Republicans now playing the blame game--on each other

Excerpt:
"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."
Republican Reckoning Begins After Revealing Defeat
By Jon Ward

BOSTON -– Republican Party leaders on Wednesday began picking up the pieces of their movement, trying to figure how to put them back together.

The GOP was blindsided Tuesday, but also revealed. The Democrats' ground organization was beyond anything they'd imagined, pulling in new voters with stunning effectiveness. It exposed a major weakness in the Republican approach to winning elections, practically and intellectually.

"I don't think anyone on our side understood or comprehended how good their turnout was going to be," said Henry Barbour, a Republican committee man from Mississippi. "The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs."

But President Barack Obama's triumphant get-out-the-vote program also pulled back the curtain on the GOP's looming demographic demise. The exposure was so severe that there will be few inside the party who can deny the need to work toward immigration reform, as well the need to make a broader effort to communicate to parts of the electorate that the party has not tried to in the past.

There was a quick move to embrace the need for change, from the ranks of the party's next generation of elected leaders, as well as from its online flame-throwers.

"The conservative movement should have particular appeal to people in minority and immigrant communities who are trying to make it, and Republicans need to work harder than ever to communicate our beliefs to them," said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla).

Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, a conservative blog, said Republican candidate Mitt Romney's approach to Hispanic voters was "atrocious."

"Frankly, the fastest-growing demographic in America isn’t going to vote for a party that sounds like that party hates brown people," Erickson said.

However, the day after was not all self-reflection for those on the right. Some struck a far more combative tone.

"We are in a war. We're in a war to save this nation," said Michael Needham, chief executive of Heritage Action, an arm of the conservative Washington think tank, The Heritage Foundation.

Needham spoke in a direct-to-camera video as martial-sounding music swelled in the background. Persuasion as a political strategy did not appear to be on his mind.

Similarly, an assortment of conservative groups sent representatives to the National Press Club to vent their anger at the Republican Party "establishment."

"The battle to retake the Republican Party begins today," railed Richard Viguerie, a veteran of the conservative movement, who called on "the failed Republican leadership" to resign, and then named the leaders of the GOP in the House and Senate, as well as the head of the Republican National Convention.

However, figures like Viguerie have limited influence within the GOP these days. The real lightning bolts being thrown on Wednesday were by the party's super donors, who played a historic role in this election after a 2010 Supreme Court decision allowed them to give unlimited amounts to outside groups.

Many of the lightning bolts were aimed at none other than Karl Rove, the former Bush administration political genius who oversaw the deployment of nearly $400 million in campaign spending through outside groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS toward the presidential race and toward numerous Senate and House races.

"The billionaire donors I hear are livid," one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. "There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don't know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing."

Rove even suffered the indignity of being insulted on Twitter by the blustery Donald Trump, who had attended Romney's election night party here on Tuesday night, but left early after it was clear that Obama had won a second term.

"Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money," Trump tweeted, inaccurately.

Crossroads GPS spent money in the Nevada Senate race, where Republican incumbent Sen. Dean Heller defeated Democratic challenger Shelley Berkley. The group also spent money on numerous House races.

Rove was forced to defend his group's expenditures live on Fox News on Tuesday night, and will hold a briefing with top donors on Thursday, according to Politico.

There were plenty of attacks on Romney himself, as well, with Erickson saying that he "stood for nothing and everything at the same time," and that his advisers were " outside charlatans, many of whom will now go work for Republican Super PACs making six-figure salaries, further draining the pockets of rich Republicans when not on television explaining how awesome and expert they are."

Ben Domenech, a conservative author, described Romney's candidacy as having "a message without music, delivered by a candidate with little or no personality, saddled with enormous advantages in life which become disadvantages in the world of politics."

There was also talk of a new conservative populism, an explicit admission that the GOP has lost all connection to working-class and lower-income voters, as well as minorities.

"We need to think creatively about big issues, philosophy, and how we can relate conservative values to the needs of a wider range of voters," wrote Ed Morrissey, a blogger at HotAir.com. "This will require a new set of national leaders for the Republican Party and conservatism. We need men and women who can think creatively, produce a positive agenda that isn’t defined by an oppositional nature, and who can eloquently communicate that agenda and the values that drive it."

The realignment inside the GOP won't just be at the level of its public faces. The party will have to confront a consultant culture that has stilted innovation and growth in winning elections.

" I think there was a big bomb that just went off in the party and people need to see where the bodies lie and let the dust settle," said the Republican operative. "The party needs to find the Rove of 1996, rather than Karl Rove who created George Bush and got him reelected twice and spent $500 million in the next two cycles."

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How MUCH the Obama girls have grown!

They are beautiful girls! Any mom or dad can tell you, childhood goes by in a flash so you have to appreciate those growing-up years with your kids for the short time they last... As they say in the article, "The days are long but the years are short."

SASHA AND MALIA GROW UP BEFORE OUR EYES
TodayMOMS

My, how they've grown!

Side-by-side photos of the Obamas celebrating their victory in 2008 and last night show just how much the president's daughters, Sasha, 11, and Malia, 14, have grown up during his first term. Their parents have four more years to look forward to -- a term that will include trying to keep their daughters out of the public eye as they navigate the teen years, dating and college applications.

Our surprise at how the girls have grown into young women is some evidence that Michelle and Barack have succeeded at their stated goal of keeping them out of the spotlight. NBC's Andrea Mitchell noted that the mainstream press has been good about honoring their privacy -- the girls do normal things like go out to movies with their friends in D.C. without worrying about paparrazzi.

During the campaign, Michelle talked to TODAY Moms about how she's kind of glad she has an iron-clad excuse to keep the girls off Facebook, for privacy reasons. But, being part of the president's family means politics is unavoidable: In fact, the Obamas' wholesome family image no doubt helped the president's re-election campaign.

