Just this morning, RNC chairdouche Reince Preibus got clowned by Chris Matthews for exploiting race to win votes, and for doing and saying nothing in response to Mitt Romney alluding to the long-since debunked claim that President Obama was born in a pod somewhere in Kenya. Priebus called it a joke, and complained that Chris Matthews hates laughter. Matthews pointed out that it’s not a joke and nearly had a glorious aneurysm.
Tweety is right.
Last week, Romney also claimed it was a joke (it wasn’t), while Karl Rove had the chutzpah to complain that Obama “never said thank you” when Mitt Romney acknowledged that President Obama was born in the USA (is he fucking kidding?).
It’s not a joke.
See, here’s the thing: Making comments about the birth certificate issue plays to the racist wing of the GOP, just as the “Obama removed the work requirement from ‘welfare to work,'” line plays to the racist wing of the GOP whose greatest fear is that Negroes are trying to steal all their hard-earned money.
(And just in case you weren’t positive that Mitt Romney plans to race-bait his way into the White House if we let him, Romney told USA Today that he thinks Obama weakened the work requirement in welfare to “shore up his base.” Get it? Zero percent of black people support Mitt Romney because Obama has bought the black vote through handouts. Ni-CLANG!)
Romney and the GOP know exactly what they are doing, and I expect that the race-based attacks are only going to get worse. And as the Morning Joe clip demonstrates, most of the media is perfectly willing to let these attacks continue. Watch as Tom Brokaw, Mika, and Joe Scarborough sit with their collective thumb up their ass, chortling uncomfortably as Chris Matthews tears Priebus a new one — it is embarrassing. Watch as Priebus tries to claim that errrrybody knows that the birth certificate is a non-issue. It was a joke that misfired!
Again, no it wasn’t. It was calculated. The audience practically high-fived Mitt Romney as they cheered the fact that the President has a funny name and lived in funny places. He’s black, you know. OMG.
Nope. It wasn’t a joke. And if you need any further evidence that it’s not a joke, the Orange Supremacist came right out and said so at a shindig in Florida on Sunday night:
“What I think doesn’t matter — he has his views and many other people disagree with him as you know,” Trump said. “…But he did make a joke, and some people thought it might not be a joke. It happens to be an issue that a lot of people believe in … many, many people believe in it so maybe I would have handled it differently, but he’s running for president and I’m with him 100 percent.“
Trump, who has focused on Obama’s birth certificate in the past, said that whether he raises the issue again going forward is an open question.
“Let’s just say this there’s a huge group of people that are not believers in what [Obama] did, what he said and where he came from. We’ll see what happens. Well see what happens over the coming weeks and months.”
[read full post at ABLC]
The Red Pen
It is most certainly not a joke. Click that link if you dare!
Bottom line: Romney’s crazy-ass supporters are not under the impression that he is joking, and Romney almost certainly knows that.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
What’s the over and under on the Ni-CLANG Event Horizon? For both who and when. We might as well have some action.
This is just depressing.
spongeworthy
I think I understand now. It wasn’t a joke because you say it was not a joke.
And to think I would have just blundered through life thinking it was a joke. Thanks for setting me straight!
Oh, another thing. You need to rethink your claim that attacking welfare waivers plays to the “racist wing of the GOP”. How many of those votes does Romney need to pander to? Were they really going to vote for Obama?
C’mon–think!
Butch
I guess not completely on topic, but still….the name you see above right before “Says:” is my given name, and having lived with an unusual name all my life…what kind of parental ghouls, especially in a blue collar town like Kenosha where he’s from, name the kid Reince?
MattF
Even the not-liberal Saletan agrees. No linkee to Slate. The comments to Saletan’s piece are a bit amusing in that it had to be pointed out that it was satire. I’d be kinda embarrassed about that, myself.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Butch: I’ve had no less than two names I deeply despised thrust upon me – first by my biological parents, and then by my adoptive parents. The thing is, I’ve changed mine. Maybe the real question is, why would someone willingly live with it? ;)
Valdivia
I am so so angry over all of this (since friday) that I am juts despondent now. I have no idea how Obama counters this in any way.
The fact that Romney said the ‘shore up his base’ thing and the Village didn’t even bat an eyelash tells me that unless he wears a KKK hood no one will bother to call him out.
The Red Pen
@spongeworthy:
No, they were going to sit at home and not vote.
I read Free Republic several times a day. The base hates Romney and he needs all the boost he can get with the pointy-hood crowd.
rea
attacking welfare waivers
You mean of course (because you are not a liar) imaginary wellfare waivers
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Valdivia: It’s times like these that I console myself with the fact that nobody under 50 watches TV “news” or reads newspapers anymore. The rest will be dead soon enough.
Joey Maloney
@spongeworthy: I guess you can’t really call it a joke when it’s been going on for nearly five years now. Performance art, perhaps? Or, wait, wait, how about, “a buch of stone racists and rqce-baiters so fucking stupid and lacking in empathy they don’t even notice the rest of us looking at them in horrified disgust”?
Yeah, I think I’ll go with that one.
danimal
@The Red Pen: I dared click the link, and I’m sorry to have wasted two minutes of my life on that drivel. The only interesting part was that the GOP birthers STILL believe that Obama is an inarticulate, bumbling liar who relies on the media to cover things up for him.
They really think he’s stupid, and thus expose their stupidity. Their racism and/or condescencion will kill their electoral hopes yet again.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
No, it wasn’t a joke because there’s no punchline. What’s the funny part, that a rich white guy has never been asked for his birth certificate?
Well, that’s the fascinating thing here, isn’t it? Why is Romney so desperate to hang onto that portion of the vote that he’s tailoring his campaign to them instead of opening his message up to explain to all Americans what he can do for them? Why is he ignoring his plummeting numbers among African-Americans, among Latinos, among women to pursue this “look at me, I’m the white guy!” campaign?
My guess — internal polling for the Republicans is absolutely horrible and a whole lot of tea party types are telling pollsters that they’re going to stay home or vote third party. Romney’s only hope of hanging on to those voters and avoiding an embarrassing blowout is to cater to them to prevent them from jumping ship.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@danimal: At the same time, that’s one of Obama’s greatest weapons. As long as they insist on believing that, they will constantly underestimate the man. When he hands them their asses (like he did to Trump at the WH correspondent’s dinner) they are left flummoxed, and holding their dicks. This is usually followed by a sea of butthurt.
MattF
@Mnemosyne: One reason is that if Romney doesn’t get every single last one of the old, white, male, Southern evangelical votes, he’s a dead duck. Losing a few more minority votes makes no difference.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Butch: It’s Rheinhold! That’s the diminutive. Cute, isn’t it?
Yutsano
@The Red Pen: And then Willard turns around and gives Romneycare a nice big bear hug. I think even the Republican base can smell a weasel.
@MattF: He needs more than that. He needs them in the right states as well. If Willard is trying to shore up the Mississippi conservative vote then he’s REALLY toast.
spongeworthy
@rea: How about “potential” welfare waivers?
Butch
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Seriously? Yikes. Isn’t the diminutive supposed to be something endearing? I guess “Butch” isn’t so bad.
spongeworthy
@Joey Maloney: When you say it has gone on the 5 years, I assume you mean the birth certificate issue? Are you including the use of the issue in fundraising? For Obama, I mean.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/05/obama-team-offers-birth-certificate-memorial-coffee-mug/1
Look, it was a joke. If Obama can make the joke, so can his opponent.
kmeyerthelurker
@Butch: I don’t see how someone could go through life with the name “Reince Preibus” and not be an engorged asspimple.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Yutsano: I’ve been wondering about that myself.
Either he’s figured out that he can’t rely exclusively on the white olds, and the teabaggers, and he wants to peel off some disaffected liberals at the expense of his rabid base (which won’t work)
Or he thinks he can convince them that it’s a good plan, and that he’s not a commie.
Especially considering that Andrea Saul’s infamous romneycare praise had cranked wingnut rage to 11, and they alternately called for his head and hers, I can’t begin to even fathom why he thinks that was a good idea. It’s just… wow. It has FAIL written all over it. No matter what twists of logic and perception I try to apply to this, I’m not able to get from A to B. Where’s the upside? (fictional, or otherwise). I just don’t see it.
