Daily Kos

Mitt Romney, asked this afternoon whether he stands by his use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama on Sean Hannity's radio show in February:

Uh, I'm actually going to to, I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was. And with regards to, uh, I'll go back and take at what was said there.

Yes, the the same Mitt Romney who earlier today said he "repudiates" the use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama ... now says he stands by his use of Jeremiah Wright to attack President Obama. Even though he doesn't know what his attack was. Or so he says.

12:32 PM PT: As several commenters have pointed out, in Mitt Romney's defense, it can be hard keeping track of what you say when you're lying all the time.

• Today's comic is Pray for Reign by Mark Fiore:
  
  
• Bad news for racists:
  

  For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing.

  New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes in the nation's racial makeup and the prolonged impact of a weak economy, which is now resulting in fewer Hispanics entering the U.S.

  "This is an important landmark," said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. "This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders."

• Bibi Netanyahu would like everyone to know that no, he is not BFF with Mitt Romney:
  

  We did not know each other that well. He was the whiz kid. I was just in the back of the room.” Netanyahu tells Stengel he has seen Romney only a handful of times over the years and only once this year. They spoke for 10 minutes in March during his visit to Washington, mainly about Iran.

• Republican food fight in Nebraska:
  

  Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) thinks Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) did more harm than good by investing seven figures in a conservative candidate who finished a distant third in the Nebraska GOP Senate primary.

  In an interview on Wednesday, Johanns had a blunt assessment of the race in which DeMint picked Don Stenberg and plunged $1.4 million from the Senate Conservatives Fund into the race, saying it was a “poor choice” by DeMint to get involved. [...]

  Asked about DeMint’s efforts, Johanns said: “The question I’d get asked as I get around the state: ‘Who is this guy and why he is spending this money to elect people in our state?’ … I just think it was a poor choice of strategy. I don’t think they understood the state. People hate that kind of stuff in our state, and so they recoiled, they looked for an alternative.”

• From the New York state senate, this is just plain awesome:
  

  WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to honor and pay tribute to those individuals whose commitment and creative talents have contributed to the entertainment and cultural enrichment of their community and the entire State of New York; and

  WHEREAS, Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, the rapper, musician, activist, film director and founder of the pioneering New York hip-hop group the  Beastie  Boys, died on Friday, May 4, 2012, in Manhattan at age 47; [...]

  WHEREAS, The music and message of the Beastie Boys evolved over the years, but they can't, they don't, they won't stop changing the face of hip-hop, of music, and of our culture; [...]

  RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to mourn the death of famed rapper and activist Adam "MCA" Yauch; and be it further RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted to the family of Adam Yauch.

• Apparently, the Washington Post is venturing into snarky headlines:
  

  Is Sarah Palin underrated?

  No. (This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.)
• What a charmer:
  

  A Kansas middle school teacher has ignited a firestorm in the small rural Kansas community of Buhler after posting an anti-gay rant on Facebook in which he said same-sex marriage is akin to “murder, lying, stealing, or cheating.”

• This is real.
• Ben Stein says President Obama's no Richard Nixon. Which I guess is supposed to be an insult?
  

  “I would say he’s a smart man,” Stein backtracked. “I mean, he’s not in the same league of presidential genius as Nixon, for example, but he’s smarter than the average bear, as they say.”

• Condolences:
  

  Donna Summer -- the Queen of Disco -- died this morning after a battle with cancer, TMZ has learned.

  We're told Summer was in Florida at the time of her death. She was 63 years old.

Responding to a local reporter's question, Mitt Romney said Thursday that he doesn't oppose Florida Gov. Rick Scott's attempts to drug test state workers:

"The states have rights under their constitution to do what they think is best," Romney said. "The governor here is trying an idea, and I'm not going to disagree with Governor Scott. The idea of people being tested is something, which, we'll see what the results are."

Apparently, it makes no never mind to him what the courts have to say about this. They say it's unconstitutional.

Back in February, the all-but-crowned GOP presidential nominee wasn't so weasel-wordy about the drug testing of another group of Floridians, welfare recipients, as reported by Laura Clawson:

Jeff Hullinger: [Lawmakers] have bantered about the proposition that welfare recipients should be drug tested. How do you feel about that?

