GOP Is Psyched That Pro-Life Extremist Paul Ryan's On Romney Ticket [Electon 2012]

Since Mitt Romney introduced Paul Ryan as his running mate this morning, the response has naturally been immediate and polarizing. An extreme fiscal conservative, Romney wants to cut funding for Medicaid and opposes the Affordable Care Act, which he says "may irrevocably impair the American identity."

Republican House Speaker John Boehner—you know, the guy who told us that the war on women was a Crucible-esque shrieky vagina hallucination—said that Ryan was:

...a reformer and a proven leader... a great partner to Governor Romney in his efforts to get our country, and our economy, back on track. Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney will focus on common sense solutions to stop Washington from spending money it doesn't have and get the federal government out of the way of small business job creators.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie:

With Paul Ryan on the ticket this is a team that understands the economic stagnation our country has been facing the last four years and the urgency with which we need to change course. The Romney-Ryan team is uniquely positioned to make the tough choices necessary to confront our fiscal challenges and get results."

Michelle Bachmann, who needs no introduction:

Americans know we will grow when we are strong. The Romney-Ryan Republican ticket is our Comeback Ticket to prosperity and strength. I'm proud to support these men and look forward to their success

There are a lot more, but I just ate, so you can read them on CNN.

The reason high-profile Republicans are tripping over themselves is this: Paul Ryan is a crazy person. Since 1999, The National Right to Life Committee has scored his voting record 100%. He supports the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which declares that life begins with fertilization, and opposes abortion even in the cases of incest and rape. This pro-life essay written by Ryan, the Daily Beast points out, he mentions neither the word "mother" or "woman" once. When he ran for Congress in 1998, his pro-life stance was a major platform: he called a woman's right to choose an amoral exercise of "arbitrary will." Oh, and he also plans to allow those organizations that aren't quite church-affiliated to abstain from providing free contraception as part of female employee's health care, which means if the Romney/Ryan ticket wins, these assholes get a whole lot of wiggle room.

This morning, Planned Parenthood released this image and Tweeted their indignation:

No surprise, @mittromney makes another choice against women's health: picks @paulryanvp for #VP.

— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) August 11, 2012

Actually, this might be the most indicative statement made by Ryan:

[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker…it would be Ayn Rand.

And, scene.

'5 Things You Need To Know About Paul Ryan's Stance On Women's Issues' [Buzzfeed]
'Paul Ryan's Extreme Abortion Views' [The Daily Beast]
Republicans react to Romney's choice of Ryan for running mate [CNN]

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Sandra Fluke Says If We Like Covered Wagons and No Electricity, We Should Vote for Romney [Politics]

On Wednesday, Georgetown grad Sandra Fluke introduced President Barack Obama at a campaign rally in Denver focused on women's reproductive rights. Fluke, who unfortunately has the ignominious media epithet "the woman Rush Limbaugh called a 'slut,'" told her audience that, if they wanted to go backwards in time to when novacane wasn't a thing yet and surgeons were judged by how many limbs they could saw off in a minute, they should go ahead and vote for Mittens come November.

She accused Romney of wanting to wind back the clock on women's health issues, or at least not being strong enough to stand up to those who would actively legislate against women's reproductive freedom:

[Obama] defended my right to speak without being attacked," Fluke said. "Mr. Romney could only say those weren't the words he would have chosen. Well, Mr. Romney, you're not going to be the candidate we choose.

Fluke added that a Romney presidency would unravel "the rights that generations of women have fought for," and that the only campaign promises he'd made to women so far were "dangerous promises to take us backward." All this talk about time travel is starting to make me think that Mittens has a DeLorean sitting in a garage in the Caymans, and that, if elected, he'll start taking us on field trips back to the Jurassic period, which sounds cool but who knows what havoc even the slightest misstep could wreak on our present? No, a Mittens presidency would definitely constitute a severe threat to the delicate time-space continuum.

Sandra Fluke upbraids Romney [Politco]

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Jenna Jameson Offers Mitt Romney Key 'Wealthy Former Porn Star' Endorsement [Mitt Romney]

Finally, the political world can exhale — after months of anticipation, former adult film star Jenna Jameson has announced who she will be voting for in this November's Presidential election: former Massachusetts governor, possibly non-taxpaying rich cartoon dad Mittens Romney. But her reasoning behind her choice is not what you might think.

