Romney's Lies Have Finally Caught Up to Him

No matter how skilled the habitual liar, if they do it long enough, they're eventually going to get to the point where they can't come up with a new lie to cover the old ones.

As BMG makes clear, Romney's now there. Welcome, Mittens.

Let's look at this tangled web.

He claimed to be retired from Bain from 1999-2002 to the SEC/IRS, but Bain claimed he wasn't to the SEC, critically paying him a salary as chief executive. So, was Romney lying to the IRS, or was Bain lying to its investors and the SEC?

Now, Romney claims that his status as CEO of Bain from 1999-2002 was just technical jargon and wasn't his real position. In fact, he says he was totally removed from Bain and had no intention of coming back, despite the fact that he was still attending board meetings for companies Bain owned.

That's his answer to voters and his defense against what he listed on his SEC/IRS claims, but that's not what he was saying to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where he insisted his time in Utah was just a leave of absence and that he always intended to return to Bain -- as his basis for why he should remain eligible to be Governor of Massachusetts.

This latest claim of his undermines his previous claim, that he was never going to go back. It's all the more serious a lie because, without it, it's likely he wouldn't have ever been Governor of Massachusetts.

So, what are we supposed to believe? What Mitt told the SEC and IRS? What Bain told the SEC? What he said to explain away the divergence of what he said to the IRS and what Bain said to the SEC? Or what he told Massachusetts, in order to be eligible to run for Governor?

Each claim is slightly different than the next, and undermines the others more and more. All that's left is the facts: whatever he says, he was on salary to be the chief executive officer of Bain and, contrary to his insistence that he had nothing to do with the company, was regularly flying in to Massachusetts on Bain business, even while living in Utah.

The bottom line? Other people go to prison for the kind of lies Mitt Romney habitually makes.

Podcast Central: Marriage Equality, John Walsh, the State Senate and More!

I've been seriously negligent on my LeftAhead promos here on RyansTake, so here's a batch of our last few.

• Interview with Boston City Councilor Steve Murphy. We chatted lots of Boston topics, but also focused in on the proposed Suffolk Downs casino. Here's your chance to see what the President of the Boston City Council thinks about that, including whether or not the entirety of Boston should be able to vote on it, or just East Boston. I'll spare folks my thoughts on that matter, because if you're here, you probably know it already.
• State Democratic Party Chairman John Walsh. We love having John Walsh on and it always makes for a great show. He went over the strategy for this year's elections and I loved his thoughts, toward the end of the show, on the brewing Tierney-Tisei congressional race, which promises to be a doozy. Let's just say Tisei, the 'moderate' got behind the Blunt amendment... 
• Mike and I on the Republican Reality TV Primary, especially Santorum and Romney. Mike's always amazed that our pundit-like shows often do as well as shows with good guests, but I'm not as surprised. We had a lot of fun with this one, and people like fun. Plus, we're totally better pundits than most of the bobble-heads from CNN and Fox News.
• Freedom to Marry Board Member, Rev John Buehrens. Buehrens brings a national perspective as a 9-year member of Freedom to Marry, one of the chief national organizations fighting for marriage equality across the country. He's also a local UU minister, who just so happened to chair the national organization for a while.
  
  He brought even more insight into the state-by-state battles going on in Maine, Washington, Maryland and elsewhere than I expected -- so if these are on your radar, definitely check it out. He also brought in a fascinating understanding of where marriage equality, partisan politics and religion intersect, and how that influences the battle. This show shouldn't be missed.
• State Senate Candidate Mara Dolan. Our show with Dolan today was great. She is clearly a very credible candidate, with a wide policy background, as well. I was very pleased to hear that she understands the fact that the "MBTA issue" is a Beacon Hill issue as much as anything else.
  
  If you're from the 3rd Middlesex District, this is a can't-miss show, and even if not, you should still check it out, because these races have impacts that are far more wide-sweeping than their own borders. 

What no one's seemed to mention about Karl Rove's ad

As most probably know, Karl Rove's issued a new ad through his political action hacktion group, American Crossroads, attacking Elizabeth Warren on being too cozy with the banks. Yes, you read that right: the nation's top watchdog of the banks, the very banks bankrolling Rove's ads against Warren, is too cozy with the banking industry. Ha!

