2012 Presidential Election

3 pm ET! Today, on the Ed Morrissey Show (3 pm ET), Kevin McCullough joins us again to discuss the intersection of faith and politics. Kevin and I will talk about yesterday’s Super Bowl, Obama’s new diktat to Catholics and other Christian organizations on funding contraception, abortion, and sterilization, and much much more!  In the second half, Matt Read this post

A shocking YouTube video (uploaded by someone not friendly to the Tea Party) shows Memphis talk radio host Thaddeus Matthews insulting and humiliating Republican congressional candidate Charlotte Bergmann on air.

On the eve of Tuesday’s primary, Florida voters are demanding remedies to the mortgage debacle. Read more from the original source: In Florida, Politics Begins at Homes

Visit link:
In Florida, Politics Begins at Homes

Question: What do you call it when a former Democratic operative recites an e-mail from the Democratic National Committee to an adviser for a Democratic president? Answer: Good Morning America . On Tuesday, George Stephanopoulos interviewed David Plouffe and began, ” [I] got this e-mail from [the] Democratic National Committee…saying Mitt Romney's tax returns release raises more questions than it answers. ” [See video below. MP3 audio here .] Talking to Barack Obama's top political strategist, Stephanopoulos tossed this softball: “What more do voters need to know about Mitt Romney's taxes and his wealth?” Could one come up with an easier, more Democratic-friendly question? Stephanopoulos continued, “So, you think it's wrong that Mitt Romney only pays about 15 percent of his income in taxes?” Citing an earlier report indicating that Obama's favorability numbers are rising, the co-host hopefully suggested, “Back in October, the President told me he sees himself as the underdog in this race. And after all these Republican debates, primaries and caucuses, is he still the underdog?” Even an attempt at a tough question turned into a strategy session. Stephanopoulos began, “More than two-thirds think America is moving in the wrong direction. About one in five Americans is unemployed or underemployed.” But he concluded, “How does the President convince the country to stay the course?” A partial transcript of the January 24 segment can be found below: 7:04 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's get the White House reaction to all this. As the President gets set for his State of the Union address tonight, David Plouffe, White House senior adviser, top political strategist joins us now. Good morning, David. And I want to begin with those tax returns for Mitt Romney overnight. I'll get to the State of the Union in a second. But, at 6:03am, got this e-mail from Democratic National Committee, a blast e-mail, saying Mitt Romney's tax returns release raises more questions than it answers. What more do voters need to know about Mitt Romney's taxes and his wealth? DAVID PLOUFFE: Well, George, there will be 47 more Republican primaries and caucuses and those Republican voters will have their say on this specifically. I do think it raises a general point about our tax system here and one of the things the President is going to talk about in the State of the Union something that Warren Buffett famously talked about, that he should not pay less in taxes than his secretary does. The President, as you know, has talked about something called the Buffett rule. We're going to outline that specifically, what that would mean. So, that we make sure everybody in this economy is doing their fair share, which is an important part of how we're going to create jobs- STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you think it's wrong that Mitt Romney only pays about 15 percent of his income in taxes? PLOUFFE: Well, the point is, we need to change our tax system. We need to make sure that middle class workers are not paying more, in effective tax rates, than people who are making $40 million, $100 million a year. So, we have rules of the road in place right now. I'm sure Mitt Romney, you know, tried to follow them. The question is, we just need change in our tax code, so that everybody is doing their fair share. That is going to be an important part of how we grow an economy that is working for the middle class and is more durable. STEPHANOPOULOS: We just saw those favorability numbers from John Berman. Back in October, the President told me he sees himself as the underdog in this race. And after all these Republican debates, primaries and caucuses, is he still the underdog? … STEPHANOPOULOS: But, as you point out, the President will be in a tough environment. Less than half of the country approves of the job the President is doing. More than two-thirds think America is moving in the wrong direction. About one in five Americans is unemployed or underemployed. How does the President convince the country to stay the course? …

Read the rest here:
George Stephanopoulos: The DNC Just Sent Me This E-Mail; Let Me Repeat It

Last Friday saw two high-profile liberal pundits – one on Bloomberg News's Political Capital and the other on PBS's Inside Washington – repeating the story that Newt Gingrich divorced his first wife while she was being treated for cancer, without either of them noting that one of Gingrich's daughters – Jackie Gingrich Cushman -

Wikipedia is going black over SOPA . I don’t like SOPA, it’s dumber than Rusty cheering on the cheating USC Trojans. But, I do declare, Wikipedia depriving its thousands of mouth breathing leftist supporters from turning the factual into the fanciful for 24 hours is not necessarily a bad thing.

See original here:
Sorry, You’ll Have To Wait 24 Hours For Your Revisionist History

Last week the hot rumor in politics was that Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum had a tacit agreement to not attack each other and instead Read more… (http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/6763-newt-gingrich-upstaged-by-rick-santorum-mitt-romney) See the original post: Newt Gingrich To Keep Playing, But The Band Packs Up

Read the rest here:
Newt Gingrich To Keep Playing, But The Band Packs Up

It’s come to this. Via Matt Lewis. In fairness, the dog story is just one part of this lowlight reel of some of Romney’s dumber moments from the trail, but the clip’s revealing in how it shows Gingrich still relying heavily on his debate performances as a selling point. The message here, implicitly, is “Mitt could self-destruct in front Read this post