In his victory speech on election night, Obama spoke to his daughters, saying, "Sasha and Malia, before our very eyes you're growing up to become two strong, smart, beautiful young women, just like your mom. And I'm so proud of you guys."

But, he added, they're not getting another puppy. (The Obama's dog, Bo, was a campaign promise to the girls in 2008.) "For now one dog's probably enough," the president said.

In 2011, Michelle Obama told TODAY Moms that she makes sure White House staff know that the girls are supposed to clean their own rooms and do chores like regular kids. "We fight for their normalcy," she said. "I find myself checking with friends: 'How did the girls seem?' And they'll say, 'No, they're the same kids. They're the same girls.' I'm like, 'OK, good. Just tell me if you see anything. Just let me know.'"

For all parents, the photos of Sasha and Malia are a reminder of how all of our own kids are growing up, probably faster than we realize. Day to day, you don't see it, but you look up and it's four years later and your little girl is a teenager, or your baby's headed off to college. And hopefully, whether you're the leader of the free world or just a regular parent, when that day comes, you've given them all the love and wisdom they need to make their own way in life. It's true what they say, they days are long but the years are short.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Then... the Obamas celebrating their victory in 2008.

Scott Olson / Ge

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I also agree with this author

Instead of being blinded by reverence for the founding fathers, why not take a good look at how antiquated our federal governmental system really is -- and realize that some things need to be changed.  It does not suit our changing times.  But how to get agreement on what changes need to be made? Who would be able to put together a list of workable changes? The constantly-fighting Congress? (Fuggedaboutit)   And, given the corporate lobbyist rule of our nation, how could really effective change for the good of all come into being?  Ah, there's the rub.

OBAMA'S VICTORY WON'T TRANSFORM AMERICA
By David M. Kennedy

Editor's note: David M. Kennedy is professor of history emeritus and director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. He won a Pulitzer Prize for "Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945."

(CNN) -- As yet another presidential election cycle ends, it's a good time not only to tally wins and losses, but to reflect on the nature of the American political system and why it so often disappoints voters and presidents alike.

Think of the extravagant hopes and promises that attended Barack Obama's election in 2008. Obama surely had good historical grounds for thinking that the seismic financial upheaval of 2009 presented him with opportunities to transform America for the better.

And so it did, to a degree his own reelection campaign somewhat mysteriously chose not to emphasize, by creating the political space for major legislative victories like the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms.

But those achievements fell measurably short of candidate Obama's aspirations, and were matched by precious few other initiatives that met the expectations arising from the 2008 campaign.

This time around a chastened Obama notably failed to offer a grand vision for the American future and instead contented himself with delegitimizing Mitt Romney and dwelling for the most part on small-bore issues.

What is it about the American presidency, anyway?

Every four years, Americans become besotted with presidential politics. Indeed, in the media-marinated age of the "perpetual campaign" the besotting has no fixed cycle, quadrennial or otherwise. Though for more than a century near majorities of eligible voters have not bothered to cast ballots in presidential elections, none today can escape the saturation news coverage, ubiquitous advertising, and relentless prattle of the chattering classes that attend the contest for the White House.

No other country spends so much of its time choosing its top-level political leadership. The British and the Australians usually get the job done in less than six weeks. The French, as a rule, take no more than three. Canada's longest campaign ever, in 1926, lasted just 74 days. And no other people pour such vast buckets of money into their electioneering as the Americans -- some $6 billion in the current round. Perpetual presidential politicking is as American as apple pie -- and a darn sight more expensive.

And as for the candidates, what makes them run? In a nation long schooled to believe that any child can grow up to be president, an astonishing number of men of outsized ambition (and at least a few women) have taken the lesson to heart.

They have devoted virtually their entire adult lives to seeking the presidency. They have plotted, maneuvered, schemed, bargained, cajoled, begged, exalted and often humiliated themselves in pursuit of the prize. Once in hand, the long-coveted office has sometimes made but more frequently broken them.

Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, two examples of the relatively few presidents who can be counted as successful, largely realized their grandest aims -- though in both cases the presidency cost them their lives, one by assassination, the other through catastrophic overwork and consequent self-neglect.

More often, in the case of otherwise accomplished and respected men, the presidency has merely cost them their reputations. For the likes of Ulysses Grant, Herbert Hoover and Lyndon Johnson -- each of them celebrated masters of their pre-presidential domains -- the presidency proved a career-killing heart-breaker. Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue has been the scene of many bitter disappointments, as well as some tragedies of epic, Shakespearean proportions.

In light of that dispiriting history, why would anyone wish the travails of the presidency upon himself? As President James Garfield put it in 1881, after just a few months in office: "My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it?"

Yet men have wanted it, desperately, including Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. Both of them might answer Garfield's question by saying, simply, that the Oval Office is a matchless place from which to serve one's country.

But as Garfield and other presidents -- including Obama -- learned, the American presidency is a truly peculiar institution, with less power in actuality than folklore has it.

The president and vice president are but two of the 537 elected officials in Washington. Surrounding the White House is a political playing field mined with enough vetoes to stymie even the most ambitious of men.

Yes, modern presidents oversee a vast 21st-century machinery of state whose operations touch almost every corner of American life. But they share executive authority with 50 governors; and many government entities, such as the Federal Reserve system, are formally independent of presidential control. The president has no official voice in the legislative process, save for his own veto, which can be overridden by congressional super-majorities. He can nominate federal judges and Supreme Court justices, but they must receive Senate confirmation, and in any case serve for life in a proudly independent judiciary. He is the commander in chief, but the Constitution reserves to Congress the right to declare war.

It is not simply the lust for power, however constitutionally jacketed it might be, that fuels men's and women's appetites for the office; it deserves to be acknowledged that love of country is among the reasons that so many good people, including Obama and Romney, have pined for the opportunity to serve.