Despite the fact that Jameson has ostensibly benefitted immensely from the availability of birth control and low cost STD testing in her line of work and the fact that her entire porn library would be blocked by porn filters Mitt Romney says should be installed on every American computer, Jameson's not concerned about either of those things. In fact, her reasons for backing Mitt are entirely economical. According to the New York Daily News,

I'm very looking forward to a Republican being back in office," Jameson told a KCBS-TV reporter, champagne in hand. "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office.

While Mitt will surely appreciate the celebrity endorsement (a Jameson endorsement is much cooler and sexier to the youths than, say, a Ben Stein endorsement), he likely will not appreciate the fact that Jameson's perception of him is exactly what Mitt Romney wants the American middle class not to believe — that he's a rich guy who will promote the interest of champagne swilling rich people who only care about money.

The Obama campaign should send her a Thank You pie or something.

[NYDN]

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Women Dislike Mitt Romney Because He's a Condescending Prick [Mitt Romney]

More disconcerting trouble for Mittens Romney this week, as a new poll shows that with less than 100 days to go before the election, Obama leads in three key swing states. To make matters worse, results of the poll clearly show that much of the President's lead is due to the fact that Romney is completely unpopular with the ladies. Some strategists say that Romney's woman problem is due to his seeming lack of empathy, or his stance on certain hot-button lady issues that rhyme with mirth control, fabortion, squeaquel pay, schmeducation, and baternity leave, and while that may be true, the real reason women are turned off by Romney is that he's incredibly, monumentally patronizing.

In Ohio and Pennsylvania, two relatively boring places that the media will be referring to as BATTLEGROUNDS for the next three months, female voters prefer President Obama by more than 20 points over his Republican rival. Among men, Romney leads, but since 53% of voters are women, Romney's going to have to stop coming across as utterly repugnant to them if he wants a snowball's chance in Moab of occupying the White House.

What's going on? Why do women hate Romney so much? Maybe because he reminds them of a guy they went out with one time, the guy who insisted on explaining how a souffle is made to a professional chef, the tax attorney who tries to go over the finer points of the Higgs boson with a female physics major, the football fan who assumes that all female football fans don't know that there are two different kinds of "safety." Maybe he reminds them of the bumbling Principal on a Disney Channel sitcom, the one that's always trying to ruin all the kids' fun, the hopelessly square one who doesn't get it but acts like he does. GQ's Marin Cogan surmises that Romney probably doesn't mean any harm with his head-scratchingly dumb insistence on things that are not true and offers a generous interpretation of Romney's gaffes as simply mansplainations gone awry,

Going even further back, there's something sort of mansplainy about "I like being able to fire people," and "Corporations are people, my friend!" isn't there? Attacking him on those comments worked because they sounded too facile; they made him seem too entitled. In a weird way, if you see Mitt Romney's gaffes as merely mansplaining, they're somehow more tolerable, because it implies that they come from a lack of self-awareness rather than malice.

But condescending people — men or women — oblivious to their own ignorance are more dangerous to an organization or government than people who know that what they're doing is wrong or evil. People who are aware that they don't know everything have the potential to grow and learn. Even ol' steampunk oil-pumping hearted Dick Cheney went from being a gay marriage skeptic to an advocate after he saw his daughter in a happy same sex partnership. If Mitt Romney's constant, confusing lying is a symptom of a chronic mansplainer run amok, his refusal to acknowledge that he was wrong about anything ever is a symptom that he believes he's fooled everyone — even himself.

Despite this, men still favor Romney, albeit by a small margin. Perhaps they're just not as used to being talked down to, or talked over, as women are, and don't recognize the signs — dismissiveness, unwillingness to answer questions, interpretation of any pushback as offensive. Maybe men aren't as fed up. Maybe they've fooled themselves into believing him.

[CBS]

The unfeeling developer thwarted by a team of ragtag kids

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The Five Most Ridiculous Quotes From Ann Romney [Ann Romney]

By now, Lady Romney's serene indifference to the world of –- oh, just about anybody who doesn't do horse ballet — has reached legendary status. On her privileged planet, income inequality is a noble thing and you get through college on your man's stock portfolio. For a tour of her best foot-in-mouth musings, we've assembled a list of items filed under, "Wow. She really said that!"

"We can be poor in spirit, and I don't even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing," said Ann Romney to Fox News. "It can be here today and gone tomorrow."

Hmm. Interesting indeed, considering that her husband is worth about $200 million. If elected, he would be among the richest presidents ever to occupy the White House, topping both the Roosevelts and the Bushes, who were no slouches. In fact, he's wealthier than the last eight presidents combined.

