Month: May 2012

I consider Fox an integral part of the GOP, so I am not surprised by this:

But it's still pretty shocking. Tammy Bruce is in the same position as Ric Grenell. She is about as far right as you can get, and often plays the gay conservative role on Fox. That's fine, as far as I'm concerned, even though she has gone Breitbart on us. I've given up on the GOP for the foreseeable future, but I'm glad some gays haven't. We need to engage both sides.

But as with Grenell, we now have a clear acknowledgment that Republicans simply will not tolerate openly gay people in any sort of leadership role – not even as an occasional fill-in for O'Reilly. Replace "gay" with Jewish or black or female and see how it sounds.

There is a legitimate area of disagreement on these issues. But discriminating against people for nothing but their sexual orientation – even if they echo every far right wing argument you could wish for – is as disgusting for Fox as it is humiliating for its gay employees. Bruce needs to clarify her tweet. Who told her this? And why hasn't she sued over it?

[Update: I should have googled some more, but Bruce is now claiming this was all a joke! She was mocking the liberal lack of humor, that's all. You'd think, if that were the case, her tweet would have been in response to an irritating lefty. But it wasn't. Here's the original tweet Bruce responded to:

That seems an unlikely context for a jibe at liberals. This is a little desperate too:

When Fox News hired me years ago the entire crew over there knew they were putting the first openly gay person as a political contributor/commentator on any television—cable or network.

Fox started in 1996. Assuming she started on Day One, I must have been on countless CNN and network shows before then as an openly gay – and openly HIV-positive – commentator. But reading Bruce's description of  Obama's decisive embrace of marriage equality as "shameless (and disgustingly insincere) pandering," you realize we're talking about someone who helped make Mike Fumento jump ship. Make of her denial what you will.]

Politifact adjudicates the debate:

The Facebook post says Mitt Romney is wrong to claim that spending under Obama has "accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history," because it's actually risen "slower than at any time in nearly 60 years."

Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention. The only significant shortcoming of the graphic is that it fails to note that some of the restraint in spending was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.

120523-Education White Paper FINAL for PDF

Romney's plan, released today, can be read above. Walter Russell Mead thinks Romney has the upper hand on education:

[T]he Democrats remain vulnerable on education. Teacher unions are unpopular, bureaucracies are unpopular, and national dissatisfaction with the educational system remains high. Democrats will find it hard to buck their status quo record, as well as their union supporters. Republicans, meanwhile, are on the popular side of the issue. Parental choice is a winner; generally in American politics the side advocating individual freedom has the high ground.

Jordan Weissmann has mixed feelings about the plan:

[Romney] does pledge to eliminate "duplicative, inefficient, or ineffective" aid programs to save administrative costs. As for Pell Grants, which help low-income students pay for school, he plans to "refocus" them "on the students that need them most and place the program on a responsible long-term path…." In other words, he'd cut the Pell budget and the number of loan programs the government runs. Would that pressure colleges into keeping down costs? Maybe. Or it might just drive students into the private loan market. It would certainly make paying for school more difficult for the neediest families, and without an explicit mechanism that punishes schools for tuition hikes, its hard to predict how college administrators would react. 

And Dana Goldstein still has questions. Among them:

How about the youngest learners? High-quality preschool is one of the most effective interventions to build children's cognitive, social, and emotional development, yet only about half of American 3 to 5-year olds are enrolled in any kind of organized program. As my colleague Maggie Severns writes at Early Ed Watch, Romney hasn't uttered a word on the trail about pre-K, childcare, or full-day kindergarten, all priorities the Obama administration has attempted to address (with mixed success) through its Race to the Top program. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney actually presided over an increase in pre-K enrollment, yet he isn't bragging about this now, probably because pre-K is expensive.

Romney rolls out his second ad of the general election in Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio: 

Jamelle Bouie is puzzled: 

It’s not clear what any of this would mean in real life. The president can’t cut budgets by fiat, so what would Romney actually do to reduce deficits on his first day? He could press Congress to implement his budget plan, but it calls for massive tax cuts that would deprive the government of revenue and make deficit reduction less likely. 

Waldman adds: 

Romney's day-one schedule is only less absurd than Gingrich's because it lacks specificity. … It's the same approach he has applied to his economic and health-care proposals: Romney has laid out a broad overarching vision without diving into the nitty-gritty of crafting policy. That blank slate has allowed Romney to make a host of general pledges without providing the details that would allow observers to weigh whether he's capable of achieving them.

