Live Blog I : VEEP PEEP Show

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: , , , | 88 Comments

Here we go!

Just thought I‘d drop this CSM article on the faux right wing outrage over the debate moderator tonight in as our first topic on a live blog series tonight. She’s actually a war correspondent but you know, it’s part of the lower expectations game.

On Wednesday, the conservative Daily Caller posted a blog about Ms. Raddatz, alleging bias because of her short-lived marriage in the 1990s to an Obama administration appointee, Julius Genachowski, the head of the Federal Communications Commission.

This shot comes on the heels of an avalanche of criticism aimed at last week’s presidential debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, ranging from GOP commentatorLaura Ingraham to Democratic contributor Bill Maher.

“There have always been questions about moderators,” says Atlanta-based GOP strategist David Johnson, who consulted on Bob Dole’s 1988 presidential campaign. Targeting moderators is simply a political strategy, he says, giving “each side a way to say, the debate was stacked against them if their candidates don’t do well.”

Mounting such a strategy before the debate even starts, Mr. Johnson adds, “makes the moderators go out of their way to be evenhanded.”

In one of the GOP debates earlier this year, CNN’sJohn King took withering heat for asking Newt Gingrichabout allegations made by his second wife. A variety of sources challenged Gwen Ifill’s objectivity in 2008 because she had written a book related to Barack Obama.

Now, both ABC News and the Commission on Presidential Debates have dismissed charges of bias against Raddatz, a senior foreign affairs correspondent. As reported in Politico Wednesday, The Washington Post’s conservative Jennifer Rubin tweeted that “this whole mini flap was obnoxious, dumb.”

Here’s the link to CPSPAN. 

VP Debate Thursday: Pre-Live Blog Politicizing!

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, 2012 presidential campaign | Tags: , | 29 Comments


Here we go again!

It’s VP Debate Time!

Here’s some punditry projections and hope-a-cizing!

First, from Joshua Holland:

The outcome of the debate is likely to hinge on whether Biden can hang Ryan’s past positions around his neck, or Ryan is able to dodge and wiggle away from the positions he’s held during seven terms in the House of Representatives.

For his part, Biden enters the debate in the immediate aftermath of Mitt Romney’s post-debate bump in the polls, and needs to have a strong performance to regain some momentum. Obama’s actual performance wasn’t that awful – a snap-poll of 500 undecided voters conducted by CBS at the end of the debate found that a majority thought it was either a draw or that Obama won – but the media narrative following it has been, and Biden needs to change the conversation.

From Robert Riech:

TO: VPOTUS

FROM: Robert Reich

RE: Debate

Beware: Paul Ryan will appear affable. He’s less polished and aggressive than Romney, even soft-spoken. And he acts as if he’s saying reasonable things.

But under the surface he’s a right-wing zealot. And nothing he says or believes is reasonable – neither logical nor reflecting the values of the great majority of Americans.

Your job is to smoke Ryan out, exposing his fanaticism. The best way to do this is to force him to take responsibility for the regressive budget he created as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Ryan won’t be able to pull a Romney — pretending he’s a moderate — because the Ryan budget is out there, with specific numbers.

It’s an astounding document that Romney fully supports. And it fills in the details Romney has left out of his proposals. Mitt Romney is a robot who will say and do whatever he’s programmed to do. Ryan is the robot’s brain. The robot has no heart. It’s your job to enable America to see this.

I suggest you hold up a copy of the Ryan budget in front of the cameras. You might even read selected passages.

Emphasize these points: Ryan’s budget turns Medicare into vouchers. It includes the same $716 billion of savings Romney last week accused the President of cutting out of Medicare – but instead of getting it from providers he gets it from the elderly.

It turns Medicaid over to cash-starved states, with even less federal contribution. This will hurt the poor as well as middle-class elderly in nursing homes.

Over 60 percent of its savings come out of programs for lower-income Americans – like Pell grants and food stamps.

Yet it gives huge tax cuts to the top 1 percent – some $4.7 trillion over the next decade. (This is the same top 1 percent, you might add, who have reaped 93 percent of the gains from the recovery, whose stock portfolios have regained everything they lost and more, and who are now taking home a larger share of total income than at any time in the last eighty years and paying the lowest taxes than at any time since before World War II.)

As a result it doesn’t reduce the federal debt at all. In fact, it worsens it.

Ezra Klein:

The deeper we drilled into the regulations in Ryan’s plan, the more they sounded like the very plans he was arguing against.

