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March 28, 2024

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Friday, January 28, 2022

Live Blogging Round II

Here we go again.

Tie reversal! Obama in red, Mitt in blue.

Jobs:

Uh-oh, it’s likeable Mitt again.

Romney said “I know what it takes” four times when the college student asked about jobs. But never said what it actually takes.

Obama mentions Romney outsourcing jobs, talks about renewable energy, war, deficits, – throwing everything at it.

Mitt is hitting Obama on his record. He’s had a chance, etc. Talking about his five point plan. Talking about having Detroit into bankruptcy BUT have them come out stronger than before. Accused Obama of making Detroit bankrupt in the first place.

Obama calls him out on the lie. Don’t take my word for it. Ask the CEO’s. Says he has a one point plan – that the folks on the top play by a different set of rules. He is not amused, and won’t be accused of not showing up again.

5:13

There’s a guy in the front row who sort of looks like Ryan…

Romney is looking bemused, but not laughing.

Gas prices.

Romney again is hitting “look at the last four years.”

He’s after birds again. 20 birds were killed and he says Obama sued over it. First Big Bird and now this. Why do you hate birds, Mittens?

“How in the world he said no to that pipeline, I’ll never know.” Talking about Keystone I assume. Romney clearly is not interested in the environmental vote.

Obama is now saying he wants consistency. Hitting Romney on the shape shifting of his political position.

Yikes!

There’s going to be a fist fight. Holy cow.

That was wild. Never seen that in a debate before. Romney was unbelievable aggressive for a challenger and was just so unbelievably rude. He went from assertive to a-hole in about 30 seconds.

He may as well have just tossed Obama his keys and asked him to park his car.

Now, he’s bullying the moderator. Holy crap. Remember when I said likeable Romney was back?  Um. Nevermind. Entitled bully Romney is back.

The Twitterverse is still a-twitter about that skirmish. Apparently someone yelled “sit down and shut up” to the President. Didn’t Republicans used to respect the office?

Romney is now championing the middle class again. “I’ll get us on track to a balanced budget, and reduct taxes on the middle class.”  Riiiiight.

Obama is talking about his record of middle class tax cuts. “If we’re seriously about reducing the deficit” then we have to make sure the wealthy do a little more. He mentioned “if it really is a moral issue” as Romney said last time.

Obama is talking about taking taxes back to what they were under Clinton. Good strategy. People know they were doing well then, and Clinton is the Golden Boy lately.

He’s also bringing up the veterans jobs bill the Republicans stonewalled.

Mitt: “I’m not looking to cut taxes for wealthy people.” He’s saying he knows why jobs come and why jobs go. Um. Yeah. You were the reason a lot of them WENT.

5:20

We’re back on math. Obama is calling Romney out on the fact he refuses to say which deductions and loopholes he keeps talking about. All he’s been specific about cutting is Big Bird and Planned Parenthood. Ha!

5:35

Candy Crowley asked him “suppose you get in there and the math doesn’t add up. Would you be willing to revisit…:” Romney cuts her off with “Of course the numbers add up!” I’m a business guy, bla bla bla. This will be enough for many people though, sadly. It’s the “don’t you know who I am?” strategy.

Romney is running over the moderator again. She’s doing better than Lehrer, but this is a tough one. Herding an elephant and a donkey.

Now we’re talking about fair pay. Great story from Obama about his mom hitting the glass ceiling and training people who ended up being her bosses. Lilly Ledbetter Act was his first. This will score him points with women. Very sincere.

Romney’s turn. He was filling his cabinet in Mass. and they brought him “binders full of women.”  (???) Women need flexible schedules so they can get home and make dinner for the kids.

If Romney says “I know what it takes” one more time I’m throwing my shoe.

Obama is talking about contraception coverage through insurance. Talking about the importance of Planned Parenthood.

Romney said he believes all women should have contraception, and that the president was totally wrong. It’s presto change-o Romney again.

Interesting question: How is Romney different than Bush?

Romney says – Balanced budget, deficits, tough on China, pro small business. Says Republicans have too long been for big business.

Obama points out Romney’s China investments. “Governor, you’re the last person who’s going to get tough on China.”