Ann Romney's favorite fancy dressage horse, Rafalca, costs more to feed and shelter than your whole family. How wealthy does that make you feel?

Back in April, Ann Romney spoke to the Connecticut Republican Party's Prescott Bush Awards Dinner in Stamford, where she waxed personal on the rigors of raising kids while Mitt was off destroying jobs.

Mrs. Romney said she likes to see what women are up to on the campaign trail, asking "Why are you here? What made you come out of your house today to this event? And what do you think about the future?"

Not all women have the luxury of staying at home, she conceded: "I love the fact that there are women out there who don't have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn't easy for any of us."

If you're one those people, you can wrap yourself in Ann Romney love while you ponder why her horse gets a $77,000 tax credit when your kid gets $1,000.

When newlyweds Ann and Mitt Romney were living together while attending Brigham Young, things were pretty swell. "We were happy, studying hard," Romney said in an infamous Boston Globe interview back in 1994 , when Mittens was running for the senate. "Neither one of us had a job, because Mitt had enough of an investment from stock that we could sell off a little at a time," she explained.

How awesome is that?!? The stock came courtesy of Mitt's papa, who had invested Mitt's "birthday money" every year. Ann looks back fondly on this time as a period when she and Mitt were really roughing it. For realz.

In an interview with a Baltimore radio station, Ann Romney pressed the audience to believe that despite her husband's stiff demeanor and penchant for human and canine bullying, Mitt was really full of chuckles. She opined that "we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out."

Stiff or not stiff? We're not sure we want to unzip Mr. Romney to find out.

You people. You're always asking annoying questions and daring to insinuate that there's something wrong with all those Romney tax havens and offshore accounts. Why don't you stick to clipping coupons or whatever it is you people do to stay busy?

In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America that quickly went viral, Mrs. Romney got huffy when asked why American voters would not be vouchsafed a look at Mitt's latest tax returns.

"We've given all you people need to know," she sniffed.

Yes, Ann. And you Romneys have given us little people all we need to know!

This post originally appeared on AlterNet. Republished with permission,

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Worst Person Ever Allegedly Beats Up Girlfriend Due to Suspicions She's Sleeping With Mitt Romney [Omg Wtf]

Aug 1, 2012 1:40 PM  

40-year-old Tennessee resident Lowell Turpin allegedly punched his girlfriend and smashed her laptop against a wall because he was convinced she was having a secret affair with Mitt Romney.

Yes. This really happened. Super Sleuth Turpin became violently jealous after he saw a photo of the presidential candidate on his girlfriend's Facebook page and "angrily demanded to know who the male was," according to the Anderson County Sheriff's Department. His partner denied an affair — obviously — but Turpin wasn't having any of it. He also accused her of "attempting to communicate with friends through her Facebook account," because, aside from being an assaulter, this horrible man apparently knows absolutely nothing about anything going on in this country. Okay, fine, let's accept that he didn't recognize one of the most famous faces in the continent right now. But who doesn't know how to use Facebook?

Turpin was arrested on suspicion of domestic assault and is currently in jail. We hope his girlfriend doesn't bail him out and instead runs off with a Mitt Romney lookalike (hey, there's no accounting for taste) who understands how social networking works.

Jealous Tennessee man allegedly smacks around his girlfriend because she had a pic of another guy on her Facebook page - but it was Mitt Romney [NY Daily News]

(Image via police handout.)

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Romney Aide Urges Press to Respect Polish Holy Site by Kissing His Ass and Shoving It [Mitt Romney]

Coverage of Mitt Romney's hilariously bumbling world tour has been better than coverage of the Olympics, and with even more heartbreak, tears, and disastrous dismounts — that's what makes good television. During today's stop at Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Romney's traveling press secretary responded to questions from the press by lashing out with a reminder that they were at a Polish holy place, followed by a suggestion that reporters kiss his ass.

For those of you keeping score at home, here's the Romney Worldwide Gaffe Tour Medal Count:

before he even left US soil, an anonymous Romney aide told a British paper,

We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and [Romney] feels that the special relationship is special. The White House didn't fully appreciate the shared history we have.

