I think a pattern is starting to emerge.
Democrats note that Republicans are trying to buy the election, so Republicans accuse Democrats of trying to buy the election. Democrats point to Mitt Romney's vague agenda, so Romney accuses Democrats of having a vague agenda. Democrats criticize the GOP's "war on women," so the GOP accuses Democrats of waging a "war on women." Dems call Romney an out-of-touch elitist, so Romney accuses Dems of out-of-touch elitism.
And President Obama's campaign has characterized Romney as the "Outsourcer-in-Chief," so, well, you know what's coming.
In this new video from the RNC, the party accuses President Obama of being "the real outsourcer-in-chief." The main problem with the video, not surprisingly, is its detachment from reality -- the RNC hasn't even tried to bolster the allegations with any evidence at all, in large part because the claims appear to have been made from whole cloth.
But Romney himself is getting on the game, condemning the president today for having "encouraged American jobs to move overseas."
I don't know what GOP strategic genius thought this was a good idea. The claims are unsupported by the facts, and the response reinforces the perception that Republicans are terrified of the Democratic criticisms.
But perhaps most importantly, if the campaign descends into a debate over which candidate has engaged in more outsourcing, Romney will lose in a landslide. Businesses hired Romney to help them ship jobs abroad. Romney was a "pioneer" in "relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India."
For crying out loud, Romney's vulture-capital firm, Bain Capital, employed a "director of outsourcing."
Republicans want to get into a fight with Democrats over the evils of outsourcing? Seriously?
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"Nanny nanny boo boo, stick your head in doo doo, you can't catch me," is the preferred Republican taunt of 2012.
I've noticed this "I know you are, but what am I" scenario from both sides also.
As is evident you can make any argument if you are creative and dig deep enough to prove your point because they all do it and are all guilty as charged.
I guess the newest is A.G. Holder asked for legal identification to enter his conference on the denouncement of asking for legal identification to vote in Texas. huh?
Democratic leader Wassamer telling the American people to ask themselves how they feel about a presidential candidate having Swiss bank accounts and investing in foreign businesses when she has owned and may still own a 401k plan that has, oh yea, Swiss bank accounts and invests in foreign businesses.
So much of this stuff is "Guilty by Association" and is used for reelection purposes no matter how obscure. This other politician used to work for a company that hired an employee that has a second cousin that wrote an article that supports racism and donates to a business that invests overseas that hires locals at slavery wages that produce goods that are sold back to the U.S. Wow, that politician must be a monster.
Really??????
Dems have to learn to play the game if they want to win. They have to be relentless.
So we should all get frontal lobotomies?
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
No non-delusional journalist could cover the tea party without needing medication.
You almost have to think that for any competent journalists, everything is just another day of Alice in Wonderland. It's become so ordinary for them, they think everybody must be experiencing the same thing. So they do their stenography act,
Republicans spend all of their time saying things that will only sound convincing to people who already vociferously agree with them. They're so deeply embedded in their own bubble of crazy, they can no longer even dimly conceptualize what kind of thing might sound convincing to someone who's undecided or weakly leaning the other way.
Interestingly, from about 1980 until relatively recently, this was a pervasive problem among Democratic political consultants.
Tea Party members claims about liberals are the biggest lie of all time.
Proof?
Conservative news organizations claim billion dollar military technology is being used to spy on corn fields, pigs and chickens.
Why would any sane person believe total fiction?
P.T. Barnum was the first person to exploit that phenomenon for fun and profit.
The Barnum Effect describes gullibility as a measurable phenomenon. Television became a constant influence in most elections during the 1950s.
No space alien abductions were reported before science fiction television became popular during the 1950s - the Barnum Effect is the reason this has become so popular that documentaries have become common.
Lower intelligence makes voters more gullible, and delusions are strongly associated with conservative beliefs for that reason.
P.T. Barnum used fraud to become wealthy because "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute".
Dictators have been using fraud to convince voters to end democracy for millennia.
Conservatives are less educated. Less educated voters are susceptible to delusions, and delusions are defended using the following logic.
Health care professionals even recognize extreme racism as a mental illness that is just like any other irrational phobia, like fear of rodents.
About 20% of the US population has a diagnosable mental illness.
Mental illness is a voting block that includes 50 million people in the United States.
Conservative media organizations are convincing that segment of the population to believe outrageous lies.
Marketing uses Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) to sell inferior products based on this technique.
Joseph Stalin used FUD to maintain control of the Soviet Union after it became clear that communism is a failed economic system.
Now lets look at how this will end democracy in the United States.
Gold is the preferred currency of former communist countries, like Russia and China, where money is nearly worthless.
The Tea Party claims Ayn Rand as the ideological source of their beliefs, and Rand champions the use of gold for currency.
