Tea Party

It seems that no matter how hard they try, the Tea Party can't seem to get it right. There were Christine O'Donnell from Delaware and Sharron Angle from Nevada whose run for the senate was a total flop. Now they are shooting themselves in the leg, arm, or head by voting for Newt Gingrich.

The conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney is the Tea Party's second or third choice, but the Tea Party continues to split their power base by voting for Gingrich. The fact is that Newt and Calista will never see the inside of the White House unless they visit as a tourist. The same holds true for Rick and Karen. But if the Tea Party wants to be represented by a conservative, they need to unify around one candidate.

There are some pundits who have figured out that if Newt dropped out, most of his votes would go to Santorum and he could indeed beat Romney. The numbers are quite clear: Romney has trouble breaking the 38% barrier and Gingrich and Santorum's combined vote would easily defeat Romney.

Some would argue that Newt is stubborn and will not drop out. Well, it's true that Newt is stubborn, but when people stop voting for him and his money dries up, he will drop out.

Santorum will never be POTUS, but at least the Tea Party will have a candidate that suits their 1950's way of thinking.

He’s a good doctor but with poor bedside manners

Therein lies a huge problem for Willard.

I don't care how GOOD a doctor is, how many people continue seeing one if they don't connect & have confidence in them?

Not many who are stable...

While we're at it - someone pass Santorum some Pepto Bismal, I hear he want to puke!

Isn’t that interesting. The Supreme Court will hear arguments about the constitutionality of the individual mandate next month and the vast majority on American’s, including 56% of Dems, already believe it is unconstitutional.

So, a likely 5-4 decision declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional would be entirely consistent with the will of the American people. And our constitutional law professor President and all the lefty liberals will spend the next few months after such a decision wailing, whining, and complaining about a conservative “activist court”.

I look forward to endless replays of the Wicked Witch of the West Pelosi’s ”Are you serious?” response to a reporter’s question about where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance. LOL!!!

From Politico:

Poll: Sharp split on health care repeal
By: Tim Mak
February 27, 2012 06:22 AM EST

Americans are deeply divided over whether a Republican president should repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law if elected this November, a new poll Monday shows, although the vast majority of those surveyed believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Gallup found that 47 percent of Americans want a GOP president to repeal the law, while 44 percent oppose that.

However, 72 percent of Americans believe the individual mandate in the health care reform package is unconstitutional, while 20 percent believe it is constitutional.

Along party lines, a majority of Democrats - 56 percent - believe the health care mandate is unconstitutional and 37 percent defend it as constitutional. Among Republicans, 94 percent view that part of the law as unconstitutional.

60 year-old male GOP congressionals and governors say they're against women using birth control. Already an old, dead discussion: Shocking! The affordable healthcare act (ACA) allows ALL women access to birth control without Messrs. Boehner, McConnell, Issa, Santorum, Romney, Gingrich and Paul's permission.

GOP/Koch & affiliates like to spin that contraceptive choice is a religious issue. Santorum said late last night "it's about politics." However, Catholic women are saying it is a personal decision = No congressional male or cleric can/will make that decision for them. If a Catholic worker wants coverage, she has access to it. The decision is HERS.

Last week, leading Catholic nuns filed a brief in the Supreme Court in support of ObamaCare. "Amici have witnessed firsthand the national crisis that prompted Congress to pass the ACA. In particular, Amici have seen the devastating impact of the lack of affordable health insurance and healthcare on women, children, and other vulnerable members of society."

A broad spectrum of Catholic groups supporting Obamacare:
"Benedictine Sisters, Boerne, Texas; Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Texas; Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, New York; Dominican Sisters of Hope; Justice and Peace Committee of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, Massachusetts; Marianist Province of the United States; Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth Leadership Team, New Jersey; Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul of New York; Sisters of the Holy Cross Congregation Justice Committee; Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, Corpus Christi, Texas; Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Justice Team, Nebraska; Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, Missouri; Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, New York; Sisters of St. Dominic Congregation of the Most Holy Name; Society of the Holy Child Jesus, American Province Leadership Team; Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, US Province; JOLT, Catholic Coalition for Responsible Investing; Region VI Coalition for Responsible Investment, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee; School Sisters of Notre Dame Cooperative Investment Fund.

Mr. Santorum, your religious leader says health care is an "inalienable right".
Do you know that YOUR Pope Benedict XVI said it is the "moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens."

Folks across America just like the nuns, priests & leaders above who help the sick and impoverished, are not 'enemies of religion'.
They show us by their actions, what it means to be truly human = truly 'religious'.

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1004736.htm

Good Morning Ron,

I believe Christine "I Am Not a Witch" McDonell endorsed Willard;

Christine O’Donnell, who has endorsed Mitt Romney, appeared on CNN Wednesday and inadvertently drew attention to one of the charges against the former Massachusetts governor from his critics — flip-flopping.

“That’s one of the things that I like about him — because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind,” O’Donnell said

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70418.html#ixzz1nakeBjEG

Bold added for emphasis - check out the reason WHY... lol

MSNBC'S MARTIN BASHIR'S VERBAL TAKEDOWN OF THE GOP CANDIDATES! ~ "...It’s now time to clear the air and if there’s anything more anathema to some Republicans than having to witness a black man being president, then it is the idea that someone of another religious faith, or no faith whatsoever, might possibly be in the White House. And so, having failed disastrously in that preposterous attempt to suggest that the president is not an American, they are now reviving their effort to imply that the president is not a Christian.

But how does anyone prove that they are a Christian, beyond saying that they are? There is no birth certificate to produce, but there are some very clear signs. Sixty years ago, almost to the day, the great Oxford academic CS Lewis published a book entitled “mere Christianity.” The book was based upon some BBC radio talks that he gave during the Second World War. This is what he said:

“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions – if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his conversion was largely imaginary. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better.”

So let’s apply Lewis’ approach to three individuals – all of whole claim to be devout men of faith, all of whom want to be president.

First Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney earlier this month said this about the president:

“The newly elected President Obama told America that if Congress approved his plan to borrow nearly a trillion dollars he would hold unemployment below eight percent.”

That’s an outright lie. The president never, ever said such a thing. In fact, that was a speculative projection written by Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein about the possible impact of a stimulus package and it was written before the president was even inaugurated.

Mr. Santorum is selling himself as the most Christian of all the candidates. He says Satan is attacking the institutions of America. He talks repeatedly about the great men and women of faith who serve this country through self-sacrifice and generosity.

But when it comes to his own personal commitment to charity, Mr. Santorum is remarkably quiet. And that’s because, in 2012, Mr. Santorum earned almost a million dollars and gave just 1.7 percent to charity. During the same period, the President and the First Lady gave almost 15 percent.

So, the devout Catholic is apparently a hypocrite. And finally, Newt Gingrich. A man who believes that the Christian sacrament of marriage – lifelong monogamy – actually means sleeping with one woman at a time. So, there you have it: the liar, the hypocrite and the adulterer. And remember what CS Lewis wrote:

“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions, then I think we must suspect that his conversion was largely imaginary."

(h/t to Nellcote and Rikyrah)
The President of the United States is a Christian – but as for those three – in the words of Franklin Graham – “I don’t think any of us can be categorically certain.” ..."

via: http://pragmaticobotsunite.blogspot.com/2012/02/thursday-evening-thread-martin-bashirs.html#more

Over the weekend Mr Santorum and Mr Romney further enlightened us as to their unsuitability to be President, each of them in their own inimitable way: Santorum too extreme he is knocking on lunacy's door and Romney so unable to connect with anyone not in the 1%. Gingrich is just irrelevant at this point.

Good Morning Feisty:

I believe you are right that Christine O'Donnell did endorse Mittens. Now if Sharron Angle and Jan Brewer would do the same, ol' Mitt would have it made. A trifecta of losers.

Mitt Romney has been actively running for President for 5 years; who knows how long he has had his eye on the Presidency before that? Yet even with all that time to prepare, the best he can do when speaking off the cuff is "my wife drives a couple of Cadillacs" and "I know some NASCAR team owners"? How can he possibly understand the problems of someone who can't afford a used car to drive to work? How can he relate to someone who can't afford one home, yet alone to buy Malibu beach property for millions and tear it down because it isn't big enough? How can he think he should pay less than 15% taxes on those millions?

But a new USA Today/Gallup survey has Obama and Romney tied at 47% each, and with Romney edging Obama in the swing states, 48%-46%. We’ll say this: Either Gallup is seeing something that no one else is seeing right now

Gallup lost it's way quite a while ago. Their polling is suspect to say the least.

Alan,

You are sotra correct. But look at favorability.

Gallup: Among all surveyed (Fav/UnFav/No Opinion) [Feb 16-19, 2012]:

Obama = 50/48/2; Paul = 39/40/21; Romney = 39/47/14; Santorum = 38/35/27; Gingrich = 26/61/14

Gallup: Favorability among those with an opinion [Feb 16-19, 2012]:

Santorum = 52/48; Obama = 51/49; Paul = 49/51; Romney = 45/55; Gingrich = 30/70

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152942/Obama-Favorable-Rating-Higher-GOP-Candidates.aspx

Mitt Romney has been actively running for President for 5 years; who knows how long he has had his eye on the Presidency before that? Yet even with all that time to prepare, the best he can do when speaking off the cuff is "my wife drives a couple of Cadillacs" and "I know some NASCAR team owners"? How can he possibly understand the problems of someone who can't afford a used car to drive to work? How can he relate to someone who can't afford one home, yet alone to buy Malibu beach property for millions and tear it down because it isn't big enough?

Yes the attempt to have everyone own their home turned out to be a real winner. And in America it's everyone's right to own a car. Maybe Romney was right. It would be nice to have a President focus on the bulk of the middle class rather than shape every policy for the bottom 5%. Keep comparing the top 1% to the bottom 5%, that's a surefire winner for the election.

Of course we do have a Federal tax/program to ensure everybody has a cell phone.

Alan,

You are sotra correct.

Not sorta correct. Exactly as stated.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-23/swing-states-health-care-obama/53260222/1

In the poll, Obama lags the two leading Republican rivals in the 12 states likely to determine the outcome of a close race in November:

•Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tops Obama 50%-45% in the swing states. Nationwide, Santorum's lead narrows to 49%-46%.

•Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney edges Obama 48%-46% in the swing states. Nationwide, they are tied at 47% each.

In one Press Conference, Speaker John Boehner used the term "job-killing" once every 2 minutes.

I'm sorry, but what about GOP/Koch 'people-killing' policies?

Rather than allow 32 million Americans their first-ever access to health care in 2014 when the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented; GOP's perspective is they'd rather these folks just be sick, not be able to afford healthcare and die, or go bankrupt. Harsh words but very real.

Backhouse, well said. Santorum and his kind are Christians in name only. It is one thing to have faith and live that faith at home yet they disregard the teachings of the Bible when it comes to others, to the least among us.

Dennis, Ron, great start to the week. Tomorrow's MI and AZ primaries should be interesting but the chatter from the GOP the next day will be even more interesting.

JAN BREWER, the Wicked Witch of the West, The Spider Lady, she endorses Romney.

The kiss of death.

This is worse than Trump's endorsement. Romney can kiss off any Latin votes in Arizona, and there are lots and lots of Latin voters. Arizona might just swing to President Obama after this endorsement.

Obama in 2012.

President Mad Hatter’s World

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be as it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

Pretty much describes Obama’s world.

Last week in Miami while ridiculing Republicans, Obama said ….

“The American people aren’t stupid …”

Obama has to be living in the Mad Hatter’s “everything would be what it isn’t” world, because only the stupid would buy what Obama is trying to sell.

