Say What? July 23, 2012 Edition. Excellent week with new voices [Reader Post]

Liberals:

President Obama: “Sometimes when I’m in a big important international meeting and you see me writing stuff down it might be that I’m just drawing some folks.”  Can you imagine if Bush said this?  Front page everywhere.

Michelle Obama: “I mean, hope doesn’t get actualized in three and a half years.”  Especially when your husband is doodling during important meetings.

President Obama, finally walking back his remarks of last week: “What I said was together we build roads and we build bridges.  That’s the point I’ve made millions of times, and by the way, that’s a point Mr. Romney has made as well, so this is just a bogus issue.”

President Obama in an ad to target those in rural America: “My grandparents came from the Midwest and so when I travel to rural areas of the country, what always strikes me is how hard people work and resilient they are, and how much they are worried about being able to pass on that way of life to the next generation. Those core middle class values that helped to build America, I think they’re still out there in every corner of this country. People still believe in hard work. They still believe in personal responsibility. And that’s why we’ve spent a lot of time on how we build on the strengths of rural America, making sure that folks out there have access to health care, the ability to export their goods to markets. I want a young person, if they want to teach, if they want to be an entrepreneur – young people can say to themselves, we can succeed here just like we can in the big city.”  Does he even have a clue as to how patronizing that is?

President Obama: “In 2008, I tried to only making promises that I could keep or work on keeping. I told you that I was not a perfect man and I wouldn’t be a perfect president but I also told you that I would always tell you what I thought, I’d always tell you where I stood and most of all, I would wake up every single day, every single day and spend every waking hour thinking about you fighting for as hard as I knew for you.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), apparently suffering a flashback: “Well, Vice President Cheney‘s up here. We know that before he became vice president, he worked for Halliburton.  Halliburton did extremely well during his time as vice president, and I assume there’s going to be some concern about Halliburton again in this conversation they’re going to have today.”

Liberals on the Colorado shooting:

President Obama, edited down from about a 8 minute speech: “Well, let me, first of all, say how grateful I am…how much we appreciate…I know that…And so I want all of you to know how appreciative I am…And I know many of you…I was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you…And I had a chance to speak with…not just on behalf of Michelle and myself, but the entire American family…I’m sure that…the same reaction that I did when I heard this news.  My daughters go to the movies.  What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater…Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I’m sure you will do the same with your children…So, again, I am so grateful that all of you are here.  I am so moved by your support…This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection…So what I’d ask everybody to do, I’d like us to pause in a moment of silence…I hope all of you will…I am grateful to all of you, and I hope that as a consequence of today’s events, as you leave here, you spend a little time thinking about the incredible blessings that God has given us.”  On the first count, “I” occurred about 18 times.

Jay Carney, President Obama’s spokesman: “I would say as you know the president believes we need to take common sense measures that protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans while ensuring that those who should not have guns under existing laws do not get them.”  Don’t forget to add, war is peace, freedom is slavery.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky statement: “My deep condolences today are extended to all those who had a loved one killed, injured or terrorized by the senseless, horrifying tragedy in Aurora, Colorado…Places that we expect to be safe for our families and children – movie theatres, schools – should never become the scene of such wanton violence. I hope my colleagues in Congress will consider the proliferation of weapons in our neighborhoods and the increasingly easy access to deadly weapons.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, on the Colorado shootings: “Soothing words are nice.  But maybe it’s time the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country…I mean, there’s so many murders with guns every day.  It’s just gotta stop. And instead of these two people, President [Barack] Obama and governor [Mitt] Romney talking in broad things about, they want to make the world a better place. OK. Tell us how. And this is a problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them, concretely, not just in generalities, specifically, what are they going to do about guns?”

Liberals on the economy:

President Obama, answering what his greatest achieve as president have been, bypassed Obamacare, and answered: “You know, my proudest achievement is actually stabilizing the economy to avert a great depression.  Because if I don’t do that, nothing else matters.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.): “If you talk to economists, they will tell you there are two things that are the most stimulative that you can do – one’s unemployment insurance, the other’s food stamps.” Is there any confusion as to why I usually vote Republican?

Part Indian and Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren, of Obama’s “you didn’t build your business on your own”: “I think the basic notion is right. Nobody got rich on their own. Nobody. People worked hard, they build a business…but they moved their goods on roads the rest of us helped build, they hired employees the rest of us helped educate, they plugged into a power grid the rest of us helped build.  The rest of us made those investments because we wanted businesses to flourish, we wanted them to grow, we wanted them to create opportunity for all of us. That’s what we do together. We get richer as a country when we make those investments.”  And who pays the taxes for these things?  The top 10% pays about 70% of the taxes.  The businesses and people who make the most money pay for all of these things; not the government.  The government just takes their money and does a poor job of spending it.

Liberals on Obamacare:

President Obama: “It’s less a tax or a penalty than it is a principle – which is you can’t be a freeloader on other folks when it comes to your health care, if you can afford it.”  Buddy, better let the news services spin this; they are professions.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “If we’re talking about fiscal stability, the Affordable Care Act is an act of fiscal stability.”

Liberals going green:

President Obama: “I don’t know about you, but in my life what I’ve found, you know, sometimes I do boneheaded things, I make mistakes.  I find, when I try something that doesn’t work, then I don’t try it again. I don’t – you don’t go back to doing something that didn’t work.”  Less than 10 minutes later, the president pledged that continuing to “invest” in green energy would be part of his agenda if reelected.

Liberals on the 2012 election:

Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s deputy campaign manager, to Mitt Romney: “Stop whining.”

Donna Brazil, ABC political commentator, to Mitt Romney: “Stop whining.”

Rahm Immanuel to, former Obama cabinet member, Mitt Romney: “Stop whining.”