Mitt Romney: Well my own view is, it’s a great idea. People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they’re not using those benefits to pay for drugs. I think it’s an excellent idea.

Of course, it's a dreadful idea, as the courts noted in that instance as well. Either Romney is unaware of this or he just figured his audience was part of that cohort which thinks courts are illegitimate when making rulings not in lockstep with the latest authoritarian intrusion.

For once, however, you have to give him credit for not changing his mind from the time he starts a paragraph until the time he gets to the end. He's been favoring drug testing for at least the past 18 years, back to 1994 when he sought to unseat Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Mitt Romney whines:

In the campaign, instead of talking about our respective ideas, what's [Obama is] doing is trying to attack me on a personal basis.

And:

Character assassination has become the nature of [Obama's] campaign.

Even if this were true, even if the only thing Obama's campaign talked about was Mitt Romney's character ... well, boo-fucking-hoo. Mitt Romney has spent a good chunk of this campaign impugning the character not just of President Obama but also that of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. And you know what? That's politics. Character does count for something in a president, and it's fair game to talk about it ... when you're telling the truth.

For example, it's fair to say that Mitt Romney has demonstrated himself to be one of the most dishonest presidential candidates in history. But there's a reason for that: it's fair because it's true—and because being a liar is bad. And it's fair to say that Mitt Romney played by a different set of rules than everyone else when he ran Bain Capital—because it's true, and because playing by a different set of rules is bad.

But the core of President Obama's case for his reelection has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. He's running on his own merits. Moving the country forward has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Continuing the economic recovery from the Great Recession has nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Killing Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Ending the war in Iraq had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Saving the auto industry had nothing to do with Mitt Romney. Hell, even Obamacare has nothing to do with Mitt Romney—although that's more a matter of Mitt's choice than anything else.

And to the extent President Obama's case does focus on Mitt Romney, it has more to do with Romney's ideas than his character. I'm not saying Romney's character—or lack thereof—doesn't matter. It does matter. A lot. But the fact that Romney would double down on the trickle-down economic policies of the Bush years matters even more.

So when Mitt Romney whines that it's hypocritical for people to criticize him for making character attacks, he doesn't understand the true nature of the criticism. People have a problem with Mitt Romney's attacks when he lies. And when he claims that President Obama doesn't love America, that's a lie.

Republican wonder boy Rep. Paul Ryan, the guy who has a detailed plan to end Medicare, says there won't be any other health plan from the Republicans this year if the Supreme Court strikes down the Affordable Care Act.

In their 2010 “Pledge to America,” Republicans vowed to “repeal and replace” Obamacare if they gained power. Though the GOP-controlled House has voted to repeal the law since taking power in January 2011, it has not yet offered replacement legislation. If the U.S. Supreme Court were to strike down the law next month, Republicans would receive increased scrutiny about their lack of a plan to replace it.

“We do feel obligated to articulate our vision for replace,” Ryan said when asked about the matter during an editorial meeting with the Washington Examiner. “Now, we’ve got nine weeks of session left. Do we want to cram through our own 2,700 page vision? No, that’s what the country hated. But do we believe in patient-centered health care and market-based medicine? A lot of us have put time and effort into this, yeah.”

Wow, I sure hope vision pays medical bills. Particularly since his budget cuts Medicaid to the bone. And nice that Ryan at least feels an obligation to sort of make a nod to a campaign promise.

Ryan's position might be news to leadership, though, because POLITICO is reporting otherwise.

House Republican leaders are quietly hatching a plan of attack as they await a historic Supreme Court ruling on President Barack Obama’s health care law.

If the law is upheld, Republicans will take to the floor to tear out its most controversial pieces, such as the individual mandate and requirements that employers provide insurance or face fines.

If the law is partially or fully overturned they’ll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions in place—like allowing adult children to remain on parents’ health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say.

Is anybody actually in control of the House?

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's 2011 statement that going after collective bargaining for public workers was the first step in his plan to divide and conquer was made to billionaire roofing and siding wholesaler Diane Hendricks, who had asked him, "Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions and become a right-to-work? What can we do to help you?" While the things Hendricks has done to help Scott Walker personally include more than $500,000 in campaign contributions, she's apparently much less interested in helping Wisconsin by paying corporate taxes.