The guy that thinks he can lower the tides and heal the planet …. says gasoline prices are beyond the control of any president.

Reality …. Bush did it …. Dropped the price of gas $2.51 a little over 3 years ago. Simple fact.

Gas prices peaked at $4.12 in July 2008, Bush went before Congress to open up drilling and prices dropped to $1.61 by November 2008.

Obama surprisingly noticed the American people are kinda getting p.o.ed. Since the big election is coming up, Obama touts “We’re focused on production” …. trots Gibbs out of pasture to tell everyone …..

“Our domestic oil production is at an 8 year high….”

Trying to suggest Obama has actually done anything to increase production … and to that extent … his energy policies deserve all the credit is more like Mr. Hatter trying to pull an excuse out of his butt than out of any hat?

Seriously …. The Mr. “Never let a crisis go to waste” … who shut down the Gulf, who defied his own commission, who defied a federal judge’s orders, contempt orders, defied Congress (Gulf production will be down 17% by next year) …. Who cancelled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended leases in Montana, delayed leases in Colorado …. Who has crippled Alaska’s development by designating most of the region critical for polar bears when the bear population is at an all-time high?

Our production today is the result of Bush’s actions, the industry’s actions – despite Obama’s crippling actions …. Heck …. Obama won’t even allow a simple pipeline from Canada!

Obama says we have only 2% of the world’s oil reserves – we can’t drill our way to lower prices.

Really? Alaska’s Chukchi Sea has 30% of the worlds natural gas supply and coupled with undeveloped oil, posseses 4% of the estimated global resources alone …. an area few have ever even heard of!

The US has the greatest fossil reserves on the planet. We have 1.4 trillion barrels of oil – enough to fuel us at our present rate of consumption for 250 YEARS.

“We can’t drill our way to lower prices?” … or ….“And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be” as the Mad Hatter would say, huh?

Obama’s mouthpiece says …

“Our use of foreign oil is at a 16-year low.”

Duh …. We have the worst long-term unemployment / recovery / economy since the Great Depression.

“So we’re making progress."

Only in President Mad Hatter’s world.

California endorsing obama, LMAO!!!!

If that don't tell you something, again, LMAO!!!!!

Speaking of Jan Brewer, I see where she stole a page out of the John Boehner playbook & refused to attend the WH dinner for Governors...

According to the finger pointing wicked witch of the West - she had a 'prior engament'...

Like what?

Meeting the Weeper of the House at his favorite watering hole to tie one on?

The Saudi’s increased oil production last week and the market reacted by increasing futures price – the opposite of what economics would expect. Why … because they [speculators] see this as a predicator that the July 1^st hard date for the Iran sanctions that will remove 3½ million barrels a day from the open market will become reality so they bought up more oil driving the price higher. If Iran does not comply with the demands and the sanctions take effect the price of gas will go to five dollars a gallon (National average).

GBM, thanks to you and Bashir.

Santorum is about no safety nets, no women's rights, among other negatives.

According to Santorum - if you don't agree with his extreme views on women, you are not a good Christian.

Not only that, he is saying there IS only one religion!

Gingerbread Mamma, terrific post. Martin Bashir's daily PM show is must-see TV. A reminder that speaking the words of being a Christian doesn't make a person one. Gingrich, Romney and Santorum speak of their faith but their words and actions speak otherwise. Franklin Graham proved that last week--intolerant, judgemental and a half-truth teller yet he claims to be a reverend.

Ouch, that's tough for Romney, when his backers have to basically say, "he'll do a better job that it might seem listening to him... really, he will... trust me."

Michigan will be interesting. Romney has to win. Looks like he will. But even if it's within single digits, the theme coming out of there might be why it was so close. I saw one poll last week that had Romney trending up, with a margin about 15 points. If he gets that, he'll avoid the hit entirely. Santorum can afford two losses tomorrow, but if they're bad losses, he'll have trouble getting the mo back before Super Tuesday.

If Santorum does okay tomorrow - both states within single digits and he's still viewed as viable going into Super Tuesday (both via conventional wisdom and national polling) - or if he does badly but manages to get hot again (just via the weight of people who don't want Romney - I'll guess he steals Georgia from Gingrich, forcing the Newtster to acknowledge his campaign is over.

It's crazy that the President Obama haters including perhaps the SC think that the individual mandate in the ACA is unconstitutional, but......

Untrasounds and vaginal probing (medically unnecessary/ without consent), well that's just fine!

In head-to-head matchups, President Obama earns majority support against both Mitt Romney (52% Obama to 43% Romney) and Rick Santorum (53% Obama to 43% Santorum). Nearly nine-tenths of Obama’s support in both trial heats is strong. The divisions within the GOP are taking a toll. Now, nearly half (44%) of Republican primary voters do not see Romney as their best chance of capturing the presidency. In a contest where character matters, narrow majorities of independents and voters living in states that have an upcoming primary or caucus have an unfavorable opinion of Romney (51% unfavorable, each). Meanwhile, former Senator Rick Santorum has surged back into a statistical tie with Romney as the first choice of Republican primary voters (36% Santorum, 34% Romney) and has the advantage of being the sole Republican candidate for President who voters view net favorably (39% favorable to 36% unfavorable) though just barely. The continued reluctance of Republicans to coalesce around Romney has resulted in the tree-enthusiast’s loss of over half of the Republican primaries and caucuses held to date, not to mention negative personal ratings among a majority of all likely voters in the country (38% favorable to 51% unfavorable). Among women voters, Santorum’s favorable and unfavorable ratings are equal, Romney is net-negative by 11 points, and Gingrich is disqualifiable with a 41-point net-negative rating.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73305.html#ixzz1nauydZIv

The bashing of the President Obama apologizing for the burnt Quaran is simply stupid politics and above all, ill mannered. How can you not apologize for this, even though it's a mistake, disrespectful act?

What are these guys preaching? If a bible is burnt knowingly or unknowingly, these mad dogs on the right would go berserk. This is a very dangerous and pathetic trend we're seeing from GOP leaders who went all out because Catholic church was asked to cover contraceptives. We know all the trash they spewed on this issue but it's ok to disrespect another group because they don't worship like them, talk like them, affluent like, look like them........USA don't apologize. We do apologize, RWNJ.

Obama/Biden 2012

Alztheimer laden.......finger?

What struck me most this past weekend is the bashing of the President Obama apologizing for the burnt Quran. It is simply stupid politics and above all, ill mannered. How can you not apologize for this, even though it's a mistake, disrespectful act?

What are these guys preaching? If a bible is burnt knowingly or unknowingly, these mad dogs on the right would go berserk. This is a very dangerous and pathetic trend we're seeing from GOP leaders who went all out because Catholic church was asked to cover contraceptives. We know all the trash they spewed on this issue but it's ok to disrespect another group because they don't worship like them, talk like them, affluent like, look like them........USA don't apologize. We do apologize, RWNJ.

Obama/Biden 2012

Dennis, Ron, Feisty, Jody, GBM, Steeler, Who is the poster on here,

That makes false random statements,

Followed by a series of question marks ???????

What I find interesting in the "mandate" debate is the hypocrisy shown by the right leaning politicians. They have mandated or have tried to mandate healthcare through legislation. (Ultrasounds, vaccines, etc.)

The candidates would like to mandate everyone in Medicare buy private insurance. But because that would expose their hypocrisy they have instead decided to make private insurance an option under Medicare. (Wonder how many will "choose" to go into a for- profit insurance plan?)

They are behind lawsuits that claim moral objection against women's health care options. They've introduced laws that would allow anyone with a moral objection to these options the ability to opt out. (Pandora's box for all healthcare components.)

The way I see it is that they have painted themselves into a corner and these laws they are championing will indeed backfire on them. (At the polls, future legislation etc.)

SCOTUS will decide whether a "mandate" is constitutional or not. Should be interesting to say the least.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why … because they [speculators] see this as a predicator that theJuly 1^st hard date for the Iran sanctions that will remove 3½ million barrels a day from the open market will become reality so they bought up more oil driving the price higher.

So if I'm an airline would I be prudent to buy future contracts to hedge my costs in the summer? Why do you assume it's speculators? Is there no reason for fuel heavy industries to hedge their costs? do you have any proof that this is caused solely by speculators?

What I find interesting in the "mandate" debate is the hypocrisy shown by the right leaning politicians.

Not just right leaning politicians think the mandate is unconstitutional.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-23/swing-states-health-care-obama/53260222/1

Voters in swing states stand overwhelmingly on one side of the debate: Three of four voters, including a majority of Democrats and of liberals, say the law is unconstitutional.

Ghastly Outdated Party

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: February 25, 2012

IT’S finally sinking in.

Republicans are getting queasy at the gruesome sight of their party eating itself alive, savaging the brand in ways that will long resonate.

“Republicans being against sex is not good,” the G.O.P. strategist Alex Castellanos told me mournfully. “Sex is popular.”

He said his party is “coming to grips with a weaker field than we’d all want” and going through the five stages of grief. “We’re at No. 4,” he said. (Depression.) “We’ve still got one to go.” (Acceptance.)

The contenders in the Hester Prynne primaries are tripping over one another trying to be the most radical, unreasonable and insane candidate they can be. They pounce on any traces of sanity in the other candidates — be it humanity toward women, compassion toward immigrants or the willingness to make the rich pay a nickel more in taxes — and try to destroy them with it.

President Obama has deranged conservatives just as W. deranged liberals. The right’s image of Obama, though, is more a figment of its imagination than the left’s image of W. was.

Newt Gingrich, a war wimp in Vietnam who supported W.’s trumped-up invasion of Iraq, had the gall to tell a crowd at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla., that defeating Obama — “the most dangerous president in modern American history” — was “a duty of national security” because “he is incapable of defending the United States” and because he “wants to unilaterally weaken the United States.” Who killed Osama again?

How can the warm, nurturing Catholic Church of my youth now be represented in the public arena by uncharitable nasties like Gingrich and Rick Santorum?

“It makes the party look like it isn’t a modern party,” Rudy Giuliani told CNN’s Erin Burnett, fretting about the candidates’ Cotton Mather attitude about women and gays. “It doesn’t understand the modern world that we live in.”

After a speech in Dallas on Thursday, Jeb Bush also recoiled: “I used to be a conservative, and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective.”

Alan Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming, recently called Santorum “rigid and homophobic.” Arlen Specter, who quit the Republicans to become a Democrat three years ago before Pennsylvania voters sent him home from the Senate, told MSNBC: “Where you have Senator Santorum’s views, so far to the right, with his attitude on women in the workplace and gays and the bestiality comments and birth control, I do not think it is realistic for Rick Santorum to represent America.” That from the man who accused Anita Hill of perjury.

Republicans have a growing panic at the thought of going down the drain with a loser, missing their chance at capturing the Senate and giving back all those House seats won in 2010. More and more, they openly yearn for a fresh candidate, including Jeb Bush, who does, after all, have experience at shoplifting presidential victories at the last minute.

Their jitters increased exponentially as they watched Mitt belly-flop in his hometown on Friday, giving a dreadful rehash of his economic ideas in a virtually empty Ford Field in Detroit, babbling again about the “right height” of Michigan trees and blurting out that Ann “drives a couple of Cadillacs.”

Romney’s Richie Rich slips underscore what Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist, told the Ripon Forum: “If we are only the party of Wall Street and country clubbers, we will quickly become irrelevant.”

Santorum, whose name aptly comes from the same Latin root as sanctimonious, went on Glenn Beck’s Web-based show with his family and offered this lunacy: “I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college,” because colleges are “indoctrination mills” that “harm” the country. He evidently wants home university schooling, which will cut down on keggers.