Yutsano
@spongeworthy: I suppose waivers being requested by Republican governours (including Willard when he was one for MA) totes don’t count amirite?
@spongeworthy: No dear, it’s not a joke. It’s called privilege, as in Willard would never have his American birth questioned because he is pure as the white driven snow. It’s racist and disgusting.
hep kitty
Yes, imagine that. :)
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Either that or it’s simply all he knows. His party too. They’ve won elections for fifty years by playing to Angry White Racists. Right now that’s not working as well as they’d like, and they’re freaking out and doubling down because it’s the only thing they know.
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: …a whole lot of tea party types are telling pollsters that they’re going to stay home…
But if they’re such a bunch of racists, shouldn’t they be dying to get at those polls and remove Obama? Why can’t Romney just take their voted for granted? He’s white, his opponents not so much. Cakewalk, right?
You guys need to think this stuff through.
Chyron HR
@spongeworthy:
I agree with you that the central plank of the GOP’s party platform is “a joke”, but is that the sort of thing Republicans should be admitting in public?
lamh35
Playing the Reince Card (The Race Card’s Been Played)
You and me both Charles. Does Matthews have an ActBlue page…LOL!
Gus
But Donald Trump has a great relationship with the Blacks, so it can’t be racist.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: “Look, it was a joke. If Obama can make the joke, so can his opponent.”
If that isn’t snark, it’s the stupidest comment I’ve read on the Internet in last 3 days, and it’s still morning over here.
Yutsano is exactly correct.
Peggy McIntosh weeps.
Dennis SGMM
@spongiform-encephalopathy:
You might consider rethinking everything you just wrote. Romney has descended to racist dogwhistles because he needs a substantial portion of the white vote to win. He is inhibited from doing so because he is a secretive person who happens to be in the hierarchy of a secretive faith.
As for jokes, you shite, Romney’s idea of a joke is “Two of the guys I laid off walk past a bar because they don’t have enough money to buy a beer.”
spongeworthy
@Yutsano: No. Romney knows his audience knows he was born in Michigan because his dad was governor of the state. That’s the foundation for the joke, actually.
kerFuFFler
The danger of all this at best nonsensical, at worst evil dog whistling becomes clearer when you consider this story , a right-wing terrorist milita preparing and fantasizing about overthrowing the government and killing the President. Oh, did I mention the members hail from the US military?
Mike E
To continue with the apparent amazement over Matthews’ righteous ire, he had a similar episode with some repubdouche using ‘Democrat’ as a descriptor, noting accurately the word is ‘Democratic‘. The offender wiped the brown off his lip with a smile and then said, “Yes, Democratic.” This was a coupla years ago IIRC. The shame these days is Democrats repeating this same douchery. Overton window shift, indeed.
Tweety Dude’s problem may be some misplaced envy, but I think it’s really moar about misplaced ADD meds.
Frankensteinbeck
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
I believe I have figured out Obama’s strategy, the technique that makes his assemblage of lunatic opponents not an accident. It’s psychology of dealing with bullies. He knows there will be a streak of crazy in his opposition, always. He plays it cool and reasonable. Unable to get a rise out of him, they up the stakes – and up the stakes, and up the stakes. Eventually they either put themselves in a position where he can slap them down publicly and brutally – like Trump – or they implode under their own power.
@Yutsano:
The last time he did that they went ballistic. The GOP is deep in the grip of tribalism right now, which you would expect if racism was their biggest emotional issue. Romney doesn’t just have to get them mad, he has to prove he’s One Of Them. They care about that more than anything else, and Romney can’t pull it off.
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy: If black people can use the word nig**r, I should be able to use it. Amirite?
You can’t seem to grasp the concept of co-opting a slur and changing the meaning and/or using it to your advantage. When Obama makes the joke, he is mocking birthers.
Yutsano
@spongeworthy:
They don’t trust him. No one does. So Willard panders to them. Of course you’ll pull the lever for him happily since it’ll get THAT ONE out of your White House amirite?
@spongeworthy: And Obama was born in Hawai’i. Full stop. Not a joke and not funny.
spongeworthy
@Dennis SGMM: …Romney has descended to racist dogwhistles…
Dogwhistles only you guys seem to be able to hear. I know you’re not a dog because dogs can’t type for beans…
giltay
@Gus:
You mean Conrad and Barbara?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Frankensteinbeck: You may be right. =) In any case, that seems to be exactly what is happening.
Legalize
It just seems like something in Willard’s internal polling is suddenly freaking his team the fuck out. And it has to be that he’s still failed to lock up this base going into the convention – the time when your base is supposed to show the world how much it loves you. This convention is completely about locking up the base. Nothing else. It’s Willard’s last chance. How he plans to do what while “softening” his image, I do not know.
Cassidy
What is the anagram in Priebus’s name?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Hill Dweller: “If black people can use the word nig**r, I should be able to use it. Amirite?”
I considered posting something like that myself, but it seemed too easy.
Still, you are exactly right. I’d only add, that aside from what you said about co-opting the difference between a white person saying it, and a black person saying it comes down to cultural baggage, and white privilege.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@spongeworthy: A lot, actually. Romney is going to get no major support from minorities. The only way he can win in this case is to get whites that normally wouldn’t vote to vote for him to save the country from those others.
Ash Can
@spongeworthy: A joke? Is that what you call the act of deliberately throwing a bone to one’s bigoted white base?
Joke, my ass. The entire idea behind birtherism is the conviction that the current president can’t possibly be legitimate. It’s never been directed at any other sitting president or presidential candidate in a similar situation (e.g. John McCain). Just this one. Gee, I wonder what makes Obama’s case different.
If Romney honestly felt that the birther conspiracy was the racist bullshit it was, he wouldn’t have gone there at all. But he did, because at best — at best — he saw it as a way to score points with a bunch of white bigots whose votes he wants. Fuck him, fuck his base, and fuck anyone making excuses for him.
spongeworthy
@Yutsano: Wait, “no one trusts him” but I’ll “pull the lever for him happily since it’ll get THAT ONE out of your White House”.
Do you even think before you hit Submit? You’re making my exact point. You guys seem to accept blindly that Willard was playing to racists and in the same breath claim racists are in the bag for Romney already.
Tone In DC
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
LULz.
PurpleGirl
@danah gaz (fka gaz): Hey, there are some of us in the 60-range who stopped watching TV news years ago… only TV news I sometimes watch is New York 1 for the weather and transit updates.
spongeworthy
If black people can use the word nig**r, I should be able to use it.
Beyond stupid. Nobody should use that kind of language. Not to fundraise or to get a chuckle out of a crowd.
Haydnseek
@Mnemosyne: There it is. The only group Rmoney can squeeze a few more percentage points out of are low info white voters. Every other group is lost to him. His handlers figure that between the teabaggers and voter suppression efforts, he at least has a punchers chance.
Mike E
@Butch: The way Rachel Maddow pronounces his name with extra German relish is hilarious.
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy:
Who is Willard targeting with the welfare lies? Who were Republicans targeting when they used the “Welfare Queen, riding around in a Cadillac” slur?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Excellent point; however, the pedantic in me wishes to mention that the proper collective noun for butthurt is a “squidcloud”, not a “sea”.
Please make a note of it.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@PurpleGirl: FTR, I wasn’t saying that all 50+ people watch TV news. I was suggesting that people under 50 don’t.
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: LOL. so noted. =)
scav
If there’s anything to be heard over the frenzied blowing of all instruments of the brass and wind sections that might get his supposed base to vote for him, it’s the high-pitched keening of a pampered man about to experience a very public belly flop in a very shallow pool.
spongeworthy
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Finally someone who sees the flaw in the original post. Yes, Romney does need votes outside his base to win. But those wouldn’t be the “racist wing of the GOP” now would they?
Cassidy
@spongeworthy: Romney was talking to Republicans and conservatives. By default he was playing to bigots and racists.
Mike E
@spongeworthy: Betelgeuse!