For instance, he didn’t like that in Obamacare, “You’re having a person design how insurance can be sold.” Then how does his plan make sure people aren’t sold defective products? “In the Patient’s Choice Act, we do an actuarially equivalent minimum in each exchange that’s equal to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Standard Option.” Well, isn’t that pretty much what Obamacare does?

What followed was health-care word salad. “The Senate bill goes a lot further than that. You need to define what insurance is. I agree with that. But what we’re trying to achieve here is a system in which the patient is the driver of it, not government bureaucrats.” Then how come you’ve got government bureaucrats deciding what insurance is?

In effect, Ryan’s plan and Obama’s plan would regulate insurance products sold through the exchanges in pretty much the same way. But Ryan didn’t want to say that. So he basically offered a lot of convincing sounding words on the topic. If you parse his response, it’s not terribly convincing. But you really need to know the issues to parse his response. The fact that you’ve caught Ryan in a bit of a contradiction doesn’t mean he’s going to admit it.

That said, Ryan is very good at admitting when you’ve got a point. He doesn’t do this when you’ve got a point that undermines his point, but he does it, and generously, when you’ve got a point that he can agree to. He’s also very good at admitting when Republicans have strayed from conservative ideals in the past. You can see that in our discussion of the economy, where he suggests he’s eager to fight Republicans over paying for their budget promises, even though he himself was one of those Republicans voting not to pay for anything in the Bush years.

The result is that, while he’s a highly ideological thinker, he doesn’t come off as particularly ideological. He comes off as an affable, decent, conservative guy who holds strong views, but recognizes that he doesn’t have all the answers and that his party hasn’t always lived up to its promises.

ABC’ Sarah Parnass on  “Getting to Know ABC News VP Debate Moderator Martha Raddatz”:

Martha Raddatz was named senior foreign affairs correspondent for ABC News in November 2008 after serving as White House correspondent during the last term of President George W. Bush’s administration. She first joined ABC News as the State Department correspondent in January 1999. Before that, she covered foreign policy, defense and intelligence issues for National Public Radio.

Her coverage has won numerous awards, including the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award this spring.

In her acceptance speech for that award, Raddatz said she wants “people to know about the world.”

“I want people to remember,” she said. “I want people to feel. I want people to question.”

Raddatz has traveled to Iraq to cover the conflict there 21 times. She is the author of a New York Times bestselling book about her experiences there, “The Long Road Home — a Story of War.”

After decades of reporting on foreign affairs, Raddatz said she is honored to sit down with two men who have devoted so much of their lives to public service. Both Rep. Ryan, R-Wis., and Biden first came to Washington in their 20s and have remained there ever since.

NBC News and 10 things to watch for:

Biden told reporters last week that his top priority in preparing for the Thursday debate was a thorough review of Ryan’s budget and policy proposals.

“What I’ve been doing mostly quite frankly is studying up on Congressman Ryan’s positions on the issues,” he said. “And Governor Romney has embraced at least everything I can see.”

Foremost among those positions espoused by Ryan are those contained in the two budgets he authored as House Budget Committee chairman. Several aspects of the original 2011 Ryan budget – which includes a complete overhaul of Medicare – are staples in Biden’s stump speech. He gives visceral examples, telling audiences to imagine their 80-something mothers using “coupons” to shop around for a good insurance deal.

What are you looking for tonight?

ONE hour to go!

Meanwhile you cn watch this great YOUTube by Joseph Cannon our friend at Cannonfire:

Thursday Reads

Posted: October 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 52 Comments

Good Morning!!

Fall is here, and suddenly, I find myself seeking out foods made with pumpkin, like pumpkin-apple muffins. I’ve never had a pumpkin spice latte, but I’m thinking of trying one. I found a recipe for pumpkin syrup on line.

Pumpkin Spice Syrup

INGREDIENTS
1½ cups water
1½ cups sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground cloves
3 tbsp. pumpkin puree

DIRECTIONS

Combine the water and sugar in a medium saucepan and heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has completely dissolved. Toss in the cinnamon sticks and whisk in the remaining spices and the pumpkin puree. Continue to cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, without letting the mixture come to a boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes. Strain the syrup through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth and store in your container of choice. Store in the refrigerator. Make sure that your refrigerator is working properly for preserving purposes. If not, you can look for refrigeration repair kingsport tn services online.