His wife, Karen, suggested that her husband’s success is “God’s will” and that he wants “to make the culture a better culture, more pleasing to God.”

The barking-mad Republicans of Virginia are helping to make the party look foolish and creepy. A video went viral on Friday in which Delegate Dave Albo comically regaled his fellow lawmakers on the floor of the Statehouse with his own Old Dominion version of “Lysistrata”: he suggested that he was denied sex with his wife because of a Republican-sponsored bill that would have made ultrasounds, often with a vaginal probe, mandatory for women seeking abortions.

With music, red wine and a big-screen TV, he made a move on his wife, Rita, while she was watching a news report about the bill. “And she looks at me and goes, ‘I’ve got to go to bed,’ ” Albo said as his colleagues guffawed.

The Republicans, with their crazed Reagan fixation, are a last-gasp party, living posthumously, fighting battles on sex, race, immigration and public education long ago won by the other side.

They’re trying to roll back the clock, but time is passing them by.

I think Maureen Dowd has given the Republicans a new tag line for their party GHASTLY OLD PARTY. I don't always agree with Maureen, but she is a brilliant wordsmith

Steeler,

Romney doesn't relate well to the Truth either. His nose is getting longer and longer.

Alan,

If airlines bought oil to set their price for this summer then that is also speculation.

What does it matter who bought the oil – they drive the price up?

Current high prices are also due to refineries that have been shut down as well as the problems in the Middle East and speculation (all types).

The high prices in the US are not due to high usage or supply shortage – what other reason is there?

Dennis: The high prices in the US are not due to high usage or supply shortage – what other reason is there

QE I and QE II. Each devalued the dollar. Who did those again?

And there have always been unrest in the middle east and refineries that are shut down for maintenance.

Feisty Redhead Roselle, IL

I don't care how GOOD a doctor is, how many people continue seeing one if they don't connect & have confidence in them?

I don't know how good a doctor he is, either. Doctor Mittens would have let at least one very sick patient die to curry favor with far-right ideologues: the US auto industry. Romney's prescription for the patient was more voodoo economics, not science-based medicine.

In fact Dennis, we're almost at the annual "Time to investigate the Gas Stations for gouging" season. I personally don't blame the President for high or low gas prices. However, the current Administration's energy policy is driven by politics and not science. If they were in anyway concerned with global warming and wanted to produce large amounts of low/no emission electricity then the only current solution that economical viable is nuclear.

Not politics, just science and economics.

The other "quick", with quick being relative, win is a complete overhaul of the national distribution grid. Infrastructure spending that is an investment.

Gingerbread Mamma,

Thanks for posting the Maureen Dowd article. It was spot on.

Alan --

Not just right leaning politicians think the mandate is unconstitutional.

Voters have opinions. They can say whatever they want. Politicians say whatever their constituents want to hear. But if they think mandates are unconstitutional why are they mandating otherwise?

The Doctor????

Lets look at Obama as a doctor.... How would you like to see obama as your doctor who speaks so well that you must believe every word he says and then you find out almost everything he says is a lie??? Obama, Obama OH my

Voters have opinions. They can say whatever they want. Politicians say whatever their constituents want to hear. But if they think mandates are unconstitutional why are they mandating otherwise?

Not sure what you're referring to. If you are talking about the Virginia law then I think they stepped way over the line

On the individual mandate I also think it is unconstitutional as there is no limiting clause (the broccoli argument), and the fact that even the Administration can't decide if the penalty is, or is not, a tax. On the other hand, if they had attempted to fund the program through taxes then I would believe it to be constitutional. The fact that a majority believe it to be unconstitutional, I believe, will help the SC in making that finding.

@richard, What lies?

OMG!

My wife and I just stared, mouths agape, at the TV screen.

Did he just say what I think he just said? Santorum does not believe in a the separation of Church and State?

OMG!

Can you say "unconstitutional?"

OMG!

This from one of the front-running candidates for the GOP nomination for President of the United States. Isn't this the same party that claims they want to return the country to a Constitution-based government?

The same party who decries "activist judges" but whose own, bought-and-paid-for activist judges on the Supreme Court gave us Citizens United?

OMG! R U Thnkn wt I'm thnkn?

This from the same man who believes pre-natal testing leads to abortion and the federal government should not pay for it? This from the man who thinks a college education equates snobbery? This from the man who is rabidly anti-gay, anti-woman, ANTI-AMERICA and everything it stands for?

OMG!

And this is one of the GOP's "best and brightest"?

Oh, by the way, the recent Sooner Poll shows Oklahoma Republicans overwhelmingly support Santorum. He should do well here on Super Tuesday. No surprises there.

OMG!

Let him fail!

As Ghandi said: "I like your Christ, but you Christians aren't very Christ like".

Santorum is a fcking moron.

Romney works to avoid a setback in Michigan huh? Does this mean if Santorum is having periodic "Morphine injections" then Romney is going with a couple of "Electro Shock" sessions tonight? Pitiful! Plumb pitiful!

Alan - For the most thorough review I've seen on the relative accuracy of pollsters, try reading Nate Silver's analysis during the last election cycle:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/pollster%20ratings

And, Joe - in your eagerness to believe the the GOP has a chance this fall, you've fallen into your party''s all-to-common "black or white" trap.

See, I've answered pollsters that I thought the country is headed in the wrong direction. So I would be part of your "55%", I suppose.

You assume that means I'd be voting against the President next election. But you'd be wrong. Because it's a gray issue, Joe, not black or white. I'm unhappy about the country's direction because the GOP is throwing up so many stupid roadblocks to recovery, not because I don't think Obama's doing the best anyone could do in this situation.

See, Joe - sometimes you have to ask "why?"

From the article: "But I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners."

Mitt "Two Cadillacs" Romney is just a regular Joe, isn't he? He can't seem to get in touch with the common man, though. I wonder why? Could it be that it is because he is a cynical political hack? Hmmmmmmm...

A tale of two polls:

Isn't it interesting that FR finds fault with the poll that doesn't favor Obama?

I think Gallup has a far better track record than Politico, which has a ultra-liberal bias.

Here's the latest from Rasmussen, which has the best track record of all of the pollsters, since they poll VOTERS, not the general public that might include people ineligible to vote;

"Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) at least somewhat disapprove."

And you'd be wrong...both about Politico and about Gallup. (politico has actually been attached by the LEFT for it's CONSERVATIVE bias....)

Doesn't matter...the real question is how large a margin the Republican nominee will be beaten by and whether the extremist lunacy that has devoured the Republican party this election can be dealt with in time to have an actual viable chance in 2016.

Alan, I agree with you to a degree. Nuclear as we know it is very dangerous. Look at what happened in Japan recently. You're right, that would be the best source but until it is made safer it's not viable for the American people.

Never thought I'd agree with you.

Gallup always leans right. Learned it quite well at an "Arthritic" convention back in the 30's. Taught Rasmussen too.

Alan - To your comment about how the top 1% should not have to support the bottom 5% ( I assume you did not mean this absolutlely)

You specifically bring up the housing issues. My problem with that is the idea that every American (who is responsible to afford one, not soley based on income) was not a bad idea. THe problem with the legislations was it did not contain safeguards to decentivise people on both sides from abusing the system. I honestly think no one thought it would happen. I would not have thought that a banks would give loans to people who could not afford them but they did.

The problem was when you are dealing with people with low incomes soley on a sheet of paper it becomes very hard to understand them, and differentiate their behaviors. There can be two people with simmilar incomes and credit scores. One maybe very responsible and simply had a few unavoidable set back, but given any obligation they would do whatever it takes even life style changes to meet it, and the other is lazy and refuses to take the commitment seriously.

With that issue complicating the process there were people on both sides who took advantage. People in the bottom range of incomes living in homes they had no business purchasing and 1%ers at the banking institutions selling them to them even though they knew the obligations were likely to not be met, as they could cash in only holding the loan for a short period of time untill they sold it to another institution.

To suggest blaming the problem on just those of lower incomes is not fair. This is evidenced off the idea that people who could afford homes reaching further and buying homes they could not afford. It was not a poor issue it was an issue of the legislation not having foresight. Many people did not act responsibly and that blame can be placed all along the income spectrum.

I know you didnt spefically blame it on low incomes but especially with your last line with cell phones it almost suggests it. Ensuring the poor have phones I dont think is unjutsifiable. I do not think its the idea of these policies that cause the problems it is that usually these policies are not written well enough and therefore are usually heavily encumbered with abuse.

Let's see what the polls say, Roy! Even Rasmussen shows Obama leading your incompetent GOP challengers:

Romney vs.Obama:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

Santorum vs. Obama:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_santorum_vs_obama-2912.html

Skip you have it wrong - he does not believe in an absolute separation to the degree of separating an individual from there beliefs. That is why, although he is opposed to gay marriage, or abortion, or forced contraception, he has made little effort to legislatively over turn these items. He obviously understands that the majority of people want these.

Remember the little key that there should be "no religious test" permitting or denying participation in office or voting thing?

I.e. not only those with religious beliefs should not be excluded from office, but their beliefs of gay marriage and contraception or what not, should heard and no law should ignore those beliefs unless, they are murdering or committing treason in the exercise of their beliefs. I'm certain that there are other things but those are the hot buttons of the day.

comments anyone? discussion? rants?

College educated Rick Santorum calls College educated Mr. Obama a snob....

Wow, "snob" and "elitist" were names only reserved for "well to do" white people. There was a time when only white people could fit this description in this country.

So considering where African Americans started from in this country, being deprived of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, education, civil rights and Freedom itself, being called uppity, snob, and elite by the likes of Mr. Santorum and this new GOP is a COMPLIMENT!!!

Here's to more uppity, educated, elite African Americans! Obama 2012!

Alan, NJ.....you said:

Quote.......the only current solution that economical viable is nuclear. Not politics, just science and economics.......EndQuote

Read this:

Quote.....U.S. Approves Southern's Vogtle Nuclear Reactors, First in 30 Years ......http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2012/02/09/us-approves-southerns-vogtle-nuclear-reactors/......EndQuote

This ("first in 30 years") approval was presided over by the OBAMA administration.

Now, let us hear you spin this into an insult for President Obama.

If President Obama stopped to pull your (recklessly driven) vehicle from a ditch, your response would be "What took you so long".

Buy American ! Buy Local ! Support America’s middle class ! Support Women’s rights ! Support Civil Rights ! Protect God’s Green Earth ! Vote Democrat ! Obama/Biden 2012 !

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Lent - a time for thoughtfulness and reflection, yet Santorum

disparaged the idea of a separation between church and state by attacking President John F. Kennedy, who made it a key point in his 1960 campaign.

To be specific, from the Washington Post...

Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) on Sunday defended a statement he made last October in which he said that he “almost threw up” when he read John F. Kennedy’s 1960 Houston address on the role of religion in public life.

It is worthwhile to read what Kennedy, a Catholic had to say about it, and why Santorum "almost threw up" (http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Politics/2000/09/I-Believe-In-An-America-Where-The-Separation-Of-Church-And-State-Is-Absolute.aspx

'I Believe in an America Where the Separation of Church and State is Absolute'

September 12, 1960, address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

BY: John F. Kennedy

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida--the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues--for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured--perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew--or a Quaker--or a Unitarian--or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim--but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end--where all men and all churches are treated as equal--where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice--where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind--and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe--a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the first amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Nor would our system of checks and balances permit him to do so--and neither do I look with favor upon those who would work to subvert Article VI of the Constitution by requiring a religious test--even by indirection--for it. If they disagree with that safeguard they should be out openly working to repeal it.

