I REFUSE to Believe American Women are THIS DUMB!

Trixie with her only option after a Romney Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

“Idiot America is a collaborative effort, the results of millions of decisions made and not made, to reduce everything to salesmanship. Debate becomes corrupted argument, in which every point of view is just another product- no better or worse than all the others- and informed citizenship is abandoned to the marketplace. Idiot America is the development of the collective Gut at the expense of the collective mind.
It’s what results when we abandon our duty to treat the ridiculous with ridicule. It’s what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and we not only surrender our right to punish them at the polls, but become too timid to punish their ideas with daily scorn – because the ‘polls’ say those ideas are popular…and therefore must hold some sort of truth."- Charles P. Pierce in 'Idiot America', p. 250.


Charles P. Pierce basically 'tells it like it is' in his polemic against the American brand of political idiocy. But even he might be surprised at what new stratospheric heights it's reached in this election cycle. From Romney passing himself off as an economic and military moderate in two debates (hence, too many fail to heap scorn on him and refuse to punish him at the polls) to other outbursts of memetic insanity and pundit foolishness. Such as Michael Barone, in a recent Washington Examiner column, insisting women are more leaning toward Romney (some recent polls, e.g. ABC, show Obama's earlier 16 pt. lead has evaporated- while his lead among women in Colo. and VA has been halved) because they want "a safer choice" and also demand "a reliable grown up".

Meanwhile, a supposed "scientific" study released by the UCLA Psychology Dept. has contributed to the 'judge a book by its cover' meme by making the claim - from its findings- that "GOP female politicians are prettier" than liberal or Democrat politicians. The latter possessing supposedly more "mannish" faces and features.  Some have theorized women are buying into this bollocks and this is helping to tilt more women toward Romney-Ryan.

But I refuse to believe American women are THIS stupid.

Nor do I believe that most American women are so stupid as to buy into the jabber of a female professor highlighted yesterday on the Andrea Mitchell Report. This prof,  after being asked about the Richard Mourdock "God intended it" rape soundbite- argued that truly "things are more complex than just the abortion issue. My students understand that!"

Well, DOH! SO does everyone else with two firing neurons! But that's not the point! The point that seems to have escaped the prof (and many other female voters, especially undecided)  is that the abortion issue as enunciated so radically 2 days ago by Mourdock is the linchpin to grasping the extreme radicalism of the WHOLE GOP ticket and party! In other words, the Mourdock remark (and Romney's support in his ads backing Mourdock, never mind he attempts to divorce himself from it!) translates into a snapshot of how the GOP and Romneyites will govern: to the EXTREME RIGHT!  This will necessarily influence economic policies as well as social, and military!

The trick, for the intelligent woman, is to link all of those together into one whole cloth radical fabric as opposed to piece meal separating them in her mind - and wrongly believing she can ignore the abortion issue but all else will be A-Ok. Sorry, doesn't work that way! The abortion debacle and knuckledragger memes concerning women's bodies are all of a piece with Romney-Ryan's equally radicalized economic issues and how they intend to treat women in that sphere! (Just look at Mitt Romney's avoidance of the Lily Ledbetter equal pay for equal work act.)

Let's even move beyond equal pay for equal work and assume that perhaps many of the married women (who for some reason seem to be most enchanted with  Willard Mitt) don't have a problem. Then, what will they do when their kid comes down with fungal meningitis because Romney cuts even more drug regulations, as his GOP-ers already did with respect to the FDA, eliciting the sort of outbreak from improperly mixed back pain relief drugs we're seeing now?

What will they do after Mitt peels back more food regs - so his "business plan" can prosper, and their kid comes down with E. coli from that next fast food burger, or severe salmonella from consuming peanut butter or whatever? Will they get hysterical if - after Mitt and his GOP congressional stooges lower the clean water regulations- their kid or kids or the whole family, comes down with campylobacter infection? Or perhaps amoebic dysentery?

Oh, and what will they do after Mitt dispatches "Obamacare" and these women won't be able to afford medical care for their kids, especially if getting them into an ER translates into on the spot payments first to a corporate bill collector? Will they be so happy with their "safe choice" then? Will they be enamored of the "reliable grown up"? Or will it finally sink in that an entitled rich boy brat who never grew up can't be a "reliable grown up", period?

And when Mitt, along with his Neocon generals, advisors like John Bolton, Condi Rice, Dick Cheney et al, launch two wars in his first year - one against Syria and the other against Iran - will they happy and content they went with the "reliable grownup"? Will they be happy if and when Mitt imposes a draft (as his military Neocon planners will doubtless insist, because rotating tours won't be adequate for two more wars)   and their ofspring are called up? Will they still love Mitt then, or repent at their leisure?