Yet contrary to the balladeer's promises, in politics no less than in romance, love is not enough, and it rarely, if ever, conquers all.

This is the hard lesson that Obama has learned in the last four years as president. He is a devoted patriot who in his 2009 inaugural address praised the Founders, whose "ideals still light the world." He excited effusive affection among his countrymen on his way to winning the presidency in 2008.

But the last four years have seen no deepening love affair between the president and his people. On the contrary, the ardor of his supporters has measurably cooled, and some have jilted him altogether. His detractors have multiplied and hardened against him. And events have tempered even his extravagantly idealistic vision of his country.

The president's frustrations have derived not simply from the septic political climate of our times, but at least as much from a set of mechanisms carefully crafted by those same hallowed Founders more than two centuries ago.

Generations of schoolchildren have been taught to reverence the "checks and balances" the framers stitched so artfully into the Constitution. Less frequently noted are the liabilities that were integral to their design. They deliberately constructed the American governmental system so that it would be difficult to operate, the presidency in particular.

Their colonial experience with the British crown and royal governors made them especially wary of executive power, and though the presidency was one of their cleverest innovations in that long-ago Philadelphia summer, they hedged it about with constraints and counterbalances to ensure that no president would ever accrue anything remotely resembling monarchical authority.

Small wonder that over the arc of American history only a handful of presidents can be said to have effected truly lasting transformational change -- Lincoln, FDR, Lyndon Johnson and perhaps Ronald Reagan make the short list, but few others do, and that's no accident.

Americans may yearn for strong leadership, but in their stubborn contrariness they do not want truly powerful leaders. They may want effective government, but they apparently like divided government even more, when neither party simultaneously controls House, Senate, and presidency -- the situation we've been saddled with for 31 of the last 43 years.

So it should not be surprising that Obama's accomplishments marked the narrow limits of the achievable. They triggered a vicious political backlash in the 2010 election, ushered in yet another round of divided government, and may yet prove but short-lived reminders of the young president's aspirations, not permanent features of the American landscape.

We are a democracy, and cannot escape the logic of the venerable maxim that we have the government we have chosen and that we deserve. Like it or not, Obama's first term confirmed that our inherited governmental system worked according to its design specifications.

The season of effective, vigorous presidential leadership had but the briefest half-life; the wheels of the constitutional machinery designed to hem the president in began to turn almost from his first day in office, as did the gears of our often perversely contradictory political culture. Within two years we had stalemate, and the blame game began in earnest.

Analysis: Obama won with a better ground game

But in the last analysis we have no one to blame but ourselves, and our inherited political system -- and we have no plausible reason to expect anything substantially different in Obama's second term.

From all appearances we are most probably in for a repeat performance of the last two years: a remarkably disciplined and decidedly intransigent Republican party dominating the House, a paper-thin and fragile Democratic majority in the Senate, and a diminished, dispirited, and check-mated president with little or no room for maneuver -- and this in the face of perhaps the greatest fiscal challenge in the history of the republic, an increasingly volatile international environment, and a raft of unfinished business like devising coherent national energy and immigration policies.

So why do we get so overheated about the presidency? Why don't we generate some heat about the antiquated system of which the president is but one, too often hapless, part? What is it about divided government, anyway?

If even as committed a change agent as Obama is doomed to four more years of nothing more than Lilliputian, small-beer tinkering; if the self-described greatest power in the world is so powerless to put its house in order, isn't it time for a thorough overhaul of our manifestly antiquated political machinery?

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Sorry to rain on the parade, but I am in agreement with this essay

We are giddy today because we dodged the insanity bullet with Romney/Ryan -- but as clear-seeing Cenk Uygur says in his essay below, it was "Apocalypse Now or Apocalypse Later." We now have the "Later" version. Don't forget, the Citizens United horror still stands as a murderous "gift" to us from the Supreme Court. It drove the last nail into our so-called "democracy."  We now live in an oligarchy, and the corporate billionaires who own us are not going to give up the new Gilded Age they have forged for themselves.  To avoid an out-and-out revolution by our battered middle class, the rich may make a few concessions here and there, but, given the way things are set up now, going back to where the middle class ranked higher on the scale is not going to happen.  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news in the midst of all the post-election excitement.  The foxes are still in charge of the henhouse.  We need to send in a hundred more Elizabeth Warrens to clean up the place.

WHY OBAMA WILL DISAPPOINT PROGRESSIVES AND WHY I VOTED FOR HIM ANYWAY
By Cenk Uygur

Anyone who thinks President Obama will magically turn around in his second term and be a real progressive is high on a 2008 supply. Soon after President Obama is re-elected he will do the Grand Bargain deal with Republicans, which will cut Medicare, Medicaid, discretionary spending and maybe even Social Security. On top of that, they will pretend to get extra revenue from closing loopholes but in reality they will definitely do a corporate tax cut and perhaps even a top rate tax cut for the rich.

President Obama views this as the height of courage because conventional wisdom in Washington is that screwing over your own constituents is very, very bold. Yes, not laying a glove on the rich and powerful while you take the lion's share from the middle class, poor and powerless is so bold! And if it's so courageous why don't both sides tell us that's what they're going to do before the election? And yes, this time the Republicans will take the deal because it actually helps their donors a tremendous amount.

President Obama will also continue senseless signature strikes where we have no idea who we're killing with our drones. He will also continue warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detentions. He will pass every trade deal multi-national corporations demand, he will continue to break records in oil drilling and approve the northern half of the Keystone XL pipeline.

And oh yeah, he will continue to do almost nothing on the biggest problem in the country - the enormously corrupting influence of money in politics. The man who raised a billion dollars in legalized bribes in this election will not magically become a reformer in his next term. The only way he goes in that direction is if we push him. The only hope we have is that he is a politician and might change with the times if world events force him to.