I want a Chief Executive whose public acts are responsible to all groups and obligated to none--who can attend any ceremony, service or dinner his office may appropriately require of him--and whose fulfillment of his Presidential oath is not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.

This is the kind of America I believe in--and this is the kind I fought for in the South Pacific, and the kind my brother died for in Europe. No one suggested then that we may have a "divided loyalty," that we did "not believe in liberty," or that we belonged to a disloyal group that threatened the "freedoms for which our forefathers died."

And in fact this is the kind of America for which our forefathers died--when they fled here to escape religious test oaths that denied office to members of less favored churches--when they fought for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom--and when they fought at the shrine I visited today, the Alamo. For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty and Bailey and Carey--but no one knows whether they were Catholic or not. For there was no religious test at the Alamo.

I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition--to judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress--on my declared stands against an Ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have attended myself)--instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948 which strongly endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the views of almost every American Catholic.

I do not consider these other quotations binding upon my public acts--why should you? But let me say, with respect to other countries, that I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion. And I hope that you and I condemn with equal fervor those nations which deny their Presidency to Protestants and those which deny it to Catholics. And rather than cite the misdeeds of those who differ, I would cite the record of the Catholic Church in such nations as Ireland and France--and the independence of such statesmen as Adenauer and De Gaulle.

But let me stress again that these are my views--for contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters--and the church does not speak for me.

Whatever issue may come before me as President--on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject--I will make my decision in accordance with these views, in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

But if the time should ever come--and I do not concede any conflict to be even remotely possible--when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.

But I do not intend to apologize for these views to my critics of either Catholic or Protestant faith--nor do I intend to disavow either my views or my church in order to win this election.

If I should lose on the real issues, I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans lost their chance of being President on the day they were baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser, in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world, in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

But if, on the other hand, I should win the election, then I shall devote every effort of mind and spirit to fulfilling the oath of the Presidency--practically identical, I might add, to the oath I have taken for 14 years in the Congress. For without reservation, I can "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution...so help me God.

This is the video of 1.71 http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/ALL6YEBJMEKYGMCntnSCvg.aspx

Alan -- So you are betting on SCOTUS being swayed by public opinion or the idea that it may be an activist Court? The other argument you present is one presented by a minority of earlier rulings on this issue. Either way it is decided it will reverberate across party lines and has the potential to seep into other types of business conducted, I would think.

Yes I was thinking of Virginia and also Texas.

The unfunded healthcare mandate that requires hospitals to provide care regardless of ability to pay has been in place since 1986. It is a mandate. Who is paying for that mandate? No direct tax was imposed to pay for that mandate. If we use SCOTUS's ruling that corporations of people then this mandate could be challenged as unconstitutional using your logic? Not sure if that makes sense but it was just a thought that came to mind.

It will be amusing to watch plastic man lose to saint Ricky. The people Michigan must feel like the circus is in town with all these GOP clowns running around making fools of themselves...... Very Presidential boys.

Sailcat-2064101 "Let's see what the polls say, Roy! Even Rasmussen shows Obama leading your incompetent GOP challengers:"

Since half the people don't even know who Romney is yet, such polls are meaningless at this point, but if the best Obama can muster is 45% at this point, he's in serious trouble.

My personal election 'model' at this point shows Obama getting about 43% vs 55% for an 'unknown' Republican challenger - primarily because of two factors;

1 - Those who self-identify as Democrats have gone from 39% in 2008 down to 33%, while those who self-identify as Republicans have gone from 32% to 36% of voters. That's a 10% swing against Democrats. The other major factor working against Obama is among Independents, who supported Obama by a 52% vs 44% margin in 2008, but currently oppose Obama by a 54% vs 46% margin - that's a 16% swing against Obama. The net result is a 12% net swing against Obama, who got 53% of the vote in 2008.

2 - Obama's biggest supporters in 2008 were high school dropouts (63% vs 25%), young first-time voters (66% vs 32%) and Hispanic voters (67% vs 31%). All of those groups are disenchanted with Obama's failure to keep his promises, so they will probably return to their usual voting patterns in 2012. If the Republican nominee selects Marco Rubio for VP, a large % of Hispanics will switch, perhaps even putting California in play.

One other factor working against Obama is that if he goes negative in a big way (That's his only hope, since he can't run on the economy), it tends to discourage Democrats from voting more than Republicans. It's looking like a no-win scenario for Obama.

PS - High gasoline prices this Summer will crush any recover hopes, and even though Obama will 'play politics' by releasing oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve on some phony 'emergency', most people will recognize it as a political stunt. By the way - The number of oil wells drilled went down by over 70% in Obama's second year (1,480 in 2010) vs Bush's last year (5,044 in 2008). Obama's decision to force higher gasoline prices by restricting supply is backfiring at just the wrong time for him.

Roy: No need to read any further after "unknown Republican challenger"....since the Republican challengers we know are utter fools!

Argument negated.....

Roy - Half the people don't know who Romney is???? Would these people be living in caves or what? Do you honestly believe anyone of voting age with even half a brain doesn't know who Romney is????

And, Obama can run on the economy much better than the GOP who has not even discussed the economy because they don't have a single idea. They would much rather grovel to the far right and discuss birth control and homosexuality since they know how to aggravate them with those topics. Ask them how to improve the economy and they'll be back in our bedrooms telling us what we can and can't do. They GOP has no idea - about anything - except hatred and ignorance. And, those topics they discuss very well!

You've shown the rights utter ignorance on topics with your blathering about oil. There is more oil being drilled in the US today than at any time in our history but you've managed to lie about the facts. Typical GOP tactic but it won't work.

Roy is living in a dimly lit fantasy world, isn't he?

Newsvine: My comment above #1.65 was very stupid and should be "collasped". I wasn't thinking when I wrote it. I sincerely apologize to all who suffer with "Arthritis", Newsvine, and all my fellow bloggers. Again, I beg everyone's pardon. Sincerely, Mac Forrester

Newsvine: Actually, please delete it if you can. Thank you, Mac Forrester

Leave it to MSNBC to ignore Democrats and the sheep making a mockery out of the system.

Democratic mischief in Michigan

"Michigan Democratic strategist Joe DiSano has taken it upon himself to become a leading mischief maker.

DiSano says he targeted nearly 50,000 Democratic voters in Michigan through email and a robo call to their homes, asking them to go to the polls Tuesday to vote for Rick Santorum in attempt to hurt Romney.

"Democrats can get in there and cause havoc for Romney all the way to the Republican convention," DiSano told CNN.

"If we can help set that fire in Michigan, we have a responsibility to do so," he said."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/27/democratic-mischief-in-michigan/?hpt=hp_bn3

Really? You have a "responsibility" to vote for someone you don't want to vote for just because you don't like that other Americans are exercising their right to vote? Get a life.

Backhouse - without a link to prove it, it is just another uninformed opinion on your part...

60 year-old male GOP congressionals and governors say they're against women using birth control.

SeekingSanity "There is more oil being drilled in the US today than at any time in our history but you've managed to lie about the facts."

Thanks to drilling authorized under Bush. Here are the stats;

Wells drilled in 2000 (Clinton's last year) = 2,861.

Wells drilled in 2008 (Bush's last year) = 5,044, an increase of 76%.

Wells drilled in 2010 (Obama's second year) = 1,480, a DROP of over 70%.

Try giving credit where credit is due.

Giving Obama credit for the big increase in production authorized under Bush would be like giving Nixon credit for landing on the Moon because he was President when it happened - The credit should go to the President that approved the mission and authorized the funding - John F. Kennedy.

qudrcps, @ 1.71

Thank you, that was a very prescient post given the topic.

The GREATEST democrat president in history, one of the greatest of all times.

The words sound today as powerful as when he spoke them.

they could have come right out of Dr Paul's mouth! (in fact they have)

Again thank you! best post of the day.

Big Al: I am originally from MI and sister still lives there...........She works in downtown Detroit area and tells me that the people can't wait for the "candidates" to leave because there is a terrible problem with trying to shovel up all of the elephant doo doo [trying to be nice here] in town.

IR, love it, thank you.

Notice, the Ad on here today that says "Developing Canadian oil sands could support 600,000 American jobs" is a big, giant whopper:

TransCanada said on camera to CNN that only a few permanent jobs would be created by Keystone in the United States.

Unfortunately, there’s an all-too-typical problem with the Republican line on Keystone: it’s completely unsupported by the facts. On the jobs front, the Cornell Global Labor Institute estimates the project would create only 2,500 to 4,650 short-term construction jobs—not the “hundreds of thousands” of jobs claimed by House Speaker John Boehner.

Lies have been told around here by the Libbies, but this one takes the cake. Cherry picking nonsense "research" and claiming it so is the cornerstone of the Liberal agenda. Using the law of supply and demand, producing more of a product will in fact reduce the price of the product. But the liberals must lie about it to make their cause just.

The Liberals argued in 2009 that the $800 billion Obama spend would create "infrastructure" and "shovel ready" jobs. After even Obama admitted there were no shovel ready jobs, the Liberals continued to support this massive waste of money. Keystone would have produce many of those types of construction jobs. Would they be permanent? No, but neither would the "shovel ready" jobs Obama bragged about. Once construction is done, whether it be a road, a bridge, or a pipeline, the construction teams move on to the next job. The Liberals just can't seem to comprehend that concept.

Keystone, drilling in Alaska, off-shore drilling in the Gulf, and off-shore drilling by Virginia should be started immediately. And these phony "studies" should be called what they are.

Why, I'm absolutely shocked, IR, that the Republicans would lie about something to get elected. They especially like the Keystone lie because it is a two-fer----a chance to lie about jobs and the price of gasoline. If only they could find a way to tie contraception into it they would have the hat trick (like the Penguin's Malkin on Saturday!).

The jobs are being created in North Dakota. The oil sand business in ND is exploding. This area will be the source for US oil in coming years.

My question is,with ND having only one refinery, SD wanting to build a refinery and a couple in Montana and MN, why all on the focus on Keystone pipe line?

Steeler Fan, You answered my question while I was posting.

I would think the question is building more refineries in the upper Midwest to provide for the US market.

IR, more terrific information.

It's beyond me why republicans so willingly believe that a pipeline will decrease gas prices here when all the oil is doing is making a scenic trip through the US to be sold on the international market where it is gobbled up by foreign countries like China and India. It's like drill, baby, drill--never mind that we don't get to keep the oil we drill in the US for our own use.

Very good JoAnna. As expected you managed to get all the Yahoo's talking points in. Only trouble is it's the same old B.S. you'll come up with when this question comes up as it's wont to do ever so often. Simple question. If production is at and all time high and demand is at an all time low how does that fit in with your little diatribe up there.

The fact that you used the line "founder of 350.org and leader of the movement to stop the pipeline" in your rant completely kills your argument. Anyone who leads the movement to kill the pipline cannot be trusted by anyone but the leftest libbies. When you get some facts that are non-partisan, post them and maybe I'll believe it.

IRV: Very good JoAnna. As expected you managed to get all the Yahoo's talking points in. Only trouble is it's the same old B.S. you'll come up with when this question comes up as it's wont to do ever so often. Simple question. If production is at and all time high and demand is at an all time low how does that fit in with your little diatribe up there.

You're the one with the talking points. You take a crap study and hold it up as gospel. That is pretty stupid and right in line with the Liberal play list.

In addition of Obama refusing to open up additional drilling, maybe his devaluation of the dollar has something to do with the prices? QE I, QE II, ring a bell in that head of yours?

Keep making up stuff IRV. It's funny to read.

Keep making up stuff IRV. It's funny to read.

Oh My Floyd!

