Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"Stockholm syndrome," or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.

In reviewing the dislogic evident in several major newspaper editorial endorsements for Willard "Mittens" Romney, I can only surmise that editors of corporate media suffer from Stockholm Syndrome when they recommend to their readers that they should acceed to our Tea-Publican hostage taker's demands. "Just give them what they want!" Corporate media has failed its principle obligation as the "watchdogs of democracy." They are now recommending that we surrender to authoritarianism.

Ezra Klein describes this phenomenon today in Mitch McConnell, John Boehner strategy worked:

In endorsement after endorsement, the basic argument is that President Obama hasn’t been able to persuade House or Senate Republicans to work with him. If Obama is reelected, it’s a safe bet that they’ll continue to refuse to work with him. So vote Romney!

That’s not even a slight exaggeration. Take the Des Moines Register, Iowa’s largest and most influential paper. They endorsed Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Al Gore in 2000, John Kerry in 2004, and Barack Obama in 2008. But this year, they endorsed Romney.

Why? In the end, they said, it came down to a simple test. “Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate.”

* * *

The Orlando Sentinel also endorsed Obama in 2008 and Romney in 2012, and their reasoning is similar to the Register’s. “The next president is likely to be dealing with a Congress where at least one, if not both, chambers are controlled by Republicans,” they write. “It verges on magical thinking to expect Obama to get different results in the next four years.”

by David Safier

Last week a 13 page complaint was filed against Tanner Bell, who's running against Sharon Bronson for a Pima County Supervisor seat. The basic charge is similar to the complaints filed against Ally Miller by her Republican primary challengers Mike Hellon and Stuart McDaniel and by her Democratic opponent, Nancy Young Wright. The complaints against both Bell and Miller say their campaigns had too-close-for-comfort relationships with the Independent Expenditure committees running ads on their behalf since both of them used Tagline Media. You can read the complaint against Bell here.

Now it looks like things are getting a little stickier for Bell. The Tucson Sentinel's Dylan Smith has new information. Christina Cruz, who works for Tagline Media, is currently doing some work for Bell, even though Tagline insists it severed its connection with the campaign before it began doing work for the Independent Expenditure committees.

Bell said that Cruz "isn't my campaign manager, Sherry Potter is." Cruz "does some social media stuff for us, Facebook, etc.," he said.

Cruz's own social media pages — Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — indicate she works for TagLine.

Bell's most recent campaign finance statement included $500 paid directly to Cruz for consulting work.

Another Internet-related connection between Bell and TagLine is his campaign website. Weisel is listed on Internet whois records as the administrative and technical contact for votetannerbell.com. TagLine is listed as the registrant.

Internet regulations require domain registration records to be kept up to date.

"I'm not 100 percent sure about the technical stuff," Bell said. "I know we can update the site without contacting (TagLine). Beyond that, I'm unsure about those issues."

According to a Pima County Democratic Party Media Release, "If Bell is telling the truth, he may have inadvertently admitted to a criminal violation of the law."

You can read the Pima Dem's Media Release below the fold.

 

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have posted on this topic several times over the years. For example, see Post Truth Politics: Lies Are Now The Truth, from August.

Norm Ornstein, a political scientist at the American Enterprise Institute, said yesterday: “I think there’s nobody like Romney. Romney is like the Michael Phelps of presidential candidates. if you’re looking for gold medals in terms of audacious lying, and adamant refusal to turn over personal information, nobody comes close. I’m sure others would’ve liked to have done it, but the culture in the past was one where lying attracted some level of approbation and shame.”

This would require the media to call him out for his lies and to hold Romney up to public shame. This is known as "name it and shame it," a tactic used with great success during the Civil Rights Movement.

Now that we have a closed-loop alternate reality conservative media structure in this country, the efficacy of "name it and shame it" is in serious doubt. The mighty Wurlitzer of the right-wing noise machine knows no shame, and has no conscience — it will say anything to win at all costs.