So, I am under no delusion that I will be getting change or hope or a progressive. I will be getting a non-radical Republican. So, why vote for him? It's as simple as this - we have no other choice. It is amazing to me that anyone would ever consider voting for Mitt Romney.

Who in their right mind believes that Mitt Romney is going to fight for them (unless you're already a billionaire)? The man promises a 20% tax cut on top of the existing Bush tax cut for the rich. And he would get rid of the estate tax, which saves Sheldon Adelson's family alone about $9 billion. Let alone what it saves Mitt Romney's own family. There has never been a better representative of the rich and powerful. How can nearly half this country be so blind that they can't see that?

The income inequality that Mitt Romney would bring would be so devastating not just because of its grotesque unfairness but because it would also destroy our economy. Every time we have had income inequality on this scale we have had a massive economic crash, as we did right before the Great Depression and 2008.

Then there are the possible wars in the Middle East, the further deregulation of the banks, the jaw dropping deficits and the list goes on. Part of the reason this race is even close is because the media is scared to death of reporting facts. Everything has to be even. Just like before Iraq, the media thought it would be biased to call out the nonsense talking points of the Republicans. And what happened? Nearly 70% of the country thought Saddam Hussein attacked us on 9-11. They were deceived. And the media said it wasn't their job to tell them otherwise. When, in fact, that is exactly their job.

And now we're living through the same thin The media never clearly told the American people that Mitt Romney's tax plan is a giveaway worth trillions of dollars to the rich, that according to his own plan the spending cuts would come almost exclusively from the middle class, that he was planning the greatest robbery in American history. It would be biased to report on the facts of Romney's own plan. So, we got to point where the American people were almost deceived into another great mistake. Almost.

In the end, President Obama will win on Tuesday. Some progressives will make the mistake of thinking they won and be sorely disappointed in a couple of months when they find out what's in that Grand Bargain. But what choice did we have? Apocalypse Now or Apocalypse Later.

So, that is the most important thing I want to leave you with. Voting is among the choices you have - and a very important one - but it is not the only thing you can do. In the short term, you must vote for the best of the choices you realistically have, otherwise you are aiding and abetting disaster. But in the mid-term you should fight for real progressives in primaries, so you have a real choice during the general election.

Wouldn't it be great to vote for someone you're proud of and know will actually represent your point of view? When they tell you that you don't have a choice in a primary because the corporate centrist has the better chance of winning the general election, don't believe them for a second. Even Republicans become progressives before an election (look at Romney pretending to protect Medicare now); progressives, not corporatists, are the center of the country.

Most importantly, in the long-term we must fight to get the corrupting influence of money out of politics. Until we stop this insane system of legalized bribery where both parties brag about how much money they have raised from the richest people in the world, we are never going to get good choices in the short-term. Russ Feingold says basically if you think there's no such thing as a free lunch, you can be sure there's no such thing as a free $10 million donation to a politician.

So, do what you must in this election, but don't get blinded by the lights. This is not the most important fight in the country. Getting money out of politics is far, far more important, so that next time we can actually have a decent choice when election time comes around.

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YAY for Elizabeth Warren!

Elixabeth Warren is our biggest victory!  A woman who will fight unceasingly for the middle class, she has proven her incorruptible moral values over and over!   Knowledgeable, wise and incorruptible -- something (sadly) unheard of in Congress.  I hope she will be an inspiration to the other liberal senators -- she's like a new "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."  She needs our ongoing prayers to keep her from being beaten down by the corrupt system now ruled by big corporate lobbyists.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/elizabeth-warren_n_2088073.html

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FEMA vs. states/private disaster management

TRUTH BE TOLD (But stubborn Repugs refuse to acknowledge it, even when it's smack dab in front of their eyes):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/krugman-sandy-versus-katrina.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

SANDY vs. KATRINA
By Paul Krugman

EXCERPT:
The point is that after Katrina the government seemed to have no idea what it was doing; this time it did. And that’s no accident: the federal government’s ability to respond effectively to disaster always collapses when antigovernment Republicans hold the White House, and always recovers when Democrats take it back.

Consider, in particular, the history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Under President George H. W. Bush, FEMA became a dumping ground for unqualified political hacks. Faced with a major test in the form of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the agency failed completely.

Then Bill Clinton came in, put FEMA under professional management, and saw the agency’s reputation restored.

Given this experience, you might have expected George W. Bush to preserve Mr. Clinton’s gains. But no: he appointed his campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, to head the agency, and Mr. Allbaugh immediately signaled his intention both to devolve disaster relief to the state and local level and to downgrade the whole effort, declaring, “Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level.” After Mr. Allbaugh left for the private sector, he was replaced with Michael “heckuva job” Brown, and the rest is history.

Like Mr. Clinton, President Obama restored FEMA’s professionalism, effectiveness, and reputation. But would Mitt Romney destroy the agency again? Yes, he would. As everyone now knows — despite the Romney campaign’s efforts to Etch A Sketch the issue away — during the primary Mr. Romney used language almost identical to Mr. Allbaugh’s, declaring that disaster relief should be turned back to the states and to the private sector.

The best line on this, I have to admit, comes from Stephen Colbert: “Who better to respond to what’s going on inside its own borders than the state whose infrastructure has just been swept out to sea?”(!!!!!!!!)

Look, Republicans love to quote Ronald Reagan’s old joke that the most dangerous words you can hear are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Of course they’ll do their best, whenever they’re in power, to destroy an agency whose job is to say exactly that. And yes, it’s hypocritical that the right-wing news media are now attacking Mr. Obama for, they say, not helping enough people.

