Intermission

post from ThinkProgress on 19 October 2012 12:34:42 PM. © ThinkProgress

The bridge is yours. -What happens when Kickstarter projects get funded, but don’t get finished? -I co-sign Maureen Ryan’s endorsement of Cinemax’s Hunted. -The top celebrity donors to the presidential campaigns. -Get ready: Justice League v. Avengers 2 in 2015. -Save The Date is, without question, my favorite romantic comedy of the year:

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Mrs. Romney: Mitts mission in Paris mansion was
similar to Vietnam

post from AMERICAblog on 19 October 2012 12:32:11 PM. © AMERICAblog

Mrs. Romney said yesterday that her husband's Mormon mission in a Paris mansion was similar to serving in war.

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Obama defines Romnesia

post from Daily Kos on 19 October 2012 12:30:55 PM. © Daily Kos

This is awesome?President Obama speaking at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, a short time ago, bringing the term Romnesia into the popular political lexicon:

"We've got to name this condition that he's going through," Obama said, referring to Mitt Romney's attempt to undergo a last-minute transformation from a severe conservative to a severe moderate. "I think it's called Romnesia. That's what it's called. I think that's what he's going through."

"Now," he continued, "I'm not a medical doctor, but i do want to go over the symptoms with you?because i want to make sure nobody else catches it."

And what might those symptoms be? Here's one example: "You know if you say if you're for equal pay, but you can't say if you'll sign a bill for equal pay, you might have Romnesia." And: "If you say you think women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let employers deny contraceptive care, you might have Romnesia." And another: "If you say you you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up in a primary debate and say you'd be delighted to ban abortion in all cases, then you definitely have Romnesia."

But you don't need to worry, said the President. "If you have Romnesia, here's the good news?Obamacare covers preexisting conditions. We can fix you! We can make you well."

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Violent Crime Rate Spikes 17 Percent

post from ThinkProgress on 19 October 2012 12:30:11 PM. © ThinkProgress

The violent crime rate jumped 17 percent between 2010 and 2011 and property crimes rose 11 percent, according to a new U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report. This was the first violent crime increase in 20 years, and the first spike in property crime in more than a decade. Experts differ on how significant this one-year spike [...]

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An Answer To Drill, Baby Drill: Countering The
American Petroleum Institutes Plan For Climate Disaster

post from ThinkProgress on 19 October 2012 12:29:08 PM. © ThinkProgress

If you’ve turned on the television, walked by a bus stop, or visited a social networking site in the last 10 months, there’s a very good chance you’ve been targeted by the American Petroleum Institute’s “Vote 4 Energy” campaign. It’s one of the most prominent and consistent ad buys amongst the tidal wave of spending [...]

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Wall Street Journal Non-Disclosure Strikes Again

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 19 October 2012 12:25:48 PM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

The Wall Street Journal once again failed to disclose the identity of a Mitt Romney adviser, allowing Seth Cropsey to co-author an op-ed criticizing President Obama without informing Journal readers that Cropsey is advising Romney on foreign policy. This is just the latest in a long list of op-ed authors the Journal has failed to disclose as advisers to the Republican presidential candidate.

The Wall Street Journal faced widespread criticism earlier this year for allowing Karl Rove to write columns analyzing the presidential election without disclosing his role with a conservative Super PAC raising money to defeat Democrats and elect Republicans. Under pressure, the Journal eventually disclosed Rove's connection to the Super PAC, American Crossroads.

In an op-ed that ran in the October 19 Wall Street Journal, Cropsey and co-author Douglas J. Feith criticized Obama's foreign policy and its approach to "Islamic extremism." Feith and Cropsey repeated the debunked myth that Obama did not immediately call the September attack on a U.S. Consulate in Libya a terrorist attack, using that falsehood as evidence that Obama's foreign policy is marked by a "refusal to accept that the terrorism threat is part of a larger problem of Islamic extremism." The Journal identified the authors as follows:

-- Mr. Feith was undersecretary of defense in the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Cropsey served as deputy undersecretary of the Navy in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. Both writers are Hudson Institute senior fellows.

This identification fails to disclose that Cropsey is not only an adviser to the Romney campaign, but that he has also spoken on behalf of the Romney campaign at a Republican fundraiser in the past month. In September, Cropsey hosted a fundraiser for Republican congressional candidate Ken Timmerman. The Timmerman campaign's listing for the fundraiser identifies Cropsey as a foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign:

On September 30 at 3:30pm at the home of Seth and Mihaela Cropsey Ken will be talking with independents, Republicans and disgruntled Democrats from adjoining precincts and Chevy Chase. Also, Seth Cropsey, a foreign policy advisor to Romney campaign and former Dep Secretary of Navy in Reagan Administration, will say a few words on behalf of Romney-Ryan campaign.

In September, Media Matters uncovered at least 10 op-ed writers that The Wall Street Journal had failed to accurately portray as advisers to the Romney campaign. Editorial page writers from newspapers across the U.S. called the lack of disclosure "inexcusable" and "shameless." The Journal has identified some of those authors as Romney advisers in subsequent pieces for the paper.

