Callin’ it early: Phoenix’s CBS News affiliate KPHO accidentally called the 2012 Presidential Election in-favor of President Barack Obama for approximately seventeen seconds during a broadcast of ‘The People’s Court’ last Friday. Coincidentally, they gave the President the exact same lead that Mitt Romney is currently enjoying in the polls. What you may not have noticed, at first, is that they only alocated 83 percent of the vote between the two candidates. Does handing 17 percent of the electorate to third party candidates seem a bit ambitious to anybody else? source
Not a whole lot to be said about this story. We’re glad to hear that nobody got hurt, and look forward to hours of scrutiny that will likely surround this video during the days and weeks ahead. source
The Artist behind “Dilbert” is a Democrat — but says he’s voting for Romney.
The doodler is blaming the Obama administration for enforcing federal drug laws that earned Aaron Sandusky, a 41-year-old from Southern California, a 10-year prison term for running a medical marijuana dispensary.
“While President Obama didn’t technically kill a citizen, he is certainly ruining this fellow’s life, and his family’s lives, and the lives of countless other minor drug offenders,” Adams wrote. “And he is doing it to advance his career. If that’s not a firing offense, what the hell is?”People are still reading Dilbert?
Hold up for a second. While Obama’s faced some understandable criticism over his handling of medical marijuana laws, the prior president spent millions of dollars investigating and prosecuting Tommy Chong for running a business that sold bongs — not even the drug themselves — because the administration wanted to set a high-profile example. Romney has a far tougher stance on this issue than Obama does, and he’s on the record for saying “I’m going to fight it tooth and nail.” If this is what’s going to make Scott Adams bend, why isn’t he voting for Gary Johnson? He actually has a platform that runs counter to either of the two candidates.
(Side note: Scott Adams is complaining about media outlets misrepresenting what he’s said on the blog post. If you’re going to complain, Scott, then give a better reason for voting for Romney than claiming “he’s enough of a chameleon and a pragmatist that one can’t be sure” he’ll stick with a tough marijuana policy. Saying we’re going to fire a president for something the other candidate is likely to also do is no way to deal with a problem. If you think we’re taking you out of context, too, it’s because you’ve created a terrible context.)
I have to be honest with you. I love these debates. These things are great.Mitt Romney • While discussing last night’s Presidential Debate during his speech at a campaign rally in Virginia Beach on Wednesday. Surprisingly, Mitt chose not to address the recent terrorist attack in Libya, and instead hammered President Obama for what the Republican candidate perceived as a lack of any real agenda for his second term. ”When it comes to his policies, and his answers, and his agenda, [President Obama’s] pretty much running on fumes,” said Romney, adding, “The American people want real answers.” source
What actually happened was that in 2002 — prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration — a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.
They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.
I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I’ve checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I’ve just presented it is correct — and that Romney’s claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.
I will write more about this later, but for tonight let me just make a few quick additional points. First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn’t care about — and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about — budget, business development, etc. — went to women.
Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)
Third, note that in Romney’s story as he tells it, this man who had led and consulted for businesses for 25 years didn’t know any qualified women, or know where to find any qualified women. So what does that say?
Still doesn’t make this Tumblr any less hilarious.
(EDIT to include more of article due to Boston Phoenix’s server being down.)
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