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, DNC head: “And we’re re-fighting the same cultural and social battles with the Republicans because they’re controlled by the extremists in the Tea Party.”

President Barack Obama: “They’ll have a bunch of ads with the scary voices and you know, most of what you hear you can just go mute. Just press the mute button. That’s a good thing about the remote. Or you can use the DVR and fast forward. And the reason why you don’t have to pay much attention is because these ads are going to say the same thing over and over again. They know, the other side knows they can’t sell their economic plan because we tried it and it didn’t work.”  Translation: “When you see an anti-Obama ad, turn it off, fast forward through it, or ignore it.  Don’t want to confuse your pretty little head with other ideas or facts.”

Nancy Pelosi fund-raising email: “It’s nearly President Obama’s birthday!  My Democratic colleagues and I would like to collect 51,000 signatures for the President’s 51st birthday.  Will you add your name?”

Vice President Joe Biden: “Don’t tell me that you value and are deeply concerned about seniors if in fact you eviscerate the things that you know they rely on not only for their well being – I’ll return to this – but for their dignity, for their dignity and their pride.”

Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter: “If you look at the discussion we were having, last week it was revealed that Mitt Romney signed his name on SEC documents saying he was chairman, CEO, president and full owner of Bain Capital. But he’s also telling the American people that he’s not responsible for anything that happened there. So we’re simply pointing out that both things can’t be true.  If you were signing documents to the federal government, as we all know, that you knowingly know aren’t true, that is a criminal offense.  But we are not suggesting that Romney committed a crime here, we’re actually suggesting he’s not being upfront with the American people about his involvement in Bain.”

DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse: “Our use of the Romneys‘ dressage horse was not meant to offend Mrs. Romney in any way, and we regret it if it did.  We were simply making a point about Governor Romney‘s failure to give straight answers on a variety of issues in this race. We have no plans to invoke the horse any further to avoid misinterpretation.”  This was a video which, under the surface, also made fun of Mrs. Romney’s using horse riding for her multiple sclerosis.

The Liberal agenda:

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray: “So if we can’t get a good deal, a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share, then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus…If middle-class families start seeing more money coming out of their paychecks next year – are Republicans really going to stand up and fight for new tax cuts for the rich? Are they going to continue opposing the Democrats’ middle-class tax cut once the slate has been wiped clean? I think they know that that would be an untenable political position. And I hope this pushes them to come to the table with real revenue now before being forced to the table if we don’t get a deal before the New Year.”

Barack Obama: “My vision says we’re going to invest in education and we’re going to hire new teachers, especially in math and science; open up 2 million more slots for folks to go to community colleges to get trained in the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now.  (Applause.)  We already helped to make sure that student loan rates didn’t double, but now we’ve got to work more to lower tuition costs so young people aren’t burdened with debt.  (Applause.)  So we’re going to invest in education.  We’re going to invest in American energy.  Yes, we want to continue to expand our production of oil and natural gas, but I also want to make sure that we are the leaders in solar and wind and biodiesel, the energy of the future that can help reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  (Applause.)  American manufacturing, change our tax code, provide incentives for companies to invest here, invest in basic research and science so that we are at the cutting-edge — because whoever has got the best technology, will ultimately have the best economy.  (Applause.)  We’ve got to make those investments.  Rebuilding our infrastructure — I know you’ve got some bridges around here that need repair.  (Applause.)  You’ve got some roads that need a repair.  Let’s put construction workers back to work.  (Applause.)”  Or, as WZ translated it: “My vision” for my second term is to spend, spend, spend.

George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling: “That this is a metaphor is clear. Imagine that you want to buy a horse. You pay for a horse, and what is delivered to you is a fertilized horse egg. You would probably feel cheated. You can’t ride or race a fertilized horse egg. It isn’t a horse. Even in Texas. You need a mare and a lot of development. A single cell isn’t a horse, a cluster of undifferentiated cells (technically, a “blastocyst”) isn’t a horse, a cluster of differentiated cells isn’t a horse, a horse embryo isn’t a horse, and a horse fetus isn’t a horse. You would feel cheated if you were sold any of them.”  This is their explanation why a fetus should never be spoken of using any sort of human terms.

George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling: “Here’s what progressives need to do: Never use the Cells Are People metaphor, even in arguing against conservative policy. Never use the term baby or unborn child to refer to a blastocyst, embryo, or fetus.  Stop using the term abortion. It has misleading properties…Never use the expression partial birth abortion. It’s a conservative political tool, not a medical reality…Whenever possible, avoid the term morning-after pill. It evokes a prototypical frame of immoral behavior, bad decision-making, the inability to ‘just say no’ at a party or during a date. It excludes the fact that the treatment can help rape victims prevent development, be used in cases where other birth control methods failed, and so on.”  Entire context is here.  As an aside, NO ONE uses the morning-after pill “where other birth control methods failed.”  That they failed is not known for several weeks.  Talking about rape or a condom that broke is talking about less than 1% of the times a morning-after pill is used (an approach liberals love to use).  Language is most important to progressives; if they used honest language, no one would agree to their ideas.

It’s a gay world:

PETA statement over boy scouts banning openly gay scouts and scout masters: “That’s why we’re offering gay young men (and all compassionate young people) our PETA merit badge, along with information on how they can build character, be healthier, and become responsible citizens, all while helping to end cruelty to animals.”

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is vowing to block Chick-fil-A from bringing its Southern-fried fast-food empire to Boston – possibly to a popular tourist spot just steps from the Freedom Trail: “Chick-fil-A doesn’t belong in Boston. You can’t have a business in the city of Boston that discriminates against a population. We’re an open city, we’re a city that’s at the forefront of inclusion…That’s the Freedom Trail. That’s where it all started right here. And we’re not going to have a company, Chick-fil-A or whatever the hell the name is, on our Freedom Trail.”