See, as Charles Pierce points out, these are the pointed questions that must be asked now! If American women aren't prepared to punish this huckster -ass salesman for his bollocks, then someone must, others must! Someone - even a lone blogger- has to be prepared to heap scorn on him and ridicule the ridiculous! Obama did call his ass out, but so far it appears too many are too dumb or too shocked, to take that call out seriously!

If Romney wins, also consider that at least two justices will be replaced by two more conservatives who will ensure that not only Roe v. Wade is overturned but cases like Citizens United continue to be decided wrongly. A vote for Romney is also a vote in favor of a Supreme Court akin to the one that ordered the state of Florida not to determine who really won the  2000 election. It will also plausibly legitimize voter suppression for which we saw outbreaks in over a dozen states this year. (By demanding photo IDs for everyone.) Is THIS what you want?

Lastly, when Mitt blows up the deficit and adds $7 trillion to it - $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion from additional Pentagon spending - how happy will you be then? Will you finally see that the "abortion issue" you took to be one simplistic, isolated  "singleton" was in fact the Skeleton key  to the whole Neo-Neocon Mittster War-Profit agenda? Or maybe the expected 15% unemployment from his folly won't be enough and you will lay blame on Obama (or as some of Romney's Zombies call him "Obummer")

Think hard, very hard! Those sound bites of Mourdock dourly pronouncing on your ability to obtain abortions - whether for self or daughters - is also a heads up on the broad scope of radical Right policies if you are stupid enough to put this miscreant and his vampire Veep candidate in office.

Believe it!

Obama Cleans Romney’s Clock: Will It Be Enough?

"Fool me once, I'll lie to your face! Fool me twice, I'll lie behind close doors that you can't get past.....BAAHH!"



Just like Muhammad Ali, who in his peak boxing years would “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee”- so also Barack Obama stung the holy hell out of Willard Mitt Romney last night, while also exposing his ugly-entitled Uber Capitalist persona. There are so many ways that Obama jabbed and ko’d Willard Rat it would take six blogs to describe them, so let me focus on the highlights:


1) Hammering Mitt’s “Five points plan” and making it a "one-point plan": ensuring the über-wealthy types keep all their gains at the expense of the rest of us.

As I referenced earlier (The Economist, Jan. 14, p. 25) Romney’s five points plan to “turn the economy around” is bollocks. Summarily put it amounts to: 1) Killing Obamacare (so the Middle class he weeps so much about will now have to cough up more money once they reach an insurance limit and will be denied based on pre-existing conditions), 2) Killing key regulations – so we can now expect more contaminated food with E. Coli, Salmonella, etc. 3) Gutting Medicaid – via “state grants” – so the poor will now be left with their kids dying of chronic diseases and lack of care, 4) A 20% “across the board” tax cut which will translate into massive tax increases for the middle class to avoid a $5 trillion deficit, and 5) Further economic impositions on the middle class, since Romney also plans to add $2 trillion to the Pentagon.

Where do people think that extra dough will come from- to keep things revenue “neutral” for Mitt  – if not from THEIR hides?


2) Undoubtedly Romney’s worst moment of the night was induced by himself when he brought up the Benghazi  (Libya) attack. As he pressed Obama on this, the president stared stone-faced at Willard Rat and told him straight up that the sort of accusations made which implied a political motivation to delay comment were “offensive”. Not satisfied, Romney adopted his best feral rat face in confronting Moderator Candy Crowly - stuck his jaw out- and re-asserted a 14-day delay in calling Benghazi a terror attack. Crowley then did a simple fact check (perhaps expecting this might come up) and thereby exposed Romney in making a factually incorrect attack. This was the first real time fact check in presidential debate history


Crowley also deserved kudos for not allowing herself to be pushed around by the CEO brat to demand more time. Unlike Lehrer who was rolled over and over, Crowley stood firm.


3) Mitt’s “Binders full of women” blather. (Can you just see all those women screaming and pounding to get out of his binders?) While the comment went viral as it ought to have, it also exposed yet another monumental Romney lie because he did no such thing. (Which makes sense, because he also had no use for the Lily Ledbetter act that would have ensured women are paid the same as men.)