To make a pumpkin spice latte, combine 2 ounces of hot coffee or 1 shot of hot espresso (about 1-1½ ounces) with 5-6 ounces of steamed low-fat milk. Stir in 1½-2 tablespoons of the pumpkin spice syrup. Taste and adjust amounts accordingly. Top as desired with freshly whipped cream, ground cinnamon and drizzle with caramel sauce (optional – sort of).

I’ve also heard that pumpkin oatmeal is really good. I’m might try that with the leftovers. Now, let’s see what’s in the news this morning.

Yesterday, I posted about Romney’s crass exploitation of the death of former Navy Seal Glen Doherty in the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Last night I learned that Doherty was active in the fight to prevent right-wing fundamentalists from completely taking over the U.S. military. Mikey Weinstein, who has fought the good fight for years, wrote about it at Huffington Post.

I had the extreme good fortune, honor and privilege to work alongside Glen for years as a longtime member of the Advisory Board of the four-time, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated, civil rights charitable organization I founded and currently serve as president of called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). We currently are assisting over 30,000 American military personnel fighting against Christian fundamentalist religious extremism in our own armed forces. Glen selflessly served as a passionate, ’round-the-clock’ supporter of MRFF based on his fervent belief in its mission to protect the secular nature of the U.S. Military and the imperative this secular nature has to our national security. Separation of church and state in the United States military was not a trivial matter for Glen. It was his mantra.

Based upon our profound, mutual working experiences with MRFF, I’m truly fascinated about what Mitt Romney actually “learned about him”. During his chance meeting with Glen at that Christmas party a few years ago, did candidate Romney learn about his close personal and professional relationship with MRFF? Other fascinating learning opportunities for Mr. Romney regarding Glen’s deep support of and belief in MRFF and what we stand for may have revealed to him some very “uncomfortable” facts about the life of this true American Hero.

Please click the link and read the list of initiatives that Doherty supported. Of Romney’s shameful use of Doherty’s story for political purposes, Weinstein writes:

As informed citizens of the United States, we are all too aware of the rampant grandiose hyperbole generated as a result of our political campaigns. This absolutely disgusting, opportunistic travesty however was so much more, and so much lower, than the usual political ‘pablum’ that courses through our normal campaign emissions. This “performance” was simply naked and shameful exploitation of the life and memory of an actual American Hero. Romney did not “know” Glen. His insinuation that he somehow had a connection to Glen is disingenuous at best and a naked lie at worst. It is bold and bald untruthfulness. As Alfred Tennyson said, “A lie that is half truth is the darkest of all lies.” A timely and heartfelt apology is truly in order here.

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Warren-Brown debate last night, but I read a good review of it at Dailykos by Joan McCarter. Apparently the moderator this time wasn’t an idiot.

What a refreshing Massachusetts Senate debate. From the beginning, when moderator Jim Madigan (thank you WGBY and public television), announced that the questions would be from and based on what the public had sent in, there was hope. When the first question was not about Elizabeth Warren’s heritage, but instead about unemployment and job creation, you knew we were in for a debate of substance.

Without that initial attack on Warren to set Brown up, he came off a little discombobulated. Brown was often scattered, incoherent, and thrown off by the time clock, resorting to mixing all his talking points on “bipartisan” and “job creators” into a mish-mash of word salad when he found himself with extra time. That was regardless of the question asked of him. He also failed in controlling the nasty, taking several cheap shots at “Professor” Warren, including blaming her salary and benefits as a Harvard professor for the spiraling costs of higher education.

This debate featured a far more Republican-sounding Brown that any of the previous debates. He railed about tax hikes, on his fealty to Grover Norquist, on the job-killing Obamacare. It was a bizarre juxtaposition to see the guy the tea party was so excited to get elected in 2010 and the “second-most bipartisan senator” fighting for the same brain. The results were bad for Brown.

Read the rest at the link. I’m still glad I didn’t watch it. Watching Paul Ryan tonight will be bad enough for one week.

In another hard-fought Senate race in Missouri, Claire McCaskill has released three new ads in her battle with Todd Akin. Each ad features a rape survivor talking about Akin’s anti-woman policies. Here’s one of the ads:

You can watch the other two ads at the above link.

There’s another terrific war-on-woman ad released by Deb Butler, a Democrat running for the North Carolina state senate. The ad features a transvaginal probe.

North Carolina state Senate candidate Deb Butler has released a new ad that slams Republican incumbent Thom Goolsby for supporting anti-abortion legislation.