Obama: George Bush didn’t call for self-deportation, vouchers for medicare, eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood – more extreme on social policy. OOF. That was good.

I’m exhausted already. This is like a tennis match on steroids.

Romney is so condescending – He knows the president is “trying hard…”

Romney on Immigration:

We welcome legal immigrants into this country. Give green cards to people with skills and accredited degrees. Stop illegal immigration. No amnesty to those who come illegally. Make sure employers are sanctioned for doing so. No drivers licenses. The kids should have a pathway to become a permanent resident – like through the military.

Obama:

We should go after criminals, not students. For young people who understand themselves as Americans need a pathway. Romney said he would veto the Dream Act, an encourage self-deportation. He called Arizona law a model for the nation. Hard for Republicans to support immigration reform when their standard bearer says they don’t support it.

6:06pm

I believe they are going to call this one a tie.

Another scuffle

Romney was just sent to his chair by Crowley. Ha!

Libya:

Obama asked about the embassy in Libya not getting extra security after they requested it. Obama speaks  eloquently but doesn’t answer the question. “I will find out what happened. These are my folks. I greet the coffins when they come home.”

Romney says that he agrees Obama is responsible for the failure. Romney finds it troubling that Obama was attending fundraisers after it happened. I guess he doesn’t find it troubling that he was on a beach in France during the Viet Nam war. He uses the phrase “apology tour.”

Obama points out his address in the rose garden, and greeted the coffins at Andrews AFB and grieved with the families. He says accusing anyone in his administration of playing politics is offensive.

A big scuffle over whether the words “terrorist attack” were used. Moderator and Obama say yes, Romney has a flaccid gotcha.  (saggy accordion noise)

2nd Amendment:

Obama says he is pro-second amendment, but weapons made for soldiers in war theaters have no place on the street. Enforce laws we already have.

Romney – We need moms and dads helping to raise kids. Ought to be married before you have babies. We can make changes in the way our culture works to reduce violence.

So… people ought to be married before they have babies, but they ought not to have a choice about whether to have babies. Now I get it. *headbang*

Married heterosexuals having babies will solve gun violence. Romney 2012

 6:17

There’s another “I know what it takes” from Romney.  My shoe hurtles toward Mitt Romney’s face on the screen.

And on a lighter note, there is a “Binders Full of Women” fanpage on Facebook that already has 25,000 likes.

Great Tweet on the debates from @LOLGOP

One of the best ways to prevent outsourcing is to keep Mitt Romney from investing.

Mitt Romney keeps saying “Ont-a-paneur.” I believe he should be automatically disqualified.
And he just said his passion and love of people comes from his belief in God. Where did that come from? Random Lord shout out.

Mitt Romney’s incantation in his closing is “we don’t have to settle for…” and a laundry list of things.

Obama finally mentioned the 47%!  He names who they are – veterans, students, elders. BOOM. A very strong finish for the President. Nicely done. This will tip it for him.

Chris Matthews just nailed it: Romney’s the guy who won’t turn his phone off on the airplane.

CBS News Flash Poll says:

Obama 37%

Romney 30%

Tie 33%

 

Comments

comments

Comments
35 Responses to “Live Blogging Round II”
  1. StElias says:

    Another of many examples of Willard’s campaign of gross distortion. Hey though, he’s just a struggling small mom & pop enterprise. In the debate he said:

    “And then let’s take the last one, championing small business. Our party has been focused on big business too long. I came through small business. I understand how hard it is to start a small business. That’s why everything I’ll do is designed to help small businesses grow and add jobs. I want to keep their taxes down on small business. I want regulators to see their job as encouraging small enterprise, not crushing it.”

    As Krugman points out: “Now, as I understand it, Romney first went to work for Bain and Company, a management consultancy. Then he founded Bain Capital, the private-equity spinoff that took him from being rich — his starting point — to being incredibly rich. So, I was amazed to hear Mitt Romney describing himself as having “come through small business”, as if his private equity firm were just like a mom-and-pop store or something. But Digby informs us that he made similar claims in his convention speech, making Bain sound like a scrappy little start-up. And it’s true it had only 10 people at first — that, and $37 million, yes, $37 million, in seed money.