Now you gone & made the 'drone' very angry this morning! lol

She's buzzing all over the place trying to drop her stinger!

John, Tucson. The ones who really killed the Keystone XL pipeline are John Boehner, Mitch McDonnell, the House and Senate republicans who--despite President Obama's warning that more time was needed to study the impact and look for alternatives at the request of the state's, including many republican governors and legislators, that would be impacted--demanded a decision within 60 days as part of the December temporary extension of payroll tax cuts. Well, if more time was needed, it's pretty darn dumb of repubicans to expect anything but NO for an answer.

I see You'll Yahoo's are afraid to answer the question (as usual) so your going to discredit the mesenger. Very good let's see what happens.

It's beyond me why republicans so willingly believe that a pipeline will decrease gas prices here when all the oil is doing is making a scenic trip through the US to be sold on the international market where it is gobbled up by foreign countries like China and India. It's like drill, baby, drill--never mind that we don't get to keep the oil we drill in the US for our own use.

So Jody we agree it's a global market and that the price is set by the global market.

Pop Quiz

If there is more oil on the world market (supply) for the same demand will the price to Americans go up or down?

If there is less oil on the world market (supply) for the same demand will the price to Americans go up or down?

http://www.basiceconomics.info/supply-and-demand.php

Alan,

"So Jody we agree it's a global market and that the price is set by the global market"

The global market also includes the OPEC nations. What is their role in setting the global market price? What countries are not part of OPEC? What is their role in contributing to the setting of the oil price?

Meanwhile, the Bakken oil fields of ND, Montana, parts of Canada has the potential to surpass many oil producing countries.

Alan, I an asking these questions for real information that will help this discussion before we get into the politics of oil in the current election year.

Many fact check organizations have discredited the claims made about jobs created under Keystone. The claims made by republicans have no basis in facts only theories.

Many components make up the price of gas we pay at the pump. Delaying Keystone is not one of them. As usual JAS1 is wrong. Here is the latest on what is causing prices to jump. Read it JAS1 and learn something.

There is a difference in types of crude. The rough crude that Keystone would bring to the market is in abundance right now. Free market capitalism is at work JAS1. Like it or not.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/angry-about-high-gas-prices--blame-shuttered-oil-refineries.html

Alan, Since when have the natural laws of supply and demand applied to oil? That's just lunacy and hiding from the facts. Oil is highly susceptible to politics, speculation, and other forms of manipulation. If simple supply and demand applied we'd be paying about 2 bucks a gallon right now. It doesn't apply, and hasn't since the 70's when the Arabs made it a political weapon to use against the west.

Dont_carry_it_all. It stands to reason that if you build it they will come. Even if it only creates 1000 jobs and helps us become less dependent on oil from Middle East, we would be going in the right direction. this was a political move by the Obama administration.

Alan, we liberals never said the price of oil wasn't dependent on the global market and commodities speculation now did we? That's so typical Alan NJ speak--blame liberals for the comments the conservatives are making. You should probably address your comments to your conservative friends who seem unable to grasp facts as truth. It is the conservatives and republican candidates who are blaming President Obama for the gas prices despite having no facts to support that blame. Obama has quadrupled the amount of oil drilling allowed yet the right-winger liars claim the opposite.

GranCanyon: so now the argument is it "helps us all" no matter how few jobs Keystone creates and no matter how little impact it would have nationally?? (actually, that jobs number may be far, far fewer than a thousand since most would be temporary support jobs)--and there's a little thing to get by first in terms of legal challenges from the states it will run through (yes, even the Republican ones like Nebraska) who don't cotton to being told to hell with worry about spills and whose land is going to be taken....

I haven't paid a ton of attention to this pipeline debate (call it worrying about industries that aren't in decay, or whatever you like), but isn't the point of the pipeline to provide an alternate form of transportation of the oil, NOT the production of more oil? If that is the case, why is everyone talking about global supply increasing? Like I said, I haven't researched it so I may be wrong, but that was the notion I got from it. Canada is doing the oil sands extraction either way, the pipeline is just for transportation ease.

Yes, given supply and demand America's prices should go down. The problem I have witht hat logic was independent redneck is speaking of the impact of a local economy as others are comparing it to that of a global economy. To illustrate my point. Lets say that there is an additional 1 billion dollar surplus that is not leaving America. That number divided by the number of people using oil in the local economy is much much greater than divided by the number of people using that oil in the global economy.

To break that down further with fake numbers. Lets say the people of the local economies currently get $.20/gal savings. If the surplus was put in the global market America would now share that benefit with the rest of the world and may only recieve (across the whole nation) a $.01/gal savings. Yes America saved money on gas but if you talk to those people in the local economies effected gas went up $.19 a gal.

Who will be more charged about the issue? the ones who save $.01 or the ones who lost $.19?

What a load of crap. More oil supply from Canada into the world market will bring world prices down.

Even if the Keystone XL pipeline only creates thousands of temporary constructions jobs, that's better than the supposed "shovel ready" jobs Obama tried to sell us that never materialized. As if wasting hundred of billions of our money on his stimulus debacle wasn't enough, Obama blew billions more on "green jobs" that so far have been less than permanent, like those at the now defunct Solyndra, and other "green" failures like Ener1, A123, and EvergreenSolar, all of them getting our tax money, but no jobs to show for it.

Further, the pipeline will create more jobs at U.S. refineries that will turn the Canadian crude into finished product. Better than shipping the crude to China......where we've shipped a lot of other jobs.

It amazes me the number of people who seem to believe TransCanada wants to build the pipeline in order to help America. We're talking about people who want to give a Canadian oil company the ability to take people's land rights away, and who somehow think it's in our best interest. I listend to a news story yesterday about ranchers in Nebraska and how TransCanada has already threatened them with imminent domain if they don't sign over the land rights for the pipeline. I don't know if the $7 billion pipeline is in our best national interest, but it is obviously in the best interest of TransCanada or they wouldn't be so insistant to get it built. I doubt the pipeline will lower the cost of oil; it will however, lower the cost for TransCanada to transport it to market, and that extra profit will not be passed on to the consumer. Our existing refineries are operating at near full capacity now, so the oil will be loaded on tankers and sent elsewhwere. It will do very little to directly impact gas prices in this country.

JoAnna - facts have no place in your life do they? You love to pollute the pages with your GOP spin and just totally disregard that everything you post can be refuted and proved to be just lies. Yet you think - at least once - you'll actually get away with it! Amazing! Most of us realize that stupidity eventually loses out - but not you!

Actually the oil from the KeystoneXL pipeline will end up in Port Arthur TX at the Motiva refinery. That refinery is jointly owned by Shell Oil and the Saudi government. There is NOTHING American about Keystone XL except the Koch generated bull@!$%# we're being sold, and the risks to land and water. (Koch Industries has lots of sand oil interests) Everything else is foreign owned and for foreign benefit. They give us 2500 jobs and we're suppose to accept the risks and believe the pure nonsense that this somehow increases the worlds oil supply to such a level we can have dollar gas again. Folks, the world is changing. 20 or 30 years ago there were only a few Chinese who owned cars or had a reasonable chance of ever obtaining one. Now there are half a billion of them who want cars and due to the fact that your employer, who you cheer (Corporations are people), gave them your jobs they can afford them too. And those cars, they run on Gas. The price of oil is NEVER going to go down and dimwitted solutions that pander to people incapable of understanding the nature of the problem are not helping us solve anything.

@Sailcat-2064101#1.78: Roy Wilson can birth a page of facts, connect a placenta model, and spew a pontification, quicker than a cat can lick It's ass. Additionally, to hear him tell it, He can actually see the wind. Regards

See the wind? LOL! And here I thought Roy's only talent was breaking wind.

Amused In The Midwest#2.24: You are correct. There is an article appearing on MSN right now that explains if and when that pipeline is completed, the cost of gasoline will actually go up. Regards

Here's a link to the article Mac is referring to:

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/27/10519685-why-the-keystone-pipeline-would-boost-pump-prices

That article ought to tick off a few of the righties claiming Keystone would lower gas prices!

IR - All construction jobs are temporary in nature, always have been. Once expansions end all that is left is maintenance and operations. By what you are inferring even obamas infrastructure jobs fall into the same category. Should they also be measured in the same way as having minimal effect?

Yep, amazing how supply and demand work. Only time will show if this occurs as it is only a possibility since it depends in part on whether the texas crude varieties become valued the same as or close to brent oil at the gulf refineries.

To others, It makes little difference as to who owns the oil. It will still generate jobs and revenue thru taxes and fees.

mattpfl, that's the truth!

mattpfl, Sadly you speak true;

GOP is anti birth-control AND anti-abortion at the same time.

Santorum is even against pre-natal care.

The GOP presidential candidates don't speak for the FUTURE of America. They want to send us BACK.

mattpfl--succinct and true--bravo.

x

Jody---as long as it advances their chance for election (however slim), the Republican candidates don't care that their rash statements put our troops at risk. If they did care, they would keep quiet.

Jody,

GOP/Koch/A.L.E.C./Norquist is throwing the kitchen sink at the American people and distracting, wasting our time.

Separately or combined, their policies will take us down & out of the global economic race.

GOP leaders do not care about the US economic recovery, and do not hide it.

Not only do the tea people GOP Koch republicans make stupid statements that anger our enemies, they also make stupid statements that anger our allies. this is the biggest political clown show ever in US history.

Spot-on Dennis: Santorum is opposed to everyone becoming more educated. After all, they would begin to think for themselves and get better jobs. In this 2012 world having a fund of knowledge is essential to fulfill one's dreams. Santorum dreams of how it was a long, long time ago.

Santorum is delusional on this issue. Those with kids KNOW that they must attend some form of higher education to get a job. The days are long gone when you could make a decent living with a high school diploma.

But, it is probably part of Santorum's economic plan: Try to keep people from getting advanced degrees so you can pay them next to nothing, keep women from contraceptives so they won't looking for jobs. Voila! That will allow the people to have jobs that Santorum considers to be the important citizens of the nation! MEN!

God forfend that men should have to compete with women in the workplace.

Spot on Newday ... and heaven forbid that our youth be exposed to viewpoints different from his.

the candidate described President Obama as 'a snob' for focusing on the importance of a college education

This is not my father's Republican Party. My father grew up poor during the Depression and went to college on the G.I. Bill after his service in WWII. He was a lifelong Republican; back in the day when being Republican meant you were educated and on your way "up." My father wasn't particularly political, but he was an early supporter of Susan Collins, our senator whom some call a RINO, for championing women's healthcare. He certainly supported going to college as an appropriate goal. Where have all the moderate Republicans gone?

as Ron says - better educated people make for better thinkers....just the type of people the GNOP can't brainwash with their constant innuendos and lies. It could spell the decline and maybe end of the Rethug party.

When Jeb Bush states that he thought he was a conservative, but looks at today's GOP landscape and doesn't recognize today's GOP, well, you know that there are some serious problems for them.

PS, Happy Birthday, Mr. phinephancy!

Sanatorium told Glen Beck that Obama wants kids to go to college so they can be "indoctrinated" with "liberal" thoughts....LOL...

Two peas in a pod!

Paul S, NY NY: Thanks for the shout out. It certainly is gratifying to think for one's self and not be told how to think...ala Fox News.

The GOP has reason to be scared. Obama’s election was the vindication of a prediction made several years before by journalist John Judis and political scientist Ruy Teixeira in their 2002 book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. Despite the fact that George W. Bush then occupied the White House, Judis and Teixeira argued that demographic and political trends were converging in such a way as to form a ­natural-majority coalition for Democrats.

