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Tea-Publicans replicate Jesse Kelly ‘Grandpa Hank’ ads
August 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I don't know why they think this is a good idea, but Tea-Publican candidates around the country are replicating the Jesse Kelly "Grandpa Hank" ads we saw here in the special election in CD 8, apparently believing that trotting out their elderly relative somehow insulates them from having to defend their votes … Read more
Obama campaign ad: ‘Facts’
August 17, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Obama campaign is up with its first Medicare-themed campaign ad, "Facts."
Transcript:
"Now Mitt Romney is attacking the President on Medicare?"
"The non-partisan AARP says Obamacare 'cracks down on Medicare fraud, waste, and abuse' and 'strengthens guaranteed benefits'."
"And the Ryan plan?"
"AARP says it would undermine … Medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors…."
"And experts say Ryan's voucher plan could raise future retirees' costs more than six thousand dollars."
"Get the facts."
Go to: http://OFA.BO/WBvfr2 (http://www.barackobama.com/medicare-facts-ad)
Video below the fold.
Repeal of the Affordable Care Act will cost current Medicare beneficiaries
August 17, 2012
Posted by AzblueMeanie:
First, a pet peeve. I do not know why our sad small town newspaper the Arizona Daily Star has a policy of not publishing the byline of the reporter responsible for the AP wire service reports it publishes in its newspaper, but neither I nor anyone else should have to waste their time searching for the original AP report to learn the name of the reporter responsible for the report. Publish the damn byline!
The Arizona Daily Star published an AP report today on A brief explanation of GOP, Dem differences on Medicare. This report is by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar from the AP. This "brief explanation" does more to mislead readers than it does to inform readers, because it leaves out relevant facts and makes inferences not supported by facts. Not a well done analysis in my opinion.
This report appears to be a summary version of another report by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar from the AP which was a well done analysis. Undoing Obama Medicare cuts may backfire on Romney – Boston.com. So why did the editors of the Star not choose this earlier report which informs, rather than misleads its readers:
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's new promise to restore the Medicare cuts made by President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law could backfire if he's elected.
The reason: Obama's cuts also extended the life of Medicare's giant trust fund. By repealing them, Romney would move the program's insolvency eight years closer, toward the end of what would be his first term in office.
Instead of running out of money in 2024, Medicare's trust fund for inpatient care would go broke in 2016 without the cuts, according to estimates by the program's own experts.
Matt Heinz Sharpening Message on Ron Barber
August 16, 2012
By Michael Bryan
It appears Heinz is sharpening his messaging as early voting is underway. Heinz just released the following mailer, which hit my box yesterday:
Nothing new here, but dropping it in mailers may push the message home with more amplitude. But the rhetorical flourish of suggesting Barber is follower (of Speaker Boehner, no less), not leader, is pretty sharp.
Even sharper is an ad posted by the Heinz camp today. The ad leads with headlines about Arizona's image problems and the voice over that "Southern Arizona has become a dumping ground for extremist Tea Party legislation" with a pic of a landfill, which cuts to a pic of Barber over that dump with the voice continuing "Ron Barber added to that pile when he voted for a Tea Party backed bill exempting the border patrol from over a century of environmental laws." Again, no new material here, but a fairly sharp elbow to throw in attempting to associate Barber with the Tea Party in a Democratic primary.
See the ad after the fold…
So, it appears that Heinz main contrast message will be based on those unpopular votes and how they demonstrate that Barber is getting rolled because of his inexperience as a legislator, and perhaps a bit too accommodating of Tea Pary wingnuttery. I'm not convinced that these two votes, no matter how obnoxious they might have been to many Dems (myself included) will be enough for Heinz to make major in-roads on Barber's support.
Primary voters in a competitive district are inherently conservative, in the sense that they want to back a horse they think can win, and will be fairly strategic and stubborn about that choice. Barber demonstrated convincingly that he could hold the seat for Dems against a determined (if flawed) challenger. It will take a lot more than a few poorly considered votes to drive a wedge between primary Dem voters and Barber, who now looks to most like a safe bet to hold the seat.
Perhaps Heinz can find a way to overcome Barber's advantages, but I'm guessing that Heinz probably missed his chance when he stepped aside for Barber in the Special, along with all the other candidates. The rest of those pols understood that if Barber decided to go for a full term, it would be nearly impossible to successfully primary him. Perhaps Heinz would be a better candidate and Member than Barber, but I doubt that Heinz will be able to sucessfully make that case. Heinz has to be too careful of alienating Dems with strong attacks on Barber to overcome the quasi-incumbency and front-runner momentum that millions of dollars worth of Special election advertising has given Barber.
Teabagger Tyler Mott caught using eliminationist rhetoric against the president
August 16, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
What is it with these teabaggers and their eliminationist rhetoric against President Barack Obama? They don't even attempt to pretend that they are not racists any longer.
The latest teabagger caught using eliminationist rhetoric against President Barack Obama is LD 9 Senate candidate, Tyler Mott. (Yeah, I know, Tyler who?)
The Tucson Weekly reports, State Senate Candidate: Off With Their Heads! Or Maybe Not. | The Range:
Arizona Senate hopeful and first-time GOP candidate Tyler Mott says he probably should have taken a deep breath before telling Facebook what was on his mind last August.
At the time, he was thinking about hanging President Obama.
