The Mittiot Cometh

Nov, 1st 2012

There really has never been a candidate like this. For anyone to say that they know what he truly believes is sheer lunacy. Chait is right:

"The different iterations of his career differ so wildly, yet comport so perfectly with his political ambitions of the moment, that it is simply impossible to separate his panders from his actual beliefs, the means from the ends."

The following video drives home the point in a fashion that would be hilarious were the stakes not so damn high. 

Via

Mitt Watch: Ugly Deals And Not So Blind Trusts

Sept 25th, 2012

While everyone is debating either the fairness of the rate or the bizarre and hypocritical over-payment revealed in the release of Mitt Romney's 2011 tax returns, there are some darker and more complicated issues raised.

After reminding us that it was Romney himself who stated years ago "you can always tell a blind trust what it can and cannot do," FT reports that his investments in Chinese energy concern Cnooc, a group with direct dealings in Tehran and a history of human rights abuses, seem to have been made and sold with suspiciously convenient timing regarding his political ambitions.

The short version: his "blind trust" invested in Cnooc after their practices were raising eyebrows and under investigation here in the U.S. but divested late in the Summer of 2011 just before candidate Romney made talking tough on China one of his campaign's talking points. More on this HERE. 

The next time we hear anyone from Team Romney refer to the "morality of capitalism," it's worth asking them just what the hell they think they're talking about.

Mitt Watch - Puncturing The Myth Of Bain

Aug 29th, 2012

Team Romney has consistently told a tale of rugged, independent capitalist dynamism when describing the GOP nominee's record at Bain. 

He is credited with nearly singlehandedly saving it from collapse. 

This a a huge part of their argument for a corporate presidency.

Is it true? 

Not by a long shot writes Tom Dickinson:

"The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds."

He didn't build this.

Mitt Watch - What If He IS A Sociopath?

July 10th, 2012
by F. Grey Parker

It's time for us all to start admitting that the alarmists may be right. Mitt Romney may actually be a high-functioning sociopath.

I no longer think it's some of sort of exaggeration.

I am not being willfully hyperbolic. 

I mean it.

Mitt Watch: What His Ease With Lying Says About Him

June 14th, 2012

Thom Hartmann agrees that it's a symptom of a pathology.

Mitt Watch - A Staggeringly Ugly Reveal

May 26th, 2012

Image via

Websters defines the word game as an "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement."

Games are fun.

They are also frivolous.

This matters.

In an interview with one of his fawning water-carriers, the WSJ's Peggy Noonan, the GOP nominee for the most powerful position in the history of world said the following a few days ago:

"I think the game is like a sport for old guys. I mean, you know, I can’t compete in competitive sports very well, but I can compete in politics."

This should end Mitt Romney right here.

The shocking elitism in his statement is only matched by its craven stupidity. It's bad enough to consider his even thinking this way. But, to have so little regard for the people that he would say it aloud is unlike anything I have witnessed in the last quarter century.

Politics, by his own proclamation, is simply his latest hobby. While wife Ann spends part of their fortune on her "dressage," Romney has set out to saddle the people with a more hopeless future for his own gratification and that of his monied friends.

After all, it's just a "game."

We are the pawns and pieces. We are the poker chips. He likes a good bluff so why not truck with "birthers" and "tenthers" and propagandists? Anything to win.

After all, it's just a "game."

This serves to explain Romney's staggering mendacity. Why bother to tell the truth?

It's just a "game."

Wild proclamations that Russia is our "number one enemy" don't really mean anything.

It's just a "game."

Promising the last administration's neo-cons that he will give them their third war in the Middle East is of no consequence.

It's just a "game."

A worldview in which leadership of the United States is just a shiny prize during times this turbulent and potentially transformative should preclude eligibility for any office, much less Commander in Chief.

To doubt that a Romney presidency would be a disaster of previously un-imagined proportions is increasingly naive.

Mitt Watch - Shake, Shake, Shake - Why The Etch-A-Sketch Gaffe Should End Him

March 23rd, 2012
by F. Grey Parker

Image via

Up until a couple of days ago, it had become somewhat superfluous to discuss the fact that Mitt Romney has no real positions on any issues.

This is not to say he doesn't believe in certain things.

I will concede the possibility that he might.

All this said, it is now obvious that there is something in his programming which precludes the courage of whatever convictions he might actually hold.

So used to Romney's 180 degree shifts had we become that we were beginning to dismiss the deadly seriousness his lack of character presents.

Enter the Etch-A Sketch moment. In an interview with CNN, Romney's closest campaign adviser and confidante, Eric Fehrnstrom, had this exchange with John Fugelsang:

Fugelang: Is there a concern that the pressure from Santorum and Gingrich might force the Governer to tack so far to the rigft that it might hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?

Fehrnstrom: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch-a-Sketch – you can kind of shake it up, and we start all over again. But I will say, if you look at the exit polling data in Illinois, you’ll see that Mitt Romney is broadly acceptable to most of the factions in the party. You have to do that to become the major party nominee. (EMPHASES OURS)

Yes. This is as bad as it seems.

Already, this inadvertent revelation of the truth is being compared to Dukakis in the tank in 1988, George H. W. Bush's apparent fascination and previous inexperience with product scanning technology in 1992, and John Kerry's notorious stunner regarding the Iraq war in 2004.

Worth A Thousand Words - Shake, Shake, Shake Edition

March 23rd, 2012

Quote Of The Day - We Were Warned Edition

Nov 5th, 2011

"The Republican Party of today is not the party of Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan that I was once a member of; it stands for nothing except the pursuit of power as an end in itself, with no concern whatsoever for what is right for the country. In a recent interview with The Economist magazine, I characterized the Republicans as the greedy, sociopathic party. I stand by that."

-- former Reagan adviser and noted economist Bruce Bartlett telling it like it is in the late Summer of 2009

Things You Can't Make Up - Limbaugh Edition

Sept 28th, 2011

Rush Limbaugh has declared himself the actual "leader of the free world." I kid you not.