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More people die from meningitis caused by drug compounding

Just what we need--more corporate deregulation.  Which we'll get if Romney/Ryan get into the White House.  Read the following article to see where deregulation of the drug compounding industry has taken us.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/03/steroid-companys-political-ties-surface-as-meningitis-outbreak-worsens/

STEROID COMPANY'S POLITICAL TIES SURFACE AS MENINGITIS OUTBREAK WORSENS

EXCERPT:

The company’s president and co-owner, Greg Coniglario, was also revealed to have hosted a fundraiser for Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), one of 10 senators to sign a letter asking the FDA to loosen regulations on the drug compounding industry.
Coniglario has allegedly contributed thousands of dollars to both Brown’s campaign and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.  (Is anyone really surprised at this news?)


Raw Story (http://s.tt/1rS8s)

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Heckuvajob Brownie of Katrina infamy weighs in on Obama

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1rnPo)    Ya' gotta' marvel that this guy is still trying to justify his inaction during Katrina. Brown says: Katrina bungle was all "Bush's fault."  (a lot of truth here -- after all, Bush appointed "Brownie" in the first place. Note that Brownie agrees with Romney that FEMA should be stripped of its funding...)

BUSH DISGRACED FEMA DIRECTOR BROWN STUNNED AT QUICK RESPONSE TO SANDY
By Stephen C. Webster

Michael Brown, the former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) chief under President George W. Bush — best known for his pivotal role in the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — said Monday night that President Barack Obama’s disaster response effort has been so quick, it might just raise questions.

Brown, who Bush famously called “Brownie” and said he was “doing a heckuvajob” while thousands struggled to survive for days in the flooded streets of New Orleans, is today no longer in government. He instead spends his day opinion-making on an AM news radio station in Colorado, where he’s been obsessing about the attack on America’s embassy in Libya for the last several weeks.

Speaking to Denver alt. weekly Westword for an interview published Monday night, Brown criticized New York officials for what he called a “premature” decision to shut down the public transportation infrastructure. “I don’t object…they should be doing all of that,” he reportedly said. “But in the meantime, various news commentators…[and others] in New York are shrugging their shoulders, saying, ‘What’s this all about?’ It’s premature [when] the brunt of the storm won’t happen until later this afternoon.”Brown added that he felt Obama’s press conference on Sunday, just one day before Hurricane Sandy barreled into the eastern seaboard, was politically driven. “My guess is, he wants to get ahead of it — he doesn’t want anybody to accuse him of not being on top of it or not paying attention or playing politics in the middle of it. He probably figured Sunday was a good day to do a press conference.”

For the disgraced former FEMA director, that’s the rub: “[Obama] probably could’ve had a little more impact doing it today,” Brown said, failing to note that Obama did hold yet another press conference on Monday.

“One thing he’s gonna be asked is, why did he jump on this so quickly and go back to D.C. so quickly when in…Benghazi, he went to Las Vegas?” he asked, trying to equate an isolated terrorist attack with the largest storm to ever hit the U.S. mainland. “Why was this so quick?… At some point, somebody’s going to ask that question…. This is like the inverse of Benghazi.”

Four brave Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, were killed in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2011 after terrorists fired rockets at the American embassy in the midst of an angry protest. An investigation is still ongoing. Meanwhile, U.S. officials say that 7.4 million Americans were without power on Tuesday morning, and at least 33 were confirmed dead due to the storm’s inclement effects.

Brown added that he agrees with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s plan to strip FEMA’s funding and let individual states try to fill the gap. Romney said during a 2011 Republican primary debate that he believes using federal money for disaster relief is “immoral.” Although the Romney campaign has since claimed that the candidate actually wouldn’t cut all of FEMA’s funding, Brown seconded the governor’s prior position, telling Westworld, “This has always been my theory.”

Romney ignored reporters’ questions about his views on FEMA during a campaign event Tuesday in Ohio.

Brown said in 2010 that the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, though largely blamed on him, was actually President Bush’s fault. “I really needed the president to get the attention of the entire administration,” he told The Washington Post some five years after the storm. “I needed every Cabinet secretary to be full hands on deck. If I called and said I needed X, they should have given me X. I regret not pushing harder for that. Not having him do that was a tipping point.”

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Christie being thrown under the bus by Romney-ites

Right wing political intrigue...
Christie Was Romney's First Choice for Vice President
By Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei - POLITICO

One of the most tantalizing subplots of the 2012 campaign has been the curious and sometimes controversial performances of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Now, campaign insiders tell POLITICO that Christie was Mitt Romney’s first choice for the Republican ticket, lending an intriguing new context to the continuing drama around the Garden State governor.
The strong internal push for Christie, and Romney’s initial instinct to pick him as his running mate, reflects how conflicted the nominee remained about choosing a running mate until the very end of the process. At least on the surface, Christie and Paul Ryan are about as opposite as two Republicans could be: a brash outsider from the Northeast versus a bookish insider from the heartland.
And yet Romney switched from Christie to Ryan in a span of about two weeks, according to a detailed inside account provided to POLITICO.
Romney was so close to picking Christie that some top advisers at the campaign’s Boston headquarters believed the governor had been offered the job. The campaign made tentative plans to announce a pick in late July, just before Romney headed off on his overseas trip, starting with a stop at the London Olympics.
“Mitt liked him because he saw him as a street fighter,” a Romney official said. “It’s the kind of political mentality that Romney doesn’t have, but admires. He wanted someone who could play the Chicago game [like Obama headquarters] on its own terms.