Liberals on global warming:

Dion Rabouin of the Huffington Post: “This summer 34,500 people were forced to evacuate their homes in my home state of Colorado. I watched as a dozen wildfires raged through the state with some contained in days or weeks, while others are still not extinguished.  The extremely hot weather, dry climate and dramatically reduced water supply that all led to the wildfires are part of a pattern that has been unfolding for more than a decade. In fact, the past 10 years have been unequivocally the hottest on record in the history of weather record keeping. But even that heat is dwarfed by what we’ve seen this year. According to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the first six months of 2012 have been the hottest January-through-June period on record for the contiguous United States.  The national temperatures averaged “4.5 degrees above the long-term average,” the NOAA said in a statement last week.  None of this is a coincidence. It is the result of a manmade pandemic that could very well destroy the planet. It’s called climate change and it is very real and it is happening right now.  Make no mistake, this is a black issue.  The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice program has found that African Americans are at a higher risk for the short- and long-term effects of global warming. Cities will be hit harder by climate change because of what’s known as the “heat island” effect. Urban areas are covered in surfaces like asphalt and concrete that retain heat and as a result temperatures in these areas are higher, especially during heat waves.  Heat waves have stronger effects on urban populations and especially the urban poor. African Americans are more than twice as likely as whites to live in the inner city and nearly twice as likely as whites to live in poverty.”

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.): “If we are serious about reducing catastrophic wildfires, we must first acknowledge there is a link between climate change and wildfires.”

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.): “Batman may be rising in theaters, but icebergs and heat records are falling across the globe as our folly of global-warming inaction is finally coming back to haunt us.  When Republicans like Mitt Romney reject the science surrounding climate change, and block the solutions to this grave challenge, they become complicit in the acceleration and intensification of extreme weather events around the world and here in America.”

It’s all about racism…

Bob Herbert said on MSNBC‘s “Rachel Maddow Show”: “The Republican party has been a safe house for bigotry for decades. That’s what the Southern Strategy was all about. We’re in the process now of canonizing George H. W. Bush, but it was George H. W. Bush who gave us those Willie Horton ads in 1988. And Ronald Reagan, who has already achieved sainthood in the GOP, he started his general campaign in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi and that’s where those three civil rights workers were killed and that was just, to me, a reprehensible thing to do.”

The war on civilization:

Richard Kim, commentator on MSNBC: “The Dark Knight takes place in a failed state. because elites are corrupt, law enforcement’s corrupt. But the thing that really marks it as a failed state is that the state has lost its monopoly on violence. And in that situation, right, you have vigilantes like Batman, you have organized crime, you have terrorists. And what the movie depicts is that it’s very difficult in a failed state to tell what is just and unjust violence, right?  When you have people like George Zimmerman encouraged to vigilantism because we’ve cut all these police forces, you have the shards of a failed state so I think that’s a very profound, a very profound, sort of reflection, a dark reflection, really. Do we want to live in that night?”

The War on Women continues…

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “The president has an incredible record of support and advocacy on the issues, domestically, that Jews care about-fighting, for example, to make sure that women have the right to make their own reproductive choices; fighting to pass the Affordable Care Act, to make sure that being a woman is not a pre-existing condition, and that insurance companies can’t drop us or deny us coverage, making sure that we have access to affordable birth control without a deductible or a co-pay, while Mitt Romney and the Republicans fought to take us back to a time when we couldn’t make our own reproductive choices, when you didn’t have access to birth control.”  Jews love abortion?  Jewish women think the taxpayer ought to pay for their birth control? Democrats: the party of free stuff.

The Compliant Obama Press Corps:

NBC Rock Center’s campaign correspondent Peter Alexander: “Their life of privilege, plus a reported $100 million trust fund, continues to draw harsh scrutiny….The criticism is that a family like yours, the Romneys, can’t really understand what the average American family is dealing with right now….are you out of touch?”  And similar questions have been asked of Barack Obama when?

On PBS, Nina Totenberg, a correspondent for NPR: “You do have two views of the economy, and one of the reasons I think that the tax thing does play, other than all the obvious reasons, is, we have the latest banking scandal, the Libor scandal, and business thinks that Obama‘s the enemy. But bankers and business increasingly are distanced from the American public. They’re the super-rich. They’re the super-crooked, it appears…”

NBC’s Michael Isikioff: “…the powerful National Rifle Association has blocked any move for stricter gun laws, meaning that, for now, beefed-up security and greater vigilance may be the best protection against horrific attacks like the one in Aurora.”

LA Times headline: “Romney campaign’s attacks on Obama play on ‘birther’ fears”

New York Times Charles Blow: “Listen, he would renounce being a sentient being on the planet if it would get him into the White House. This is the kind of man that Mitt Romney is. This man does not have a soul. If you opened up, you know, his chest, there’s probably a gold ticking watch in there and not even a heart. This is not a person. This is just a robot who will do whatever it takes, whatever he’s told to do, to make it to the White House. And he will take whatever push in the back from whatever nasty person is pushing him and move him further in that direction.”

PBS’s Bill Moyers: “We are after all a country which began with the forced subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on arms against Native Americans for its Westward expansion. In truth, more settlers traveling the Oregon Trail died from accidental, self-inflicted gunshots wounds than Indian attacks – we were not only bloodthirsty but also inept.  Nonetheless, we have become so gun loving, so blasé about home-grown violence that in my lifetime alone, far more Americans have been casualties of domestic gunfire than have died in all our wars combined. In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9 millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled…The killer in Colorado waited only for an opportunity, and there you have it – the arsenal of democracy transformed into the arsenal of death and the NRA — the NRA is the enabler of death — paranoid, delusional, and as venomous as a scorpion. With the weak-kneed acquiescence of our politicians, the National Rifle Association has turned the Second Amendment of the Constitution into a cruel hoax, a cruel and deadly hoax.”