Despite annual sales of around $5 billion, Hendricks' company, ABC Supply, paid nothing in state corporate income tax between 2005 and 2008, the most recent years for which the information was available.

Given that a company as large as ABC Supply was paying nothing in state corporate income tax well before Walker took office, it's hard to imagine what corporate taxes were left to be cut or what loopholes businesses didn't already have access to, but Walker has passed $1.6 billion in corporate tax breaks over the next 10 years.

Mitt Romney may have come off sounding like a robot, but in his most recent response to this morning's report about Joe Ricketts' plan to inject Jeremiah Wright into the 2012 campaign, he finally repudiated the Republican billionaire's plan:

I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they've described. [...] I think what we've seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination. [...] I hope that isn't the course of this campaign. So in regards to that PAC, I repudiate what they're thinking about

Sure, Romney couldn't say it without whining about perceived character attacks from Obama's campaign, but he deserves some credit for eventually getting around to taking the high road, right? Well, maybe so ... but not until he repudiates (rather than Etch A Sketches) his own words, delivered in February when he went on the Sean Hannity radio show:

I think again that the president takes his philosophical leanings in this regard, not from those who are ardent believers in various faiths but instead from those who would like America to be more secular. And I’m not sure which is worse, him listening to Reverend Wright or him saying that we must be a less than Christian nation.

Apparently there are two Mitt Romneys: the one who thinks Jeremiah Wright should be off limits ... and the other one who thinks Jeremiah Wright is fair game. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out which Mitt Romney guys like Joe Ricketts will ultimately listen to.

Oh, and by the way, President Obama never said America should be less than Christian. And if Mitt Romney really thinks the best way to learn about President Obama's views about America is to listen to what Jeremiah Wright says ... well, then he should just ask Osama bin Laden.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina's statement on this morning's report that Republican billionaire Joe Ricketts is plotting ways to inject Jeremiah Wright into the 2012 campaign:

This morning's story revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney.  The blueprint for a hate-filled, divisive campaign of character assassination speaks for itself.  It also reflects how far the party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very tactics.  Once again, Governor Romney has fallen short of the standard that John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.

Earlier this morning, Mitt Romney dodged questions about the report. His campaign subsequently released a word salad repudiating Ricketts.

8:54 AM PT: And Mitt Romney finally tries to shut down the backlash:

I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they've described.

But if it's of a slightly different nature?

Turns out it wasn't a simply a one-time delusional blurt: Mitt Romney's attempt to embrace Bill Clinton—and drive a wedge between President Obama and the Clintons—actually reflects a serious strategy by the Romney campaign.

Seeking to attract Democrats and independents who supported the last Democratic president, Romney has taken to lavishing praise at every turn on Clinton’s boom-era ’90s policies while contrasting them unfavorably with President Barack Obama’s old-school, Big Government ways.

The tactic is designed to drive a wedge between the group of Democrats who supported Obama during the epic 2008 primary battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton: the white, working-class voters who hold the key to many swing states, like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

That's a pretty dumb strategy for a guy who is leading the party that impeached Clinton, who said as recently as January that he took "any chance [he] got to vote against Bill Clinton," and who opposes Clinton's fiscal and economic policy. But Romney and his advisers actually think it will work:

A senior Romney adviser said the campaign sought to use Clinton’s name to drive a wedge between centrist and liberal Democrats in the November general election.

“It’s useful to point out what people already believe about Obama,” Romney strategist Stuart Stevens told POLITICO. [...]

Romney can make the about-face on Clinton, GOP operative Rick Wilson said, because the combination of the primary’s end and Obama’s embrace of gay marriage have coalesced for him the conservative base.

What’s left to target is the political middle and voters who remember fondly the Clinton era.

That's so stupid I hardly know where to begin. Obviously one big problem is that Bill Clinton can speak for himself, and who are voters going to believe: what Bill Clinton says Bill Clinton believes, or what Mitt Romney says Bill Clinton believes. Clinton has been enthusiastic in his support of President Obama and on the major issues, there's no daylight between them.