In fact, Christie was never the final choice. Romney hit “pause” on the possibility shortly before his trip to the Olympics. Then he settled on Ryan the day after returning. Romney formally offered him the job within a week, leaving Christie hanging until shortly before the official announcement a week later.
Some Christie supporters were irritated to discover that the House budget chairman had been picked so long before the New Jersey governor had been told, meaning that he and other also-rans had remained as decoys. These supporters said at the time that Christie deserved more of a heads -up after being led on so strongly.
People involved in the selection process said the campaign believed there was no one who would be more adept and persuasive at delivering Romney’s message. Advisers thought Christie would excel at retail campaigning among working-class voters.
“He’d be great anywhere there are ordinary white men,” the official said. “They would have loved him because here’s this straight-talking, hard-charging, in-your-face guy, and he’s a man’s man. Ohio is the only battleground state where Mitt has a net negative gender gap — where his approval among men doesn’t outweigh the president’s approval among women. Chris Christie changes that.”
Christie started the campaign season by flirting with his own run for president, then ended it with effusive praise for the man he would have run against — and starred in several campaign dramas in between. In typical Christie fashion, there has been nothing understated about his role at each critical point, culminating with his tour with President Barack Obama on Marine One this week as they surveyed Sandy’s havoc along the Jersey Shore.

The New Jersey governor endeared himself to Romney and the Boston team with his early endorsement, right after giving up his own bid. This was early in the primary campaign — October 2011 — and there were seven other candidates in the race. So the endorsement wasn’t easy, and it meant a lot to Romney.
During the long winter slog through the early contests, Christie spoke privately with Romney in long cell phone calls on the road. Romney liked Christie’s fearless advice — unvarnished talk that he wasn’t used to hearing from his cocoon of Boston advisers, many of whom had been with him since he was Massachusetts governor.

Christie was one of the campaign’s most popular surrogates, and he barnstormed with Romney in Iowa, drawing hearty applause for lines like, “Let me tell ya: After three years of Obama, we are hopeless and changeless.”

Some aides around Romney began to sour on Christie when he was late to a couple of events where they were appearing together. “Chris is a sort of cavalier New York, New Jersey guy: ‘If I’m a few minutes behind, I’ll blame it on traffic,’” said a person who knows him well. “That’s just who he is.”

The tardiness rankled the by-the-book folks around Romney. As the vice-presidential selection ramped up, Christie was always at the top of the list, but always with an asterisk.

Some Romney loyalists thought he was too much about himself.

“He wouldn’t make a good Number Two,” one adviser said. That is a point that Christie often made himself, when brushing off talk that he would be chosen.

Advisers also fretted about the raw emotion that makes Christie so popular on TV and on the trail, fearing it might be a liability in the West Wing. In blunt language that Christie can appreciate, another official said: “The explosiveness had some risk.”

Romney was willing to overlook those reservations, and people close to the process describe a frenzy of vetting around Christie in mid-July. Then the intense back-and-forth suddenly halted, although Christie supporters in the campaign’s inner circle remained hopeful that he would still be picked after the foreign trip.

“It could still have happened,” said a person involved in the process.

Instead, the prize went to Ryan, leaving some bitterness in Christie’s camp about how the delicate courting process had ended.

These ruffled feathers got a public airing on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. With Christie as the convention’s keynote speaker, the front page of the New York Post blared that he had turned Romney down.

“Revealed: the secret reason Chris would not run for VP,” the cover said. The inside article reported that Christie “wasn’t willing to give up the New Jersey statehouse to be Mitt Romney’s running mate because he doubted they’d win.”

Christie fell further from favor in Romney’s inner circle when his convention speech, which campaign officials had approved, dwelled more on the Chris Christie story than on the Mitt Romney story.

“His view was, ‘They saw the speech before I gave it. They vetted it. They said it was fine,’” recalled a Romney adviser. “And the campaign’s view was, ‘We told him that we thought there were more opportunities for him to put in stuff about Mitt, and he didn’t take the hint.’ There was a lot of agitation that led to a lot of sarcasm and the kind of comments that people don’t mean, but they kind of do.”

The differences were papered over. Now, some Romney friends and donors are irked by Christie’s embrace of Obama this week, which one referred to as “over the top.”

“If Romney wins, it won’t be forgotten,” the adviser said. “If Romney loses, it doesn’t matter.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83254_Page2.html#ixzz2BB44mUcw

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A MUST-SEE BILL MOYERS PBS SHOW

http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/

Winner Take All Politics -- should be seen by everyone in the country.
Please take the time to view it if you can and pass the info along to your friends.

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Obama conspiracy theories you might not have heard yet

To all Obama haters on my e-mail list:  (and also to some Obama voters who will appreciate the ridiculousness of anti-Obama stuff)
Let me help you add to your list of reasons to hate Obama.  You've already sent me lots of negative stuff against Barack and Michelle.  But there may actually still be some theories about them in this article that even you and FOX News haven't heard of yet! It's a treasure trove of ideas for your e-mails in the next few days.  No need to say Thank You. It's my pleasure to add to the Bubble Collection, which, in your apoplectic fits, you can refer to for the next 4 years of Obama's continued presidency.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/chart-obama-conspiracy-theories

EXCERPT:

The Conspiracy Theories

Disclaimer: It should go without saying that none of these are true. Follow links at your own risk. (But if you are a Tea Party type, you won't let the fact that these are all false deter you from using them.  Facts, schmacts. Who gives a damn? Romney and Ryan don't let facts stop them from lying, so why should facts stop you?)  Romney pollster: We won't let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers."

Obama is a secret Muslim: This one began right after he took the stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, with chain emails alleging his "true" religious affiliation. The rumor soon found its way onto the popular conservative online forum Free Republic, and took on a whole new life in the years to come. Related: Obama secretly speaks Arabic, attended a madrassa as a kid in Indonesia, referred to "my Muslim faith" in an interview, and was sworn in on a Koran. 

Obama's bringing 100 million Muslims to America: Avi Lipkin and his PR outfit Special Guests claimed to have evidence of a scheme to bring roughly 100 million Muslims from the Middle East into the United States, converting the country into an Islamic nation by the end of Obama's second term and making it easier to obliterate Israel.

