Romney Vs. Romney, Build-A-Romney, Pulpit Freedom Sunday, Obama’s Self-Realization, Romney’s Magic Tax Plan, Mary Matalin is a hypocrite and a liar, the Tea Party criminal conspiracy, good news in Ohio, how to win an election after you lost it, and the price of gas in California.
Welcome to the Daily Sausage.
First up. we have the most important political debate of our time. No, it’s not Fightin’ Joe Biden vs. Paul “The Randian Ravager” Ryan. It’s not even Mitt “The International Harvester” Romney vs. President Barack “The Bipartisan Bifurcator” Obama.
Come see hot Romney vs. Romney action where Romney disagrees with himself on virtually every issue!
I try and avoid the mall as much as possible, but every so often I’m forced to stop in to pick something up, and in the local mall is a Build-A-Bear Workshop. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a store that lets you create relatively unique teddy bears out of different parts and have it made in store.
Well, someone adapted the concept for the Romney campaign and has rolled out RoboRomney. Whatever your political ideology, Mitt Romney at one point has held that position. You can make your own candidate! It’s genius.
I’ll give you one guess which leader they all endorsed.
The entire exercise is organized by a group called the Alliance Defending Freedom (which is among the stupider names for a political group I’ve heard lately), a conservative Christian legal organization whose intent is to goad the IRS into revoking the tax-exempt status of these churches and then sue, creating a test case for the constitutionality of the Johnson amendment. Worth noting: the Johnson amendment has been tested before, and upheld through the Federal appeals court level.
As Charles P. Pierce notes in the linked article, James Madison saw this coming.
Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
If the Catholic and Evangelical churches really want to throw down with the US Government, specifically the IRS, that’s a fight I welcome. Hell, sign me up for the IRS tomorrow. You don’t get to immerse yourselves in the swamps of politics without having some skin in the game in the form of taxes. Considering the staggeringly terrible things the Catholic church has done in the last fifty years, I’m not sure they really want to pick this particular fight. The Evangelicals are on a mission from God or some such bullshit, but it’s long past time someone smacked them all collectively back into line, and who better to do that than the IRS?
In other news, President Obama, demonstrating a stunning amount of self-realization for an elected official, admitted that he lost the debate. Can you imagine Mitt Romney coming out after a bad debate and going “Yeah, I fucked up.”?
Former Romney strategist Mike Murphy has said the reason that Romney won’t release the details of his tax reform plan is because the media will attack him for it. This isn’t anything new, but it’s still absolutely stunning. No one outside of Mitt Romney’s campaign knows what Mitt Romney’s tax plan is. He’s made a lot of grandiose promises, but his rhetoric doesn’t jive with his numbers. It’s possible he has some kind of arcane economic wizardry at his disposal that makes it all work, but the more likely explanation is it’s the same “Fuck the Poor” tax plan the GOP has been running on for thirty years, only this time it has 100% more tax cuts for the mega-rich.
Mary Matalin went on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanoupolos and called Paul Krugman a liar after Krugman rightfully pointed out that Romney liked 27 times in 32 minutes during the debate. And not little lies either; big fucking whoppers that if they were fish he’d had have his picture taken with them.
Mary Matalin is a paid political hack. Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner. Mary Matalin should shut the fuck up.
We’ve covered the King Street Patriots’ True The Vote program of voter disenfranchisement at length. Well, looks like someone is doing something about it.
Just wait until the YouTube videos of these morons attempting to disenfranchise minorities all over the country, especially in swing states, start showing up.
Related note: if you go to vote and you feel intimidated or threatened by “poll watchers”, CALL THE POLICE. You have a constitutional right to vote without being threatened or intimidated.
Some good news in Ohio, as the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Ohio’s segregationist early voting restrictions. The Ohio Secretary of State can either appeal to the full Sixth Circuit or the Supreme Court next, but all three justices cited severe constitutional deficiencies.
Republican lawyers have a plan for election day: challenge absentee ballots and claim voter fraud. Nevermind that absentee voters are heavily Republican, thanks to military votes and the elderly.
For those of you in California, you may have noticed spiking gas prices. Ezra Klein has why.