Not only is Mitt Romney going to be unable to drive a wedge between them, he's going to stub his toe trying. The fact that he thinks such an obviously dumb strategy could work is a reminder of Mitt Romney's weird delusional streak—and that's not something that will play well in November.

Mitt Romney didn't become the presumptive Republican nominee—a status that enables him to coordinate fundraising with the Republican National Committee—until April 23, but he nonetheless had a very strong month:

Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised $40.1 million last month and finished April with $61.4 million on hand, a GOP source confirms to POLITICO.

President Obama and the Democratic National Committee raised $43.6 million during the month. We don't know their cash-on-hand, but they entered April with just over $100 million in the bank.

May is the first month in which both Romney and Obama are able to raise money on equal footing, so the fundraising reports we'll get one month from now will be the first apples-to-apples comparison of the two campaigns.

Keep in mind that Romney's fundraising isn't just limited to his campaign and the RNC: he also has a network of Super PACs backing him—and he's allowed to help them raise funds. Between his campaign and those Super PACs, Romney is in very strong position to dominate the spending battle. Yesterday, for example, Karl Rove's Super PAC announced it would match the Obama campaign's $25 million ad campaign with a $25 million ad campaign of its own.

There are also Super PACs aligned with President Obama, but they don't have nearly as much money as the Romney groups. Priorities USA just launched an ad campaign focused on Bain, but while the $4 million it is putting behind the campaign is real money, it still falls short of not just Rove's Super PAC but also the Romney-aligned Restore Our Future, American Future Fund, and Americans For Prosperity Super PACs and independent groups.

A slick, colorful, professionally bound, 54-page proposal for a $10 million attack on President Obama for his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright is being considered by Chicago billionaire Joe Ricketts, according to Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times. The funding would be funneled through the Super PAC Ending Spending Action Fund. The proposal, which apparently is one of several being looked at, is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”

The strategists who put it together say it is designed to “do exactly what John McCain would not let us do.”

Lamenting that voters “still aren’t ready to hate this president,” the document concludes that the campaign should “explain how forces out of Obama’s control, that shaped the man, have made him completely the wrong choice as president in these days and times.”

Those forces, the Times says, center on the Rev. Wright, who was previously Obama's spiritual advisor and pastor of the Chicago church he attended. Accusations that Obama was in thrall to Wright's black liberation theology led to the famous and widely acclaimed speech on race that the candidate gave in Philadelphia in March 2008.

Ricketts is the founder of the brokerage firm TD Ameritrade and the patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs. The plan is the product of former McCain strategists who were frustrated by their candidate's unwillingness to attack Obama the way their plan proposes to do. The document includes the logo of Strategic Perception, the political  advertising firm of Fred Davis who previously worked on the Republican presidential campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman.

The proposal says, “The world is about to see Jeremiah Wright and understand his influence on Barack Obama for the first time in a big, attention-arresting way.” To get around charges of race-baiting, it suggests hiring an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can claim that Obama tricked Americans by presenting himself as a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.” Larry Elder, a black radio host in Los Angeles, has been contacted.

Should the plan proceed, it would run counter to the strategy being employed by Mitt Romney’s team, which has so far avoided such attacks. The Romney campaign has sought to focus attention on the economy, and has concluded that personal attacks on Mr. Obama, who is still well liked personally by most independent voters surveyed for polls, could backfire.

Mr. Ricketts has become an increasingly active player in Republican politics through several political action committees, including Ending Spending. He has a son, Pete, who is a member of the Republican National Committee from Nebraska and a daughter, Laura, who is a top contributor to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. She has not been involved in her father’s political efforts.

The "Ending Spending" name of the Super PAC is apparently not meant to be taken literally. Ricketts sought tens of millions in tax subsidies to publicly finance renovations in Wrigley Field in 2010.

The strategists have also registered an ironic domain name for their proposed effort: "Character Matters."

Asked about whether it would be responding to the Times report, the Romney campaign offered a tangential answer. Mitt Romney himself said he hadn't yet read the papers.

Reposted from Comics by Tom Tomorrow