“He wouldn’t dare show you this, but this is Thom Goolsby’s contribution to women’s health,” Butler says in the ad, holding a trans-vaginal ultrasound wand. “A medically unnecessary and invasive procedure that is now required by state law. He promised us his first priority would be jobs, but instead he’s following us into the doctor’s office.”

The New York Times offers Trip Gabriel’s Six Things to Watch for in the Biden-Ryan Debate. Gabriel predicts:

1. Biden will hit Ryan (and Romney) with everything he’s got.

Expect Mr. Biden, who is able to deliver cutting sarcasm without seeming angry, to continue to make up for Mr. Obama’s passivity at the first debate by accusing Mr. Romney of dissembling about long-held policies.

2. Biden will attack the Ryan budget.

Republicans and Democrats both rejoiced when Mr. Romney picked Mr. Ryan because the ticket was married to Mr. Ryan’s audacious House budgets with deep cuts in federal spending.

Although the budget, which Mr. Romney has largely endorsed, does not specify how programs will be cut, Mr. Biden will happily fill in the blanks by saying that an equal, across-the-board cut would mean eliminating 38,000 teachers and dropping 200,000 children from Head Start.

The remaining issues are Medicare cuts, the fiscal cliff, foreign affairs, and possible gaffes, especially by Biden. Of course we’ll have a live blog of the debate tonight.

The Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear a suit against telcoms who received immunity for spying on American citizens.

The Supreme Court has ended a 6-year-old class-action lawsuit against the nation’s telecommunications carriers for secretly helping the National Security Agency monitor phone calls and emails coming into and out of this country.

The suit was dealt a death blow in 2008 when Congress granted retroactive immunity to people or companies aiding U.S. intelligence agents.

Without comment, the justices turned down appeals from civil liberties advocates who contended this mass surveillance was unconstitutional and illegal.

This month the justices are set to hear a separate case to decide whether NSA officials can be sued for authorizing this allegedly unconstitutional mass wiretapping.

That should be enough to get some discussion started. Now what are you reading and blogging about?

Open Thread and Live Blog: Massachusetts Senate Debate #3

Posted: October 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 elections, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 12 Comments

Elizabeth Warren meets Scott Brown again tonight at 7PMat the Springfield, MA Symphony Hall.

Brown and Warren are engaged in what is already the most expensive Senate race in the history of the commonwealth, and before it’s finished will be the most expensive Senate contest in U.S. history.

At the two previous debates, the candidates have dueled over tax policy, immigration reform, Warren’s Native American ancestry and Brown’s votes on bills relating to women’s rights. In Springfield, moderator Jim Madigan of WGBY will be asking the candidates a variety of questions aimed at getting them to not only offer specifics on their ideas, but also to reveal where they stand on issues which may not be the everyday talking points.

The event, which will take place at 7 p.m. inside the city’s historic Symphony Hall, will be streamed live on MassLive.com, broadcast locally on WSHM CBS-3, ABC-40/FOX-6 and WGBY and available outside the Springfield market on NECN and C-Span and covered by a variety of news outlets from across the country.

WBUR (NPR) in Boston will also be covering the debate.

Tufts University political science professor Jeff Berry described the race in an interview Wednesday on WBUR’s Morning Edition as “dead even.”

“What we’re down to is a race that’s gonna be about turnout,” Berry said. “Both Brown and Warren tonight are gonna want to motivate their voters.”

To draw support, Berry thinks Brown will avoid the issue of Warren’s Native American heritage — according to Berry, pushing the issue makes Brown “look like a bully” — though that doesn’t mean he’ll back off her past entirely.

“[Brown] scored points on [Warren’s] work for insurance companies, making her look like just another lawyer or politician who’s willing to work for either side, whoever’s willing to pay her,” Berry said.

Berry believes Warren will counter by bringing the Senate election to a level of national importance, noting that this seat may decide which party controls the Senate. As a result, Berry predicts Warren will attack Brown’s claims of bipartisanship…..

Jobs will likely be a big ticket item at the debate, and Berry believes Warren will stick to supporting small business whereas Brown will oppose the Obama administration’s tax increases.

David at Blue Mass Group asks: Is Obama’s debate debacle trickling down into MA-Sen?