Rand claimed to be anti-communist to avoid prosecution by Joseph McCarthy after World War II. But her beliefs about gold indicate she is actually communist.
The Tea Party is funded by the Koch Brothers.
Joseph McCarthy did not prosecute Fred Koch as a communist while the Soviet Union obtained nuclear technology from the United States because Fred Koch founded the John Birch Society that claims to hate communism.
Fred C. Koch created the John Birch Society so that he could safely dine with the leader of the communist world as communism made him wealthy.
Fred C. Koch spent decades working with Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin created the Tea Party indirectly through the Koch family.
The ultimate lesson learned by the Tea Party is how to gain total control of government using the Soviet strategy of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
Communism is the basis of Tea Party beliefs that are being popularized by Romney, Cantor, and McConnell.
Conservatives even used Citizens United to legalize ulimited foreign influence on United States elections, while claiming immigrants are a threat to the nation.
The entire basis of the Tea Party is a mass hallucination based on lies blasted by the super wealthy onto radio, television, newspapers, and the Internet.
Man, do you rock or what? You have the most amazing posts. While I rarely post as I am almost always on some mobile device, and this site is not mobile friendly at all, I read comments daily and you, friend, have been on fire lately.
EXCELLENT job. Again.
Hi MsJoanne,
Thank you.
Click my name to read some articles ...
Best - Greg
I watched John Sununu on Andrea Mitchell today. Facts? Not needed...just twist, bull@!$%# and make it sound good (and he did). While Andrea was incredulous (her face was almost as priceless as when she was talking with the Aspirin Between Your Knees guy), did she refute his words? Nope.
Andrea has a serious case of Greenspanitis, which prevents her brain cells from heavy work.
(I remember her from her days in Philly, back when she was a 'reporter'.)
MSNBC is corporate and corporate advertising along with cable fees pays their hosts' and employees and management salaries. MSNBC hosts are beholdin' to corporate America for their incomes, and they have a ton of income, which they really, really enjoy. . . They're corporate.
This is how we'll know the RNC and Romney camp is full of it with the new "strategy".
They will only do a web ad, so the MSM will give them free airtime.
They know this is BS and won't spend real money to air it in the battleground states.
Steve, tell me you're not just now discovering this "rubber/glue" strategy - right? Rush has been doing it for years. It gives his Lemmings (aka Ditto Heads) new talking points to make them sound even more stupid than they are so famous for when they speak.
oh, i so can't wait for the debates. no gloves, now!
The GOP: Always doing their best to keep the whack-a-doodle dandies completely faked out.
Republican claims never to be true, never have to be proven. They just need to be MADE. They then become Truth.
In a few days, Fox & Friends and Rush will pick up on the Obama shipped jobs overseas meme and treat it as fact.
After that, we'll get some Democrats being interviewed with straw man arguments "some people say Obama is responsible for a lot of jobs going overseas, don't you think it's hypocritical for Obama to accuse Romney of the exact same thing?"
By the end of the week, it'll become common wisdom that "both sides do it" and it will cease to be a tactic that Democrats can use or else they'll be accused of being partisan, because it's already been decided. BOTH SIDES DO IT.
Unless the Democrats shout (as Ms. Maddow is wont to say) "bullpucky" loud enough and forcefully enough, and back it up with facts and with vigor that the left's upper hand on this issue just flat out can not be denied.
While you're at it, wish for a pony.
Steve -- Please listen. Your analysis is typically spot on. But why oh why do you continue to assume Romney/the GOP will behave with decency? Time after time, you act surprised that they're actually LYING, or that they're going to LIE, or think that they're gonna slap their foreheads and say "Gee, we were wrong about that!" Ain't never gonna happen. It's classic Rovian strategy they've been using for years: LIE, OBFUSCATE, TWIST, rinse and repeat.
At some point you need to just react with something like "[Yawn] Here's the latest BS pack of lies [insert name, organization, spokesperson, etc. here] is fixing to serve..."
Republicans keep repeating lies because eventually some people outside of the Fox bubble will believe them. Romney is the biggest liar we have in politics since Nixon. Any reasonable person should be embarrassed to repeat the lies.
A little respect for Tricky Dick, please. He lied, but he was smart enough to be ration his prevarications. Romney? Given a choice between lying and telling the truth, he'll reflexively lie and only later even consider dressing up his lies with a pinch of truth.
The bouncy game works for the cons because their version is what the press [not just FN] reports and what the voters believe.
"For crying out loud, Romney's vulture-capital firm, Bain Capital, employed a "director of outsourcing."
Republicans want to get into a fight with Democrats over the evils of outsourcing? Seriously?"
Of course, they want to do this, and it's easy to see why. It confuses and misinforms; it adds to the accepted theme of most people who think themselves sober and reasonable that both sides do it, that everything is just another aspect of both sides rigging the game as much as the other side.