Obama once aided the mujahideen: Harlem pastor and professional race-baiter James David Manning contended that in his younger days, Obama went undercover as a CIA agent to facilitate the transfer of cash and weapons to the Afghan mujahideen in the '80s, thereby aiding what would become the Taliban.

Obama is in the pocket of the Muslim Brotherhood: Billy Graham's son Franklin wants you to know that Obama is allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take over the federal government.

Obama redecorated the Oval Office in Middle Eastern style: Driven by his fierce sense of anti-American interior design, Obama got rid of the red, white, and blue decoration scheme in his White House office. 

Obama married a Pakistani guy: World Net Daily correspondent and conspiracymonger extraordinaire Jerome Corsi posted a video in which he claimed to have "strong" evidence that Obama was once married to his college roommate from Pakistan. The smoking gun: Photos of the chums in which the future president is "sitting about on the [Pakistani roommate's] lap." Related: For years Obama wore a gold ring on his left hand. Was it his gay-wedding ring?

Obama's ring has a Koranic verse on it: The very same ring is allegedly emblazoned with a key phrase in the Islamic declaration of faith: "There is no god except Allah." (It's not.)

Obama was funded by a Saudi prince: Another fairy tale courtesy of Corsi: In late-'70s Chicago, Obama secured political and academic funding from a variety of sketchy Arab sponsors, including a Saudi prince. Which may explain why President Obama bowed to the Saudi king.

Obama was born in Kenya: In early 2008, fringe theorists began a push to prove Obama was born on foreign soil and was therefore ineligible to live in the White House. The theory gained national attention thanks to the efforts of perennial GOP candidate Alan Keyes, "birther queen" Orly Taitz, and Corsi. Related: Obama's birth certificate is a fake, he killed his grandmother in Hawaii because she knew the truth, sealed access to his birth certificate and other damning documents, and did pretty much everything horrible you could possibly do for the sake of a phony birth certificate.

Obama lost his US citizenship: According to Corsi, Obama became an citizen of Indonesia while he lived there as a child.

Michelle's "whitey" tape: During the 2008 campaign, rumors surfaced that a video of Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" would be released to sink her husband's campaign. It's never materialized. Related: The time Glenn Beck called Barack Obama a racist. 

Obama was a Black Panther: Well, only if you're not very good at spotting photoshopped images.

Obama is the son of Malcolm X: Because, you know, black people. This charmer popped up on Atlas Shrugged, Pamela Geller's anti-Muslim website. (Geller is also known for obsessing over Shariah turkeys she believes are destroying Thanksgiving.)

Obama is the son of Frank Marshall Davis: The conspiracy film Dreams From My Real Father espouses the theory that Davis, a leftist activist, was not only Obama's ideological mentor but his biological father. Related: Obama got a nose job to make his nose look less like Davis'.

Obama's mom and dad were communists: And you know that communism is an inherited condition.

Obama's ghostwriter was Bill Ayers: Conservative commentators claimed they uncovered evidence that ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers was the true author of Obama's 1995 memoir Dreams from my Father. Former Republican congressman Chris Cannon of Utah went as far as to try to commission an Oxford professor to confirm Ayers' authorship through computer analysis.

Obama trained to overthrow the government: In 2008, leading Obama conspiracy theorist Andy Martin declared on Fox News' Hannity's America that the then-presidential candidate had trained for "a radical overthrow of the government" during his time as a community organizer in Chicago.

Obama wouldn't say the Pledge of Allegiance: During the '08 campaign, Obama was rumored to have refused to say the pledge during a town hall meeting. A photo of the incident was actually taken while the national anthem was being sung.

Obama removed the flag from Air Force One: …and replaced it with his campaign logo.

Obama ordered soldiers to swear allegiance to him: In April 2009, a clearly satirical report detailing how secretary of defense Robert Gates was growing "extremely frustrated" with the White House's plans to scrub the Constitution from the military oath of loyalty made the rounds on the right-wing blogosphere.

Obama secretly gave away American islands to Russia: Texas House candidate Wes Riddle endorsed this theory and noted the relinquishment as grounds for impeachment. However, the seven Arctic islands were actually given away in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.

Obama caused the recession—in 1995: According to a recent Daily Caller story, Obama's efforts to force banks to lend to African Americans in the mid-'90s led to the subprime mortgage crisis that killed the economy in 2008.

Obama's youth reeducation camps: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) warned that "young people will be put into mandatory service" at politically correct, billion-dollar camps run by the Democrats.

Obama's coming for your guns: Extreme gun-rights outfits, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), alleged that the Obama administration is supporting the (nonexistent) United Nations Small Arms Treaty, which would lead to nationwide gun confiscation.

Obama's coming for your gold: This theory was floated by Glenn Beck—and the gold company he shilled for.

Obama is planning FEMA concentration camps: Again with the camps. This theory got a big boost from Glenn Beck (who claims he didn't mean anything by it). Related: An executive order titled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," was issued in the middle of March 2012. Conservative commentators saw it as a martial law power-grab that allowed the president to commandeer farmland, steal everyone's food, and draft any American into slave labor for a war of aggression against Iran. Also, he has a "secret vault" at Interpol's headquarters for imprisoning Americans. (Chuck Norris is on the case.)

Obama wants to confiscate your IRA: Townhall.com sent out an message ad claiming that Obama wants to seize your retirement account by force.

Obama caused the BP oil spill: Conspiracy-minded radio host Alex Jones promoted the theory that the Deepwater Horizon spill was all part of the administration's plans of oil nationalization and global government.

Obama was behind the Aurora massacre: In July, Gun Owners of America blasted out a press release claiming that the mass murder at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, was suspiciously timed. "Someone in Washington" was probably behind it, paving the way for Obama-led firearm confiscation and "government genocide."