…yet another poll, conducted by YouGov for UMass-Amherst, shows Warren with a narrow 48-46 lead among likely voters. YouGov uses a non-traditional methodology, but Nate Silver says they do OK. The poll was taken Oct 2-8, so almost entirely after Obama’s debacle in Denver. The moral seems to be this: we can expect the polling in this race to bounce around quite a bit over the next four weeks. So just keep winning the old-fashioned way. – promoted by david

*sigh*

US Senator Scott Brown has regained a lead over Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren in a new WBUR-Mass Inc. poll, after a string of polls showed Warren with the lead…. The telephone poll of 502 likely voters, taken Oct. 5 through Oct. 7, showed Brown leading 47 percent to 43 percent, within the 4.4 percent margin of error. The lead drops to 3 percentage points — 48 percent to 45 percent — with the inclusion of respondents who say they have not fully made up their mind but are leaning to one candidate….

[T]his was the first poll taken after the Oct. 3 presidential debate between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. That debate has helped boost Romney’s campaign, which may be affecting races lower on the ballot.

Obama lead[s] Romney by 16 points on the newest WBUR poll. It’s a sizeable advantage, but down from the 28 point lead he held in the previous WBUR poll.

If you’re going to watch the debate, please share your reactions in the comments, or use this as an open thread.

Mitt Romney’s “Emotional” Story about Navy Seal Not Well Received by Friend, Mother

Posted: October 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , | 55 Comments

Glen Doherty was killed in Benghazi on September 11, 2012

Yesterday, while campaigning in Iowa, Mitt Romney told a story about a chance meeting he had several years ago with Glen Doherty, a former Navy Seal who originally came from Winchester, Massachusetts.

Except Romney didn’t use the man’s name. I was immediately struck by that last night when I saw video of Romney telling the story and supposedly getting choked up when he revealed how “heartbroken” he was when he learned that Doherty had been killed in the consulate attack in Libya. I figured Romney probably didn’t even remember the Doherty’s name.

The way Romney told the story was that he and Ann had been at their home in San Diego and had been invited to a neighborhood Christmas Party. They got the address wrong and ended up at a different party–at Glen Doherty’s home.

Romney said he and his wife, Ann, walked to the house, joined the other guests for dinner and pictures, then had an epiphany: “Turns out this wasn’t the neighborhood party,” Romney said, drawing laughs. “This was a family having a party with their friends. So we were a little embarrassed, but they treated us well nonetheless, and I got to meet some really interesting people.”

“One of them was a guy from my home state of Massachusetts,” Romney continued, referring to Doherty, “a relatively young guy, compared to me. He was a former Navy SEAL. He was living in San Diego. Learned about him, he talked about his life, he also skied a lot. He’d skied in some of the places I had, and we had a lot of things in common. He told me he keeps going back to the Middle East. He cares very deeply about the people there. He served in the military there, went back from time to time to offer security services and so forth to people there.”

And then the “punch line”:

“You can imagine how I felt when I found out that he was one of the two former Navy SEALs killed in Benghazi on Sept. 11,….And it touched me, obviously, as I recognized that this young man that I thought was so impressive had lost his life in the service of his fellow men and women.”

The audience oohed and ahhed. Here’s the video:

As usual, the real story is a little different than one Romney has been telling recently in hopes of appearing more compassionate and empathetic. One of Glen Doherty’s close friends, Elf Ellefsen heard about the party in question directly from Doherty. Ellefsen told his version of the story on a radio show on KIRO FM in Seattle.

Ellefsen said Doherty recalled meeting Mitt Romney years ago, but the account was much different from what the Presidential candidate retold in Iowa.

According to Ellefsen, Romney introduced himself to Doherty four separate times during the gathering.

“He said it was very comical,” Ellefsen said, “Mitt Romney approached him ultimately four times, using this private gathering as a political venture to further his image. He kept introducing himself as Mitt Romney, a political figure. The same introduction, the same opening line. Glen believed it to be very insincere and stale.”

Ellefsen said Doherty remembered Romney as robotic.

“He said it was pathetic and comical to have the same person come up to you within only a half hour, have this person reintroduce himself to you, having absolutely no idea whatsoever that he just did this 20 minutes ago, and did not even recognize Glen’s face.”

In response to a question, Ellefsen said he didn’t care for Romney exploiting his friend’s life and death for political reasons.

“Honestly it does make me sick. Glen would definitely not approve of it. He probably wouldn’t do much about it. He probably wouldn’t say a whole lot about it. I think Glen would feel, more than anything, almost embarrassed for Romney. I think he would feel pity for him.”

Back in Massachusetts, Romney was chided by Barbara Doherty, Glen Doherty’s mother, who told Boston NBC affiliate WHDH:

“I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty, Glen’s mother.

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