MSNBC‘s Lawrence O’Donnell, when Limbaugh pointed out that Obama admitted to smoking weed and snorting cocaine: “And so Rush decided to teach Mitt how to go after a minority. Rush thinks Mitt should be hitting Barack Obama as a lazy, drug-taking beneficiary of affirmative action. Rush didn’t use the word shiftless, but Rush threw in every racist stereotype he could in his advice to Mitt.”

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews: “Obama Is the Perfect Father, the Perfect Husband, the Perfect American”

MSNBC statement: “MSNBC would like to set the record straight following some misinformation presented by Fox News during the interview with George Zimmerman last night.  Reverend Al Sharpton never ‘rushed to judgment,’ as stated by Mr. Hannity. Reverend Sharpton repeatedly called for calm and for a more thorough investigation in the wake of the tragic events. Ultimately, the authorities agreed an arrest was warranted.”

From Time Magazine writer Michael Grumwald:

Liberal Celebrities:

Actor and political analyst Mark Hamill (who played Luke Skywalker): “I knew nothing about Mexican history or anything. But just the idea of a privileged person fighting for the underdog – there’s something very romantic about that.  I guess it goes back to Robin Hood. People that are fighting for the middle class and for the Have-Nots. It’s something that we see even playing out in the presidential race…And if you don’t vote for Barack Obama, you’re insane, cause without him, I think the middle class will completely disappear. And you look at Romney and I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I think he’s like The Thing ‼ he only imitates human behavior. He’s not actually human himself.”

Actor Morgan Freeman: “President Obama has done a remarkable job in historically difficult circumstances. He ended combat operations in Iraq, put in place sensible reforms of Wall Street, saved the auto industry and protected the health care of every American. He has led our nation to be more tolerant and placed impressive, accomplished women on the Supreme Court. In return, he is the target of hundreds of millions of dollars from right-wing sources.  I am proud to lend my voice – and support – to those who defend him. Priorities USA Action is doing a great job of protecting the values I believe in. I am happy to help them and I hope others will join me.”  This was Freeman’s statement when he joined the million dollar club, giving one of Obama’s pacs $1 million

Singer Alicia Keys: “President Obama cares about the issues we care about. That’s something I know deep in my core and I think we all relate to. You see him speak, whether it’s on TV or if you get a chance to see him in person, you know that there’s a really genuine spirit that comes from him, it’s a really human spirit. That’s the spirit of a person that I’d like to see run the country – someone that’s human. Thank you! Give me someone human!”

Talk show host Jerry Springer: “I was honored to meet with President Obama today and felt the meeting was substantive.  He’s so competent and so smart, I just don’t see why we wouldn’t want him for four more years as president.”

Bill Maher tweet (about the Colorado shooting): Rt wingers luv to tout American Exceptionalism – today is a reminder that so many of the things that make us exceptional these days are bad

Michael Moore tweet: 9:30 am today from American Rifleman, the official journal of the NRA RT @NRA_Rifleman Good morning, shooters. Happy Friday! Weekend plans?

Cher tweet: OBAMA! 2day He talked bout his Great Sadness off top oh his head! Romney needed 2 READ Cards 2 tell how SAD he was

Liberals from the past:

Senator Barack Obama in 2009: ”He has spent the last few weeks of the campaign calling me every name in the book. Every name, everything but a child of God, because that’s how you play the game in Washington. When you can’t win on your own ideas, you try to make up ideas about the other person.”    So he said about probably one of the most honorable and respectful candidates in presidential history.

President Obama:  “One of the things that’s been striking about this Jobs Council is how focused and how hard-working everybody has been around this table. This has not been a show council. This has been a work council.”  And, although Obama thinks about us all the time and about jobs all the time, it’s been 6 months since he met with this council.

Barack Obama, 2010: “A solar panel company, a solar power company called Amonix received approximately a $6 million tax credit for new facilities they’re building in the Las Vegas area, a tax credit they were able to match with approximately $12 million in private capital.  That’s happening right now.  And that’s just one of over 180 projects that received tax credits in over 40 states.”

Liberal civility:

Actress Ellen Barkin tweet: Gotta go to bed.Work in morning.I love everybody…except u right wing f___ morons.X
[she did not censor herself; I did]

President Obama: “That’s the difference between myself and my opponent: As long as I’m commander in chief we’re going to make sure that our veterans are properly cared for.”
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi: “What I would like to see is reduce the roll of money in campaigns, increase the level of civility – I promise you, we will elect more women to office.”

Bill Maher tweet: I c the Tea People who drifted back to the attic to have sex with their half sisters after winning 2010 r back calling Obama foreign – jeez

Bill Burton, head of Priorities USA Action, and Obama Super PAC: “People are starting to see that [Romney‘s] business record was about screwing middle-class Americans so that he and his partners could make millions of dollars.”

Jon Lovitz makes fun of the President and gets a lot of vicious tweets.  Do not criticize Barry.
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The left attacks and criticizes Ann Romney for saying, “You people.”  However she did not say that.  Obama did.  But, it does not matter who actually says what.  Some example tweets:

obamadailywire @obamadailywire tweet: I don’t know whose more dislike in America right now Michele Bachmann or Ann Romney #YouPeople

Lydia @Chula615 tweet: #youpeople stop talking about @AnnRomney she has a lot to handle right now like, butlers, maids, hair appointments, fund raisers, horses??

David Schlesinger @stone mirror tweet: Reportedly, Ann Romney doesn’t think too much of #YouPeople – you know, the ones without two Cadillacs and a Swiss bank account.