Obama personally caused Hurricane Sandy: It wasn’t global warming that made Sandy so intense; it was Barack. Alex Jones' site reported the president engineered the storm using a Pentagon weather modification project. The mayhem caused by the hurricane would afford Obama the opportunity to score points by briskly managing disaster relief a week before the election.

Obama had Andrew Breitbart killed: In March 2012, conservative media impresario Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure. Less than a month prior to his death, he had announced that he had uncovered footage of Obama's formative years as a radical. So obviously, Obama had him offed. (The tapes were later revealed to contain things like a young Obama hugging a black college professor.) Related: People—like a Rod Blagojevich fundraiser and an Obama impersonator—died between 2008 and 2012. Obama was in office between 2008 and 2012…coincidence?!?!

Obama spiked the jobs report: "Jobs truthers" (like former GE CEO Jack Welch and Florida tea party congressman Allen West) accused the Obama administration of cooking the September unemployment numbers to manufacture a rosier picture of the economy and boost the president's chances of reelection.

Obama faked bin Laden's death: Since no photographs of Osama bin Laden's corpse were produced, the Al Qaeda leader must still be out there. Fox News' Steve Doocy and Andrew Napolitano entertained the idea that Operation Neptune Spear was merely a ploy to revive Obama's sagging approval ratings. Related: Obama was photoshopped into the iconic killing-OBL White House photo.

Obama's plan to fake an assassination attempt: A false-flag operation would create urban tumult and give Obama the pretext to declare martial law, thus suspending democracy, postponing the 2012 election, and prolonging his stay in office. The theory was flagged by Tenn. State Rep. Kelly Keisling, among others, after circulating online.

Obama the brainwashing hypnotist: As a master of neurolinguistic programming, Obama convinced Americans to vote for him via subliminal messages. Related: Rush Limbaugh pondered if hypnosis was the reason that so many Jewish voters were in the bag for Obama.

Obama's teleprompter: Obama's eloquence is a myth! The 44th president is incapable of speaking in public with his teleprompter.

Obama had a ghostwriter for everything: Jack Cashill over at WND had a hot scoop on how Obama's love letters to his college girlfriend were ghostwritten.

Obama's anti-Semitic poetry: However, according to the American Thinker, Obama's ghostwriters did not write his youthful poem "Underground," which compares Jews to fig-eating underwater apes and echoes Koranic verse.

Obama's exiled lover: Obama was supposedly fooling around with an attractive young staffer from his 2004 Senate campaign. Michelle Obama had the temptress packed off to the Caribbean before the '08 campaign.

Obama is gay: Which explains why he joined Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church. No, really. (Via Corsi, of course.)

Obama's crack cocaine/gay sex/murder orgy cover-up: In 2008, a small-time conman named Larry Sinclair and his kilt-wearing lawyer held a press conference to tell the world of the future president's murderous, drug-and-sodomy-fueled crimes.

Obama's campaigns were funded by drug money: During an October conference call organized to oppose pot legalization, a writer from Lyndon LaRouche's magazine asked about "reports [that both Obama's] 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns have been financed in part by laundered drug money."

Obama is the Antichrist: Obviously. Related: If you play his 2008 Democratic nomination acceptance speech backwards, you can hear him instruct listeners to do Satan's bidding.

Obama is a lizard overlord: According to codes hidden in Biblical verse, Obama is a reptilian humanoid. This idea has found its way on to some right-wing radio shows, and two Daily Caller reporters recently published a (satirical?) e-book on the topic titled, The Lizard King: The Shocking Inside Account of Obama's True Intergalactic Ambitions by an Anonymous White House Staffer.

Obama's adventures on Mars: As a teen, Obama participated in a CIA initiative to teleport to Mars using a top-secret "jump room." Self-described time travelers William Stillings and Andrew Basiago claim to have met the future POTUS at American space bases on the Red Planet. In early 2012, a spokesman for the National Security Council actually acknowledged these claims, and issued a fairly convincing denial.

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Little Abby wants the whole damn thing to be over!!!

AND SO DO I!!!  You have to see this video -- a little 4-year-old in Colorado is crying her eyes out, wanting "Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney to just be over"!!!  She's seen way too many TV ads and knows bullshit when she sees it, which is more than I can say for some adults who are going to vote for Romney/Ryan.

http://americablog.com/2012/10/little-girl-crying-election.html

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Romney voters? For sure.

Many of the Tea Party types haven't come very far in consciousness since the Civil War days. They're an embarrassment to our country. Anyone who sends black joke e-mails against Obama only encourages racist behavior in low intellect bigots of this nature.

LAWSUIT ALLEGES WORKERS USED RACIAL SLURS AGAINST BLACK WORKER AND 'LYNCHED' A BLACK-FACED DOLL

Employees at a Deere & Co. plant in Iowa taunted an African American co-worker with racial slurs, according to a discrimination lawsuit filed against the agricultural manufacturer.

Forty-eight-year-old Copa Burse, a mother of three, alleged the Deere plant in Ankeny failed to stop racially discriminatory behavior, including threats, despite knowing it was occurring.

Workers at the plant painted racial slurs on the African American woman’s work locker and taunted her, according to the lawsuit. Last year, Burse returned home from work to discover a doll — which had a face painted black — hung from her garage door accompanied by profanity-laced graffiti telling her to quit her job “or else.” 

“My kids were so scared they didn’t want to sleep here [Monday] night,” she told the Des Moines Register at the time. “They went to stay with their dad. That’s got to stop. That’s not how it’s going to be.  Deere spokesman Ken Golden told the Associated Press that the company did not tolerate discriminatory behavior and investigates employee complaints.The lawsuit also claims that other black employees had complained about racist behavior. Rather than address the issue, the Deere plant hired more black employees “as a means to cover the pattern of discrimination, or perhaps, it its own way, try to remedy it,” the lawsuit states.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1ruht)

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