The Republican Party had increasingly found itself confined to white voters, especially those lacking a college degree and rural whites who, as Obama awkwardly put it in 2008, tend to “cling to guns or religion.” Meanwhile, the Democrats had ­increased their standing among whites with graduate degrees, particularly the growing share of secular whites, and remained dominant among racial minorities. As a whole, Judis and Teixeira noted, the electorate was growing both somewhat better educated and dramatically less white, making every successive election less favorable for the GOP. And the trends were even more striking in some key swing states. Judis and Teixeira highlighted Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona, with skyrocketing Latino populations, and Virginia and North Carolina, with their influx of college-educated whites, as the most fertile grounds for the expanding Democratic base.

http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/gop-primary-chait-2012-3/

Happy B-Day to Mr. P!...

Good morning, dangerfield. I will pass the wish on to Mr. p.

I just read an interesting attack on Jeb Bush from, wait for it, Ann Coulter. Guess the far right has really "jumped the shark" at this point!

Bet, the GOP establishment just loved that!

dangerfield----a corollary to the fear of the GOP is the efforts to disenfranchise those who do vote for the Democrats----especially the elderly, African-Americans, college students. Hence the phony voter registration laws we've seen over the past 2 years.

Dennis, terrific post. Santorum's view is naive at best and just plain stupid at worst. How competitive would the US be if we do not educate the future scientists, mathematicians, doctors, historians, writers, journalists, entrepreneurs or the visionaries of tomorrow?

Phine-

Make it one he'll remember!

We were talking about the ideological struggle being played out a la 1968, in the Republican party, and the possibility of a contested convention (J-E-B!) before Christmas, now it has become CW for the majority of pundits on all sides of the political spectrum. One thing you don't need a crystal ball to predict is that the strategy to win the Republican nomination is not the strategy needed to win the independent vote, and that truth is what has pragmatists in the party thinking about a contested convention and a "clean" candidate for the general election.

If you interview anyone these days, you would get the idea that some of that is true. If your showing up for an interview, you should know that the person in front of you has your resume. We know your GPA, we know your accomplishments. There is no reason to tell us how smart you are! I will sacrifice supremely intelligent with your ability to work with in a team. In other words can you take direction from someone you consider less intelligent. GASP!

Dennis,

Getting rid of higher education is a priority with GOP/Koch. They are all for business schools and vocational colleges, as well as getting rid of public schools and teachers, pushing for private schools that ordinary folks will have to scrimp and scrape in order to afford. Such schools will teach their own version of science and probably preferred religion as well.

The affluent GOP/Koch sells us the idea that if a person wants more, they are reaching above their station. And if our President wants more for ordinary people - they spin that this is wrong or 'snobby'.

Meanwhile, their rich children will be able to afford whatever they want.

dangerfield,

At some point, the grown ups in the GOP are going to have to do something. Their own news network (fox) isn't helping their cause any by the far right rhetoric coming out of their people.

I really believe we need strong opposing parties that are willing to compromise (compromise usually results in something in the middle that benefits the country). That is not the situation today.

Saint Santorum the hypocrite strikes again...Not only does he match Obama's degrees, he's got an additional one (an MBA as well). Did college make him "liberally" indoctrinated" or is it just an aspiration for the chidren of the hated "elite"..you know, those people who've actually bothered to increase their chances of a better life? Here's the Wall Street Journal after quoting New Jersey's Chris Christie as saying Santorum has "crossed over a line": "In January, the jobless rate for those with less than a high school degree was 13.1%, according to the Labor Department. That compares with a 4.2% unemployment rate among people who have a bachelor's degree or more education. The rate was 7.2% for those who have graduated from high school but have never gone to college." This charleton who wants to hold OTHER people's children back and actually campaigns AGAINST EDUCATION is a leading contender for ANY political party's nominee?? No wonder the Republicans are the laughing stock of the country.

Wow, "snob" and "elitist" were names only reserved for "well to do" white people. There was a time when only white people could fit this description in this country.

So considering where African Americans started from in this country, being deprived of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, education, civil rights and Freedom itself, being called uppity, snob, and elite by the likes of Mr. Santorum and this new GOP is a COMPLIMENT!!!

Here's to more uppity, educated, elite African Americans! Obama 2012!

"...No wonder the Republicans are the laughing stock of the country."

try World! thx

Dennis, didn't obama once declare that he had an educational goal for everyone to have a college education by 2020? Are you now calling obama a flip-flopper? Oh my!

Backhouse (post 5.15) - if you believe that then how can those businessmen maintain their profits and innovate? Damn, you make it seem that only the conservatives are the ones of wealth. LMAO at such faulty thinking.

Paris, I doubt herman cain would be a supporter of obama.

Education empowers the individual. The college experience was my first exposure to different cultures and beliefs. It helped teach me to question the "because that's the way it's always been" train of thought. Is it for everyone? No. But it should be available to anyone who wants to experience it.

Because the Republican's want EVERYONE to "think" like they do....

The funny thing about the MBA from the University of Pittsburgh is that it is kind of a "blue collar" MBA (I know because I have one myself). It is an intensive program that takes 11 months without a break so that the students are only out of the work force for a year, instead of 2 years as with most MBA programs.

There are several religious colleges and universities right here in Pittsburgh that would probably be interested to learn that they are indoctrinating people to become liberals. Maybe Santorum is confused because some schools call it "liberal arts."

I was beyond stunned when I saw this Santorum clip on Meet the Press yesterday when he actually called the President a snob for wanting people to go to college and then defended it with the usual "liberal indoctrination" crap. First, he's not going to force anyone to go to college but wants those who want to go to have the opportunity. Second, the anti-intellectualism that comes from certain members of the right astounds me. I feel it's a combination of ensuring the stupid stay stupid and hitting another talking point to make it seem like those with fancy degrees from Ivy League schools think they're so much better than everyone else. You know, snobs like George W. Bush. Education presents an opportunity for those who don't come from much to not only achieve something better but also see the world outside their neighborhood. But the way the conservatives talk about the current President's educational experience in Jakarta making him a terrorist shows that they aren't too fond of actually learning about other cultures or the rest of the world or even the rest of the country. And Steeler Fan, you are absolutely right, nobody is forcing anyone to go to Harvard or Yale. You can send you children to BYU or Bob Jones University if they meet your needs as well.

DaNoid, Steeler Fan, Ryan--well said. I think keeping people stupid is the goal of the GOP--we need only look at FOX to see the right-wing media side has fulfilled half their goal. A nonpartisan study revealed FOX viewers are the most uninformed and misinformed of all. Keeping people ignorant is a short-sighted vision for maintaining GOP power because it fails in the future to keep America strong and powerful including economically.

You forgot to mention Jody, the more uneducated people there are, the more viewers Fox (aka tea people GOP Koch republican propaganda machine) has.

Well Santorum seems to know his voters...a war against education??? As though the war against women and secular democracy weren't divisive enough? At this point, Santorum couldn't be elected dog-catcher, no matter how he does with his fellow loons of the right--but at least he'll be able to build a Gingrich-like career as a "historian" throwing red meat to the pitchfork crowd at $20,000 a pop that should help ease the pain of his ridiculously loosing campaign.

There is a cautionary tale here----Rick Santorum went to college and is any one dumber and more doctrinaire?

i believe the president stated ''every child should have the opportunity to go to college''--not every one should go to college----there is a difference .

I have tried to be open-minded when watching Republicans speak. I was honestly curious about their response to the last State of the Union, and I sincerely expected that the presidential nominees, while I might not agree with their views, would at least have intelligent things to say.

I was wrong.

It does not surprise me in the least that the Republican party would downplay the importance of education, because I cannot imagine an educated, independent-thinking human being listening to anything I have heard thus far and doing anything other than shaking their head in bewilderment.

Jo-an - kinda like the majority of FR posters want everyone to think like them, right?

Must make me a lefty. LOL!

Jeeesus Bob,

One MORE time!!!

For someone who despises FR & MSNBC, you sure spend a hell of a lot of time here complaining!

I know it has to be painful watching it all slip away from you... lol

Feisty, only a true hater will continue to claim that Obama's is a failed Presidency while giving his Republican Senate a thumbs up. So sad.

After watching FOX's 24-hour propaganda network, facts sting their eyes.

Bob,

Are you proud to support Governor McDonnell, who now after Rachelle’s Friday show giving Bob McDonnell, the distinction of being known as the vaginal probe Governor?

No way to be a VP.

Bob: Whoops! Dont even bother to hide your liberalism here, do you?? Is this really journalism, or was this piece spoon fed to you by Media Matters or David Axelrod?

That and the daily talking points from the White House. All of the same really. The main-stream-media is nothing more than a squawking DUMB FUX parrot.

squawking DUMB FUX parrot.

Finally Snuffy confesses...

They say it's good for the 'soul'... for those who posses one. ;o)

FAUX AND ROGER AILES (FAUX CREATOR) are POISONING BRAINS all over this country...

Fox & Friends, the morning happy-talk show that Ailes uses as one of his primary vehicles to inject his venom into the media bloodstream. According to insiders, the morning show’s anchors, who appear to be chatting ad-lib, are actually working from daily, structured talking points that come straight from the top. “Prior to broadcast, Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson – that gang – they meet with Roger,” says a former Fox deputy. “And Roger gives them the spin.”

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-roger-ailes-built-the-fox-news-fear-factory-20110525#ixzz1naugDwBM

It is clear that "DUMB FUX" is not an avatar, but is the description of the one presenting it. Kind of like the ID sticker you wear when you go to conventions.

Betty: "Hello - My Name is DUMB FUX"

And it is so true.

And it is so true.

You're slipping honey!

Better pace yourself, at the rate you're going you will never make it to November...

You do know what happens to old 'nags' when they go lame dontcha?

And wearing a size 15EEE shoe isn't gonna save your sorry ass! ;o)

In other words, poor Joanna sees it all slipping away from her, and must attack Feisty to take attention from her failed candidates.

New Day---didn't JoAnna applaud Grover Norquist for saying they just need candidates who can sign a bill and go on to say they were all idiots anyway?

SF: New Day---didn't JoAnna applaud Grover Norquist for saying they just need candidates who can sign a bill and go on to say they were all idiots anyway

Why are you asking her? Is she the "DUMB FUX" librarian?

And no I did not applaud Norquist for what ever that sentence you attempted to write means.

Reading the tea people GOP Koch republicans posts it looks like they've finally lost all sense of reality.

Ha! Hey, Bobber for VP McDonnell, it is not MSNBC or FR's fault that the GOPers are in the mess they're in; all they're doing is reporting it for all to see. Odds are Bobber for VP McDonnell cheers when FOX shows its far right conservativism yet expects other media and especially liberals to keep quiet.

Would like to hear the GOP, who hate the "mandate" to have health insurance, explain the recent "mandates" in several states for unnecessary medical testing which is not cheap and adds to the cost of procedures for a legal right women have. Seems to me the "GOPer mandate" is the latest in a long line of GOPer hypocrisy: "deficits don't matter", "tax cuts don't decrease revenues", "religious freedom" except when it isn't their version of faith, individual rights except those for women, etc etc etc!

My goodness, SF, poor Joanna is testy today, isn't she? It must be difficult to ALWAYS be on the wrong side of every issue, and to get caught out like that.

Poor Bob...what is a Republican to do but wail and rail at this point? No viable candidates. A party that has been dragged so far into the past century, it may stay in irrelevancy long after it badly loses another Presidential election. When even the sane Republicans won't go anywhere near a run for office, you know you've got major problems. If you don't shed your loons...you will have no party left. This country is just not making old white (uneducated) men and their "beat me, chain me" wives, the way they used to.

This country is just not making old white (uneducated) men and their "beat me, chain me" wives, the way they used to.