Muslims:

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, regarding the deaths of Israelis in a terror bombing in Bulgaria: “The bitter enemies of the Iranian people and the Islamic Revolution have recruited most of their forces in order to harm us.  They have indeed succeeded in inflicting blows upon us more than once, but have been rewarded with a far stronger response.  The enemy believes it can achieve its aims in a long, persistent struggle against the Iranian people, but in the end it will not. We are working to ensure that.”

President Obama, on Ramadan: “This year, Ramadan holds special meaning for those citizens in the Middle East and North Africa who are courageously achieving democracy and self-determination and for those who are still struggling to achieve their universal rights. The United States continues to stand with those who seek the chance to decide their own destiny, to live free from fear and violence, and to practice their faith freely.”  This new movement toward democracy has been marked by all kinds of violence against non-Muslim religions.

Moderates/Affiliation Unknown:

Venture capitalist Paul Holland from 2009 (Holland had given the maximum legal contribution to Obama and his companies received over 6 million in government dollars: “He came in to do his talk and opened his talk with, `I’m Matt Rogers I am the Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy and I have $134 billion that I have to disperse between now and the end of December.’  So upon hearing that I sent an email to my partners that said Matt Rogers is about to get treated like a hooker dropped into a prison exercise yard.”

Mark Knoller tweet: Pres Obama said “the other side” blames him for the economy – but said their policy proposals don’t have “persuasive power.”

Donnie Box, star of anti-Romney ad: “I could really care less about Obama.  I think Obama is a jerk, a pantywaist, a lightweight, a blowhard. He hasn’t done a __damn thing that he said he would do. When he had a Democratic Senate and Democratic Congress, he didn’t do a damn thing. He doesn’t have the guts to say what’s on his mind.”

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Jon Lovitz tweet: @SWilli03 I don’t hate the President. I hate blatant pandering and lying, from anybody.

Jon Lovitz tweet: @tyme11 I couldn’t agree with you more! My parents and teachers and other actors helped me… Not the government!!!!

Jon Lovitz tweet: @buvox The lower the capital gains tax, the more tax revenue is created for the government.

Jon Lovitz tweet: If the government helped me build my career & 99% of the country is hurting, why aren’t they blaming the government for not helping them?

24-year-old James Holmes, who had dyed his hair like The Joker, to the police: “I’m the joker.”

Crossfire:

Representative Paul Ryan: “…Remember, these tax policies have been in place for a decade, Charlie, so they’re really not tax cuts. We’re just talking about keeping taxes where they are. A year and a half ago, the President said, the last thing you want to do in a soft economy is raise taxes. We agree. The economy is worse now than it was then. So, we’re going to, next week, pass an extension of the tax code for another year, and we’ve already passed two bills dealing with the sequester, all of which are sitting over in the Senate, which hasn’t done anything for three years – no budget for three years; no sequester mitigation plan for three years.”

The CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell: “Congressman, you’re calling them tax policies and tax code. You’re afraid to call them tax cuts—“

Ryan: “—They’re not tax cuts, Norah, because they’ve been the current tax policy for ten years—“

O’Donnell: “(laughs) Oh, Congressman, come on! Come on, Congressman—“  [Good argument, by the way]

Ryan: “No — so here — no, no. Honestly, Norah, keeping taxes where they are is not cutting taxes. Preventing a tax increase is preventing a tax increase. It’s not actually cutting taxes. So, we’re saying, don’t raise taxes, especially in this soft economy. And, more importantly, Norah, eight out of ten businesses in America pay their taxes on the individual side of the code.”

Only the liberal mind thinks that not raising taxes is equivalent to an Obama tax cut.
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George Stephanopoulos: “I’m going to go to Brian Ross. You’ve been investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You found something that might be significant.”

ABC Reporter Brian Ross: “There’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo., page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the tea party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes. But it’s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo.”

Stephanopoulos: “OK, we’ll keep looking at that. Brian Ross thanks very much.”

What Stephanopoulos should have said (if, for instance, Aaron Sorokin were rewriting the news): “Are you flipping kidding me, Brian?  We are on national television right now.  Are you simply going to suggest that someone with the same common name who lives in the same city might be the same guy?  Do you have any idea how stupid you must sound to the average discerning viewer right now?”

Colorado Tea Party Patriots member Jim Holmes: “What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?  Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?”  He had to disconnect his phone because of all the threatening calls that he was receiving.

Far left Gawker: “When there’s breaking news, especially about terrorism and national security, ABC News’ Brian Ross is there. And under no circumstances should you listen to anything he says. His latest breathtakingly reckless report: Some Tea Party guy on the internet has the same name as the Dark Knight Rises shooter, so, you know, they have the same name. So there you go. Tea Party…OK then! There’s some guy on the internet with the same name. That is literally all Ross had-no other connection, not one reason to even remotely suspect that it’s the same Holmes. Just that there is a guy with that name, on the internet.”

John Hayward, of Human Events, tweet: The guy Brian Ross incorrectly fingered as the Colorado killer had to shut his phone off because of all the threats he’s receiving.

Colorado Tea Party Patriots released this statement: “The Colorado Tea Party Patriots and the Tea Party Patriots are saddened to hear of the death and wounding of theater goers in Aurora, Colorado. The member of the Colorado Tea Party Patriots, Jim Holmes, age 52 is not the same person who has been identified as the shooter.  The attempts of some media organizations to characterize the shooter as a Tea Party member without having made any effort to contact our organization are shameless and reprehensible.”

Brian Ross via twitter: Earlier I reported incorrectly that the shooting suspect might be tied to the Tea Party. I apologize for the mistake

Compare a network broadcast of maybe 5 million+ viewers to a twitter account.
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John Kosich of WEWS-ABC of Romney: “If his name was on SEC filings yet he says he was not in charge, does that elevate to a felony? Should the Justice Department be looking at this?”

