss attributable specifically to Internet piracy by U.S. users.
Again, we don't have the full LEK study, but one of Siwek's early papers does conveniently reproduce some of LEK's PowerPoint slides, which attempt to break the data down a bit. Of the total $6.1 billion in annual losses LEK estimated to MPAA studios, the amount attributable to online piracy by users in the United States was $446 million—which, by coincidence, is roughly the amount grossed globally by Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.
Original Page: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/58SL6hVJ_Vg/where-the-funny-piracy-numbers.html
We don't think these two are ever going to agree.And they probably never will again...
More: http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/candidate-obama-vs-president-obama-part-iii/In continuing the series of Candidate Obama versus President Obama, the tough talking Candidate Obama lecturing President Bush about his stance on Afghanistan.
“His plan comes up short. There’s not enough troops, not enough resources and not enough urgency. What President Bush and Senator McCain don’t understand is that the central front in the War on Terror is not in Iraq and never was. The central front is in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the terrorists who hit us on 9-11 are still plotting attacks seven years later” candidate Obama said on September 9, 2008.
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Rick Perry is telling supporters that he will drop his bid Thursday for the Republican presidential nomination, two sources familiar with his plans told CNN.
The Texas governor will make the announcement before the CNN debate in South Carolina, the sources said.
The move comes two days before the South Carolina primary and hours before the final debate ahead of the voting, which will take place on CNN Thursday night.
The campaigns of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum reached out to the Perry campaign Thursday morning in an "aggressive effort" to get his endorsement, according to a source close to Perry.
Perry will indicate his support for Newt Gingrich [!?] but will not explicitly endorse him, a source with knowledge of Perry's decision told CNN.
Perry placed fifth in Iowa and last in New Hampshire - a state in which he did not actively compete - and had said he would launch a bid to win in South Carolina.
On Wednesday, CNN asked Perry about a poll that showed him with only 6% support among likely voters in the South Carolina primary.
When Perry entered the race in August, he immediately did well in the polls. But a series of gaffes, particularly at debates against his rivals, sent his support plummeting.
Perry's official campaign Facebook page was filled with posts, largely from disappointed voters.
Read more about it at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com
We did it!
Texas Gov. Rick Perry is going to drop out of the Republican race for the White House, sources are telling The New York Times and CNN.
By Jeromie Williams
On the same day that Wikipedia turned off their lights for 24 hours to protest the proposed "Stop Online Piracy Act" or SOPA as it is better known, the very politician who wrote the bill was called out by the 9GAG website for being caught redhanded breaking copyright law on his official campaign website.
Lamar Smith, the politician in question that has been pushing the bill that has even the tech Gurus over at Mashable screaming foul over SOPA's extreme overreach and censorship capabilities, has allegedly used a photograph for the background of his campaign website without giving credit to the photographer or paying for its use. That's right, the guy who wants to stop online piracy is apparently an Internet pirate himself – Arrrrrrr
Image from 9gag.com:
Read Jeromie's original article at; http://jeromiewilliams.com/2012/01/18/lamar-smith-the-author-of-sopa-breaks-copyright-law-on-campaign-website-and-becomes-a-pirate-himself/