Hoodie
Romney is making a play for the upper midwest, because he knows that Hispanic-heavy states like CO and NV are probably a lost cause. The Ryan pick was aimed at Wisconsin and Iowa. The dogwhistle is to move a few percent for Romney in places like Ohio. Romney was getting killed on the Bain stuff in those places, so he’s trying to distract from that by bringing up the fake welfare issue. There is a vein of racial blindness and/or resentment in those areas that can be exploited with the welfare stuff. Personally, I think the birth certificate “joke” is a feint to further improve the likelihood of changing the subject away from Romney being a plutocrat and his plans to make the social safety net into a 401(k). Judging by this last weekend, it seems to be working, because we’re not talking about tax returns or Medicare. Sadly, white voters are probably not going to vote for Obama because they think Romney is using racist dogwhistle. At most, they’ll stay home. That’s a risk Romney will take given his inherent structural disadvantages (Obama has more EV’s locked in). Romney is also banking on liberal outrage at his remarks will be construed by low-information voters in places like Ohio as “nuthin’ but a bunch of liberals goin’ around accusing people of being racists, when most of the folks on welfare here are white.” It’s very cynical and sleazy. Fucking Klan was less disingenuous.
bemused
I’m a fish belly white person and can’t get over other white people having the chutzpah to say folks are playing the race card for calling out obvious racist crap for what it is. When so many people, of all colors can see it, maybe it’s time for the whitey to shut up and think about what he/she is missing.
Chyron HR
@spongeworthy:
That’s right, they should call the President “NigObama”, the entirely non-racist nickname favored by the Tea Party.
Scott S.
Already ran into a douchemook on G+ who wants everyone who voted for Obama to be executed as traitors. ‘Cause Obama obviously can’t be a citizen and is an ENEMY OF AMERICA, and the Constitution says giving aid and comfort to the enemy is treason, and votes are like aid and comfort…
We won’t see Peak Wingnut ’til after the election when Republicans start blowing up buildings again.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
That’s the whole point — Romney is trying to gin up their enthusiasm to vote for him, because it’s turning out that “Obama’s blackety black black” isn’t quite enough to get his base to the polls. They may just dislike/distrust Romney even more than they hate the black guy.
Someone here is having trouble following a logical progression from A (Romney is having trouble holding onto his racist voters) to B (Romney is using racist appeals to those voters to try and get them to turn out), but I’m pretty sure it’s not me.
spongeworthy
@Hill Dweller: Answer the question yourself. And I’ll give you a head start–it isn’t anybody who was going to vote for him (or against Obama) already.
Haydnseek
@kmeyerthelurker: He’s already an engorged ass pimple. The name is perfect for a major Star Wars villain. Ah, it’ll never happen. What the hell, lets just stick with engorged ass pimple.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
Obama’s joke is that teabaggers are so stupid that he was forced to publish his birth certificate for them. What’s Romney’s joke?
spongeworthy
@Chyron HR: Is it alright to use that kind of language here if you disingenuously claim “the Tea Party” did it first? Seriously?
Elizabelle
Whoever mentioned Romney’s internal polls was right.
He doesn’t have the base of his base nailed down yet, and all of his actions reek of desperation.
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy:
You claimed that Obama making a joke about his birth certificate allows Romney to make the joke. How is that any different from saying African-Americans using nig**r makes it OK for you to use it? If Romney makes a joke about Mormons, does that make it OK for Obama to joke about Mormons?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@spongeworthy: Well, no, actually, not just the people on this blog.
I remember when I was a kid, all of the jokes about blacks, gays, and women. As an adult, I realize that these jokes, being told by my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and others served one purpose: To put a group of “others” down so that you could feel better about yourself and to make sure they understood their place.
Romney telling this “joke” to the crowd serves the exact same purpose.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: I’d humbly suggest that anyone with the sense to pay attention while driving would notice the preponderance of “Anyone but Obama” bumper stickers vs. Romney stickers on people’s vehicles, plus the numerous polls that have said Romney is having a rough time garnering the approval of his rabid base. These simple observations would suggest that you are in fact, full of shit.
During the GOP primaries, Romney was the guy who was left after all of the other nutters flamed out. The wingnuts didn’t exactly embrace him with open arms. He was the left-overs, not the gooper’s “Great White Hope” (pun intended). And he knows that. I suspect you do too, because if you don’t you are stupid. Then again, maybe that’s just charity on my part, because you’ve not posted anything that would be evidence to the contrary.
Ash Can
@spongeworthy: Not all racists are in the bag for Romney. As far as the Romney campaign is concerned, not enough of them have indicated their willingness to look past Romney’s religion to make them sure votes. The campaign itself is not comfortable about the white-bigot voting bloc. How do we know this? Because of the campaign’s continued emphasis and reliance upon the “gutting of the work requirements” falsehood. That’s the real tell. The birth certificate “joke” is just part and parcel of this broader strategy. And yes, it’s racist, and no, it’s not a fucking joke.
Bobby Thomson
@spongeworthy:
Do you? Since you seem to be acknowledging your own racism with this (not that it was a big secret).
The point isn’t that racists hear it and think “OK, I’m sold. Romney’s one of us.” It’s that they hear it and subliminally are reminded that Obama is “different” and needs to be voted out, even if it takes voting for someone they don’t really trust. Romney can and will change his position on everything, but he can’t change his skin. And for some people, that’s enough to overcome their other distrust.
dead existentialist
@The Red Pen: Gah! I even read a few of the comments. My IQ has been damaged.
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: They may just dislike/distrust Romney even more than they hate the black guy
This is just nonsense. I mean, speculating is fine but you can’t present even a single fact that even comes close to supporting this.
Just Some Fuckhead
OMFG, ABL, there you go ruining another perfectly good thread.
Elizabelle
Question from me:
I wonder if the majority of respondents telling pollsters they trust Romney more on the economy is also sort of unconscious racism, which has not been examined yet.
Makes no sense to me, when many voters DO remember it was eight years of Bush-Cheney that blew up the economy.
Yes, a lot of this dogwhistling on culture and politics is crass enough to reach a deaf dog.
But do respondents especially not trust a black president with the economy, whether they ever think about it or not?
Would they be saying the same thing about the usual white Democratic candidate?
I’ve seen poll after poll where Obama bests Romney in every category save the economy, and do we have something under the radar accounting for that?
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: I would assume the joke is that Obama let the controversy linger as long as he did before presenting the BC.
Political speeches are a pretty dry business–any levity whatever passes for a joke.
Culture of Truth
But if they’re such a bunch of racists, shouldn’t they be dying to get at those polls and remove Obama? Why can’t Romney just take their voted for granted? He’s white, his opponents not so much. Cakewalk, right?
One would think so, indicating that perhaps is an idiot or a just an inept campaigner. Whether it was a joke or not, the point still holds.
Chyron HR
@spongeworthy:
Too bad anybody can plug that phrase into Google and see what kind of sites pop up, huh?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): And this is why Obama can make jokes about his birth certificate and Romney cannot: Obama is using it to make fun of himself and his situation; Romney is using it to make Obama different from other Americans.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Elizabelle: Well, there’s an essay on white privilege that would suggest something like that.
But honestly, who cares? The economy is bad right now. The history of American politics suggests that the guy in the WH at times like these is always blamed for it.
I’m not denying that racism may play a part, but I’m suggesting that:
1. The economy itself plays a significant, if not a majority part in that – see American history of politics.
2. It’s foolish to try and put this on racism, because even if it’s a part, there’s no case to made there, and it would tend to play into the “playing the race card” trope.
Since you will never be able to point to evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to support this claim, it’s both counterproductive and foolish to go down the road you are suggesting to begin with.
spongeworthy
@Hill Dweller: Yes. Not a mean-sprited one, but otherwise certainly.
Though Baptist jokes are always funnier.
Cassidy
It amazes me that people can even manage to insult the level of intelligence held by sea sponges. Someone is not worthy.
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy:
Romney has alienated African-Americans, Hispanics, and women(mostly younger). All he has left are white men and old white people. But he needs a record % of the white vote to win.
Consequently, he starts scaring older people with medicare lies and stoking racial resentment with the welfare lies. It’s a tried and true strategy for Republicans.
JustAnotherBob
@Chris:
“Either that or it’s simply all he knows. His party too. They’ve won elections for fifty years by playing to Angry White Racists. Right now that’s not working as well as they’d like, and they’re freaking out and doubling down because it’s the only thing they know.”
Angry White Racists was a large enough voter block that it could be combined with the Greedy Business block and win elections.