    Where did that $37 million come from? A large part from foreigners, in many cases investing via Panama-based shell companies. Also, funds from families of Central American oligarchs, who were sitting things out in Miami while “death squads” sponsored by their class, and in some cases by their relatives, were roaming their home countries.”

    Hey, doesn’t this sound like just your usual small-business success story?

  2. Mag the Mick says:

    Let’s do a little game with word association, shall we? Binders full of women: Go!

    Chinese foot-binding: deforming women’s feet to the point where they are too crippled to run away.

    Binders: a Victorian synonym for corsets, which impeded women’s respiratory and digestive systems and were responsible for the era-specific phenomenom of fainting.

    Bind and gag.

    Binders full of women = binders of women.

    • beth. says:

      Yuppers, once the “Ha-ha, what a ridiculous thing to say; I can picture it now, a whole bunch of women inside a three-ring binder. Ha ha ha!!” reaction is over, the reality of what he said begins to set in…

      Beyond extremely negative and offensive imagery the term itself evokes — as you so perfectly point out, M the M — and the apparent ‘instant coinage’ of a new noun/group term for [collective] women (ala: a crash of rhinos, a gaggle of geese, a binder of women), one has to wonder:

      If Mitt was *SUCH* a whiz-genius-ace at “small business” and ALL that starting and keeping said “small business(es)” going, entails (eg. close association and interaction with distributors, dealers, bankers, customers, community, etc.), had he come across . not . one . single . female . who he thought he *might* be able to appoint to one of the positions needed filling for governance of the state? Not a single solitary female? Not one?

      Aiii! Nary a qualified female to be found in all of his ‘extensive’ experience… What a crock.

      Methinks the man is: a) clueless, b) not the least bit observant of the people and talent around him, or c) an adzwhole of the highest magnitude. Yeah, methinks I’ll stick with a) and b) on this one; definitely! with c). beth.

  3. mike from iowa says:

    Best news from last night was the boot scootin’ boogie in the butt BP from Wasilla received from DWTS. Didn’t catch it? No worries-wasn’t important. Money Boo-Boo made a couple interesting quotes about where he stands on gun rights. In front of the NRA in Phoenix-5/15/09 he stated,”No Constitutional protection is more often ignored,distorted,or disdained than the individual right to keep and bear arms.” The problem starts with rwnj totally mis-reading the 2nd amendment part about well regulated militias. And since our founding fathers had never imagined assault weapons and fully autimatic weapons,they were never mentioned in the Constitution and therefore are not legal. In this months Fur-Fish and Game Mag,Romney has a full page ad claiming that Mittens will,”appoint wise,experienced,and restrained judges who will take seriously their oath to discharge their duties impartially in accordance with the Constitution and laws—-not their own personal policy preferences.” Since rwnj claim only libs have litmus tests for judicial nominees,I gather the personal policy preferences Mitt’s judges will institute will be Mitten;s own ppp. i read this so you won’t have to-Fake Noise claims Romney won the debate and CC joined Obama’s team late in the debate. Who knew?.

  4. Alex says:

    For me, the best (and most memorable) moment of the debate was when the audience applauded after Candy Crowley called out Romney on his lie that it took the President 14 days to call the Libya attack an act of terrorism.

    To me, that indicates not only that the public is tired of Romney’s bald-faced lies, but that they want journalists to do their jobs and actually know facts and not allow lies to go unchallenged.

    • Lacy Lady says:

      I am sick and tired of hearing about What our Pres. said and when he said it.
      And CNN is getting to be more and more like Faux News.
      I am so happy that Candy C. called Rommney out. The Pres. just let Rommney hang himself on this one. Maybe they don’t know that being assigned to these posts are a dangerous place to be.
      We have lost over 5,000 men and women in Afganistan. And so many more in Iraq.
      The parents of the people lost in Libya are tired of the Republicans using their family members as a political football.
      Maybe they don’t know that Dead is Dead. No matter where, when or how or what label you want to put on it.!
      And Now AC has John McCain on—–give me a break. He says that the Pres. should have known that this was a dangerous place to be—-Really? How about Afganistan? Is is not a dangerous place to be?
      Give me a break!