President Obama:  “I think that the issue here is simply for Mr. Romney to talk about his business background in a way that jives with the facts.”

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Sonya @SWilli03 19 Jul 12 tweet: @realjonlovitz You are a poor excuse for FUNNY! Just be happy that you have a career and $! Ppl are suffering out here! You are Sickening!

Jon Lovitz tweet: @SWilli03 Why are are you mad at me? I voted for Obama. I opened a business and created jobs 3 years ago. I didn’t create the bad Economy.
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Ben Labolt: “Mitt Romney is campaigning against the American people when he wants to repeal the affordable care act. By a 10- to 15-point margin, the American people disagree with him-and he’s proposed no alternative. He says he’s campaigning on replace-“

Russert: “There’s a lot of polls that show that the American people are not in favor of the affordable care act, especially amongst independent voters.”

Labolt: “They’re certainly not in favor of repeal and they believe that this is a settled debate, if you look at the polling, and they support the individual provisions within it. Mitt Romney has made the central premise of his candidacy with his record at Bain.”

The Washington Free Beacon on recent polls.
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Senator Chuck Schumer to fed chairman Ben Bernanke, after spending 4 minutes bashing Republicans for their intransigence: “I think you have done a superb job…Get to work Mr. Chairman.”  30 jobs bills from the House have not even been put up for a vote in the Senate.

Neil Cavuto, interpreting what Bernanke was thinking while Schumer is talking, “I can’t believe what an ass you are, by the smile on his face.”
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Sean Hannity: “What do you say to Spike Lee, who didn’t know the facts of the case? What do you say to Al Sharpton and those who rushed to judgement? What do you think their motives were?”

George Zimmerman: “I can’t guess as to what their motives are. I would just ask for an apology. I mean if I did something that was wrong I would apologize.”
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President Obama, at the end of his speech today, referring to the victims of the Colorado shooting: “May the Lord bring them comfort and healing in hard days to come.”

Center for Secular Humanism director Tom Flynn: “I think it’s a little unfortunate, even in a situation like this, [when] he leads a public prayer to a deity that it pretty recognizably the Christian God, much as you can understand the emotional context of it, he’s still sending to some degree a message of exclusion to other religions who don’t call their god “Lord” and to non-religious Americans.  By the very act of praying, that’s a message of exclusion.  If I’m a public official, I think I’m going to look around in the morning and conclude that, `hey, this religion thing is just too hot to handle, I should stay away from it in my official capacity.'”
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Fox Business News’ Charles Gasperino regarding the concept of year-round school: “I think one of the probes is these kids aren’t working [in the summer].  They sit around, drink beer, smoke pot and eat.”

Dagen McDowell, FoxNews commentator: “We’re talking about 3rd graders, Charlie.”
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George Lopez: “And while we’re at it Sheriff Joe in Arizona – f-k you you f-king puto. How about that? F-k you. You fat mother f-ker. F-k you. I said I was going to talk some s-t. F-k you Sheriff Joe you f-king puto. F-k you. F-k you.”  Yes, this was from last week.

This week, Joe Arpaio responded: “Come say it to my face.”
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Why I watch FoxNews:

Barack Obama: If you have been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so then all the companies could make money off the internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Bret Baier: Charles, let’s start with that last statement.

Charles Krauthammer: Spoken by a man who never created or ran so much as a candy store. And it’s completely a straw man argument, as if conservatives and the Republicans are arguing to disband the fire department and the police department so we can all do it individually on our own. The idea that infrastructure is necessary and good is as old as the republic. It’s older than that. The Romans had the Via Appia. It wasn’t exactly a new idea. And they had the sewers as well.

The question is, what do you do with the money once you build the infrastructure? You heard Obama talk about the moon shot. This is not on that clip but in that speech. He went through a list of the great achievements that the government has done, the moon shot. Obama shut down the moon program, manned space program so that today we have to outsource our access to space for any American astronaut who wants to go to the space station we have to pay Russian dollars $15 million a shot. He spoke about the invention of the Internet, which he neglected to say was the work of Al Gore. In fact, it wasn’t the government that invented it in general, it was the defense department, a part of the government. And what has Obama done as he sprinkled billions of dollars on all the other departments in government? He shrunk the Defense Department and it’s now looking at draconian cuts.

This is a man that spent $1 trillion and left not a residue. He could have for example done something about the electric grid. He did nothing on that. Instead he sprinkled the money on cronies, pie in the sky ideological fetishes, like solar panels and electric cars, which is the future but it ain’t here and it won’t happen now. Money wasted, water on the sand. He did not leave behind residue on all that, but he speaks of about infrastructure. All of us want infrastructure, but real infrastructure, and leave the rest of life to the private individual and the entrepreneur.

Baier: You’re fired up about this one.

Krauthammer: Occasionally, occasionally Obama gets me somewhat revved. He did it on the weekend again. I now have the rest of the week to recover.

Baier: A.B., what about this —

A.B. Stoddard: I’ll yield the gentlemen the balance of my time.

(LAUGHTER)

Krauthammer: I have a lot more to say.

Stoddard: I know you do.

I think people were probably with him on the great teacher and on the bridges and the roads. But to say you build a business, you didn’t build it, whatever it is, you can’t take credit for it, you didn’t make it successful is a mistake. It’s making of an ad. You could combine it with the private sector doing fine. It’s a very, it’s a big political error to say that.

But it probably is a good setup for Mitt Romney to make the case that this is the defining argument that president Obama truly believed that without government there really won’t be a private sector, there won’t be an economic recovery without a leg up and an arm up for everybody along the way.

Baier: Jonah?