The country is changing. It’s less white and less racist/homophobic/misogynistic. Greedy Business is going to have to find new partners. They’re starting to suffer from Too Small Tent Syndrome.
Dennis SGMM
@spongeworthy:
Here ya’ go;
Romney lost the SC primary to Newt Gingrich.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
No? So what’s your reasoning for why Romney is throwing racist meat to the crowd even as his poll numbers sink with every other demographic?
Face it — your boy Romney is having trouble sealing the deal. He’s trying to remind his voters that Obama is blackety black black and shouldn’t be president, because he’s got nothing else. He can’t run on his record at Bain, because that was a sham. He can’t run on his record as governor, because Republicans hate his record as governor. He can’t run on the Ryan Plan, because everyone hates it as soon as they find out what’s in it, including the elderly voters Republicans depend on. He can’t get his likeability ratings to break 45%.
The only hope of winning — or even making the election close — that Romney has now is to energize the white racist base to turn out in numbers higher than Ronald Reagan got, so that’s what he’s doing.
Amir Khalid
This isn’t about the truth-value of the statement “Barack Obama was born in the USA”. Maybe it never was. Many who are against Obama simply don’t want to believe he is American. They will deny it to their last breath even if you show them all the proof in the world.
Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn where Obama was born, I believe. He’s against Obama, and he repeats birther nonsense to identify himself as such to others like him. Same for Mitt, a curiously unpopular man as presidential nominees go. And as the party’s national chairman, Reinhold Reince Priebus has to back Mitt up on this.
shortstop
@Cassidy: I don’t think the sponges in that particular reference were actually sea sponges. I think they were entirely man-made. It’s been a while, though, and I never found them to be all that.
The Golux
@Butch: I think the writers of Animal House are kicking themselves for not thinking of “Reince Priebus” as a name for one of the Omega House members.
cckids
@Yutsano:
And he wasn’t telling it as a joke. Its a f-cking clarion call, and they responded as he’d hoped; they cheered their moron heads off.
Edit to add: Imagine the effect & hand-wringing that would ensue if President Obama made some sort of “magic underwear” remark & tried to pass it off as a joke. He’d be blasted, and rightly so.
That being said, you can’t imagine him going there, can you? Class, he has it; R-Money, for all his wealth, never will.
scav
@Cassidy: Huh, I assumed he was asserting he was indeed worthy of being absorbed by his mother’s contraceptive instead of hitting the egg instead.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): What you’re not getting is that the “Amybody but Obama” voters don’t need anybody playing up to them. The original post claimed Romney was playing to the “racist GOP base”–I assume those are the “Anybody but Obama” folks you mean. It is silly to think the GOP needs to alienate right-minded people like yourselves in order to pander to a vote they had in the bag already.
Haydnseek
@Hoodie: That’s an interesting take, and I largely agree with it short term, but I just don’t think Rmoney’s programmers have the ability to play 12 dimensional chess for that long, especially when their bot continues to display a propensity to knock over the board every time he enters the room.
Dennis SGMM
@scav:
She got even by dropping him on his head many times.
Cassidy
@shortstop: I had not thought of that and if you’re saying what I think you’re saying that conjures icky images. OTOH, I have been up since 0430 and am kinda of tired.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@spongeworthy: Except, by playing the dog whistles on his birth certificate – it’s a dog whistle because it is implying Obama’s not from America – and welfare – we all know that blacks don’t work because they get welfare even if the majority of the welfare money goes to whites – there’s exactly one audience Romney’s decided to go after: Those who fear the coming enslavement of whites by blacks and hispanics.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
He presented a certified birth certificate during the 2008 campaign. Sorry, but the joke is on your idiots who insisted that, for the first time ever, a president should have to present a “long-form birth certificate” because the same state-certified birth certificate that allows you to get a Social Security number, driver’s license, and passport wasn’t good enough for them.
spongeworthy
@Bobby Thomson: Think about what you just wrote. How does it even make sense?
The point isn’t that racists hear it and think “OK, I’m sold. Romney’s one of us.” It’s that they hear it and subliminally are reminded that Obama is “different”…
You’re claiming racists didn’t notice Obama wasn’t white until now? WTF?
Cassidy
@scav: Point stil stands. He wasn’t worthy of the sponge.
cckids
@The Golux: Win, win, win.
spongeworthy
@Hill Dweller: Whatever. But it isn’t white Republicans he’s likely to pick up with his attacks on “potential welfare waivers”. He’s got those in the bag already.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: Not quite, sponge. Disaffected voters tend to stay home. Not all of them, but enough to make a difference. Especially since “scared and angry white male” (like yourself) is pretty much the only demographic he’s got left – he needs every last one of you to turn out in order to win.
Dennis SGMM
Q: How can you tell that SpongiformEnchepalitis is really a Republican?
A: Because he demanded facts and when presented with one he ignored it.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
No? Then why are Republicans desperately playing up to them and ignoring every other voting demographic in the country?
I think the Republican Party knows something that you don’t know, and they’re panicking over it.
Cassidy
@spongeworthy: Not as much as he needs. You keep deliberately missing that point. Hence, the need for not so subtle and not so witty bigotry to increase those numbers. That’s the reality. Please stop fucking your chicken as it’s probabaly tired and abused by now.
Culture of Truth
@spongeworthy: It is silly to think the GOP needs to alienate right-minded people like yourselves in order to pander to a vote they had in the bag already.
And yet he did tell the joke/notajoke – that actually happened. Who knows why – I don’t have access to Mitt’s brain – but it is not necessarily correct that he would have the racist vote sewn up. There could be all kinds of people who might be suspicious of Romney and the GOP, of bailouts, of perceived preference for the wealthy, concerned about entitlements, who are also amenable to a little othering of Obama.
Or again, Mitt could just be an idiot.
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: I don’t agree that’s what he’s doing, but even if it were it wouldn’t justify the claims made in the original post. Especially the claim that he’s trying to appeal to the “racist GOP base”.
It’s particularly amusing that not a single commenter has said, “Yeah, that was pretty dumb–the racist GOP vote is locked up.”
MikeJ
@Butch:
You’re the only person I know who can sing the line, “I was your Butch, and you were touched” with real conviction. Having an inside track on the greatest pop song ever written has got to be good.
Chyron HR
You know what? I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give spongeworthy the benefit of the doubt: Whenever a Republican says that the President is an illegal alien from Kenya, or that they doubt he comes from America, it’ a joke.
Now all sponge has to do is demonstrate that there’s no such thing as a racist joke. Good luck.
Mnemosyne
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
Yep. Putting a “Anybody But Obama” sticker on your car is a heck of a lot easier than actually putting on your shoes and going down to the polls on Election Day, and Republicans are getting worried that quite a few of their voters are going to put the sticker on and call it a day.
shortstop
@Cassidy: Ah, perhaps you’re a youthful type who is unfamiliar with this. And if you need more...
AHH onna Droid
Re: disappointed in Obama meme: it’s reminding me of that trope racist business managers used to trot out defending their racism, I mean arguing against affirmative action. “I tried to hire one of those people but they couldn’t do the job and I had to let them go.”
If any of them did vote Brown (What can brown do for you?), it may have been against Palin’s extremism. Switch back to Gop in 10…. hows that working out for ya?
Culture of Truth
I’m with you. Romney shouldn’t have had to go there. That he did suggests he’s an idiot or that his internal numbers are terrible. Either way such ‘jokes’ are ill-advised.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: Actually one commenter did say “Yeah, that was pretty dumb—the racist GOP vote is locked up.”. It was you.
The rest of us are not saying that because it’s bullshit. A significant number of these people consider Romney to be too mormon, too liberal, too rich, etc. in order to turn out. If Romney doesn’t play to white racial resentment, a plurality of these people are likely to stay home.
Just Some Fuckhead
For the ‘tard, let me just point out that the reason it wasn’t a joke is because it was a statement of fact. I know Republicans and conservatives generally regard facts as jokes but that isn’t the way it works in the non-batshit-insane world.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
We’re not saying that because it’s not actually locked up, and you’re whistling past the graveyard if you think it is.
But, hey, I don’t see any point in trying to convince you otherwise. I will really enjoy the expression on your face in November when it turns out that all of your friends with “NObama” stickers on their cars didn’t bother to actually, like, vote.
