First Press Conference by the Trump Administration

(Spicer Assails Media For 'Misrepresenting' Inauguration Crowd)

BREAKING! Carly Fiorina has seen video proof of zombie outbreak!

Here it is!

 

 Just in case you were wondering, when Ms. Fiorina said at the debates last night:

"I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,'" Fiorina said Wednesday night at the GOP presidential debate, during a discussion about a congressional vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.

1. No scene anything like the one she described were in any of the versions--edited or unedited--of the Planned Parenthood videos put out by Center for Medical Progress.

2. There was a scene of a baby in a mini documentary by Center for Medical Progress that was not filmed at any Planned Parenthood, that may have simply have been ten-year-old stock footage of a preemie that was used to *illustrate* someone's never proven claims about Planned Parenthood.

See here, here, here (and numerous other sites).

But by all means, let's shut down the entire government over a scene that was not in the videos she claimed it was in and that did not show what she claimed it did!

And, by the way, when she was the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she illegally sold hundreds of millions of dollars of computer products to Iran, meanwhile every single investigation of Planned Parenthood about those videos has turned up nothing illegal.

Scaife/Trib Total Media PA Paper Gives False Voter ID "News"

If not the world, at least the White House.
(Photo via Pittsburgh City Paper)

Looks like we have a bigger concern than those confusing Voter ID Law ads running in Pennsylvania -- there's at least one newspaper printing a story with outright false information in it. According to Think Progress, last Thursday, The Mount Pleasant Journal ran a story with the headline "Photo ID required for November election."

Of course, the new voter suppression ID law has been suspended for the November 6th election. The Mount Pleasant Journal is a weekly newspaper run by right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife's Trib Total Media. They printed the story more than two weeks after the court ruling blocked the law.

The story in The Mount Pleasant Journal has no byline.

(Via Think Progress)

You didn't clean that!

Via AmericaBlog:

It seems Paul Ryan stopped by an already-empty and cleaned soup kitchen for a whopping 15 minutes, during which he and his family donned aprons and pretended to clean already-clean dishes while the media dutifully snapped photos, the Washington Post reports.

The soup kitchen president, an independent who relies of private donations for the non-partisan charity, was none too pleased with the Romney/Ryan campaign. Not only did the campaign not have permission to drop by for a photo opp, but the photo opp was a fake. The Ryan clan only pretend ed to clean dishes.

There he goes again! Mitt Romney tries to flip-flop on abortion one more time.

In a not totally unexpected "shift" to the center, here's what GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Des Moines Register Editorial Board in an interview yesterday:

“There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”

Looks like Mitt wants to keep that gain he made with women in the polls after the debate last week -- a debate which utterly failed to address women's reproductive rights issues.

So who should women believe -- Mitt or Mitt -- when it comes to our lady bits?

Here's Romney on abortion...before he started running for president:

  Here's Romney at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser in 1994 (he and Ann wrote them a check for $150 that year):

Here's Romney on Planned Parenthood in 2012:

  Here's Romney earlier this year saying he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade and that he supports "a pro-life policy":

“I’m in favor of a pro-life policy. The legislation that relates to abortion which is something that is going to have to be approved by the Supreme Court and the key decisions I’ll take as the president will be number one, stopping funding for Planned Parenthood, re-instituting the Mexico City policy which says our funds can’t be used for abortion around the world and appointing justices to the Supreme Court that will follow the Constitution, hopefully reverse Roe v. Wade, and return to the states, the authority for making law with regards to abortion.”

Romney's folks are already walking back his comment to the Des Moines Register. Here's what Andrea Saul, Romney for President Press Secretary, tweeted yesterday via Katrina Trinko, National Review reporter and member of USA Today's Board of Contributors:

. @andreamsaul on Romney's abortion comment to DMR: Rom "wld of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life"
— Katrina Trinko (@KatrinaTrinko) October 9, 2012

So, again, who do women believe? Mitt or Mitt?

Was he lying to us earlier this very year or was he lying to the Des Moines Register yesterday?

  Who can believe one word that comes out of his mouth?

Mitt Romney Stars in "Say Anything..."

Tax cuts for the 1%? If you want them, I'm for them, if you don't, I wasn't ever either. I'd kill Big Bird for you. 47%? No, baby, I love you 100%...1,000%. I'm Mitt Romney and I'll say anything...to get in that big White House.

Presidential Debate Overview

1. Romney kept his answers detail-free but full of lies. (He only got specific on his promise to off Big Bird.) From HuffPo:

Still, one issue continued to plague Romney: details. While he said he would end Obama programs, he was vague on how he would do so without eliminating a host of components he pledged to keep.  

"At some point, you have to ask, is he keeping all these plans to replace [programs] secret because they're too good?" Obama said. "Families are going benefit too much from them?"

But the “Lying for the Lord” was in full force. Here's David Gergen, former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton, so hardly a liberal:

  PoliticusUSA on Romney's five biggest lies (in just the first half of the debate) here.

And, from TPM: Top Romney Adviser: States Will Have To Cover People With Pre-Existing Conditions Under President Romney (so, yeah, he lied about that too).