Romney is their perfect candidate, the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar who will say anything to win at all costs, as I have posted about in numerous fact checks by Steve Benen and others. Romney's "closing argument" in Ohio on the auto rescue encapsulates this new era of post truth politics in which shameless lying is fast becoming the norm.

by David Safier No drama Philadelphia. That's how it was around U Penn. The storm never came.     

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The City of Tucson's lone Republican City Councilman, Steve Kozachik, has described his own party as "too extreme" and has endorsed several Democrats for office in this election cycle. Most recently, "The Koz" has endorsed Mohur Sarah Sidhwa for the House in Legislative District 9. Press release from the Mohur Sarah Sidhwa … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Greg Sargent writes at The Plum Line today:

Last week, Mitt Romney told an Ohio rally that Chrysler was considering moving all its Jeep production to China — a false claim based on a faulty interpretation of a Bloomberg article that said no such thing. It was easy to assume the Romney camp had simply made a mistake (which would not necessarily have justified running with such an incendiary claim without checking the facts first).

Now, however, there is no longer any doubt about what’s happening: The Romney campaign is deliberately misleading people with the Jeep-to-China claim, in a last-ditch effort to turn things around in Ohio, which benefitted enormously from the auto bailout Romney opposed.

The Romney campaign is running a new ad that claims:

Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.

Sam Stein and Jonathan Cohn give us the full story on why this is so misleading. I wanted to add that this reflects, again, that on the auto rescue, Romney has simply run out of answers.

The Obama campaign is not taking Romney's "big lie" GOPropaganda on the auto rescue lying down. Team Obama is up with a new ad today that calls out Romney's ad for what it is: "a lie." (The Beltway media villagers are clutching their pearls — you can't say "lie"). Calling Romney’s lie what it is: A lie:

The Obama campaign is up with a new ad in Ohio that hits back at Mitt Romney’s suggestion — made most recently in a Romney campaign ad — that Obama’s auto bailout will result in American Jeep jobs getting shipped to China. [The ad is entitled "Collapse" – video below the fold.]

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have previously posted that Rep. Jeff Flake's voting record demonstrates that he is an extremist ideologue. See Representative Jeff Flake – Voting Records – Project Vote Smart. Representing a "safe" GOP district for the past decade, this Flake has had a free pass to engage in radical nonsense. But now this extremist ideologue must face all of the voters of Arizona who are not as gullible and as easily fooled as Tea-Publicans in his old congressional district.

It turns out that this Flake is more extreme than our current "conservative" senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, who are also pretty extreme in their votes. Someone who is to the right of McCain and Kyl is far too extreme for Arizona.

Press release from the Dr. Richard Carmona for U.S. Senate campaign:

JEFF FLAKE: FAR MORE EXTREME THAN MCCAIN AND KYL,
FAR TOO EXTREME FOR ARIZONA 

Voting record on veterans, national security, seniors, law enforcement and much more show that Jeff Flake says NO to policies that Sens. Kyl and McCain support for Arizonans  

In the final days of the campaign, career politician Jeff Flake is trying to hide his radical voting record by cozying up to Senators McCain and Kyl, but a simple review of their voting records shows that Flake couldn’t be more out-of-step with Arizona’s sitting Senators, or Arizona families. In fact, on critical votes involving everything from protecting our national security, to helping the next generation of veterans attend college, to ensuring children have access to early childhood education, Flake has said NO to Arizona’s needs when McCain and Kyl acted responsibly.    

“Jeff Flake is far more extreme than John McCain and Jon Kyl, and far too extreme for Arizona,” said Carmona for Arizona Communications Director Andy Barr. “Time and again, when there is an important vote for the future of Arizona families, Jeff Flake has chosen his own extreme agenda over the needs of our state. Whether it’s voting against things like bulletproof vests for Arizona police officers or helping college students afford to stay in school, Jeff Flake puts his radical ideology before common sense.”  

JEFF FLAKE’S RADICAL VOTING RECORD VS. MCCAIN AND KYL’S