Cassidy
@shortstop: I’m at work and I’m assuming the clip is the Sienfeld episode? I do remember that, although I was never a Seinfeld fan.
Sponges were never brought up in any of my health classes. It was all condoms and “don’t have sex you dumbass teenagers”.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: Precisely.
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: Well, you’re this close.()
As I said, it isn’t the reflexively racist GOP voter this attack appeals to–it’s just more on the pile for them. What voting block could this attack be targeted to? If not White GOP voters….
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy: The welfare and medicare lies are targeting white people, because Romney needs a record % of the white vote to win. Romney is essentially saying Obama is stealing your money and giving it to lazy black people. It’s the latest iteration of the Southern Strategy Republicans have been using for decades.
Bobby Thomson
@spongeworthy: You could read some of the literature on reinforcement of existing preference, or mobilization of supporters. Strike that. A reasonably intelligent person wanting to understand this could do that. I’m not convinced you actually could.
Chris
@spongeworthy:
People who judge people on their race usually also judge them on religion. And Mittens is seriously lacking in that department. Plus, of course, his liberal past doesn’t really inspire confidence that he won’t fuck them over like he has so many others, given the chance.
Cassidy
I”m starting to wish someone had been more worthy of the sponge.
spongeworthy
@Cassidy: You can claim that but you don’t have the numbers to back it up. And it makes no sense. I mean, if GOP voters are so racist they cannot stand the idea of Obama in the WH, then why pander to them? They’ll be there, votin’ their racist little heads off.
Culture of Truth
I see, Mitt was going after those in the crowd who like Kenyan jokes ironically. This should secure the all-important Williamsburg hipster crowd.
Cassidy
@spongeworthy: You’re being deliberately obtuse. All of your “points” have been addressed before and you are ignoring those answers. You’re not even trying to refute them. You continue to repeat them hoping they’ll be true. Quanity of verbage does not equal a successful argument.
spongeworthy
@Culture of Truth: There could be all kinds of people who might be suspicious of Romney and the GOP
There sure could be. And while I don’t think the BC joke was aimed at them, I do think the waivers attack was. But people who are suspicious of the GOP, they’re not the “racist GOP base” as claimed in the original pst, are they?
You’re almost there…
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: Not all of them are neo-Nazi separatists. Most of them are more like you. They don’t believe they are racist, but they can certainly get on board with Lee Atwater’s guide to “educated racism”, and are definitely down with White Racial Resentment. Those are the people he was dog-whistling to, and those are the people he can’t afford to have sit home on election day.
celticdragonchick
Stuff breaking on LGF right now that a terror cell at Ft Stewart Ga has been arrested. They planned to assassinate the POTUS.
Cassidy
And you’ve been fapping away this whole thread and are not even close. I suggest some lubricant.
Anya
@Valdivia: Romney is a reprehensible motherfucker and his whole campaign is the worst of gutter politics. However, I have some faith in the American people. I think Romney already has the racist wing of the American electorate. And the only thing the birther dogwhistle and the welfare lies are going to accomplish is solidify the democratic votes. The liberal voters who were disappointed about President Obama not reversing everything Bush/Cheney did will be disgusted with these racist attacks enough to drag their asses to a voting poll. I know this is not representative but I have a friend (a Gawker commenter type) who’s always saying that she’s not going to vote because Obama did not meet her expectations and both sides are the same…But now she’s so mad about these racist attacks she’s donated to the campaign and now she’s volunteering for OFA. She’s white, affluent and naïve but really committed to social justice. I think there are many people like her.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
You seem to have a voting block in mind, so why don’t you tell us? Is a birth certificate joke meant to appeal to African-American voters? Latino voters? Asian-American voters? Women voters?
Who do you picture that joke appealing to other than white GOP voters?
If you can’t think of anyone else, then try this question again: why would Romney feel compelled to appeal specifically to white GOP voters this late in the game? Shouldn’t he have that vote locked down by now? What does it say about how Romney’s campaign is going that he’s still having to try and appeal to those voters the week of the Republican National Convention?
GOVCHRIS1988
I think people are missing the point of Mitt Romney’s racial attacks on President Obama. Its not that he’s trying to garner the folks of the bigots or resentful white electorate. You are in fact right that he already has those. The problem is, that as much as they hate Barack Obama, they aren’t enthused about Mitt Romney. They have an aversion to east coast northern Republicans, who seem more like the aforementioned elitist Kennedy Democrats than the blue collar Reagan Republicans.
I mean, before Romney, William Weld, Nelson Rockefeller, and Edward Brooke were the northeast Republicans and for bigots and resentful white voters, they were no different than Kennedy type Democrats or Civil Right Democrats. So, even though Romney would get their votes, simply because he’s not Barack Obama, he’s not going to get the true believer enthusiasm package that Palin got in 2008 or Reagan got in 1980. THIS is why he’s trying those tactics now. Its the only real card he has going into this election.
Raven
@celticdragonchick: What the fuck is LGF?
Dennis SGMM
@Culture of Truth:
Consider that Mitt’s business career consisted of using leveraged money to take over companies that were on their uppers. America is on its uppers at the moment. Mitt and his handlers figured that it had worked before so why not? They are now panicking because no one seems willing to bear him through the streets in triumph.
He is a member of a faith that the usually reliable fundies don’t even recognize as genuine and he exudes phoniness like a pine tree air freshener exudes smell.
Of course he’s going low. Of course he will turn this election, as much as he can, into a White People’s Last Stand. He’ll do it because he has nothing else to offer.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
I would think the Obama haters will turn out to vote. They overperformed in 2010, and many of them like Ryan.
My concern is overconfidence among those who assume Obama has it in the bag, that he won it last time and there’s no difference this election.
Democrats need huge coat tails by Obama for the down-ticket races.
Maybe that’s what the Mittjoking is all about.
He and the GOP know it can’t put Romney over the finish line (their internals), but they want the House and Senate.
celticdragonchick
@Raven:
Little Green Footballs…
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): If Romney doesn’t play to white racial resentment, a plurality of these people are likely to stay home.
I see. So they’re the “racist GOP base”, but they don’t vote out the brown fellow because they are too lazy. Wait, what kind of racist base doesn’t vote out the brown fellow?
No, these attacks are targeting someone besides the “racist GOP base”.
cckids
@spongeworthy:
Culture of Truth
@spongeworthy:
The phrase in quotes does not appear in the original post, does it?
Chyron HR
@spongeworthy:
That’s an interesting question. It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it?
Neither does Mitt giving speeches where he says how fun it is to fire people. Does that make people want to vote for him?
And why would he send his wife out to sneeringly declare that “you people” (or as we call them, “Americans”) have seen all they need to of his tax returns? Who did that appeal to?
My theory, and I realize that this does contradict the Mormon prophecy which foretells the “White Horse” who will become God-Emperor of America, is that Willard Mitt Romney isn’t very good at running for President.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: I’ve already addressed this.
Cassidy
@Elizabelle: I think Mitt already knows this is done. He won’t admit it and is willing to spend all the money otherwise, but he’s smart enough to know he’s done. I think he was taking the oppurtunity to call Obama a ni-(clang) and that no matter how powerful he is and how far he’s gone he will always be one.
Bobby Thomson
@spongeworthy:
Then whom?
4tehlulz
Why are you idiots trying to reason with someone defending mitt’s ni—er joke?
celticdragonchick
Prosecutor: Ga. murder case uncovers terror plot
Four Army soldiers based in southeast Georgia killed a former comrade and his girlfriend to protect an anarchist militia group they formed that stockpiled assault weapons and plotted a range of anti-government attacks, prosecutors told a judge Monday.
Prosecutors in rural Long County, near the sprawling Army post Fort Stewart, said the militia group composed of active duty and former U.S. military members spent at least $87,000 buying guns and bomb components and was serious enough to kill two people – former soldier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York – by shooting them in the woods last December in order to keep its plans secret.
“This domestic terrorist organization did not simply plan and talk,” prosecutor Isabel Pauley told a Superior Court judge. “Prior to the murders in this case, the group took action. Evidence shows the group possessed the knowledge, means and motive to carry out their plans.”