And Democrats simply roll over and play their road-kill game. Democrats simply can't learn to take advantage of the fact that the public agrees with them on most issues. It's incompetence and impotence at it's subtle finest.
Will Democrats learn? No.
The Truth? As HBO's The NewsRoom is aptly demonstrating on Sunday nights, newsrooms like TRMS' filled with 20-something neophytes who think the 80's are ancient prehistoric irrelevant history, wouldn't know how to put the reality of 'GOP dump-truck Obamanomics' into ANY Big Picture 30 yr context relative to its precursor Reaganomics (raging Triple Deficits) whatsoever... and thus any Truths voters could work with when going to the polls regarding "what the hell happened to my country!???!" ... as The Newsroom's three objectives so aptly outlined in episode one. TRMS is a context-free work enviroment... ill serving the American public. Better than the rest... but still... a failing grade.
There is NO Big Picture context in any of today's reporting. Dems, liberals, progressives, journalists, pundits... have all intellectually wimped-out defending Carter's America (News Flash: the 70's inflation monster/national angst was created by Nixon & Burns [Fed chairman] duel fiscal & monetary pump-priming (remember the Nixon Price Controls?) due to Nixon's reelection paranoia... ON TOP OF Vietnam War spending, 10x OPEC price surges for the decade due to 'Nixon Shock' & Israeli support, and an ill-managed Federal Reserve PRIOR to Carter's '79 appt of Volcker and its Carter-sacrificing War on Inflation as Job One) when we were STILL very much a nation EARNING our national prosperity as a net exporting trade surplus powerhouse nation with a prosperous middle class ... instead of post 1981 "Reagan's engaging in borrowed prosperity on an EPIC scale" as Stockman says re trade deficits, started with Reagan's very FIRST budget... kicking-off 30 straight years and $8 TRILLION in trade deficits that have "hollowed-out the American economy" outsourcing jobs & factories and importing back CEO wealth as the new Reagan barometer of "America at its best"... and a SOARING stock market representing... JUST THAT.
Pre 1980 income disparities among Americans were relatively/downright modest in Carter's time as evidenced by the CBO report, and the National Burden, er, Debt (after 205 yrs) was just $1.0 Trillion in 1981 as opposed to the 22x/$22 TRILLION in debt P&I since 1981 for a total 30 year. A 30yr/30x red ink TWIN Deficit bender burying us under $30 TRILLION in burdens in just 30 yrs... compared to our first 205 years of just 1x/$1.0 Trillion TOTAL for our first 205 years as a nation.
Pre 1981 vs Post 1981.
205 yrs/1x/$1 Trillion VS 30 yrs/30x/$30 TRILLION.
Carter & Clinton MANAGED surpluses (trade & fiscal surpluses respectively) VS Reagan/Bush/Bush/GOP/Conservative's torpedoing of the American Dream into a nightmare.... dumped on Obama's arrival with an imploded American economy by GOP's Reaganomics model and 'stewardship'.
THE CONTEXT seems to be only grasped by a conservative Republican... Reagan's own OMB director David Stockman... who amazingly, candidly blames his own party for "the destruction of the American economy"... but progressives EVERYWHERE fail to grasp or repackage the Big Picture Stockman narrative for widespread national consumption & digesting. Dem superpacs are worthless at packaging Reagan's own OMB narrative & indictments... much less any and all Dems in office... or our nation's journalists.
Rachel represents one of the most massive wastes of journalistic talents in history. Two PhD degrees, massively talented, superbly articulate, great wit, palitable to conservatives if she tried... yet Big Picture clueless as all getout... reinforced by her clueless crew. HBO's The Newsroom is nailing this AWOL/MIA American journalistic institution narrative. It's pretty sad commentary our best and brightest, as represented by Rachel & crew, who can't put together The Context nor the Big Picture... even while sitting next to Stockman in HBO's Realtime studios. Amazing.
Rachel & crew can't provide context to a pre 1981 America because... they weren't there. Ancient irrelevant historical CONTEXT to them... aparently. Evidently.
We get the nation we deserve. We, the voters, are at THE TOP of the political food chain, no? But as ill informed as we are, tuning into MSNBC, CNN, FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, even Current TV... a nation full of pack rat journalists... we are what we consume. Junk small picture news bites and spins. Tribal news diets. Religion & politics loyalists.
The real GOP sin starting with the Reagan Revolution is not simply taking America from a single deficit to Twin trade & budget Deficits' $30 Trillion in Red Ink costs in a mere 30 years, a 30x bender of staggering scale... but TRIPLE DEFICITS in trade, fiscal, and REGULATIONS. There was a massive regulatory deficit that Reaganomics sent America hurtling downward with... creating unlevel, practically vertical playing fields... far from level & fair for all... all while stealthily bankrupting and destroying the American economy... as Stockman stated in his "Four Deformations of the Apocalypse: How My Republican Party Destroyed the American Economy" NY Times 2010 op-ed (81-10) Reagan's America simply tilted the field... and the American treasury & bounty of OUR nation... into the wealthy's offshore accounts.