It's silly and the polar opposite of Rove's first ad attacking Warren, linking her to the Occupy movement, but the thing that no one seems to be talking about is the fact that this is the exact tactic Karl Rove has always employed: attacking an opponent's strengths.

People have been scoffing at the new ad, laughing at it even, but it's no sillier than when Rove went after a war veteran in the Senate, Max Cleland, who lost both of his legs and one of his arms in battle, and tried to call him un-American, unpatriotic and not tough on defense. It was absurd, but because it was so absurd, few took it too seriously -- until Max Cleland, national hero, lost his reelection.

That's why it's so important for us to take the new tactic seriously and ensure people know Warren's record and how sleazy Rove and his group are in their manipulation. If there's any one thing people need to know about Warren, it's that she's going to go after the banks and try to make America work for its people, instead of just the lobbyists and CEOs. So, it's time to go forth and spread the message.

In the Zombie Lies Dept: "Voter Fraud"

In the latest quest of Republicans to deny poor people and students the right to vote, Massachusetts Republicans have been pushing a number of "ID to vote" bills. Freshman Representative Donald Wong (R) is one of those leading the effort on the local front.

Either Representative Wong needs to be shamed and scorned for being ignorant, or for making shit things up. People like Wong suggest that there's scores of voter fraud, people who are showing up to vote and using identities of other people. They've even tried to paint this as an "illegal immigrant" problem, with undocumented residents voting improperly. It's simply not true.

There's been dozens of studies across the nation on the matter, and one after the other has simply said that this is not a problem. The latest example is Maine, which after two months of exhaustive study, found no students that improperly voted and only one undocumented resident -- a resident who had been caught and booted out of the country for it.

I suppose Donald Wong is a useful tool for the GOP on this issue. So much of what the GOP says on the matter has to do with bigotry. Historically, denying people the right to vote meant denying black people the right to vote. Now it's being used as just another stick for immigrant bashing, and who better to soften the blow than the state GOP's Representative Wong?

Wong should immediately walk this a step back. Voter fraud of the nature he's talking about simply isn't a problem in this country and we have ways of dealing with it already. Voter ID bills -- requiring people to show their IDs to vote -- are merely an attempt to prevent Democratic constituencies from getting out to the polls. Period. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and think maybe he was just ignorant on this issue and not intentionally trying to keep people from being able to vote, because I hear he is a very nice person.

But enough is enough. There's more than enough studies out there for the GOP to look at to see that this is not a problem; if they continue down this path as a party, we're going to have to call a spade a spade. This is bigotry; this is voter suppression -- and this is a dark chapter of our country's past that we cannot revisit.

Know Your Enemy

Progressives should know everything they can about Ayn Rand, including this:

The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him. 

What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: "Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should," she wrote, gushing that Hickman had "no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel 'other people.'" 

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: "He was born without the ability to consider others." (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)

Just who was this Hickman person she based her characters on?

Hickman and the girl's father exchanged letters over the next few days as they arranged the terms of the ransom, while Marion obediently followed her captor's demands. She never tried to escape the hotel where he kept her; Hickman even took her to a movie, and she never screamed for help. She remained quiet and still as told when Hickman tied her to the chair -- he didn't even bother gagging her because there was no need to, right up to the gruesome end.

Hickman's last ransom note to Marion's father is where this story reaches its disturbing end. Hickman fills the letter with hurt anger over her father's suggestion that Hickman might deceive him, and "ask you for your $1500 for a lifeless mass of flesh I am base and low but won't stoop to that depth." What Hickman didn't say was that as he wrote the letter, Marion had already been chopped up into several lifeless masses of flesh.

Remember that Ayn Rand's worldly, charity and compassion is evil and selfishness is good. The working poor and middle class are parasites to her, quite literally. Given her idolization of a murdering bastard serial killer, perhaps more people will come to understand exactly where she's coming from.