Stop by a Southern Baptist church in the south or midwest sometime. The shear number of these people will frighten you. I would't break out the champagne just quite yet. Winning this thing is going to be a squeakier and it is going to take some work. To restore our country you do not need to beat Romney or Santorum you need to beat ignorance and selfishness and that is a much tougher fight.

Amused: I agree there's plenty of pockets of uneducated and undereducated out there...after all only 30 percent of Americans go to college now and far fewer actually get degrees....but the idea that Americans are suddenly going to abandon all hope for a better life for themselves or their own children...or embrace the idea that the government should run our most personal decisions (vaginal probes?? Really???) is just not going to win any national elections. If its one thing still common to the "American" culture...its the desire for improving your own life and the lives of future generations..To be told through a national campaign that hope itself is elitist or only for those of certain parentage or skin color?? No, no matter what problems we have as a nation and no matter how shocking some extemist candidate might be right now...Americans are just not going to suddenly believe this country is no different than any other and embrace this ridiculous bible thumping, theocracratic ignorance advocating barefooted pregnancy for half the population. (but I'll give you that they are loud enough to get you wondering what century this is.)

JoAnna - Clearly you're just jealous that no one has "daily talking points" for you - that make any sense. Of course, you are welcome to quote Ricky and Mitts any day - oh wait - you already do and it makes no sense. My bad! When your party has something of value to say, please enlighten us! Of course that means we won't hear from you for a very long time. Too bad!

OMG!!!!!! Feisty is speechless? I never thought I'd live to see the day! But I'm glad I did......

DaNoid - maybe it will go right at the left turn because the uneducated driver couldn't think for himself and did not which way to go!

Da Noid---if it wins it will be because God wanted it to win and if it loses it will be President Obama's fault.

LOL....

Ditto what Jo-An said!

Irony Alert

Daytona cancelled two days in a row because of RAIN,...you think G-d has anything to do with that? I know many of the unwashed believe, eh?

RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Approval at 45%, Lowest in Month—President Falls Behind Romney and Paul...

Romney 45% Obama 43%...
Paul 43% Obama 41%

I prefer to read more than one poll, in which the majority of the polls, such as Washington Post-ABC News, which show that President Obama is beating these GOP Boobs.

Bob in Virginia-5210392

RASMUSSEN POLL: Obama Approval at 45%, Lowest in Month—President Falls Behind Romney and Paul...

And the very first post #1 today from Dennis in Ohio reports that Obama's approval rating is at 53% and his margins against Romney and the other clowns in the GOP circus are growing. So what do conflicting poll results tell us? Probably not a whole lot this far out from the actual election, and months before the Republicans anoint Willard Mittens as their nominee.

Job1 - Oops! You're not allowed to say "boobs" around the far right! Bad! Bad!

The played out Race card....all you liberals have left.

Pathetic.

The claim of playing the 'race card' would be a lot more believable if the reasons Republicans give to hate Obama weren't complete fabrications.

Seems like Richard did a pretty good job this weekend of trying to play the "He's Not One Of Us" card with his line about wanting to "remake us in his image".

As for "playing the race card", look to Newt and his comment about Obama being the "food stamp president".

Hey, Bobbers...

www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html

RCP Average

Obama +5.2 vs Romney

Obama +6.1 vs Santorum

Obama +13.7 vs Gingrich

Obama +8.3 vs Paul

What good or polls?? The only poll that is going to count is in November when America votes and takes you lefties off the gov't. tit and back to work and orator-in-chief back to Chicago.

All of the real polls show the President beating the GOP Boobs.

aceofhearts1 - amazingly the only people I know living off the government are Republicans. However, in their defense, they are actively looking for jobs. In fact, most people who aren't working are looking for jobs. This myth that the GOP keeps playing that no one want to work is just that - a myth. No one wants to try to figure out where their next meal is coming from or where they will sleep at night. Only the far right believes the lies that people enjoy this. What a pathetic group of haters the far right is. Aceofhearts1 - I'd be embarrassed to be you.

Republicans get very sensitive when the media is factual and doesn't bend over backwards to not tick off the radical right wing nuts.

That's why Republicans stick close to FOX - it soothes their fragile egos by telling them exactly what they already believe.

thank you SeekingSanity (and how appropriate...SeekingSanity, it's hard to find these days huh?) - I have been struck by this myth the Republicans have been promoting too. Who in their right mind would choose to be stuck on food stamps and welfare? It's not enough to live on, which is sort of the point - it's not supposed to be an alternative to working, it's supposed to maybe help you survive and give you incentive to get back on your feet, since barely surviving sucks and most people want better for themselves and their children. It's particularly ironic given the fact that if Republicans had their way, and women had no contraception and therefore couldn't work, we'd ALL be on food stamps and welfare even if all the men were working! With the rampant income inequality, people struggle enough with two incomes!

I keep Seeking Sanity from the GOP but it's a lot cause. There is no sanity there - I don't think we'll see any from the right wingers for a long time. It's sad that they have fallen so far.

I'd say that too if my candidates were a nice guy from the wrong century running for first preacher, a multi-millionaire takeover artist and mediocre flip flopping governor who can't quite figure out how to speak to human beings not in his employ, a serial adulterer booted from office on ethics charges advocating colonies on the moon, and an aging isolationist so marginalized by his own colleagues he's never been able to pass a single piece of legislation into law.

Yep, GBM: McDonnell's support of state sanctioned rape has made him an anathema.

...and isn't Virginia one of the many states that filed suit claiming the individual mandate in the ACA is unconstitutional!

GBM, you hit that one exactly right.

It was so odd listening to McDonnell last week trying to undo the damage of being known as the vaginal-probe Governor, say he decided it was not right to force women to have an unnecessary medical procedure prior to another medical procedure yet he still forces women to have a less invasive and unnecessary medical procedure first. What a forked tongue GOPer bag of hot air he is. Whoever the GOP nominee is, picking him for VP would be a huge mistake. Reminds me of Governor Sanford, the hope of the GOP's future hiking in the Appalachians--in South America.

chilled, one of many. It would seem that the GOP is once again showing their hypocrisy--their mandates which intefere with women's reproductive rights are perfectly acceptable but a mandate requiring men and those women to have health insurance is unacceptable. They really don't see how completely ignorant they sound.

McDonnell and Santorum s new motto---At your cervix!

If mandating pre-natal exams for women insn't mandating health care, what is it?! These guys can't even get their own stories straight.

pendexter,

good one!

I would add no lawyers... I disagree about businessmen. I would take a succesful businessman any day over a career politician.

The successful ones are the one's who manage to choke down their multi-million dollar salary and pay 14% in taxes right? While the guy sweeping up at night pays 30% or more on his minimum wage salary that won't support his family or ensure their future. Yup, just what we need. A corporate president. Take the blinders off before it's too late.

If it is a salary they are earning I'm sure they are paying much more than 14% in taxes. Income is taxed at 35%. If a guy is sweeping floors at night earning min wage and has a family, I highly doubt he is paying anything close to 30% in taxes. Most likely he received a nice refund check.

These clowns quite paying themselves in salaries a long time ago. Where have you been? The pay themselves off with stock grants and stock options, and other investment vehicles that are taxed as capital gains. Where they then use loopholes and other corporate welfare to further reduce their rate, lots of time to nothing. The 14% rate Ii quoted, that was what Romney paid last year on his 50 mill or so he made.

It depends on how the stock options are taxed. There are short term and long term options. Some clowns are still paid in salary and pay plenty in taxes. On short term options you pay plenty in taxes. Some of us are paying way more than 14%. I assumed you were referring to Romney with your comment, but he paid what was required. Do YOU pay more than required? If you feel the the tax rate on capital gains is unfair okay, but why hate Romney for paying what he is required?

That's right, Tommy.

Until about 3 weeks before the election when they realize to have a 'credible' reputation they will actually have to start reporting a less biased sample, a less biased questionairre and then you will magically see President Obama walking away with the election. They have to keep it close to keep their constituency 'engaged'. We've got a fair amount of 'poll' dancers out just hoping for some $10's and $20's in their G-strings,...you know, so they can pay for the increase in Gas Prices.

LMFAO off at them,...couldn't happen to a nicer crew.

Romney's plan for the economy is to give more tax cuts. It didn't work before and won't work now.

Romney hasn't been successful "running a company",

Romney has been successful "dismantling companies"...

He will DISMANTLE America

OBAMA 2012

Fatmud you need to step up quick then, they elected obama didn't they????

Odds are pretty good that you are more capable than he was/is????

Romney's tax plan and economic plan is Bush 43 on steroids which was Reagan's trickle down, voo doo on steriods. Romney's tax plan would require $4 trillion in cuts to offset his tax cuts which benefit mostly the wealthy. Now, how is Mr. Romney going to pay for that most powerful in the world military that can fight two wars in a single bound if $4 trillion must be cut? Will he cut education, roads and infrastructure, food and drug safety, clean water and air, disability and Veteran's benefits, social security and medicare and medicaid, scientific research, space exploration? Inquiring minds want Mitt Romney to explain himself.

At least Romney was clever enough not to mention that his wife's two cadillacs are kept at two of his mansions: New Hampshire and La Jolla, CA.

Only the airheads at MSDNC would think Romney mentioning he owns four American cars, including two Cadillacs, is a gaffe. Would you rather he said he owned four even pricier foreign cars, like a BMW, a Mercedes, a Range Rover and a freakin' Prius like those Hollywood liberals do? Watching the liberal press trying to turn a non-issue into an issue is just indicative of how desperate they are to keep the messiah in the White House.

golfsleft and Jo-An, please do tell us how increasing taxes on people and companies and driving up energy costs helps the economy. Go ahead, tell us how taking money away from people and giving it to the government or Arab oil sheiks is going to turn the economy around. With less money to spend or invest, they can't buy things whether that's new clothes, a new car, some major appliances, or new machinery, a new fleet of trucks, or a larger facility to accommodate all those people they could've hired if they weren't taxed to death. Pulling money out of circulation and giving to the government to blow or give away to foreign nations doesn't do diddly for us. Obama's multiple stimuli packages has demonstrated that. All that money blown and nothing to show for it.

And, Jo-An, nobody has "dismantled" more companies and driven them into bankruptcy than Obama. Even after throwing $60 billion at the auto companies, they still had to file bankruptcy anyway. They cut thousands of jobs, closed factories, closed hundreds of dealers and cost those people their jobs, and all the small businesses that depended on them have suffered as well. Then Obama-care came along and drove health care costs UP, not down. Thanks to Obama-care my company's health care premiums went UP $14 million a year. As a result, we can't fulfill our original hiring plans this year. That $14 million would've created almost 200 additional jobs that we can no longer afford.

Let's not forget the other businesses Obama tried to help by throwing billions of our money at them. Those "green" companies like Solyndra, EvergreenSolar, Ener1, A123, and Fisker. They're either going out of business or have cut jobs, not added them, and even sent some jobs to China. Obama has a miserable track record and it will bite him in the butt come November.

I couldn't agree more about the so called Cadillac gaffe. How is this bad? Most rich people wouldn't be caught dead driving a Cadillac. At least he is driving American cars.

CEO2NV2, Obama proposes raising taxes on incomes over $200,000.00, and leaving the tax rates the same for incomes lower. I realize that may be hard on you, to have to survive on so little.... The "cut taxes and deregulate" policies OBVIOUSLY did NOT WORK! The rich got richer and the poor got poorer! As for your

"they still had to file bankruptcy anyway. "

Yes, they filed a Chapter 11, "reorganization" bankruptcy! Old Mittens wanted them to file a Chapter 7, and liquidate, close shop!