Two years after Rick Perry used the Alamo as a backdrop by signing a bill that asked voters to place limits on when the government can take land using its eminent domain authority, a similar bill passes in the Senate. ( Associated Press , Eric Gay) After two solid debate performances this weekend Rick Perry traveled to South Carolina where he likened the South Carolina primary to the Alamo. Let’s hope it has a better ending. ABC Local reported: Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday that he’s not giving up on the race for the Republican presidential nomination, comparing himself to the fighters who rode back into the Alamo knowing there would be no reinforcements coming. Related Content More: Discuss this story on our Facebook page Perry returned to South Carolina for his first campaign stop in the state after a disappointing finish in last Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses. At his first rally he addressed a crowd of about 300 at a packed Spartanburg burger joint. “We’re not quitting on America. We’re not quitting on this race,” Perry said. He said war heroes have been campaigning for him ahead of the Jan. 21 primary. “And we’re doing it as much for those young men and women who have given substantial amounts of their lives,” Perry said. “And in some cases they gave it all. That is what is going to push us through.” He told of two South Carolinians who fought at the Alamo during Texas’ fight for independence from Mexico. “That’s what this election is about,” he said. “Men and women who love America enough that they will sacrifice whatever it takes to put America on track.” Perry took shots directly at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who’s leading the GOP race. “Mitt said, `If you want to know how I’m going to perform, look at my record.’ And I have, Mitt.” A woman in the audience said, “I don’t like it.” “I’m with you, ma’am,” Perry said to chuckles. The question is whether South Carolina is with him.

View original post here:
Gov. Rick Perry Likens South Carolina Primary to Alamo

(Scott Johnson) Tomorrow Joan Baez celebrates her seventy-first birthday. The only thing really great about her is her voice, but what a voice. From the time she appeared as an unbilled artist at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, at age 18, her voice propelled the rise of the modern folk movement. Let’s take the occasion of her birthday to repost one of my favorite YouTube music videos (now with Spanish subtitles!) one more time while it’s still available online. Baez recorded Bob Dylan’s “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word” for Any Day Now , her 1968 double album of Dylan covers. It’s the highlight of the album. Baez owns that song. Dylan himself has never released a recording of it and I’m not aware of anyone other than Baez who has taken a stab at it, although the Joy of Cooking gals released an old, informal take of the song a few years back on Back To Your Heart . In the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Don’t Look Back , Baez can be heard singing the song to Dylan in a hotel room during his tour of England in the spring of 1965. Dylan says he’s never finished the song; Baez says he’s finished it “about eight different ways,” and promises to record it if he finishes it. On the evidence of Baez’s memoir And a Voice To Sing With , Dylan wrote the song at Baez’s house in Carmel Valley in the summer of 1964. Baez writes that “Dylan was turning out songs like ticker tape, and I was stealing them as fast as he wrote them.” As it turns out, she seems to have recorded it without his ever finishing it. Dylan’s attitude to the song is “don’t look back,” although Baez recalls him expressing admiration for it when he heard it one time years later on the radio. He had forgotten that he wrote it. In the song the singer resists the statement that “love is just a four-letter word.” He initially overhears the woman — “the friend of a friend of mine” — say it to “the father of her kid.” He thinks the statement is absurd. Over time, however, he suggests that he has come to see the wisdom of the proposition himself. In the closing verse that Dylan leaves off the published lyrics, he meets up again with the woman many years later “with tables turned.” He says he can say nothing to her but that “love is just a four-letter word.” He doesn’t go quite so far as to say he believes it himself, although he’s had experiences that make him understand what she meant. The song seems to belie the statement, the singer saying in his own way that he loves the woman. At least that’s how I hear it. In the video above, Earl Scruggs — he who defined the use of the banjo for bluegrass music — visits Baez at home in California and asks her to play the song for his 1972 special, Earl Scruggs: His Family & Friends . Scruggs takes a solo, as does Earl’s son Randy. It is a memorable performance of a hidden (if unpolished) gem in the Dylan catalogue. Proper Records has released an expanded two-disc version of her smashing, previously deleted 1995 live recording Ring Them Bells . Among many highlights, it includes an awesomely beautiful version of “The Water is Wide” with several of Baez’s next-generation followers singing harmony. As age has dented the perfection of her “achingly pure” soprano, it has increased in emotional power. A discordant note detracts from the pleasure of the music. Baez has been a constant advocate of civil rights and non-violence along with a variety of unfragrant left-wing causes for upwards of 50 years. She was on the stage at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream speech” at the March on Washington in 1963, and to her credit that was no accident. But she is the kind of advocate of civil rights and non-violence who could visit the totalitarian dystopia of Communist North Vietnam without notable discomfort for thirteen days in December 1972. Baez and her group arrived in Hanoi just in time to catch Operation Linebacker II, the eleven-day bombing of North Vietnam also known as the Christmas bombings. The bombings were more than Baez bargained for. She gives an embittered view of them from the ground in her memoir. Baez traveled as part of a group hosted by the North Vietnamese propaganda front known as the Committee for Solidarity with the American People. One of the putative missions of her contingent was to deliver mail to the American prisoners of war held by the Communists. Baez still owes a profound apology to the America prisoners of war for playing along with their captors and giving heart to their tormentors. So far as one can tell from her memoir, she had no clue what she was doing. She never does mention what happened to the mail. But it gets worse. At one point during the bombings (which understandably terrified her), she recalls: “There was much publicity over the first six pilots shot down. What a tiny victory, I thought, as we began to see their faces on posters all over town.” (Hey, I thought she was against violence.) Baez’s memoir was published in 1987. In it she expresses no sober second thoughts or regrets about her sentiments at the time. By contrast with her “antiwar” (i.e., pro-Communist) buddies, however, Baez found it in herself to sign an open letter to “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam” protesting its political repression in 1979. Her old friends came out of the woodwork to try to stop her, but she persisted. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.

More here:
Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word