Everyone who considers themselves a progressive or liberal simply must read the full article linked above, and anyone curious about what's behind the republican ideology should. Ayn Rand is the driving force of their philosophy and it's important for people to know about her, the real her.

Dear Fellow Firebaggers,

Not that it's a surprise to anyone with half a brain still left on their head, but if you're a fellow movement progressive and netroots activist, the President and his peeps probably don't like you very much. In fact, that's putting it mildly. After all, Rahm Emmanual, the President's BFF, thinks you're "fucking retarded." The President's former Press Secretary called you the professional left. We are flies in their way to be swatted, not supported, and they are not done disparaging, demeaning and bemoaning us.

Look no further than one Mr. Ray Sandoval, Obama's top guy in New Mexico. He sent out an official Obama Organize for America campaign email to supporters in that state calling the activist base "firebaggers" and the "ideologue Left." The message tried to tear down pretty much anyone who is worried about the direction Obama has sent our party and country toward, because Obama's right and they're wrong. Opposing Obama policies would be an "economic 9/11."

The President's people didn't appear all that upset about it. They called the official email unofficial, but couldn't be bothered enough to apologize for it. Sandoval hasn't received any sort of penalty or rebuke for his comments and doesn't seem overly apologetic. There is nothing to indicate here that the President's people don't very, very much agree with everything Sandoval said -- perhaps they even see this as another opportunity to burnish the President's "Independent" cred. That's all they seem to care about, these days.

Sadly, this is just more of the same from what we've come to expect. The President's close team has long made political sport of progressives, turning us into the opposition, instead of... you know... the Republican Party. The people running OFA do not buy into the progressive movement -- now considered an opposition movement to Obama zealotry -- and see any kind of dissent as disloyalty, instead of disagreement. As I said earlier today, the purpose of the OFA is "to create an alternate DNC that can mobilize the grassroots from the top down, while minimizing erratic bottom-up feedback."

What we end up with is an OFA with a mixed bag of talent, not a ton of organic or competent volunteer support, and a remaining culture of "If the President says it, it's right, and if anyone else says it, it's wrong." To borrow from George Orwell, the OFA is becoming a "nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting," except instead of being 300 million strong, as they are in Oceania, the OFA is going to be increasingly reliant on an ever-shrinking pool of the hangers-on left from over the 2008 campaign who haven't felt betrayed yet, without the same kind of buzz or excitement that existed then to appeal to the newest young crowd.

What we 'Firebaggers' and 'ideologue Leftists' need to remember is that the OFA is out for the President first and foremost, local party politics and candidates are almost an afterthought. They don't care about the long-term brand or building up the Democratic Party from the bottom up -- that's all stuff that has to happen with a focus beyond just Barack Obama, 2012, and they don't like us bottom-feeders, anyway. If we don't get in line, we're treated like the enemy.

That's a far cry from Dean's Democratic Party, which was out for the Democratic Party and the people of this country, not for any one individual or thing. It's a sad state of affairs, but worse than that, it's hurting the Democratic Party and it's hurting America. Still worse, it may be too late for the President to do anything about this, should he ever decide that he actually wants support from his base again. I have the sneaking suspicion he'll realize that yes, he does want it, as the election in 2012 closes and he can't find anyone to knock on doors and make phone calls for him. By then, it will all be too late -- and it will be Martha Coakley redux, this time on a national scale, unless corporate largess in the campaign war chest (and a incompetent Republican opponent) is enough to save the day. Anything's possible, I suppose.

The bottom line, though, is the President is not on our side. If he doesn't want our money and our support, it's not as if there aren't other people who need it. With the President's turn to the right -- and his continuation of the Bush agenda, some of it on steroids -- it's becoming more important than ever to stand up for what's right. We still have good people in the House and the Senate, or who should be there, who are going to need our help and support. My advice is to skip the OFA and go straight to the source, lest you give anyone in the OFA your Firebagger cooties. It's become beyond clear that they don't want our help, anyway.

So, Obama's strategy for winning reelection is to hoodwink America?

That's what Robert Reich is saying.

Even though the President’s two former top economic advisors (Larry Summers and Christy Roemer) have called for a major fiscal boost to the economy, the President has remained mum. Why? 