2. For those wondering when Romney would swing to the center – shake that Etch A Sketch! – the answer was October 3, 2012:

Tonight’s debate saw the return of the Mitt Romney who ran for office in Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002. He was obsessive about portraying himself as a moderate, using every possible opening or ambiguity – and, when necessary, making them up – to shove his way to the center. Why he did not attempt to restore this pose earlier, I cannot say. Maybe he can only do it in debates. Or maybe conservatives had to reach a point of absolute desperation over his prospects before they would give him the ideological space. In any case, he dodged almost every point in the right wing canon in a way that seemed to catch Obama off-guard.

3. I still can't believe that Romney's 47% comment was absent from this debate. WTF? If Lehrer wouldn't bring it up, the President should have.

4. Also absent from this debate was any women's issues. We're used to seeing few to no women as candidates or moderators, but while we're in a War On Women, it would have been nice to have some mention made of the issues and not to have women only mentioned in random anecdotes. Romney did mention at least twice that doctors and people should decide on medical treatments and not the government – oh, the irony, it burns!

Also not mentioned: LGBT issues and the environment (except in a knock by Romney at green jobs). But of course, the deficit was covered ad nauseum because it's what's important to the Villagers.

5. While President Obama was far, far too passive, Romney played the bully. Apparently he thought he was the moderator and Lehrer didn't do much to disabuse him of this notion. If you watched any of this on CNN, you saw that women did not take kindly to uber privileged Romney running roughshod all over the debate. In fact, the male/female instant tracking graph running on CNN was a visual reminder of the vast gender gap throughout the evening.

6. And finally, speaking of CNN, their snap poll at the end of the debate – the one that showed Romney won the debate 69-25 – a diarist at Daily KOS finds something entirely astonishing:

According to the breakout, all the people surveyed are white, 50+, and from the South.

Additionally, it was top-heavy on men and those who were pro Mitt before the debate. So, totally fair and balanced, right?

Song of the day (Mitt Romney Edition)

Either Mittens lied...or he lied!

 Bonus: You can now dance to the song of the day while wearing some MittFlops:

Mitt Romney Profited From Abortions

Anyone who reads this blog for any length of time knows that I am pro choice. Mitt Romney was pro choice and then he wasn't. The virulently anti choice Republican Party has managed to overlook Romney's flip-flop and will officially nominate him as their presidential candidate this summer. But can they overlook the fact that he personally profited from abortions?

Via Mother Jones:

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.  

But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy. The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue. But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment. And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners. The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney's exit from Bain.

First, imagine the furor on the right if such a revelation came out about Obama! Second, if this gets the play in the media it deserves -- and that's a pretty big if -- we will be seeing Republicans twists themselves into pretzels trying to defend Romney. As a bonus, reread the last line of the second quoted paragraph above -- just one more lie from the Land of Mitt Believe.

Also, shouldn't poor Little Ricky Santorum's head be doing one of these at this news?

Turzai Admits PA Voter ID Law Passed to Give Win to Romney

Oh lookie here! An honest Republican in the State Assembly. Via PoliticsPA:

House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) suggested that the House’s end game in passing the Voter ID law was to benefit the GOP politically.  

“We are focused on making sure that we meet our obligations that we’ve talked about for years,” said Turzai in a speech to committee members Saturday. He mentioned the law among a laundry list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature.  

“Pro-Second Amendment? The Castle Doctrine, it’s done. First pro-life legislation – abortion facility regulations – in 22 years, done. Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

I guess that means all those Voter ID laws passed around the same time by Republican-controlled states weren't about some mythical massive voter fraud -- they were about voter suppression of folks most likely to vote for a Democrat. Either that, or Turzai is saying the vast majority of voter fraud is done by Democrats -- you know, Republicans only need a fighting chance to win. It couldn't possibly be about their extremist policies or candidates...

John of The Pennsylvania Progressive calls a liar a liar. And, he points out that the lies weren't just about voting, they extend to the real reason behind SB 732:

Isn't lying on the House floor an ethics violation? If not it should be and should be cause for censure or expulsion. When Representatives and Senators willfully lie and fabricate arguments while passing legislation they should be expelled from office. It is a stain on all of us when the likes of Mike Turzai get up to speak in OUR hallowed hall and lie to us about what they're doing.  

He also revealed they lied about Senate Bill 732 the ambulatory surgical center abortion bill. We've said all along this was back door legislation to outlaw abortion. His quote " First pro-life legislation - abortion facility regulations - in 22 years" reveals it for what it was: pro life, anti-abortion legislation. By making onerous regulations impossible or financially impossible to meet they are banning abortions in Pennsylvania for most women. Even if clinics could retrofit the cost would make abortions unaffordable for anyone but the wealthy.

I guess it's a good thing that at least one Republican is finally being honest about their lies.

The Land of Mitt-Believe

Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog chronicles 30 lies told by Mitt Romney -- in just the past week.

Michael Cohen of The Guardian:

Romney has figured out a loophole – one can lie over and over, and those lies quickly become part of the political narrative, practically immune to "fact-checking". Ironically, the more Romney lies, the harder it then becomes to correct the record. Even if an enterprising reporter can knock down two or three falsehoods, there are still so many more that slip past.

(h/t to Jonathan Capehart for the phrase "Land of Mitt-Believe")

Let's go to the video tape!

Bill O'Lielly claims that nobody ever said on Fox News that people will go to jail if they don't buy health insurance. Right...

Deception is all he has left

FINALLY.

New hard hitting ad from Obama:


.

McCain-Palin: Pro Child Molester & Pro Rape*

*This headline has been brought to you by The Council for How Democrats Would Campaign If They Campaigned The Way Republicans Do.
.