Burnett testified that on the night of Dec. 4, he and the three other soldiers lured Roark and York to some woods a short distance from the Army post under the guise that they were going target shooting. He said Peden shot Roark’s girlfriend in the head while she was trying to get out of her car. Salmon, he said, made Roark get on his knees and shot him twice in the head. Burnett said Aguigui ordered the killings.
“A loose end is the way Isaac put it,” Burnett said.
The prosecutor said the militia group had big plans. It plotted to take over Fort Stewart by seizing its ammunition control point and talked of bombing the Forsyth Park fountain in nearby Savannah, she said. In Washington state, she added, the group plotted to bomb a dam and poison the state’s apple crop. Ultimately, prosecutors said, the militia’s goal was to overthrow the government and assassinate the president.
****************************
According to Michelle Malkin, this sort of thing is “unpossible”…
spongeworthy
@Cassidy: My point was that the original post was dumb. I read all the posts here–I only stopped to comment on this one. You guys keep claiming Romney’s trying to motivate GOP racists who hate Obama to vote him out. I think that’s dumb. Nobody’s addressed to claim in the original post at all
I do believe the attack will bring voters to Romney, but which voters?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Chyron HR: There’s definitely the Romney stupid factor at play as well. But to argue as spongeworthy is, that the racist base is locked up is stupid. It requires a narrow definition of racism, and ignorance of the preponderance of evidence that a significant portion of the GOP is “just not that into him”. White racial resentment is a card he has to play. He simply cannot afford not to.
JPL
@spongeworthy: It’s not a matter of the whites thinking the others stole their jobs and tax money…Mitt needs to get them to the polls.
If papa Bush hadn’t won the same way, I’d say his plan would backfire.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: Not that you haven’t ignored this question several times already, but
“I do believe the attack will bring voters to Romney, but which voters?”
Really? Why don’t you tell us, sponge? Which voters?
handy
I didn’t realize Bob Somerby read and posted at BJ. Playing coy through the end is the big tell.
Cassidy
@spongeworthy: You can think it’s dumb all you want. Doesn’t make it not true. I think a lot of things are dumb. They still exist. Such is life. Your “point”, and I hesitate to call it that, has been addressed…many times over. You choose not to believe it. That is fine. Doesn’t make it any less true.
And you keep alluding to a mysterious group that the message was really meant for. Unless you break out some really cool conspiracy shit with the Illuminati, the Deep Ones and MLP:FIM, then you’re being boring. So put up and quit trolling or go somewhere else.
spongeworthy
@Mnemosyne: He does have the GOP vote locked down. You know and I know that both candidates have their parties locked down, There’s virtually no defections this cycle.
Yet. And that’s who this attack targets–disaffected white voters in swing states. And since the GOP vote is locked already, that leaves independents and–I know you guys are going to cry–Democrats.
Which is why Matthews went emo on Priebus and why the original post was silly. Obama has a problem with white men and everybody knows it.
Throwin Stones
@Cassidy: I’ve seen a couple amusing anagrams, but my favorite and I believe most fitting is if you remove the vowels from his name you get: RNC PR BS. Perfect!
spongeworthy
@Culture of Truth: Good catch. My mistake.
Should be “racist wing of the GOP”.
Dennis SGMM
@celticdragonchick:
Holy shit! The FBI might consider combing the rest of these idiots out of the military. The Army sure as hell won’t do it.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: No one has yet to question if this invalidates my birth certificate or passport. Since the state of Hawai’i is sooo dishonest with Obama’s birth certificate mine must be a lie tooo right? I wonder what the difference is…
Cassidy
@spongeworthy: 155 comments to spout some faux conventional wisdom, Joe Scarborough bullshit? You’ve ignored all evidence to the contrary. So not only are you a tool, but it takes you way too long to rub one out.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: Wait. Now you are saying that Romney going birther will gain independents and democrats?
BWAHAHAHAHA. Independent voters are generally turned off by this shite. And other than a few confused southern dixiecrats (who I could probably count on one hand), Democrats aren’t particularly fond of birther bullshit either.
Thanks for playing.
Dennis SGMM
@Yutsano:
My birth certificate was registered in Hawaii because I was born to American parents, in the late Forties, way down in Micronesia.
I must be on very shaky ground myself.
Hill Dweller
Haley Barbour, of all people, is in Tampa accusing the Democrats of playing the race card. Once Willard started the race-baiting, it was only a matter of time before the other “reverse racism” shoe dropped, but I’m surprised they chose Barbour to be the messenger.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): I think I was clear that the Birther joke was only that. The welfare waivers were an unforced error by the OA, and they’re going to lose votes for it.
dance around in your bones
spongeworthy is definitely SO not spongeworthy in the Elaine sense of the word.
Pieworthy, however…
Amir Khalid
@spongeworthy:
Aren’t you forgetting that Mitt himself is singularly lacking in personal appeal, and has reason to be unsure of even the party’s base? His talent for putting people off seems unmatched in a serious contender at this level — suggesting that his hosts were serving cookies bought from 7-Eleven, or going to Britain and offending the Prime Minister. If I were him and foolish enough to run for president anyway, I too would do everything to pander to the base.
GOVCHRIS1988
@spongeworthy: So, you’re saying its Barack Obama’s fault that Republicans are lying about the Welfare Requirement being taken away because he allowed states Welfare Waivers that many Republican Governors, including the current presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican ticket, wanted? This blame the victim crap may play in the beltway, but people on main street have a little more common sense than that.
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy:
Yes, it’s Obama’s fault that his bipartisan effort to improve a handful of states’ welfare to work numbers is being shamelessly exploited by a desperate Romney campaign.
Are Willard’s welfare lies also Obama’s fault?
julie
it’s time to talk about one of the reasons Romney is running for president: to mainstream Mormonism.
how about we start with the Mormon jokes?
Huckabee tells a good one, “don’t Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?” HA HA HA
that’s Romney laughing. oh, it’s not?
geez, it was just a joke. no levity allowed?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Raven: LGF, like Balloon Juice, is a site run by someone who was a Republican until the party went insane enough that he realized that the party wasn’t even what he thought it was, never mind that it had changed from what it was believed to be.
spongeworthy
@Hill Dweller: In what sense was it “bipartisan”? Congress alone has the ability to change the law–Clinton himself admits this. Obama did not even try to put this past Congress.
Catsy
@danah gaz (fka gaz):
This is beautiful.
dance around in your bones
@shortstop:
Cripes – this is what happens when you get to a thread late – beaten by approximately 100 posts.
Curses! Foiled again!
spongeworthy
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, I get that this is what you guys are hanging your hats on–Mitt is unlikeable and his racist base needs shoring up.
Yet you turn right around and claim Romney’s base hates Obama because he’s black and they are all racists. You can’t have it both ways.
You’re now claiming there is a segment of GOP racists haters who hatey-hate blacks like Obama but they need some additional motivation to actually vote. It’s a crap argument and you have no numbers to back it up, just wishful thinking.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Catsy: Thanks. I’ve been wondering if it needed MOAR coq references, and maybe another butt or two, but you’ve reassured me of it’s intrinsic artistic balance. =)
Hill Dweller
@spongeworthy: HHS was acquiescing, in part, to Republican governors’ requests.
Furthermore, Republican governors(including Willard) have made the same request in the past.
This is an attempt to improve the welfare to work numbers in the states. There is absolutely no evidence of the work requirement being waved. None.
ETA: Clinton essentially called Willard a liar. Do you really want to bring him into the conversation?
GOVCHRIS1988
@spongeworthy:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/07/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-barack-obamas-plan-abandons-tenet/
He WASN’T changing the law. You are buying the Republican lie that this was a law change by executive order. It wasn’t. The law is EXACTLY THE SAME AS IT WAS BEFORE
Per the HHS Memo, it says here that…
Since 1996, welfare has been administered through block grants to states through a program called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. TANF, as it’s called, limits how long families can get aid and requires recipients to eventually go to work. It also includes stringent reporting requirements for states to show they are successfully moving people off welfare and and into the workforce.
A memo from George Sheldon, the acting assistant secretary at HHS, said the department wanted to give states more flexibility in meeting those requirements. The memo notifies states “of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority … to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”
The memo outlined, using the jargon of a federal bureaucracy, the kinds of waivers that would be considered. It suggested projects that “improve collaboration with the workforce and/or post-secondary education systems” and “demonstrate strategies for more effectively serving individuals with disabilities,” to give two examples.