I’m told White House political operatives are against a bold jobs plan. They believe the only jobs plan that could get through Congress would be so watered down as to have almost no impact by Election Day. They also worry the public wouldn’t understand how more government spending in the near term can be consistent with long-term deficit reduction. And they fear Republicans would use any such initiative to further bash Obama as a big spender. 

So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama – to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

Lenk's SJC Appointment and the Governor's Council

Let's all congratulate Justice Barbara Lenk for her freshly appointed status on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. With two decades of judicial experience, and this having been her third time through the confirmation process, it's clear she's eminently qualified for the position.

Yet, in being confirmed by a 5-3 vote on the Governor's Council, the 3 votes against her confirmation -- votes no doubt motivated by prejudice, for Lenk is now the first known lesbian to have served on the SJC -- is a frustrating reminder of just how far we have to go in this state. Let's take a look at the three Governor's Council members who voted against Lenk.

Mary-Ellen Manning, arch hack, perhaps the most nominal Democrat in the country and unfortunately my own Governor's Councilor, focused her attacks on Lenk around icky sex questions, doing all she could to link the topics of incest and homosexuality together, with cries of The Children thrown in for extra fun.

It's unfortunately the common tactic by bigots on anything to do with preventing gay candidates from winning or glbt civil rights issues from passing. No wonder why she couldn't wait to get on the Howie Carr show to complain about it. Those are her peeps.

Arch conservative Charles Cipollini (R) voted against her because she's a lesbian; well, that's the only possible deduction I can come up with. The fact that she's a lesbian colors her opinion on marriage equality, says he, and apparently anyone who supports the Goodridge decision isn't fit for the SJC. Well, at least if they're a lesbian.

Never mind the fact that issue is dead and buried, long since decided and defended. Never mind the fact that by his logic, everyone would be effected -- gay or straight -- because everyone is effected by marriage. We simply can't allow gay people to serve, according to him.

Add Jen Caissie (R) to that territory. While Caissie and others on this list of names complained Lenk wouldn't support legal precedent, Caissie was upset over Lenk's support of one firmly-established legal precedent in this state: the Goodridge decision. Straight IOKIYAR hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, because of the obscurity of the Governor's Council, it's relatively easy for just about anyone to get on the council when a seat opens up -- and to stay there as long as they want, after. Because of that, we get lots of rabid right-wingers on the council, with the non-rabids, moderates and liberals likely to soon move onto bigger and better things. It's the one body in this state where the extreme right almost controls the majority, and some of the five councilors who's votes Lenk received are little saner than Caissie, Ciponni and Manning.

David Kravitz, over at Blue Mass Group, and someone who's worked for several justices on the Supreme Court of the United States, has long called for the end to the Governor's Council -- as has the Boston Globe. They're right.

Meanwhile, Marry-Ellen Manning said that everyone who was going to vote against Lenk was being portrayed as a bigot. Well, Marry-Ellen... if the shoe fits.

Holy Jeebus, Brown Okay with Dismantling Medicare?

More evidence that Scott Brown is out of touch with the Massachusetts voter.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare and Medicaid as we know them might be slow to accrue supporters within his own party, but Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), a key swing vote in the Senate, indicated to TPM on Tuesday he was at least open to the idea. 

"Listen, everything is on the table right now and the people understand everything is on the table," he said when asked by TPM if he had concerns about privatizing and cutting Medicare. "People recognize that we're in a financial emergency and as a result of that to say that something is not on the table is really irresponsible and I'm thankful that we have people like Congressman Ryan working and coming up with a plan."

I'm sorry, Senator, but the destruction of Medicare should not be on the table. The most ironic thing about this statement is the fact that Congressman Ryan's plan is essentially "Obamacare" for seniors, hypocrisy extreme for both Brown, who railed against Obama's health care bill, and the entire Republican Party (aka "The Party of No.").

The Bottom Line on Wisconsin

The size of the Wisconsin Governor's tax cuts for Big Business and the rich? $140 million. The size of the cuts he's trying to make to public employees? $140 million.

