I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.
Grundig blaupunkt luger frug Watusi snarf wazoo! Nixon dirksen nasahist Reboso boogaloo.
Superman :: GPOYW :: Taulk-taulk
Ask me your questions, bridge keeper. I'm not afraid.
Paul Ryan, outlining his latest budget proposal in the House TV studio Tuesday morning, said the policies of the Republican presidential nominees “perfectly jibe” with his plan, which slashes the safety net to pay for tax cuts mostly for wealthy Americans.
“Do you wholeheartedly believe they will accept your budget?” NBC’s Luke Russert called from the audience.
“Absolutely,” the House Budget Committee chairman replied without hesitation. “I’m confident.”
Makes perfect sense, in a way. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, is on record as saying, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” And Ryan has just written a budget that supports Romney’s boast.
Ryan would cut $770 billion over 10 years from Medicaid and other health programs for the poor, compared with President Obama’s budget. He takes an additional $205 billion from Medicare, $1.6 trillion from the Obama health-care legislation and $1.9 trillion from a category simply labeled “other mandatory.” Pressed to explain this magic asterisk, Ryan allowed that the bulk of those “other mandatory” cuts come from food stamps, welfare, federal employee pensions and support for farmers.
Taken together, Ryan would cut spending on such programs by $5.3 trillion, much of which currently goes to the have-nots. He would then give that money to America’s haves: some $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, compared with current policies, according toCitizens for Tax Justice.
Read the rest of this article, this rhetoric amazes me. It’s like he thinks (or wants his supporters to think) that he is doing some kind of “moral duty” by taking safety nets away from poor Americans.
I’m at a loss to comprehend what these people really think, when they say things like this. Do they truly believe that cutting taxes for the rich while reducing help for the poor will make things better? Or are they basically trash talking themselves higher up the ‘conservative’ mountain? Or maybe they’re just trying to grab as much money as possible for their friends and to hell with anyone else. But to be so blatant about is is almost psychopathic in nature.
No, no. I like mandates.
―
Republican presidential candidate MITT ROMNEY, during a 2008 debate, referring to a national healthcare program a la — drum roll please — RomneyCare!
But ssssssshhhh, stop asking Mitt Romney about RomneyCare.
If you’re a multi-millionaire entertainer supporting the candidacy of a wealthy financier from Massachusetts, you might no longer be a redneck.
― STEPHEN COLBERT, remarking on Jeff “you might be a redneck” Foxworthy’s endorsement of Mitt Romney, on The Colbert Report (via inothernews)
No chance it’ll pass, but you should know about it anyway. Some of the highlights, from The Hill:
- Aims to cut $11 trillion and achieve a $111 billion surplus in FY 2017
- Changes to Medicare: ” The lawmakers said they would turn Medicare into a premium support plan that would give seniors the same healthcare plan as members of Congress. They say this would save an estimated $1 trillion over 10 years.”
- Alter Social Security by increasing the retirement age and indexing benefits based on individual incomes
- Medicaid, SCHIP, food stamps and child nutrition programs would be funded through block grants
- Cut discretionary spending to FY 2008 levels
- No national defense spending cuts
- Freeze foreign aid spending at $5 billion/year
- Eliminate the Department of Commerce, Education, HUD and Energy
- Privatize the TSA
- Repeal the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform
- Establish 17 percent flat tax for individuals and corporations
So far, according to exit polls posted on CNN.com, whites have cast at least 90 percent of the votes in every Republican primary except Florida (83 percent) and Arizona (89 percent). In every other state except Michigan (92 percent) and Nevada (90 percent) whites have comprised at least 94 percent of the GOP vote this year. That includes Georgia (94), Virginia (94), Ohio (96), Oklahoma (96), Tennessee (97), South Carolina (98), Massachusetts (98), Iowa (99), New Hampshire (99), and Vermont (99).
I think it’s unfortunate they try to corner him and make it look like he knows nothing else. My husband is brilliant. He knows so much about, you know like I said, national security, jobs, the economy. You know, every aspect of this race, any issue out there he’s brilliant and I think that’s unfortunate that they try to do that… corner him and make it look like he doesn’t know anything else. As a wife and mother, an educated woman it frustrates me.
Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root. The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.
―
They’re just good for heterosexual sex, making babies and cleaning up the house, right, Rick?
Amazingly, about half of half of the country is nonetheless prepared to vote for this spiteful dick.
(via the New York Times)
(Rick Santorum’s) loss in Michigan raises the possibility that he has hit a ceiling with Republican primary voters; he may even have damaged himself with some by a string of controversial comments, particularly his assertion that President Obama is a “snob” for advocating that every American have access to a college education.
Even some high-profile Republicans who have stayed neutral in the race noted that going to college had long been part of the American dream.
In some speeches, Mr. Santorum has portrayed an America in decline. He has been panned by some conservative pundits.
In a column this month in The New York Post, John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary Magazine, called Mr. Santorum a “sourpuss.”
“The former Pennsylvania senator looks like he swallowed a lemon — and he acts like America is the lemon he swallowed,” he wrote. “There is no way that a man who expresses such a dark view of the American national character can win the presidency.”
This is far from over.
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a guy with a lengthy record of competent, even heroic, management in the public and private sectors, is still struggling to get decisive separation from a pack of much weaker candidates. He’ll hobble into the Super Tuesday contests with wins here in Michigan and in Arizona, but without the kind of momentum that suggests he’s close to putting the others out of reach.
It has been bizarre, and troubling, to watch.
Bizarre, in particular, here in Michigan, where Romney’s considerable credentials and native-son status should have made him a heavy favorite. Instead, he was forced into the same position he has found himself in every other contest — clumsily competing to out-conservative another candidate.
It is troubling because that dynamic in the GOP race, playing out over and over again, is whittling the party’s base to the narrowest of interests and minds, alienating broad swaths of both independent voters and a significant portion of more mainstream or moderate card-carrying Republicans.
He’s trying hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, isn’t he?
Mitt Romney went to the Daytona 500 NASCAR race Sunday for what should have been a chance to show he’s one of the guys. Instead, in casual conversation with an Associated Press reporter at the Florida track, he reminded people once again that he is not exactly a regular Joe.
Asked by the AP reporter if he follows NASCAR, Romney responded, “Not as closely as some of the most ardent fans. But I have some great friends who are NASCAR team owners.”
Democrats and liberals quickly ridiculed the remark on Twitter. “I don’t know people who fish but I know people who own yachts,” tweeted Brad Woodhouse, communications director of the Democratic National Committee. Ari Melber, a writer for the liberal Nation magazine who apparently was watching the Oscars, tweeted: “Do I like movies? Well I have some friends who own movie companies.”
No, really. Is he just fucking with us at this point? I imagine you make so much money that eventually, you run out of things on which to spend said money. So troll-rific presidential run?
Mitt Romney could lose his home state of Michigan. He keeps shooting himself in the foot! He wrote an op-ed in the Detroit newspaper reminding them that he opposed the automobile bailout — and then he kicked off his Wisconsin ‘Fuck Cheese’ tour.
― BILL MAHER, Real Time (via inothernews)