Jonah Goldberg: I’m largely with Charles on this one. There are so many fallacies crammed into this it’s like a rhetorical clown car. It’s simultaneously incredibly banal and absolutely outrageous. The banal part is, as Charles said, everybody believes in infrastructure and roads.

The outrageous part is — and this is consistent with things that Obama said in the past. He has a social justice division of the economy. He believes that government is the other word for all the things we do together, which is ludicrous. He said if one person has a problem we all have a problem, which is crazy. You should come to my house and fix my screen door. But it is vision that he has about the role of government that government subsumes and gets into everything. That is why the life with Julia website from a few months ago was so creepy. It is a fairly holistic view that government needs to be involved in everything and no man’s accomplishment is on its own.

Acts of random journalism:

CBS’s Scott Pelley: “This is the worst economic recovery America has ever had”

Conservatives:

Mark Steyn subbing for Rush Limbaugh: “The definition of a ‘nano-second, is the time between a mass shooting and some guy from the left blaming it on talk radio, or Sarah Palin, or Fox News.’ ”

George Will: “The killer in Aurora, Colorado, was very intelligent and farsighted and meticulous. I defy you to write a gun control law that would prevent someone like this with a long time horizon and great planning capability from getting the arms he wants. I just think this is a mistake.”

Georgia Congressman Tom Price (R): “The media especially on the left tries to take advantage of every single activity, positive or negative. And it’s destructive. It’s destructive to the discussion we have from a political standpoint. It’s destructive to the body politic. It’s destructive to the country. The motives for those individuals escapes me, but I do know the American people are smarter than that. They understand that people like the person who was responsible for this are deranged, and it has nothing to do with their politics.”

Mark Levin: “Most of us when something as tragic as what happened in Aurora this morning takes place, our hearts go out to the dead, to the families, to those who are injured. We want to know who they are, we want to know who did this, we want to know why it was done and so forth. Some of us say a prayer.  What most of us don’t do is search for political scapegoats. And the scapegoat seems to always be the same – us.  Somehow those of us who are law-abiding, who preach the value of the individual, who oppose things like abortion and defend the greatest healthcare system in the world because we embrace a culture of life, somehow we’re to blame. It doesn’t matter if the murderer is mentally ill as in the Tucson case, if he’s disgruntled about something including himself or whatever. They look for reasons to find out if he has any connections to us.  So the media go hunting for reasons to make disgusting allegations. It’s cold-blooded, there’s no compassion, they’re looking to make news, they’re looking to drive ratings. This is just bizarre, and it’s time to call them out on it…When you have rogue, politically-motivated reporters like Brian Ross and George Stephanopoulos – and somehow Stephanopoulos is getting a pass – both of ABC News trying to turn this into yet another disgusting attack on the Tea Party, trying to draw connections between the killer and the Tea Party, it doesn’t get any lower than that. Boy these people hate us, don’t they? I mean, they really hate us.”

Ben Stein on our economic future: “I think what we an look forward to is an extremely difficult patch for the economy.  I’m extremely worried about it.  Congress doesn’t know what they’re doing, Mr. Bernanke’s tools are extremely limited; Mr. Obama doesn’t really care a lot about it; and I’m extremely worried.”

Rich Lowry on the support of youth for Obama: “Rarely has a politician owed so much to a constituency he has served so poorly.”

John Sununu: “[Obama] has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, and when he came to the U.S. worked as a community organizer – which is a socialized structure – and then got into politics in Chicago. There has been no experience in his life in which he’s earned a private-sector paycheck that meant anything.”

John Sununu: “It’s amazing to me that this president would introduce the word felon into the discourse. This is a president who wallowed in Chicago in the murky soup of politics and felons, a region where the politicians quite often end up as felons in jail. This is a president who cut a very snarky real estate deal with Tony Rezko, who is now in prison for trying to extort some money on a political basis. Why would the president want to give people an opportunity to raise his wallowing with felons in the past by raising that question?”

Several remarks regarding President Obama, who said, “You didn’t build that on your own; government helped a lot.” (Paraphrasing his words)

FoxNews Business guy, Charles Gasparino: “President Obama was saying that the way out of this is government.  If you believe that, then you vote for this president and if you don’t, we hope that Mitt Romney makes the opposite argument.  I think that the president did a great thing here.  He drew the ideological lines very starkly and now, you the American people have a choice.”

Charles Gasparino: “Nobody here—not even the TEA party—is outraged about police and firemen.  What they are outraged about is the massive encroachment of government in our lives and the fact that the solutions to our economic problems from this administration and often Republicans involved taxpayer money and government and not the private sector.  The president did us a great favor by saying, ‘If you want that, then vote for me.’ ”

Jonah Goldberg, on Obama explaining how business owners did not build their business on their own: “There are so many ideological fallacies there, it’s like a rhetorical clown car.”

IBD’s Andrew Malcolm: “How embarrassing this must be for President Obama, whose major speech theme so far this campaign season has been that every single American, no matter how rich, should pay their “fair share” of taxes…A new report just out from the Internal Revenue Service reveals that 36 of President Obama‘s executive office staff owe the country $833,970 in back taxes. These people working for Mr. Fair Share apparently haven’t paid any share, let alone their fair share.”

Mitt Romney, regarding the President view “if you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”: “It wasn’t a gaffe. It was instead his ideology.”

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul: “President Obama has based his entire reelection campaign on a vicious, dishonest assault on Mitt Romney‘s business career.  The real question for President Obama is this: if Bain Capital is so bad, why have you taken nearly $120,000 in donations from them? President Obama‘s actions are the height of hypocrisy.”

Romney advisor speaking of Obama: “I mean, this is a guy who admitted to cocaine use, had a sweetheart deal with his house in Chicago, and was associated and worked with Rod Blagojevich to get Valerie Jarrett appointed to the Senate.  The bottom line is there’ll be counterattacks.”