Now factor in the fact that the unions will agree to the cuts if the Governor agrees not to go after collective bargaining, and where does that leave us? A Governor who manufactured a crisis in order to help his friends and take a bat to the one group of organizations left that can combat big national corporations and the wealthy elite: unions.

This is not about the money; this is about breaking the will of the American worker, and tearing apart the last big force left to confront the moneyed interests of the right-wing that would like to roll us all the way back to before the Enlightenment. They want a plutocracy, folks. Don't let them have it. We need to do what we can to help the hardworking people of Wisconsin.

Here's what you can do locally:

Call the Wisconsin State Democratic Party at (608) 255-5172 to find out how to participate in a virtual phone bank, or join a rally at the State House on Tuesday, from 4-6pm, to support the protests in Madison and elsewhere. 

Scott Brown's Betrayal: I'm Not Surprised, Just Angry

I got some flack for praising Brown when he came out in support for DADT repeal a few weeks back, because I thought it was important to recognize when someone does something right. It wasn't like I was going to vote for him, but we needed more of that sort of willingness to cross the isle.

I also wouldn't go so far as to say I trusted him, but I was pretty hopeful his support would have meant DADT's passage. Turns out, I should have been even more skeptical than I thought. He took that 'support' and stabbed everyone in the back. The good news, though, is it's going to backfire. He'd have been better off had he just stayed opposed to DADT repeal -- because by toying with people who cared about this issue, he made them far angrier than they would have otherwise been.

In 2012, Brown's race probably wouldn't have been a priority for me -- not because I didn't care about it, but because I'd inevitably be heavily involved in some race or races at the State House that kept me insanely busy. But not anymore. Come election time, any spare moment I have will be dedicated to making sure the only Brown we have in the US Senate is Sherrod.

Daily Updates: 12.2.10

The format, size and scope of Facebook updates are appealing to me, so I'm going to try out a new, regular feature on this blog: Daily Updates. They're going to be direct copy and pastes of what I post on Facebook and elsewhere, both on topic and off.

These topics are generally the things which are really on my mind each day, so I hope they'll spark some good conversations. As always, my tweets can be found on the sidebar of this site. Now for today's updates:

• BTW: The Republicans who voted today against the Obama tax cuts in turn voted to raise the income tax by 50% on the lowest tax bracket in America, which officially makes them horrible human beings in my book. The Republicans just said to the working poor, "Screw you!"
• Admiral Mullen's testimony in favor of repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell today was one for the history books. He made it clear: This is all about restoring dignity and improving readiness, and he tore apart the arguments of the few holdouts. Hearing Admiral Mullen's testimony makes me proud of America. Let's make this happen.
  
• So, one of my favorite YouTube channels is "SupraDarky," someone who is obsessed with video game instrumentals and music. He has a "Best VGM" series in which he collects all his favorites... and his most recent pick is pretty awesome, from the Castlevania franchise.
  
  
  
• Not enough people understand how tax brackets work. If you make $251k, and the tax rates for those who earn above $250k get rolled back to the Clinton-era rates, you're only paying that Clinton-era rate on the $1k you make beyond $250k. So, in essence, everyone still gets a tax cut... this is just slightly more sane than throwing another $700 billion down the toilet that this country can't afford.
• While Scott Brown holds out to push permanent tax cuts for the wealthy totaling $700 billion over the next decade, he's voting to strip our country's meager unemployment benefits right before Christmas.
  

Ah, Republicans

They just can't help themselves.

Shocker: Charlie Baker's a Liar

Baker went on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan Show today to talk about his campaign and -- surprise, surprise -- lied about the campaign in spades.

"The third big thing you have to figure out is whether you think there's a message and a rationale for your candidacy, and for me the whole thing from the beginning was we're spending too much money, we're not reforming state government, and if we don't do both of those things, we're never going to create a climate here that's going to get people and businesses to invest in Massachusetts. And that from the beginning is how I wanted to frame this race."