What does all that mean?
“If you can do a better job connecting people to work, we would consider waiving certain parts of the performance measures and use alternate measures,” is how Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, translated the memo’s point. (The center supports the plan.)
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html
Politifact, Factcheck, even news orgs and Republicans admit this ad is a farcical lie and you are here expecting us to buy into the lie so you can win the argument. It ain’t happening.
The Other Chuck
You stupid fucks are just never going to learn to stop feeding the trolls, are you?
Cassidy
@The Other Chuck: Sometimes it’s fun.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@The Other Chuck: I know right?
And to think, if we had just exercised a modicum of restraint, we could be having an intelligent, and meaningful conversation about birtherism and/or Donald Trump right now.
It’s a damned shame.
Cassidy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): You know, some people say….
Mike in NC
@Hill Dweller:
Where the heck was Noot? Servicing his sugar daddy Sheldon?
Amir Khalid
@spongeworthy:
Those two statements are in fact not mutually exclusive. People can be racist and/or partisan enough to not vote for Obama, and still not keen enough on Mitt to vote for him. And Mitt — a member of a suspicious sect, rich, entitled, out of touch with regular folks — isn’t a very easy person to like. The party settled for him only after the rest of the field crashed out of the primaries. He needs to appeal to his party’s base anyway he can, so why not signal that he shares their well-documented suspicions about Obama?
Amir Khalid
@The Other Chuck:
We’re the people who go to the zoo, and feed the animals because we see the “Don’t feed the animals” signs.
Haydnseek
@Elizabelle: Would they be saying the same thing about the usual white Democratic candidate? They accused Bill Clinton of murdering Vince Foster, so my answer would have to be yes.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mike in NC: I’m pretty sure Sheldon already cut him off. Presumably for not putting out often enough.
Elizabelle
@Hill Dweller:
Too bad everybody’s popcorn is getting rained on.
Allan
I’m loving post-racial America.
Allan
@spongeworthy: Elaine Bennis called. She said to let you know that you’re mistaken.
spongeworthy
@GOVCHRIS1988: No, I’m not claiming anything about the ad–haven’t seen it.
I am claiming the Secretary has no authority to grant waivers. If she had, others would have already done so, including Clinton, who hated the work requirement to begin with.
This isn’t really even debatable–Congress wrote the law to prohibit waivers from HHS. (They may have done a poor job, but that was the intent.) Obama did it anyway–that’s just fact, and it will alienate voters. Democrat voters, too.
spongeworthy
@Amir Khalid: Can you provide a single poll that supports your belief that Romney hasn’t got the base sewed up?
Catsy
@spongeworthy:
I know you’re just trolling, but on the off-chance that anyone other than you is so stupid as to actually believe this:
You linked to a page about the Obama campaign selling mugs and other swag with Obama’s birth certificate on them. You then attempted to draw a false equivalence between that merchandise and Romney’s joke. This betrays a total lack of understanding of what constitutes a joke, or of where the supposed “jokes” in these two examples are.
The Obama birth certificate swag derives its humor from making fun of the birthers and their bad faith demands for Obama’s birth certificate. The “punch line” of the “joke” here is in the contrast between a) the idiotic demands of the birthers and b) the fact that Obama’s birth certificate is so public and easy to find that the campaign even prints it on swag that it sells. And by making it commemorative swag they draw attention to the fact that they have long since released what the birthers are supposing to demand. The use of the birth certificate on this merchandise mocks the birthers by implicitly demonstrating how irrational and groundless their position is.
Now that you understand that, let’s deconstruct Romney’s “joke” the same way. Romney said: “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”
This attempt at humor functions by drawing a contrast between two things: Romney (whom no one has ever needed to ask for his birth certificate in order to know he was born here) and Obama (who has been subjected to a higher burden of proof). The “punch line” to such a joke comes from the audience’s realization of what the source of that contrast is.
So what is Romney saying the source of that contrast is? Exactly why does he suppose that no one has ever needed to see his birth certificate in order to know he was born here–and what difference does he think accounts for the fact that Obama does not receive that benefit of the doubt?
It’s not wealth, education, fame, or government service–the two candidates are comparable in all the ways that might matter in this context.
So what do you suppose it is? That difference between the two candidates that allows anyone who sees Mitt Romney to presume him an American citizen who is exactly who he says he is, while Barack Obama’s citizenship and place of birth is skeptically questioned even after he has produced a level of proof above and beyond that ever demanded of any other presidential candidate?
And if you can answer what that difference is… exactly what is funny about citing that double standard in an approving way?
GOVCHRIS1988
@spongeworthy: So, let me get this straight, you haven’t seen the Romney ad lying straight about the President gutting welfare requirements, yet you are defending Mitt Romney by accusing the President of changing the law by gutting welfare requirements. Of course it isn’t debatable, because you are not using factual evidence in your arguments!!!! You keep IGNORING the fact that Republicans have wanted this and if this were a Republican President, nothing would be said of this.
If President Obama loses votes because of it, it would be only because Mitt Romney is LYING about the welfare work requirement being removed. It isn’t Barack Obama’s fault that Mitt Romney IS LYING, which is what you seem to keep implying here.
Haydnseek
@spongeworthy: Yes, many of them undoubtedly will, but given the low voter turnout in every election in the US, there always could be more Rmoney voters, if only he could inflame them enough to get them off their ass and to the polls. He just needs to peel off a few percentage points in some states, hence the accelerated race-baiting.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75062.html
(source poll below)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153854/Romney-Challenge-Midwestern-Young-Highly-Religious-GOP.aspx
and another
http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/mi/
Why are these from the primaries? Because that’s the only time you’ll find these types of polls – when you have other candidates to contrast him to.
Thanks for playing
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: http://www.gallup.com/poll/153854/Romney-Challenge-Midwestern-Young-Highly-Religious-GOP.aspx
and another (for Michigan this time)
http://americanresearchgroup.com/pres2012/primary/rep/mi/
Why are these from the primaries? Because that’s the only time you’ll find these types of polls – when you have other candidates to contrast him to.
Thanks for playing
spongeworthy
@Catsy: Your well-considered case plugs along pretty well until you get to here: That difference between the two candidates that allows anyone who sees Mitt Romney presume him an American citizen who is exactly who he says he is…
Your implication is that Mitt is white and Barack is not. But the real point of that entire part of the speech was that Romney is a Mighigan native–his dad was governor. That’s how people know he is who he claims–they know him and his family. This is breathtakingly obvious.
Romney has no mysterious past. He has never claimed to be from Kenya as Obama did to sell books. Michiganders know who he is because they know his family. That’s the whole point of saying this in Michigan.
To surmise that, by process of elimination Romney must have been pointing to Obama as the Other, you have to completely ignore where and to whom the speech was given. Oh, and the preceding and following staments he made.
spongeworthy
@GOVCHRIS1988: If he hadn’t ignored the law, it wouldn’t be an issue at all, would it?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: And here’s an article from politico that helpfully breaks the gallup poll down for you. I didn’t include it in the first comment only because 3 links sends a comment into moderation:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75062.html
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): You’re seriously offering primary polls to claim Romney hasn’t shored up his base today?
That’s real weak.
Tom Betz
Necessarily offensive as the language may be, the Rude Pundit nails this reality today. Click on the NSFW (when was the Rude Pundit ever SFW?) link if you dare.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Odd interactive in the NYTImes. Slideshow of 33 potential voters in swing states.
Struck by how many apparent Republicans (one lady whose great cause is the unborn; a Republican guy worried about debt burden for our kids and grandkids) report they’re “undecided.”
Maybe they’re playing with the great liberal Times, maybe they prefer not to say.
Maybe they really are keeping an open mind.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: He did not ignore the law. He issued an executive order. Executive orders are in fact, completely lawful. They are one of the few powers of executive office.
You’re full of shit, but then, I expect you already know that.
Not to mention that this was not the complaint in Romney’s bullshit ad. His utterly false claim was that Obama had gutted work requirements for welfare, when he did no such thing – rather he allowed an avenue for states to make a case that they had a more efficient means to implement it than what the federal requirement dictated.