So not only do Rachel & crew NOT get the context of single to Twin Deficits via the Reagan Revolution... they've missed the single deficit to Triple Deficit transition Big Picture of the post Reagan Revolution America... and holding the American voters accountable for going down this road in the first place... on a diet of junk corporatized small picture news. Never connecting the dots.
HBO's The Newsroom is on its narrative for good reason. And for those who don't get HBO... HBO is making the first 3 episodes of The Newsroom available for free online, I do believe. You're missing out.
http://www.hbo.com/#/the-newsroom/episodes/1/03-the-112th-congress/video/inside-the-episode.html/eNrjcmbOYM5nLtQsy0xJzXfMS8ypLMlMds7PK0mtKFHPz0mBCQUkpqf6JeamcjIyskknlpbkF+QkVtqWFJWmsjGyMQIAWCcXOA==
Poll: Majority Think Obama Changed Country for Worse
The negative perception is shared by 1 in 5 Democrats.
By Elizabeth Hewitt | Posted Tuesday, July 10, 2012, at 12:17 PM ET Slate.com
In the wake of the Supreme Court decision to uphold Obamacare, more than two-thirds of Americans believe the country has changed significantly under President Obama, but a majority believe it’s not for the better. That negative perception extends to even a significant chunk of voters in the president's own party, according to a new poll out Tuesday. ... (rest at:
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/07/10/hill_poll_majority_think_obama_changed_country_for_worse_.html
So... in The Context of this extremely sad poll... and in The Context of the Big Picture of the last 30 years where the Post-1981 Reagan Revolution and its massive 30/30/30 Triple Deficits in The Big Three: Trade, Fiscal and Regulating of our America.... being 30 yrs, 30x, $30 TRILLION in Trade & Fiscal (P&I) Twin Deficits/debt... as just the tip of the iceberg as to what went wrong with America... TRMS needs to develop a clue, context, and a Big Picture narrative... handed to them on a silver platter by Reagan's own OMB director. But even Rachel sitting next to and glossing over the subject matter with Reagan's OMB director himself, David Stockman... didn't seem to set any bells or whistles off in Rachel as to why or how to inform the American people about the Big Picture narrative of how & when this country drove itself into the ditch. It's as if the massive American turning point of 1981 was truely before Rachel & crew's time... or comprehension.
"Nixon Shock" (8-15-1971)
"The Education of David Stockman" (Atlantic Monthly, Dec. 1981)
"In the Land of the Magic Asterisk" (Cliffnotes: NY Times 5/11/86)
"Four Deformations of the Apocalypse: How My Republican Party Destroyed the American Economy" (NY Times 8-1-2010)
Read in order... HOW could the context and Big Picture possibly be missed!!!? It's voters voting against their own interests... and that of the nation's for 30 solid years now.
And then congnizant of the actual pre-81/post-81... 30 yr, 30x (the first 205 yrs of total red ink), $30 Trillion accounting and sandwiched CONTEXT of Carter's trade surpluses (and its beneficial ramifications) and Clinton's fiscal Surpluses... and the GOP's dumping of its Reaganomics legacy economy it dumped on Obama's arrival... blaming Obama for not cleaning up their destroyed American economy. That AWOL/MIA Context ... TRMS is utterly clueless about re conveying The Big Picture to the American electorate. HBO's The Newsroom is taking aim at MSNBC, just like the rest of em. No Context. No Big Picture. Presenting multiple phony sides to a Single Fact Based issue. Spinning spin. Etc, etc.
Bottomline however... is that voters are at the top of the political food chain and NOBODY is holding them responsible... except maybe for Bill Maher, whom Rachel visits with often enough... not to get.
Rachel has TWO PhD's... and this isn't even rocket science requiring advanced education to understand. Develop Reagan's OMB narrative! Or parrot/echo Stockman for a nation to hear, comprehend and vote accordingly.
Missing context is one third of the driving theme of HBO's The Newsroom. It's pretty much AWOL/MIA in American journalism.
Let's see how many of many of us can come up with instances where Romney accused Obama of something similar to what he did himself.
The one that comes to mind for me is when Romney was accused of mistreating his dog, Romney pointed out that, as a child, Obama once ate a dog.
I've never looked forward to a political debate as much as I'm looking forward to the first debate between Obama and Romney. Romney will get verbally eviscerated and have nothing but incorrect, distorted information or blatant made-up bull-puckey to respond with.
Yet Fox and other Republican-leaning media will still try to claim that he won.