After the president’s decision last year to review, and in most cases stop, deportations of illegal immigrants without prior criminal histories, Mott took to his Facebook page to call for Obama’s head, as well as the head of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
His full post read: “Who the hell does Obama think that he is? His job is to enforce the law. He doesn’t get to arbitrarily decide not to deport people who have been ordered deported. If Obama wants the job of making the law, he needs to back to running for Congress. Or if he wants the job of interpreting the Constitution, then he needs to get appointed to the Supreme Court. Obama and Napolitano should both be hung for treason!”
Stop. Where to begin. President Obama's deferred action policy is an extension of an existing immigration policy to focus ICE resources on the most dangerous criminal element. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano correctly noted that the policy is "consistent with our existing use of prosecutorial discretion." Of course, for teabaggers like Tyler Mott, they believe Latino is synomous with dangerous criminal. The mere presence of Latinos in this country — legal or otherwise – is the crime of breathing while brown for them.
Brewer to “deferred action” immigrants: I’ve got my eye on you.
August 16, 2012
by
by David Safier Jan Brewer has once again put Arizona in the forefront of immigrant haters. Young immigrants in Arizona who want to take advantage of Obama's "deferred-action" program have been put on notice that Brewer wants to make sure they get as little as possible from the program. How much effect will her executive … Read more
George Wallace in a dress defies the federal ‘guvmint’ again
August 16, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It must be an election year again. George Wallace in a dress, Governor Jan Brewer, is out waving her Neo-Confederate "states rights" flag and demonizing Latino children as she demagogues to the nativist and racist base of the modern-day Tea-Publican Party. It worked so well for the Arizona GOP in 2010, they have decided to double-down and do it again in 2012.
When Willard "Mittens" Romney talks about a campaign of "division and attack and hatred," he is projecting onto his opponents the modern-day Tea-Publican Party.
On Wednesday, the Obama administation's DREAM Act-Lite (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) policy went into effect. Thousands of young undocumented immigrants lined up Wednesday hoping for the right to work legally in America without being deported. Thousands line up for right to work legally in US – East Valley Tribune.
So naturally, George Wallace, er, Jan Brewer decided to stick her boney finger in the face of President Obama, once again, and waved her Neo-Confederate "states rights" flag by declaring that the state of Arizona will not comply with the laws of the federal "guvmint" — the ghost of George Wallace blocking the school house door defiantly telling President Kennedy, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever!" Jan Brewer orders denial of benefits to illegal immigrants Obama is allowing to stay – East Valley Tribune:
Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday told state agencies to deny benefits and even driver's licenses to those illegal immigrants the Obama administration will allow to remain in the country.
In an executive order, the governor said the "deferred action'' program for those who arrived as children does not actually grant them any legal status. And that, she said, makes those in this category ineligible for public benefits under the terms of a 2004 voter-enacted measure.
PDF: Executive Order 2012-06
Brewer also said driver's licenses will be off limits to those in the deferred action program because state law prohibits the Department of Transportation from issuing licenses "unless an applicant submits proof satisfactory to ADOT that the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under federal law.''
But that directive flies in the face of current ADOT policies which say that licenses are available to anyone with an Employment Authorization Document issued by the federal government without further documentation.
Romney’s racist dog whistle and the GOP Southern Strategy
August 16, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This week's attempt by the "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign to inject a racial connotation into Vice President Joe Biden's remarks about Romney's friends among the banksters of Wall Street is a case of psychological projection. The 'Foxification' of the 'news' with manufactured outrage of the day. I and others have written about the Romney campaign's "I'm rubber, you're glue" strategy of projecting onto his opponents his own misdeeds. A classic "Rovian" tactic.
Case in point, in recent days Romney is portraying the outwardly calm President Obama as a man seething with animosity and power lust, he "is all about division and attack and hatred" Romney said Wednesday. Obama, Romney added later while campaigning in Charlotte, is an angry man who "will do or say anything to get elected." Romney takes aim at Obama's likability lead.
For the uninitiated and unimformed media villagers, like Charles Babbington of the AP who wrote the above report, let me explain what this is to you. This is not about the tone or nastiness of the campaigns' political ads which you media villagers seem to fixate on.
The "angry black man" is a racist stereotype used to scare "white folks" in American politics dating back to the Civil Rights Movement. Stereotypes of African Americans in the United States. When Romney is using this language, he is blowing the racist dog whistle to the nativist and racist base of the modern-day Tea-Publican Party.
The "angry black man" racist dog whistle is why FAUX News Fraudcasting has spent so much time over the past four years race-baiting the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and a couple of dumbasses who call themselves the New Black Panther Party, always tying them to President Obama. It is why President Obama goes out of his way to always appear pleasant and in good humor or at worse, professorial, but never angry. He does not want the race-baiters at FAUX News to have any material to use.
If the uninitiated and uninformed media villagers are unable to recognize this or are unwilling to call out this racist dog whistle for what it is, I strongly urge you to find another line of work; you are not worthy of pretending to be a "journalist."
The long-standing GOP Southern Strategy of race-baiting is an integral party of the Romney campaign. The false attack Romney launched last week against the Obama administration on "welfare reform" is the classic politics of resentment for the poor (read minorities) personified by Ronald Reagan's mythical "Cadillac driving welfare queen" from the Southside of Chicago. This kind of race-based politics works when the media fails to "name it and shame it" with public condemnation.