Paula Priesse posting: July 19th – Jobless claims up “unexpectedly” last week. Asked why O’s “Jobs Council” hasn’t met in 6 months, WH Press Secretary Jay Carney responded that President Obama has ” a lot on his plate.” I’ll say. In this same period O attended 106 fundraisers & played golf 10 times. O’s broken economic promises: 1) Unemployment w/stimulus to be now at 5.6% (today 8.2%) 2) Deficit to be cut in half (deficit 5 TIMES higher than projected) 3) Will build a strong middle class (avg. household income has dropped $4300) & 4) Will lift Americans out of poverty (14.3 million more on food stamps). So although O refuses to give business owners their due, let’s give O full credit for the economy. HE BUILT IT! HE MADE IT HAPPEN! P

Paula Priesse posting: July 18th – A new Obama campaign ad asks: “What is Mitt Romney hiding?” Mitt will get back to you as soon as O releases (for starters): 1) his college transcripts 2) his IL Senate papers 3) his medical records & 4) “Fast & Furious” documents now sealed by executive privilege. O’s folks (and the media) sure are obsessed with Bain Capital. Good thing their guy is so clean. Well, except for that drug use thing. And those Ayers, Dohrn & Wright connections. And that sweetheart Rezko land deal. And contacting Blago about a Valerie Jarrett Senate appointment. And the billions in green tech “stimulus” dollars awarded to O campaign contributors. Yep, the President is as clean as a whistle! Must be, just ask the media. P

Paula Priesse posting: July 17th – In his RCP article titled “Barack Obama Fails The Young” Rich Lowry writes, “Rarely has a politician owed so much to a constituency he has served so poorly.” Good news Rich, O’s support with young voters is fading fast! Smart kids are deciding that gay marriage isn’t worth being jobless. Or a bankrupt future. As for the majority of young folks who still support O? Victims of schools and a popular culture spoon-feeding them PC pabulum their whole lives. Thus sadly incapable of independent thought. Poor whippersnappers, still waiting for the hip dude to give them “Hope & Change.” Sorry, but it ain’t happening. Time to get angry & smell the Starbucks! Ignorant & unemployed is no way to go through life. P

Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton: “This is obviously a very dangerous period for Israel with the civil war in Syria, refugees reported going across the border into Lebanon, and Hezbollah well armed with rockets on Israel’s northern border.  So I think if there were ever a time to retaliate, and directly against Iran this time, this is it.”

Kukis: “I’m smart and I work hard and there’s a road in front of my house.  So where’s my business?”

Marco Rubio tweet: Listening to @BarackObama wage #classwarfare in #Jacksonville #Florida.Parts of it sound like speech by left-wing 3rd world leader.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry: “In labeling the Texas voter ID law as a `poll tax,’ Eric Holder purposefully used language designed to inflame passions and incite racial tension.”

From Rush Limbaugh’s Pearls of Wisdom:

Rush: “The Democrat Party, Obama, need a permanent underclass. They need a growing, permanent underclass that is in total dependence upon them. That’s why they are so radically opposed to upward mobility.”

Rush: “No matter what Romney says or does in a press availability, the questions are always gonna be taken back and tried to be linked or tied to the Obama agenda and Obama’s talking points. It’s journalistic malpractice. It is blatant incompetence.”

Rush: “By the way, you know this was a good speech done by Romney ’cause you haven’t seen anything about it anywhere, have you? The Drive-Bys aren’t covering this. It’s not anywhere to be found in the State-Controlled Media.”

Rush: “Elizabeth Warren is back doubling down on this whole notion that if you got a road in front of your business, that road and the people that built it are the reason you succeeded. You have nothing to do with it. She’s back; they’re doubling down on it.”

Rush: “I hope Romney is keeping track of who on our side is caving to Obama‘s demands. I hope he understands it’s the Tea Party sticking by him and not the establishment Republicans. I hope Romney understands that, as the Tea Party and the conservative base supports him on this tax return issue, it’s the Republican establishment and their associated media allies which are trying to acquiesce to demands from the Obama campaign.”

Rush: “I think that’s all Obama thinks happens in an economy: You build roads and bridges. He seems to talk about this all the time.”

Rush: “This [economy] is what real people are living, what real people are talking about. And what real people are starting to understand is Obama doesn’t care about them. And even if he did, they’re starting to realize there’s nothing he could do about it ’cause he doesn’t know how and he doesn’t really care.”

Rush: “There is a new Mitt Romney. Now, we need more than two days out of this. This needs to be the real new Mitt Romney for the rest of the campaign.”

Rush: “I can’t intellectually understand why anybody would hate this country. The freedom, the opportunity… The freedom is such a big deal. That’s why the rest of the world still wants to get here.”

Snarky comments from Weasel Zippers:

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: Limbaugh “Racist” For Pointing Out How Obama Admitted To Smoking Weed And Snorting Cocaine.
[Link has video of O’Donnell and Rush]
Does this mean Obama‘s white half is racist against his black half because he wrote about it in his own book?

Obama Campaign: Rush Limbaugh Said Something Mean About Obama . . . Now Give Us $3.

Cry babies.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg: It’s “Nonsensical” To Think Someone With A Gun Of Their Own Could Have Stopped Colorado Movie Shooter.
Crazy talk.

Pelosi: Obamacare Is An “Act of Fiscal Stability”.
Reality begs to differ.

Romney Surrogate John Sununu: Obama “Was Smoking Something In Hawaii” And Working As A Community Organizer Instead Of Understanding How America Works.
We got a fever, and the only prescription, is more Sununu.

Report: Obama Sent His National Security Adviser To Israel To Stop Them From Attacking Iran.
Whose side are we on again?