Of course that's how he wants to frame the race -- because it's complete fantasy. Painting State Government in a bunch of lies is a great place to start a campaign from when you're the Republican opponent, because then Baker doesn't have to make the case against what's actually happened, but what he pretends happened. It's much easier to make your case when you make everything up -- until someone calls you on it, as people have been doing to Baker a lot lately. Yet, when Deval Patrick's creating 19,000+ jobs in a month right after (or still in the midst of) the worst recession ever, Baker's going to have to cling to the hope that no one's paying attention to all those people calling him on his lies.

And let's be clear: Lying is exactly what Charlie Baker's doing, and it's looking like a pattern. Baker says the state is spending too much, yet Patrick not only didn't increased spending, he decreased it significantly since the days of Romney. So, Baker's biggest complaint in his "message" for office is based on a lie. Right from the school of Dick -- Cheney. Really, Charlie, it's not even believable at this point. You shouldn't have quit your day job.

Furthermore, the notion that state government "is not reforming" is also completely false. It may not be reforming as fast as we want it to, but Deval Patrick's been at the forefront of pushing reform in office and has a lot to claim success about -- ethics, pensions and the Pike were all reformed in part by Deval Patrick. They were beginnings, but very good beginnings that Republicans failed at for 16 years.

Baker also had the audacity to bring up the repeated lie that the state isn't 'sharing in the pain,' pushing his ill-thought proposal to axe 5,000 state jobs that we all know is pure bullshit, a number with no analysis or foresight behind it, beyond sounding cool in a Republican campaign. Additionally, he keeps pushing the idea that this elite, Harvard-edumacated dude is some common man, which is pretty galling to the people who really struggle to pay their bills and put their kids through school.

"If I had to boil it down into one thing, it would be the notion that Beacon Hill plays by its own set of rules, meanwhile I'm out there living by a completely different set of rules, I have to suck it up, live with less, figure out how to pay my bills, pay my mortgage, pay my kid's education and Beacon hill is just running along on autopilot and I'm peeved about that."

First of all, Charlie Baker is living by his own set of rules, Baker's absolutely right about that: There aren't too many people raking in $1.5 million a year like Baker was at Harvard Pilgrim toward the end. I think he can spare us his complaints about having to "live with less," because that's not a credible complaint by him to most of the six million residents of this state who live with substantially less. Millions of people in Massachusetts would absolutely love to live with the kind of "less" that Baker's had over the past few years. No one begrudges success, but why can't the dude be honest about it?

Secondly, Baker went on to agree with the hosts' litany of lies made right after that quote, and included some of his own, for example:

• State employees pay only 10% of their health care costs. Bullshit.
• State employees retire with $80,000 pensions. Bullshit. Very, very few people in State Government retire with that kind of pension. Certainly less than 5%.
  
• Then Baker continues their lies and deception, saying people in state government, "Retire at the age of 50 or 55, and everyone else is going to be working ten minutes before they fall into the..." he was going to finish with ditch, I think. Of course, Patrick's pension reform bill has state employees retiring much closer to 65 than 50. Again, Baker lies.
  
• To increase the hypocrisy, Baker's trying to get buddy-buddy with the police unions, one of the few sets of people in public employ who can still retire at "50 or 55" under the new pension rules, sometimes even with pensions exceeding $80k, because of ridiculously expensive and unnecessary things like police details. Who's the reform guy, again?
  

It's utter nonsense.

One of the hosts asks how many people "will get the axe?" Baker says, "5,000 people." Then goes on to say, "My goal is to consolidate the executive branch."

It's just not true. There's no way he cuts 5,000 jobs from state government, after Deval Patrick cut more than 2,600. It would destroy state government, without solving any kind of problem (cutting 5,000 people wouldn't even come close to solving our budget problems, for example). It's just an empty promise, or, put in another way, another lie.

"You talk to the people who are out there and who are working hard every day... they all look at what they've been going through the past couple years, and they wonder why the state government hasn't been going through the same thing.... Let's face it, the taxpayers pay the bills, the taxpayers deserve a state government that plays by the same rules... and right now, the state government doesn't play by the same rules."