Woo! White pride!

within 24 hours of landing in the UK and right before the Olympics, Romney called London's preparation for the Games "disconcerting," which led to public jabs from the mayor of London, Prime Minister David Cameron, and many, many very mean headlines from the British press, including the nickname "Nowhere Man" because Mitt Romney's Salt Lake City Olympics were a fraction of the size of the Summer Games, and held far from a major city like London (in the words of Cameron, it's easier to plan a Games in "the middle of nowhere." Yowch.)Romney told an Israeli audience that Jews are more successful than Palestinians because, culturally, Jews are better at making money;the campaign had to backtrack after one aide said that Romney would support an Israeli strike on Iran, provided it was made to prevent Iran's development of a nuclear weapon;gave a few one-on-one interviews, but only allowed the rest of the press corps to ask him a grand total of three questions during his entire trip.

But even though the naked emperor is working as hard as he can to keep the press from finding out that he has no clothes (or foreign policy chops), his campaign has stepped in to fill the gaffe gap. Today, while stopping in Warsaw at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, members of the frustrated press corps fired questions at Romney staffer Rick Gorka, asking about all the dumb crap the presumptive GOP nominee had said over the last several days. In response, Gorka thoughtfully told reporters to "shove it," before adding,

Kiss my ass. This is a holy site for the Polish people. Show some respect.

Yeah, motherfuckers. Show some cocklicking respect for these hellassdamn dead soldiers.

Gorka later apologized, but the damage has been done — after that series of poorly chosen declarations, it looks like MittBot 2012 needs a tune up. Or a distractingly interesting Vice Presidential nominee.

[Yahoo]

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Mitt Romney Gives Zero Fucks About His Fancy Dancing Horse's Olympic Dreams [Mitt Romney]

Mitt Romney's visit to the UK would have been disastrous enough if he'd just shut up after pissing off the British press, the Prime Minister, and the mayor of London. But he had to take it a step farther and go beyond insulting his host country and their Olympic efforts — in an attempt to get people to think he was cool, he strongly, vehemently disavowed interest in watching his wife's expensive dressage horse compete in equestrian events. He won't be watching at all, he says. He doesn't care! In fact, he doesn't even know what a horse sport is! Horses are for dorks!

The anti-horse comments came during the same Brian Williams interview that produced the puzzlingly bizarre comments about how London's Olympic preparations were inadequate because there ain't no Olympic party like a Salt Lake City Olympic party because a Salt Lake City Olympic party was organized by Mitt Romney. Williams urged Romney to share his feelings about having a personal stake in these Games; one of Romney's horses will be competing in the equestrian event. But rather than express pride in his nerdy rich guy hobby, Romney acted like he didn't know anything about the horse he'd spent a small fortune on training, maintaining, and housing. The Presidential candidate told Williams, "I have to tell you, this is Ann's sport. I am not even sure what day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it. I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well."

Romney then pretended that he didn't know how a dressage competition works, even though, as the LA Times points out, he's a huge Olympics nerd who has picked competition music for his horses in the past.

All of this kind of reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons when the family goes on vacation and Lisa tries to rebrand herself as a cool wearer of sunglasses who says "like, whatever" a lot. Or that part in Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan's character pretends to be bad at math so her floppy haired crush will like her. Mitt's all, I'm not a clueless rich guy with one of the most expensive hobbies in the world! I don't even know what a hundred dollar bill looks like! Who's on that? Lance Bass? I don't like horses, I like dirt bikes and saying Git Er Done. Vote for me for America's Prom King. I will throw a kegger that doesn't serve caviar because I don't even know what that is!

Mittens, if you have to lie about your true self in order to get people to accept you, they're not your real friends.

[LAT]

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Insulting Michelle Obama Totally Fine, Insulting Ann Romney Totally Out of Bounds [Video]

Jul 30, 2012 5:40 PM  

Breaking! Mitt Romney changed his mind about something! Remember earlier this year, when a liberal commentator made that remark about Ann Romney being a stay at millionaire's wife who hadn't worked a day in her life? And remember how everyone leapt to defend Mrs. Romney because, to be fair, having five kids is kind of hard no matter how much money you have? And remember how Mitt was all, leave my wife out of this! Families are sacred things! Well, it turns out that back in 2008, Mittens was just fine with attacking the wife of then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama for not loving America enough.

Buzzfeed's resident embarrassing political video finder Andrew Kaczynski dug this one up from the 2008 campaign season, back when Sarah Palin's family was the family that was off limits. Romney was addressing a comment Mrs. Obama had made early in the campaign about not being very proud of America sometimes. Not thinking America is awesome is pretty much a mortal sin, in GOP town.

When I first made the following joke, I thought it was hyperbole, but as the campaign chugs along, I'm beginning to think that the most consistent thing about Mitt Romney is his hair.

[Buzzfeed]

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