The latest from the American Bridge PAC (with supporting facts here). It’s a “greatest shits” compilation reminding voters in union-heavy northern Ohio who they don’t want to vote for…
The top-voted YouTube comment sums it up quite nicely:
Giving a vulture capitalist who’s (sic) greatest financial successes all came at the expense of American tax payers, the keys to the American economy is tantamount to financial suicide for the middle class.
Yeah, like the guy with the Cayman Islands bank account is gonna look out for your interests, Joe Sixpack (To be clear here: I’m not pro-Obama, I just hate Republicans).
The battleground states get all the good political advertisements. Out here in true blue California, we never see any of the good ones on tee-vee.
If you’re anywhere near the path of Hurricane Sandy and you’re still considering voting for a Republican, peer into the crystal ball of President Mitt Romney telling you to go fuck yourself in case of a catastrophe. According to the Mittster, when CNN’s John King asked him about FEMA, Federal funding for disaster relief is “immoral,” and is best left to the states or, “even better,” to the private sector.
Of course, unlike most of the residents of the Eastern seaboard all the way through to Michigan, when disaster strikes for Mitt Romney, he and Ann just pick up stakes, jump into their private jet and head off to another one of their palatial homes. Not his fault you don’t work hard enough. He sent you a bus, didn’t he, moocher?
I just read that Obama says that he doesn’t expect the hurricane to have much of an effect on the election, but I’d say this is a net gain for him, not Romney, but especially with videotape like this around to haunt the GOP nominee. Federal emergency aid? IMMORAL! Tax cuts for millionaire “job creators”? Bring it on!
You’d have to have your head examined to vote for Romney in the face of an act of God like this one. Would Romney really give the cold shoulder to red states caught up in devastation? He says he would, let’s take him at his word.
Next week sees the publication of Oliver Stone’s years in the making book, The Untold History of the United States (co-written with American University historian Peter Kuznick). The volume aims to puts forth a, uh, Stoned, I guess, counter interpretation of American history of the past century. Gallery Books is putting out the hefty, 618-page tome that apparently slams Democrats every bit as it rips Republicans.
“The country Obama inherited was indeed in shambles, but Obama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse,” Stone and Kuznick wrote. “…[R]ather than repudiating the policies of Bush and his predecessors, Obama has perpetuated them.”
Obama’s election “felt like a kind of expiation for the sins of a nation whose reputation had been sullied, as we have shown throughout this book, by racism, imperialism, militarism, nuclearism, environmental degradation and unbridled avarice,” they wrote.
But on subjects from Wall Street reform to health care to Afghanistan, Stone and Kuznick rip Obama for breaking campaign promises and continuing the policies of President George W. Bush — who’s roundly condemned throughout the book. In some instances, they write, Obama went further than Bush’s White House toward anti-progressive policies.
Obama is basically Bush-lite. Anyone not blinded by partisanship can see that. You thought you were getting FDR, but you got a guy to the right of Nixon on both economics and civil liberties! It shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say out loud, but other than Daniel Ellsberg, actor John Cusack and Oliver Stone, few on the Left are saying it.
This, however, is just waggish conjecture:
“Obama asserted presidential power in ways that must have made Dick Cheney jealous,” they wrote.
Well, I laughed.
An accompanying 12-hour documentary series, Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, will air on Showtime beginning November 12th. I can’t wait to see it. One of my best friends, composer Adam Peters, scored the series, and I myself worked on conceptualizing a similar project with Stone’s Ixtlan production company (note Carlos Castaneda reference there) back in 1994 that had the working title “History Inside Out.” (Without going into the how or why of it here, this project didn’t happen, but Disinformation did, a year later). Stone has wanted to do something like this for a long time, obviously—and he’s a brilliant guy, passionate about history—so I fully expect this to be Stone at his most inspired. Adam told me it was really amazing.
Politico summarized some of the harsher Obama critiques from Stone and Kuznick’s book:
On Wall Street reform: “The biggest winner under Obama was Wall Street.”
On health care: “Obama’s failure to articulate a progressive vision was also apparent in the fight over health reform, which was to have been his signature initiative…Obama’s health care reform effort, marked by the inability to even refute Republican charges of death panels, was so unpopular that it became an albatross around the necks of Democrats in the 2010 election.”
On a troop surge in Afghanistan: “When it finally came down to decision time, Obama didn’t have the courage or integrity of a post-Cuban Missile Crisis John F. Kennedy. He settled on a 30,000-troop increase, giving the military leaders almost everything they wanted and more than they expected.”
On civil liberties: “Among the greatest disappointments to his followers was Obama’s refusal to roll back the expanding national security state that so egregiously encroached on American civil liberties.”
On ‘imperialism’: “[He] was not offering a decisive break with over a century of imperial conquest. His was a centrist approach to better managing the American empire rather than advancing a positive role for the United States in a rapidly evolving world.”
On defense spending: “While cutting defense spending, pulling combat forces out of Iraq and beginning the drawdown in Afghanistan represented a welcome retreat from they hypermilitarism of the Bush-Cheney years, they did not represent the sharp and definitive break with empire that the world needed to see from the United States.”