Wow. Just wow. What freaking bullshit. Patrick's cut 2,600 jobs in executive agencies since coming into office, and there's been 4,155 people cut from state government in total, according to the Boston Globe. Furthermore, people working in state government have had to take pay cuts and furloughs to avoid even more job cuts -- something that amounts to a hefty sum for many employees. How are these things not the state 'sharing in in the pain?'

Baker seriously forgot about being pwned by "Erica," not too long ago, on this very subject, probably on the same radio channel. Perhaps he needs a refresher?



Right before the first quote I used, Baker had the prescience to say this:

"I made my kids watch the whole end of the Brown-Coakley race and said, guys I want you to know that there's going to be days when you wake up and turn on the TV and wonder who that guy is who's supposed to be your father."

How true that must be for them. I wonder if it happened today?

Chickens for Health Care

Senator Harry Reid's likely Republican opponent in Nevada has an interesting idea for solving health care costs. Bring a chicken to the doctor.

Last week, when Lowden suggested "that bartering is really good," it seemed that she may have been talking about haggling prices and just had her vocab mixed up. It happens to everyone.

But yesterday, on a local news program, Lowden seemed to double down on the idea. Asked whether the statement made her seem disconnected, she shot back that it's Reid who's disconnected for not knowing "that this is already happening in our state."

"Let's change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I'm telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say I'll paint your house," she said. "[That's] what people would do to get health care with their doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people."

So, last week she thought it was a good idea that patients "barter" for their treatments -- ie if I broke my leg, I should go 'shop around' to see who could fix it cheapest, or negotiate the doctors down while in excruciating pain. Now she's taking that a step further -- thinking people should bring their doctors a chicken, or paint their homes, like in "the olden days." You know, I think that's a very good idea -- pay the doctors like in the olden days, and get treatment like the olden days. Feeling sick? Maybe the doctors will have some nice leeches for you... or perhaps a nice, little exorcism will get rid of that rash? Jeepers.

Shut it, GOP

Since 1980, Reconciliation has been used 22 times in the US Senate -- Republicans used them 16 times (thanks, Barbara Boxer). It's time they be held accountable for their misleading statements. How dare they -- who invented the "Nuclear Option" (getting rid of the filibuster) reinvent it now and try to say that using Reconciliation is the Nuclear Option. The GOP takes lying to the extreme.

Hypocrisy, Terrorism and Phone Tapping

If four young democrats dressed up as phone repairmen and tried to install wiretaps to Senator Mitch McConnell's office (R), they'd be off to Guantanamo, with cries of terrorism, and water-boarded by now. Or close to it. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the national GOP would be all over it, foaming at the mouth. The rest of cable and network news would follow suit.

Instead, they were college republicans and one of their daddies is a US attorney, so it's just some goofy stunt. Still won't keep at least some of them out of federal prison (no doubt they'll all try to backstab each other as they try to make plea bargains, realizing they may actually be held accountable for their actions). At least there's that.

Who wants to take a guess that these four were not alone? Someone funded them. Did that person also put them up to something like this? Who knew what and when?

Obama's "Nazi" Health Care Plan

Seriously, that's the shit a very, very small & crazy minority are peddling on the streets. Some goofy, off-balanced prick asked me if I wanted to know more about Obama's "Nazi" health care plan when I was walking into one of the state house office buildings today to file some paperwork. I wanted to ask if he was "fucking stupid," but I figured I should just ignore him. I'm 99% sure he was a LeRoushian nutjob. Those people make the birthers and teabaggers look sane.

Tangently related, I'm going to let Rachel Maddow's words echo here in regards to the teabaggers at Town Halls acting like freaking lunatics because corporate Republicans know how to push all their buttons in pure astroturf politics.

Republicans Finally Expressed Real Idea

Texas Republicans are evenly split over whether or not they should leave the union. I guess they're now too proud to be an American. Note: I didn't say it was a good idea, just that they finally expressed one.

IOKIYAR

When Al Gore wanted absentee ballots to be read, he had to give up in short order for the good of the country. A Republican in Minnesota loses an equally close and contested election to Al Franken - and he has to fight to the bitter end (so the Democrats have one less vote in the Senate). Where's the media uproar now?