Political Quotes of the Day

[Dardedar]

Obama kicking a little republican butt today. Three minute clip.

[Dardedar]

"The apogee of apathy for Romney was on Friday, when the man who says he’s an expert manager spoke to a mostly empty football stadium in Detroit. Stephen Colbert defended Romney, saying he connected with the sea of empty chairs because they, too, were “plastic and uncomfortable.”

Maureen Dowd

[Dardedar]

Worth repeating... Obama on republicans lying about oil production:

"People who claim a lack of oil drilling is to blame for spiking gasoline prices are either dumb or dishonest, President Barack Obama argued Thursday as Democrats ramped up their defense against Republicans claiming just that.

"Anybody who tells you that we can just drill our way out of this problem does not know what they're talking about, or they're not telling you the truth -- one or the other," Obama said at an event held in New Hampshire to tout his energy policies.

He noted that, in fact, oil production in the United States has hit its highest level in eight years, that more rigs are operating in the U.S. than in the rest of the world combined, that more than 400 drilling permits have been granted since the massive BP oil spill, and that for the first time in 13 years, oil imports account for less than half of all U.S. oil consumption.

"And no matter what you hear from some folks in an election year, the key part of this strategy over the last three years has been to increase safe, responsible oil production here at home, while also pursuing clean energy for the future," Obama added."
Huff Po

[Dardedar]

Signature line of a commenter on dailykos.com:

"Why is easier to believe that 150,000,000 Americans are being lazy, rather than that 400 are being greedy?"

[Dardedar]

[Dardedar]

Watching a once-great party circle the drain
JEFFREY SIMPSON
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Mar. 09, 2012

"Nothing would be easier than to laugh at the Republican Party, whose presidential candidates have vied for our amusement. A more dismal group has not been assembled since Sarah Palin dined alone.

Those who remain in the race for the Republican nomination, and those who have departed it, made up a group characterized by insularity, intellectual shallowness and meanness of spirit, coupled with an unshakable eagerness to pander to every holy roller, Tea Partier, gun worshipper, global warming denier, government hater, nativist and billionaire financier – or, as Yeats would say, “the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

That opinion, with all its shadings, is best characterized by a consuming anger – which explains why the campaign hasn’t been about differences or vision but about resentment and fear and perfervid rhetoric that candidates have directed at each other and at real and imagined threats ranging from Barack Obama to Muslims, China, European “socialists,” excessive government and mad Iranian mullahs."

Globe and Mail

[Dardedar]

Sarah Palin Freaks After Obama Uses Her Racism to Attack the GOP



Watch the Ad here.

Politics USA article here.

***

Don't miss: SHIT SANTORUM SAYS Parts I and II (video)s

And, from The Onion:

"LAFAYETTE, LA—Saying his campaign has "really dodged a bullet so far," Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum told reporters today that, much to his relief, no one has asked his opinion on interracial marriage. "No question about it, what I'd have to say about the topic would absolutely terrify anyone with a conscience," said Santorum, adding that his longstanding and carefully thought-through views on whether two individuals of different races should be allowed to marry would put him so far out of the mainstream that it’d be "hilarious how insane [he]’d sound." "The truth is, if anyone decided to ask me flat out if I approve of marriages between black men and white women, for example, the flood gates would open and the bile I would spew would sink this campaign in 10 seconds tops." As of press time, reports of Santorum's mere reference to his incendiary views had caused his favorability ratings in Alabama and Mississippi to skyrocket." --The Onion, LINK

[David Franks]

Here's a lovely little piece of campaign literature:

[Dardedar]

[Dardedar]

"Isn't it interesting how Republicans have no conscience when it comes to lying about Democrats? But it's an actual strategy with a name, which apparently they think no one will notice and they, therefore, can get away with it.

This decades-old Republican strategy is called the "two Santa Claus" theory, proposed by Jude Wanniski after Goldwater was defeated. Republicans at that time realized they were always going to be at a disadvantage with the majority of voters because Democrats were sponsoring things like Social Security and Medicare. So Wanniski proposed the following: Republicans should "spend like drunken sailors" when in power, borrowing, lowering taxes, giving breaks to wealthy corporations and the like, then scream bloody murder about the deficit when Democrats are in power. And that is exactly what has happened. Here’s an article all about it: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

It would seem that once the economy comes back owing to the good management Democrats provide, the other side of this strategy is to claim Republicans actually were the ones who saved it in the first place, presumably counting on the poor memories of the American populace. Are we going to let him get away with this nonsense?"