Healthcare...should be Universal healthcare! Every American should have access to affordable healthcare!

Green companies???? DUH...it's really too bad that we as a country aren't more environmentally conscious, and can't buy into such ideas...

OBAMA 2012

CEO2NV2 - you have no idea of what it takes to be a CEO of anything - your post clearly shows that. GM is coming out of bankruptcy - and doing well. They would have completely closed their doors had Romney been in charge. They are now expanding their company - reopening lines and rehiring new shifts.

Obama's healthcare plan no more cost your company $14 million than you are CEO of a company. What an absurd post. You are probably working in the mailroom (that is not a putdown for anyone working in the mailroom). Clearly you are no CEO.

LOL!

CEO2NV2

"all those people they could've hired if they weren't taxed to death"

You mean all those people they haven't been hiring for all these years they were NOT taxed to death? Giving them lower taxes didn't work, why not try something else? The more we give in to corporations because of their BS whining about how they are regulated (um, what regulations?) and taxed (uh....right) to death, the more they get away with and the more harm they do to the rest of us. They are at the mercy of consumers, they depend on us to make money, not the other way around, but somehow we have flipped that on ourselves and we're paying for it.

"Obama's multiple stimuli packages has demonstrated that. All that money blown and nothing to show for it."

For one, it wasn't all Obama giving away money, Bush did the first bailout - and the first bailout had the least regulations attached, and what happened? You're right, money blown, because most of it went in bonuses to CEOs who guess what - pay no taxes. So we gave away tax money that ended up in large part being distributed in various forms of income that we made little to no taxes back on, instead of it going to helping the businesses as it was intended. When Obama tried to do additional bailouts, they were blocked and delayed by Republicans until changes were made. Maybe if Obama had his way, and there were RULES to how the money was used, things would have been slightly different. And despite the interference, a lot of Obama's moves have proved fruitful, as with the auto industry.

The fact is, the economy is improving despite all efforts to thwart that recovery by Republicans. Their plan didn't work like they hoped.

And as far as Obamacare and driving up premiums now, insofar as that may have occurred, here's my two cents on that: Obama wanted affordable healthcare. He pushed a healthcare plan that was blocked until he made certain concessions. Those concession resulted in part in less regulation, and likely helped result in the law not being fully implemented until 2014 - which handily gives the insurance companies plenty of time to hike their premium prices BEFORE the law goes into effect, since we gave them ample warning. Same thing happened with the credit card companies - they had too much warning before the law went into effect stopping them from raising interest rates, so they all raised their rates arbitrarily just before the law went into effect. And who is it that argues for less regulation? Oh yeah, Republicans. Funny how Obama's plans either were blocked, or delayed until changes were made, huh?

Amen, Brother Houston, Amen!

But sshh,...don't say it too loud,...it's like spraying the devil with holy water around here to point out some Obama successes! Seems to cause much writhing and frothing,...

not sure that imagery is what I meant,...lol - But I'll go with it.

Hey Mitt, that 'other guy' has been pretty successful lately since he decided to stop waiting for Congress to do "its JOB".

And just in case anyone has forgotten, AMERICA IS NOT A BUSINESS, IT IS A NATION AND THEREFORE OPERATES UNDER A DIFFERENT "PROFIT/LOSS MODEL".'

And Mitt, just how many JOBS were created by Bain Capital versus the number of jobs/pensions/households that were bankrupted since you worked at Bain? If you're gonna claim jobs created after you left Bain be sure to tell us how many jobs have been lost since your stint at Bain!

And let's see you defend your "The auto-companies should have gone through a traditionally structured bankruptcy" statement when your own former company "Bain Capital" refused to put up any money to fund said traditional bankruptcy? How do you have a managed bankruptcy when there are no investor's?

See Mitt, you have fell into the common GOP mindset; you forgot that in today's day and in this Internet age it's real simple to call up events/quotes/articles that were published at the actual time that previous events took place. Too bad for you Mitt, cause come July (post-GOP convention) you're really gonna have to do some fancy flip-floppin' in order to clean up the mess you've made during this 'FAR-RIGHT NOMINATION FIASCO'

And WHO are you suggesting???

Jo-an doesnt know whether to attack you or not. And as my wife always says (why should I punish myself for being mad at you, if anything Im going to make you work harder). My life is good!

aaaahhhhh...jolly, you know I never attack!

I would really like to know "who" this person is??? Cause I only see poor choices out there!

How about you jolly, who do you suggest?

I dont debate my opinions, I may comment on an idea or add to someones. But my opinion is mine and no amount of debate will change that. All I will say is that I have voted Democratic ( Mr. Carter and Mr. Clinton) and I have no issue with Mr. Obama as long as Ms Pelosi and Mr. Reid are minority leaders.

Bay
While I agree that the country has many problems I wouldn't say 'nothing else matters'. The Republican candidates started with the social issues. And the changes they (mostly Santorum) are advocating are scary. Legislatures all over the US are putting in laws that are beginning to infringe on long-held rights. So these things do matter.

I'm sorry, but I'm not willing to fundamentally change the founding principles of the country. The Republicans should have stayed on the economy. But they didn't. In a way I'm glad. I would much rather they 'out' their policy plans before the election than after.

What? You mean not run on jobs when they meant wombs?

The teabags tricked everyone in 2010, pretending to be for "jobs"...and putting forth bills to take women's rights away....

I don't think the "independent's" will be FOOLED AGAIN!!

He's a good doctor but with poor bedside manners

If someone I loved had cancer, I would look for the best trained and highest expertise oncologist I could find, rather than a doc who has had cancer and could relate with our "feelings". Our country needs an expert in leadership and management right now. Romney is that expert. When did we start being reverse snobs? Some of you are looking for any excuse to disparage him. If his wife DIDN'T drive Cadillacs, you would call him a tight wad. Cadillacs are made in America too.

No, Romney is an expert at creating wealth, not an expert in "leadershipn and management". His one try at actual governance was particularly unimpressive in Massachusetts...which is why all he has to tout is how well he can tear apart companies and sell them. This is qualifications for leadership of the free world in your book? It's not his wealth that has Mr. Romney in such poor standing with his OWN PARTY, let alone set him on the road to failure in the general election. It's his tone-deaf misunderstanding of every political issue he touches (really, someone has to TELL you not to go to Detroit, where you already have to defend the "let 'em go bankrupt' --off shore accounts--cut taxes on the wealthy stuff, and then brag about your wife's two Cadillacs before an empty stadium--?) No the guy is not and has never been ready for prime time.

Reader

No argument that you want the best oncologist to treat cancer just like you would want the best CEO running the business you invest in.

The problem is that success as a CEO is not relevant to the POTUS job. A CEO has a relatively narrow mandate which he/she executes through his/her executive staff and organization structure. POTUS must lead 535 legislators WHO DO NOT WORK FOR HIM/HER to accomplish a panoply of constantly shifting priorities.

Regardless of Romney's CEO success, which is arguable, it does not qualify him to be POTUS.

Nor a vetranarian!

Just wondering if you don't understand bankruptcy. There are different forms. Chapter 7 means the company is out of business and assets are divided up among the creditors. Chapter 11 means the debt is restructured and everyone gets their money, but a little slower, and the company stays in business. Romney encouraged restructuring the debt and reorganizing the auto companies so they could stay in business. This is what they ended up doing, after taking bailout money which went to waste. Honest disagreements are part of American elections. Deceptive disparagements should not be.

@reader, NOT!

Romney encouraged a Chapter 7!!! Not an 11! They needed the cash in order to reorganize and no private investor INCLUDING Bain Capital, would invest...That is why the government stepped in!

reader-5252843 - perhaps you should actually read. Romney encourage the automobile industry to do a Chapter 7 - not 11. He had no interest in helping them get back on their feet - just wanted them to close their doors. As with most companies he stepped into - he wanted them broken apart!

Romney probably wanted to "gobble" them up...

Jo-An - or he wanted them all in China. Seems to be a favorite spot of his for companies!

And, Jo-An, I want to be wherever that photo is from next to your name!

SS,

China is his fave, along with his offshore accounts!

The pic's my backyard...in the Bahama's, my husband has a 3 year job here and I came with him, hence the wild posting spare time...lol...

Life is GOOD!

Oh - so jealous! I've been diving in the Bahamas before! Absolutely beautiful! Enjoy!

:)

Not only did Santorum lose badly in 2006, he did not carry any counties in his home area of Western Pennsylvania.

It wouldn't fly because as the child of an American citizen, he is an American citizen. John Mccain was born in Panama and nobody was bugging out about him during the elections.

Willard is a loser no matter where he was born. The scarey things is that compared to the rest of the field, he's the best of a bad lot

That's so funny...

Does that mean the "birther's" didn't even believe Obama's mother was an American citizen?

They get wackier every day!

Jo-An

You said it before I could. Silly, they denounce his 'white' side at all times,...THAT never happened. And they've got Trump and Taitz leading the 'charge'.

This couldn't get more comical unless they told me they were serious. Oh, wait,...nevermind. Must laugh now.

Only one American citizen parent of a foreign born child in Obama's case. Both of Mitt's and McCain's were.

Which side is his white side......? I just see a man, President Obama!

Talk to the Hand, the Constitution requires only one parent be a citizen; not only that, President Obama was born in the State of Hawaii which is a part of these United States and last I checked the Constitution, that makes him an American-born citizen! The conservatives have nothing better to offer the country than birther nonsense because they sure as heck do not offer any solutions for the problems we face--every solution they suggest has been proven a failure over the last 30 years. If it didn't work for Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43, they seem to believe a fourth try will work when everyone else recognizes that if we don't learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. Well, repeat them is what Romney, Gingrich and Santoru represent. Ron Paul represents something so off the charts as to be unworthy of comment.

Talk to the Hand: silly, you may have not passed 3rd grade geography but most of us know Hawaii is in the US...actually McCain was born in the Panama Canal...doesn't matter--they're all children of American born parents and are Americans, (yes, sorry, even if you don't vote for them).

Jody and AP - I was simply rebutting the assumption above that Romney was born in Mexico and mistakenly put the "foreign born child" in there. Thanks for pointing it out.

BTW how is that Georgia ballot eligibility thing going these days? Haven't heard anything lately. Probably got dropped.

Talk to the Hand - it probably did get dropped since it was so stupid to begin with! I think everyone in GA was dumbfounded that their officials could be so stupid!

Perhaps you should also consider posting which democrats also voted for most if not all of the the list you posted.

GCCal-----Thanks for supporting the Democrats who voted for most of the posted list.

Those don't count. He was taking one for the team. You know the team, those who keep pulling stuff out of their keaster when they need a fact

re: Talk to the Hand, the Constitution requires only one parent be a citizen; not only that, President Obama was born in the State of Hawaii which is a part of these United States and last I checked the Constitution, that makes him an American-born citizen!

^ Of course McCain was born in Panama - and so is not a native born American.

But Obama was not born white, which is the actual basis of birther hatred, being racist losers as they are.

I don't believe it makes a difference whether he's black or white. The biggest concern is he doesn't "Believe in America" and doesn't project his true allegiance to the American way of life.

You mean YOUR American way of life, or mine? Of course you mean yours, Republicans care about nothing but themselves, their Jesus, their view of Life, their view of Family, their view of Government, their view of the Constitution, their view of this Country, and anyone disagreeing with that view is a lazy socialist heathen libtard. Did that about get it for you? You need to read a book Gran and expand your horizons.

GranCanyon - says who? What a total crock! What exactly does he have to do to prove to morons he believes in American and the American Way of Life? Or do you mean the outrageous far right way of life - which most Americans with brains do not believe in?

Amused - I believe you stated it perfectly!