According to Romney – in his own words:

“We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can you help us find folks? And I brought us whole binders full of — of women,”

But according to veteran Boston Phoenix journalist David Bernstein (as reported on salon.com), what actually happened is that "a bipartisan coalition of women’s groups came together to compile lists of eligible female candidates for office before the 2002 gubernatorial election had even occurred". Romney insists he “went to a number of women’s groups” and asked them for the binders, but the converse is true: they went to him . Bernstein also shows that many of the senior-level women Romney eventually hired were given control of departments and agencies that were not a priority for the governor (think of tracking purchase orders for cleaning materials.) Meanwhile Romney had net zero women working on the budget or actual businesses development. Nice, equality minded guy! NOT!


4) Crowley’s firm control induced emergence of the nasty and entitled CEO. My wife, myself and a female guest noted this from about ten minutes after the start of the Town Hall debate until just before Obama’s closing statement at the end. At key points when Crowley brought the hammer down, one could see Romney’s argumentative testiness on display- not only in his facial contortions but in aggressively pressing the moderator for more and more time. At one point his disrespectful rebuke of the president: “Just be quiet and wait your turn!” shocked us and many in the audience. Who the hell does he think he is? Chris Matthews in a post-debate analysis made the observation that he was then: ‘The Boss we all love to HATE!” Yes, the entitled CEO barking his orders to underlings and taking no account of their voice.


5) Obama’s ending statement and the “47%” parting shot. Obama aptly reminded those delirious voters still undecided that it was Romney who dissed them all back in May with this snide comment to a group of billionaires in Boca Raton, FL. The message was critical in depicting Romney as the shape shifting liar he is and a rat who will say or do anything to get elected. It was also critical in showing that what Mitt bloviates to voters, and what he says behind closed doors (when he believes those voters aren’t around) are two different things.

So why elect a two-faced turd whose personas in private and public are at such variance?

The question among Obama supporters is 'Will this be enough to halt Romney's momentum?'  The early indicators are that it might, with post debate polls giving Obama an edge, for example the CNN poll has Obama winning 46%- 39% and the CBS poll winning 37% to 31% with 32% awarding a "tie". At the same time we have to be wary of polls and how easily they can be detached from reality. For example, one poll (USA Today-Gallup) that came out yesterday showed Obama losing to WOMEN by 49% to 48% in battleground-swing states. But one pollster from politics.com interviewed on 'The Cycle' admitted lots of problems with that when his own and other internal polls continue to show Obama with a double digit lead over Romney - as it ought to be - because no woman in her right mind could possibly contemplate or accept what Romney's inevitable economic changes would do to her family: from losing the child tax credit to losing college loan deductions, to having health insurance limited.

Another poll taken after last night's debate also is enough to twist heads, with 56% saying Obama would do more for the Middle Class and 65% saying Romney would do more for the economy. Hello,  pollsters and people! The two are not mutually exclusive! If the Middle Class are more likely to be helped then the economy will be also! 

One is led to conclude here that while these voters probably accept Obama's economic prescription and his economic facts, they have still allowed Romney's "style" and his history as a "businessman" (actually a vulture capitalist whose main mandate was to dispense with U.S. jobs and incept company bankruptcies) to pollute their thinking.

Let me also reinforce a point here,  made -  I believe, by Ariana Huffington many times the past five or six years: that most polls notoriously under-represent democrats because of the split nature of telephone communications. We know more Dems have cell phones, but at the same time are less likely to accept 'unknown' callers - who are also those who may want to poll people. Even land line Dems are more averse to any telephone nuisance factors-  and speaking for wifey and myself- we never answer the phone to an unknown caller, or to address or respond to a poll! (We let the answering machine field everything!) If this is not unique then it may portend very well for Mr. Obama in what the REAL polls probably show. My guess? Possibly a 5-6% Obama lead, which also assumes the pollsters likely keep calling until they finally reach a willing respondent (to complete their poll - say using a sample of 1,000)  who - 2 out of 3 times- is more likely to be Republican or conservative.

As to whether Obama's performance last night will be enough, I believe it might be, but only provided: 1) Most of my assumptions above to do with polling prove valid, and 2) He follows up with an equally energetic and spot-on performance next week. All the same, it's a pity he didn't bring this verve and pugnacious element in the first one on one debate (which 70 million watched) because if he had Romney by now would be past history.

Note to any “uncommitted voters”: If this debate was too much heat for you and ‘turned you off’ (as some on CBS claimed this morning), do us all a favor and stay at home on Nov. 6th! This embodiment of fierce conflict, reflected in most partisans - is what the heart of democracy looks like!