The Obama campaign, on the other hand, has a new web ad touting Obama's gay rights record:

Meanwhile, a Latino Super PAC warns against Romney in Arizona, where Obama is within four points of Romney:

More on Obama's immigration advantage here. 

Previous Ad War Updates: May 23, May 22, May 21, May 18, May 17, May 16, May 15, May 14, May 10, May 9, May 8,  May 7, May 3, May 2, May 1, Apr 30, Apr 27, Apr 26, Apr 25, Apr 24, Apr 23, Apr 18, Apr 17, Apr 16, Apr 13, Apr 11, Apr 10, Apr 9, Apr 5, Apr 4, Apr 3, Apr 2, Mar 30, Mar 27, Mar 26, Mar 23, Mar 22, Mar 21, Mar 20, Mar 19, Mar 16, Mar 15, Mar 14, Mar 13, Mar 12, Mar 9, Mar 8, Mar 7, Mar 6, Mar 5, Mar 2, Mar 1, Feb 29, Feb 28, Feb 27, Feb 23, Feb 22, Feb 21, Feb 17, Feb 16, Feb 15, Feb 14, Feb 13, Feb 9, Feb 8, Feb 7, Feb 6, Feb 3, Feb 2, Feb 1, Jan 30, Jan 29, Jan 27, Jan 26, Jan 25, Jan 24, Jan 22, Jan 20, Jan 19, Jan 18, Jan 17, Jan 16 and Jan 12.

Despite the lack of spending explosion under Obama, the GOP will capitalize on deficit hysteria. Steve Kornacki explains why it will work:  

Voters have a demonstrated tendency to express concerns about deficits only when the economy is bad. This is why, for instance, the Democrats during the 1981/82 recession reaped a political windfall while railing against Ronald Reagan’s massive deficits, but gained zero traction on the issue when the economy improved in 1984 – even though deficits were even higher (and still soaring) then. The lesson is that most voters don’t actually care about the deficit itself, or really understand what it is. But it’s a scary-sounding word that conjures thoughts of government bloat and reckless spending, which makes it an irresistible weapon for a recession-era opposition party.

An activist from Avaaz fancy-dressed as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff protests against the new Forest Code in front of the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, on May 24, 2012. Avaaz delivered a petition with almost two million signatures from people from around the world to President Rousseff at the Presidential Palace. The petition, growing by 50,000 signers a day in the last two weeks, urges Rousseff to veto the Forest Code that would destroy vast tracts of the Amazon. By Evaristo SA/AFP/GettyImages.

A collection of gruesome photographs from Mexico.

Romney is trying to ignore immigration issues, but a new poll gives Obama a 34-point lead among Latinos. First Read compares Obama and Romney messaging:

Yesterday, Romney spoke to a Latino audience — the Latino Coalition Economic Summit in DC — but he didn’t say anything about immigration or even Marco Rubio’s DREAM Act. Instead, he rolled out his education plan before this audience. The Romney campaign believes it needs just one message, rooted in the economy, to speak to everyone (Latinos, women, seniors). By contrast, the Obama campaign’s message is much more targeted. (Just compare the Team Obama’s Spanish-language advertising, which individually targets Latinos, to Team Romney’s, which simply translates an English ad to Spanish.) 

Adam Serwer thinks Romney painted himself into a corner:

Romney's retreat on this issue really opens up an opportunity for the Obama administration, which is reportedly skittish about Rubio's plan. There's really no reason for Obama not to endorse it if and when it comes out. Not only will it make it impossible for Romney to take the opportunity Rubio is offering him, but there's little chance the legislation will pass because the GOP's anti-immigrant base wants to deport every single undocumented immigrant in America, making the Rubio plan a non-starter. Politically, the worst case scenario for the administration is that the proposal passes, and a group of undocumented immigrants who are American in all but name and are here through no fault of their own avoid being kicked out of the country. So it's not just politically smart—it's the right thing to do.

In Haiti:

Friedersdorf is underwhelmed by the "scoops" of Breitbart websites:

Perhaps "The Vetting" drives traffic to Breitbart.com. When it comes to giving insight into Obama's actions, or the course his second term would be likely to take, or advancing conservative insights, it's utterly pointless — it misleads more often than it clarifies, and whereas actually digging into Obama's behavior during his first term, or his donors, or the gulf between his promises and actions might produce newsworthy scoops, Breitbart.com is spending its time digging up old play posters with Obama's name on them and proving he once dressed patriotically.