Nice deflection. Or at least it would be, if you were arguing with 8th graders or your fellow wingnuts. That shit doesn’t fly here. We have standards.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): Yeah, that one’s from April. Here’s the facts: Romney holds numerically his best advantage to date among conservatives, 77-16 percent
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/solid-chances-serious-challenges-greet-romney-at-his-convention/
GOVCHRIS1988
@spongeworthy: Again, you are saying its President Obama’s fault that Mitt Romney is lying about welfare because President Obama dealt with giving Republican Governors’ waivers to try and implement better programs.
You seem to be in favor of a Republican candidate lying to you about the other just to get your vote. And you wonder why we are looking at you like you ate pheasant shit?
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): From what I understand, it was a dishonest ad.
You, however, are incorrect. Executive orders cannot override laws enacted by Congress. If want to claim credibly that they can, you need to provide a cite.
CarolDuhart2
@spongeworthy: They probably are internal polls. But look at the primary: Romney won because everybody else was so bad, and even then it took him until almost June to wrap it up. Notice how nobody really listens to him on anything. Ron Paul won’t endorse him, there’s at least a couple of well-attended counter rallies and nearly a floor fight.
But the real problem for Romney is the volunteer base. Yes, folks may reluctantly vote for him, but canvassing and knocking on doors? Romney has few offices and even fewer volunteers. But if he is to get the votes he needs, he’s going to have to do better than McCain did four years ago.. McCain had to hire temps to run a lot of his campaign offices-there weren’t enough volunteers. (Check the old 538.com 2008 archives for proof).The result for McCain was disasterous of course, and some people actually liked McCain and were enthused about Sarah Palin. Romney doesn’t have even that much appeal.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): That shit doesn’t fly here. We have standards.
Hah! Well, some of you commenters might, but your standards aren’t being applied to the original post. I don’t expect you all to gang up on one of your own when they screw the pooch like this, but jumping up my ass for pointing it out doesn’t say much for these standards.
Bobby Thomson
Fixed
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: First of all, you are the one that posited the assertion that Obama ignored the law. The burden is on you.
Also, the link you cited was a non-sequitur. We were talking about shoring up his base. That polling deals with registered voters. Not Romney’s base.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: I think I’ll take the peer review of EVERY COMMENTER HERE aside from you, over your own bullshit assertion.
Thanks for playing.
spongeworthy
@GOVCHRIS1988: I don’t care how you look at me and I’m not defending the ad. As I have said repeatedly, the original post claimed the reason for this ad was to “play to the racist wing of the GOP”. That’s dumb.
This is a classic wedge issue, one that has the potential to peel off disaffected Democrats. not the racists in the GOP. Obama should not have put it in play–that was an unforced error.
This does not excuse a dishonest ad, and I suspect you’ll see the issue put before voters again in a more straightforward fashion. The facts are damning enough. What’s more, I think many of you know this.
Brachiator
@spongeworthy:
RE: That shit doesn’t fly here. We have standards.
The code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: “I don’t expect you all to gang up on one of your own when they screw the pooch like this”
Actually this happens all the time. In fact, numerous threads are destroyed that way, one of the most recent being DougJ’s a couple of days ago, by saying something profoundly stupid about English people.
Also, ask ABL about this some time.
This isn’t World Net Daily or Redstate, after all.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): I think I’ll take the peer review of EVERY COMMENTER HERE aside from you, over your own bullshit assertion.
Well, then I guess you cannot be convinced. I do have to wonder, since you think the president can just override Congress with an EO, what exactly is the purpose of Congress?. What is the purpose of the Veto Power? Why would the president need a veto if he can just write an EO negating any law?
Patricia Kayden
So the stategy for Repubs is to win on straight up racism. How is this going to work in a few more years when the minority population increases substantially?
Repubs are going the way of the Whig Party. All this race-mongering is not going to do them any good as the country becomes less White.
Hope I live to see them become a permanent minority party.
Unfortunately, they may win this election though. But I think they’ll screw things up so badly that 2016 should be an easy win for the Democrats.
GOVCHRIS1988
@spongeworthy:
WHAT FACTS ARE DAMNING??! There is no fact in the ad. Period. Its NOT TRUE!
THIS ad has the potential of peeling off WHITE disaffected Democrats. The “Reagan Democrats” if you will. This is why Romney is using the lie. It would also help the rabid racist GOP base into enthusiastically voting FOR Mitt Romney rather than fully against Barack Obama.
I also have a problem with you blaming Barack Obama using the welfare waivers for GOPers in states for prompting Mitt Romney to lie. If it wasn’t this, he would have found some other racial lie to try. Democrats being scared of doing shit because of how a Republican might bullshit people is not even worth the trouble. We need to curbstomp them everytime they do it.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: “Well, then I guess you cannot be convinced”
Not on this, not by you. You don’t have the chops.
” I do have to wonder, since you think the president can just override Congress with an EO”
Keep wondering. Until you can back your own assertion that he acted outside the law (despite nobody of consequence sharing that view) you can go soak your head. It’s not my job to refute every turd you fling at the wall.
dogwood
Why are people engaging spongebob? Romney’s a racist; he was taught from an early age that black people don’t have souls. The Republican platform is racist. What’s really sad about America right now is that the right wing has succeeded in convincing the media and a good chunk of the American people that being called a “racist” is abominable, while actually being a racist is tolerable. It’s all in the same vein of it being horrendous to call a politician a liar, but being a liar is AOK.
Romney told the “joke” because he thinks that kind of stuff is funny. He believes that people like the President are not worthy of respect. He’s a bully and always has been. It’s also part of the mainstreaming of Mormonism. Mormons have been outsiders in the culture, but you can make yourself one of the good old boys by showing solidarity with white bigots.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@dogwood: “Why are people engaging spongebob?”
Because the alternative is that we talk about Donald Trump.
In terms of seriousness, there’s little daylight between the two, I’ll admit. But at least the sponge is interactive.
spongeworthy
@danah gaz (fka gaz): Nobody of consequence?
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/16/obamas-gutting-of-welfare-reform-is-illegal/
You can read the law there and decide for yourself.
Also, Democrat Mickey Kaus is interesting on this issue: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/20/how-obama-can-lick-his-welfare-problem/
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
So this attack is meant to separate white voters from Obama, and yet you keep insisting that the attack is totally not racist or meant to appeal to racist sentiment.
Curious, that.
And, yes, all of us here have already pointed out that this is a racist attack meant to appeal to racists, and that there’s no possible way for Romney to win unless he gets unprecedented turnout from white men. Does Romney really strike you as being the kind of guy who can get more white men to vote for him than Ronald Reagan did?
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@spongeworthy: The Heritage Foundation? A right wing think tank, whose credibility is called into question, for among other things, opposing the healthcare legislation that they wrote in the 90’s, namely the ACA, and particularly the individual mandate. A strictly partisan organization. Next.
Mickey Klaus? Seriously? Were you able to write his name with a straight face? If so, you’re a moron.
So yes, nobody of consequence. Thanks for underscoring my point.
Mnemosyne
@spongeworthy:
Well, gosh, if a right-wing organization that was founded by guys who thought Richard Nixon was too liberal says it’s true, then it must be true!
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@danah gaz (fka gaz): Kaus, not Klaus – FYWP – my edit button broke.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Mnemosyne: Frankly I thought the Kaus reference was the more laughable of the two.
It’s like he just put that in there to prove my point.
The Other Chuck
@Patricia Kayden: Jah, und if President Hindenburg appoints Herr Hitler as Chancellor, everyone will see what a bunch of dumbkopfs those Nazis are and drive them out next election!
hep kitty
@Tom Betz: Pretty much sums it up for me.
But interesting that Newt just admitted to Matthews that most welfare recipients are white?
El Cid
The Heritage Foundation conspired with Ronald Reagan to let all the lazy low income workers get out of paying federal income taxes, i.e., the ‘half of Americans’ (not really, but whatever) who don’t pay income taxes.
In the 1986 tax reform.
Of course, back then they excused their redistributionist communism by arguing that the lowest income workers couldn’t afford to work their way out of poverty and into the middle class (or higher) given the unjust and unfair burden of income taxes.
But we know that Ronald Reagan and the Heritage Foundation were just Barack Obama’s advance ACORN / Occupy shock troops.
tkogrumpy
@The Red Pen: ” I read free republic several times a day”,…Oh, I’m so sorry.