The folks at the Austin Chronicle created a Mitt mask for Halloween. If you’re in Austin, pick up the Chronicle and cut-out your very own mask. Otherwise, blow this graphic up and print it.
Of course, the ultimate Romney Halloween mask would be one you could change every few minutes.
As far as cults of personality go, Americans simply don’t have the panache of say, North Korea; It’s not really our fault—fanatical idolatry just blooms more lushly under fascism. Regardless, when we do manage the odd hothouse icon, our graven images are something to behold.
Now, I’m leaning towards towards the car in the video below because I’m a fan of both Crown Vics and terrible airbrushing. My background in the milieu trends more towards bald eagles and herds of wild horses crossing shallow yet tempestuous streams at a full gallop (rather than civil rights leaders and centrist presidents), but airbrushed American flags definitely hold a place in my tacky heart. The actual airbrush skill isn’t exactly refined, but I think it adds to the charm.
The newcomer above however, spotted in DC, is so sleek and modern. It even has the hashtag “#obamascar” on the side; I like that it knows how to network. And from a logistical standpoint, how do you even chrome a whole car? There’s also the subversive aspect of putting Obama’s face on a Cadillac, which became racist code for the layabout poor, post-Reagan. This is clearly a car of conscious liberal dissent—a big shiny “fuck you”—which I like.
As a composition though, I feel the polish of the chrome car can’t match the humanity of airbrushed Obama car, so I say airbrush wins. Plus the chrome car reminds me of the Enola Gay, with the president as pin-up nose art. Maybe they can use Obama Chrome as the visual inspiration for our next line of drones?
But what say you? Is it worse to be a low-rent cheesy, or a really well-executed cheesy? Which is the ugliest Obama car?
The gajillionaire rightwing Krabbe Brothers—who are obviously not in any way based on the billionaire rightwing Koch Brothers—and their ultra-rich cronies on their never-ending quest to make America safe for the one percent!
Comedy Central’s Gajillionaires stars Rob Corddry, Thomas Lennon, Paul Scheer, Jordan Peele and Riki Lindhome. Written and created by Yoni Brenner.
I can’t wait for this to come out. Look at the damage Gloria Allred inflicted on Tiger Woods!
Famed civil rights attorney Gloria Allred will be in a Boston area courtroom Wednesday in an attempt to unseal the sworn testimony given by Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, in a prior court case, RadarOnline.com is exclusively reporting.
“The Boston Globe is headed to court tomorrow morning for an emergency hearing in an attempt to obtain a court order to unseal the sworn testimony given by Mitt Romney in a prior court case and to lift a gag order so that the parties can speak about Romney. Gloria Allred will be in court representing one of the parties in the case,” a source close to the situation tells RadarOnline.com.
The emergency hearing will take place at the Norfolk Probate & Family Court in Canton, Massachusetts, and Justice Jennifer Ulwick will oversee the proceedings which will begin at 9 a.m. EST.
As previously reported, Drudge Report founder and respected politico, Matt Drudge, tweeted Thursday: “Here she comes. Hearing Gloria Allred out there again, about to make a move. After all, it’s her time of the campaign. Team O at the ready!!”
1960s teen idol Lesley Gore leads the charge against Mitt Romney and the GOP—with some well-known indie female faces like Lena Dunham, Carrie Brownstein, Miranda July, Tavi Gevinson, Tracey Ross and more—with a wicked lip-dub protest version of her 1964 hit “You Don’t Own Me.”
It’s truly hard to believe that in this day and age women are still fighting to get this message across.
Mitt Romney and the Republican Party are determined to overturn Roe V. Wade. Romney has not supported equal pay for women (The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act). Romney has vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. Romney has vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Romney doesn’t want health care to cover birth control. Romney says same sex marriage should be banned with a Constitutional Amendment.
snip
This election is shockingly close. Our safety is at stake. Our silence is consent and our vote is our voice. Let’s get active. Let’s get out every vote we can. Let’s make this election a mandate. A mandate to finally ensure women the respect, dignity and equality we all deserve! This is now. This is our call to action. Once and for all, let’s take back the power that is so inherently and naturally ours!
Best-selling author teams up with Brooklyn’s “Caged Animals” leader to create a Romney mash-up.
“My blood pressure was escalating with every utterance out of Mitt’s two-faced mouth,” says author Larry “Ratso” Sloman, whose bestsellers included books with Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a soon-to-be major motion picture adaptation of his book on Harry Houdini. “Rather than duke it out on Facebook, I made a slightly inebriated late night call to Vin Cacchione, leader of Caged Animals and a great producer. Two days later, we had a mashup that reminds everyone just who this character is. And you can dance to it!”
“If this helps in any way in releasing our women from their binders and letting them shake their booties, then we feel we’ve done our job,” Ratso said.
Carlin speaking before the National Press Club on May 19, 1999 is a reminder that in 13 years little to nothing has changed in America’s political and cultural landscape. If anything, it’s gotten worse.
(co-written with American University historian 
. Maybe they can use Obama Chrome as the visual inspiration for our next line of 