LINK

[Dardedar]

"I can educate you on how Willard's leveraged buyouts worked. He loaded the companies they took over with debt, the interest on which is tax deductible (government intervention in the free market!). He raided the pension funds, which had to be bailed out by the Pension Guarantee Corp (more government intervention). And then he put some of money he paid back to himself with the loans into off-shore accounts so he wouldn't have to pay taxes (free market!)." Intrade

[Dardedar]

"Santorum is now out touting the merits of a brokered convention. Romney has twice the votes of the other candidates combined. Yet neither Santorum of Gingrich will yield despite having no chance of getting 1144. They will not yield despite the fact that their campaigns are effectively over.
All they can achieve now is to further damage Romney. I can only conclude that they have decided that they prefer the incumbent president over the presumptive Republican Nominee. This is a poor outlook for this fractured and dissolute party." --LINK

[David Franks]

I've met both of these people.

[Dardedar]

"Nobody thinks Romney's going to win. Let's just be honest. Can we just say this for everybody at home? Let me just say this for everybody at home. The Republican establishment -- I've yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year. They won't say it on TV because they've got to go on TV and they don't want people writing them nasty emails. I obviously don't care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election." --Joe Scarborough LINK

[Dardedar]

"...let's look at Willard's success with Free Enterprise (TM). Bain would buy a company, then load it with debt and pay themselves back immediately. Then they would write off the interest on the debt onto taxpayers. Then they would raid the pension funds, leaving the Pension Guarantee Corp to bail out the pensions, which is, again, a tax payer funded endeavor. Then they would hide their profits in the Caymans so they wouldn't have to pay any taxes on it. And you people call that successful "free enterprise." Sounds like socialism for the rich to me." --Supack, LINK

[fayfreethinker]

"Mr. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the principal author of the last two Congressional Republican budget proposals, isn’t especially interesting. He’s a garden-variety modern G.O.P. extremist, an Ayn Rand devotee who believes that the answer to all problems is to cut taxes on the rich and slash benefits for the poor and middle class...

The Ryan cult was very much on display last week, after President Obama said the obvious: the latest Republican budget proposal, a proposal that Mitt Romney has avidly embraced, is a “Trojan horse” — that is, it is essentially a fraud. “Disguised as deficit reduction plans, it is really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country.”

The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a big meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate...

...So the [Paul Ryan] proposal is exactly as President Obama described it: a proposal to deny health care (and many other essentials) to millions of Americans, while lavishing tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy — all while failing to reduce the budget deficit, unless you believe in Mr. Ryan’s secret revenue sauce." NYT's, Paul Krugman

[Dardedar]

Ronald Reagan, speaking about what we call today, "The Buffett Rule."

Video clip at Think Progress

[Dardedar]

"There are nearly 150 million poor and near poor people in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession. Yet they pay the price. The poor did not create the deindustrialization of America, unmatched corporate profiteering and greed, more than a decade of foreign wars, and unregulated tax benefits for the wealthy. When the largest economic institutions in the world were brought to their collective knees, they went crawling to the government’s doorstep in search of salvation. The government obliged, allowing Wall Street to socialize its failure on the backs of Main Street Americans. The housing and jobs crisis they created fostered a poverty unseen in generations—not just in inner-city ghettos and barrios, but also in suburbs and rural areas crossing racial, age, and gender lines. Nearly one-third of the American middle class—mostly families with children—have fallen into poverty.”
--The Rich and the Rest of US

[Dardedar]

So, let me get this straight. Conservatives believe that the government can make you pay taxes, arrest you for smoking pot as medicine when your state says it's legal, draft you and send you to die in a war, spy on you without a warrant, throw you in jail without charges and hold you indefinitely, assassinate you if they say you're a terrorist, but they can't make you buy health insurance?

Is that right?"

SUPAK, on intrade

[supak]

I actually saw something like that somewhere else, but couldn't find it, so I just made up a new one.

Oh, and I'm a graduate of the University of Arkansas, went to High School near Hot Springs, where I grew up. Went to Governor's School in 1981. So, funny how two Arkansans found their way to Intrade...