Neither the Wall Street Journal nor Seth Cropsey responded to a request for comment.

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Rep. Joe Walsh Continues the Idiocy of
Anti-Choice New Science and Reproductive Freedom

post from Firedoglake on 19 October 2012 12:25:13 PM. © Firedoglake

It's bad enough that we had the spectacle of states passing laws getting into the doctor-patient relationship b probing women's ladyparts to check on the status of fetuses to deter a woman's legal right to an abortion. Now the the "pro-life" crowd has[...]

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Great news! Women don't die anymore because
'science and technology'

post from Daily Kos on 19 October 2012 12:17:01 PM. © Daily Kos

Time machine humour concept from mass production toothpicks, gears and a cardboar. It is made by the author of a photo Science and technologyOh goody. It's been at least three minutes since a big strong Republican congressman stepped right up to tell us ladies how we don't need reproductive rights because of science magic. And who better than Rep. Joe Walsh, the country's most notorious former deadbeat dad, deadbeat driver, hater of gays, hater of veterans, and defender of sexual harassment because "everybody's got stuff"?

Please, Rep. Walsh, tell us why no woman should ever be allowed to have an abortion, even if it's going to kill her:

This is an issue that opponents of life throw out there to make us look unreasonable. There's no such exception as life of the mother. And as far as health of the mother, same thing. With advances in science and technology, there's?Health of the mother has become a tool for abortions for any time, under any reason.

You may have missed the news that "science and technology" have made it so women never die in childbirth anymore. You may have missed it because you were busy reading about the maternal health crisis:

The report, titled "Deadly Delivery," notes that the likelihood of a woman's dying in childbirth in the U.S. is ?ve times as great as in Greece, four times as great as in Germany and three times as great as in Spain. Every day in the U.S., more than two women die of pregnancy-related causes, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006. [...]
"In the U.S., we spend more than any country on health care, yet American women are at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than in 40 other countries," says Nan Strauss, the report's co-author, who spent two years investigating the issue of maternal mortality worldwide. "We thought that was scandalous."

Guess those women who are dying every single day due to pregnancy-related causes didn't get the memo that they're not supposed to do that anymore because "science and technology." Cut it out, ladies. Stop dying. Joe Walsh says you're not dead. You're just a tool.

That's why the Republican Party is here to make sure women can never have an abortion under any circumstances, because those circumstances are just a bunch of made-up loopholes and tools. Women don't really get pregnant from rape, because, per science expert Todd Akin, their bodies "shut that whole thing down" if it's a legitimate rape. And Paul Ryan doesn't care how you get pregnant, because the "method of conception" doesn't matter. And Rick Santorum says any pregnancy is a gift from God. And the Republican Party platform specifies, as its goal, a constitutional amendment banning abortion in all circumstances.

That's because, according to Republicans, there's only one thing that matters: what Republicans think you should do. You see, reproductive decisions are far too important to leave up to women. That's why big strong men like Walsh and Akin and Ryan are here to make those decisions for us.

Sick and tired of Republicans using their "science" to justify their War on Women? Then fight back. Please give $3 to each of our Daily Kos-endorsed women candidates for the House and Senate so we can send more, better women to Washington.

(Via)

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Romney Still Hearts Clinton

I?ve written before about the Romney campaign?s odd insistence on using Bill Clinton as a de facto spokesperson. Every so often, Team Romney highlights a comment by Clinton as a critique of President Obama, as if Clinton wasn?t an avowed and enthusiastic supporter of the president. The rationale, I suppose, is to be able to claim bipartisan discontent with Obama. The problem is that this does nothing more but boost Clinton?s credibility by turning him into a nonpartisan figure of repute. And as we saw during the Democratic National Convention, he can use this ?referee? status to effectively hammer Mitt Romney and the Republican Party.

Indeed, it was after Clinton?s devastating speech that I expected Republicans to leave the former president out of the election. Turns out, they couldn?t resist: Today, Team Romney is distributing a clip of Clinton in Ohio, where he said that the economy has not been ?fixed? under President Obama.

In their eagerness to use Clinton against Obama, it?s obvious that the Romney campaign failed to listen to what came after that statement:

Here?s the transcript:

?This guy ran Bain Capital and is a business guy, and he?s hiding his budget? That ought to tell you something. Well, he?s hiding his taxes, too, but he?s hiding his taxes in the years when he earned ordinary income. He?s given us two years when he was just running for president. And, he?s hiding whether he would have signed the Lilly Ledbetter act. He?s hiding everything. He doesn?t want you to think about him. He wants you to think, ?Oh this economy is terrible. I?m a jobs guy.? And as President Obama said in the debate, if I brought you a deal to Bain Capital and I said, fund my new business, I?ll give you the budget sometime in the future, just trust me on that, you wouldn?t give me one red cent, and we should not give him one vote on that.?

This is a potent message?it?s a variation on the ?sketchy deal? language adopted by Obama?and by giving credibility to Clinton, Romney is making it stronger.

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