  5. Ripley In CT says:

    I noticed that Romney has a very difficult time with 4 syllable words, especially during that debate. He couldn’t say “championing” either. It was “Champ-ining”

    Perhaps he’s the old A-2 model, and everyone knows they didn’t have the chip installed for more than three syllables until the A-3 came out. 😀

  6. Zyxomma says:

    Binders full of women! Is that like Roman Grant’s joy book on Big Love?

  7. COalmostNative says:

    On Libya: I am surprised that Obama didn’t remind Romney that the request for additional security was for the embassy in Tripoli, not Bengahzi. Not that it would have mattered to Romney- he doesn’t let a pesky little detail like the truth get in the way of his points.

    He kept insisting his economic policy (loved the “One Point” comment) will work, even though most reputable experts – even conservative Zandy Analytics- say it won’t.

    My favorite: binders of women 😉

  8. Polarbear says:

    Romney reminds of that guy in the dollar suit who does ads for Anchorage Chrysler Dodge. That guys is so bad, he ensures that I will never ever set foot in that dealership. Same with Romney’s, “Trussssst in me.”

  9. Sourdough Mullet says:

    Watching a second time on delayed broadcast on PBS. (Because I’m a glutton for punishment, and Because I’m secretly hoping that Big Bird will crash the stage and bite Mittens hard in the arse – preferably drawing blood).
    Can’t decide, watching Mitt, if he’ll have more success after the election as a Used Car Salesman or as a slick Televangelist tricking elderly pensioners into signing their Social Security checks over to his Chrystal Palace.

  10. beth. says:

    Women in Binders — http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/

    Don’t know what more I can say about the fe-k-r, Mitt. beth.

    • Beaglemom says:

      I was too much of a coward to watch the debate. Besides just the sight of Mitt Romney raises my blood pressure to amazing heights so I waited for our son’s phone call. He said that President Obama romped all over Mitt Romney and then he told me about the “binders of women”! He thought that was hysterical.

  11. slipstream says:

    James Eagan Holmes grew up in a household both father and mother. They were married. As a boy he attended the local Lutheran congregation. This did not stop him from walking into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, with a semi-automatic weapon equipped with a 100 round magazine, a shotgun, a hand gun, and body armor. It did not stop him from killing 12 people and wounding 58 others.

    Romney is engaging in magical thinking: that having married parents and attending church is the solution to gun violence. It is not.

    Romney is, however, an idiot.

  12. AKM, there is anyother phrase I’m sick of hearing from Romney. “I know how to do it”, usually said when he’s talking about how to create jobs or fix the economy or. . . well, just about anything.

    Fine. If he knows how to do it, then why doesn’t he spell it out in detail and why, oh why, doesn’t someone make him explain just what that means? He can’t do it.

    BTW, I keep hearing conflicting things about just how successful (or not) he was as governor. If he was so wonderful, why wasn’t he re-elected? He keeps saying that schools were no. 1 in the country but I’ve heard the opposite end of the spectrum and that the state was financially in trouble by the time he left office.

    • Alaska Pi says:

      Pat- when you have time look at his wiki page for governor term. He did not stand for re-election as he decided to run for pres. He spent over 200 days of his last year out of state.
      There’s a lot here
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_Romney
      be sure to do your deep breathing when you read it- esp parts of it.
      I can tell you that lots of loud swearing and so on feels good but deep breathing keeps your blood pressure down.
      The MA Legislature over rode or shot down a lot of his plans. Some of the increased solvency of the state was on the backs of communities and individuals.
      MA was beginning to be in trouble like the rest of the country on a lot of fronts by the end of his tenure but as he was functionally MIA for the last year I’m not sure he even knows that.

    • Beaglemom says:

      I read yesterday – somewhere – that Mormons believe in “milk and meat”: that is, give people as little information as possible (“milk”) and keeping the real facts secret (“meat”). Makes sense to me. Romney is not going to be specific about anything because the truth will hurt us all. Frankly that would be enough for me to reject him if I were an “undecided” voter. However, how can anyone be even remotely “undecided” in this election? You either support the 1% or you support the 99%. In my mind that means voting a straight Democratic ticket.

  13. thatcrowwoman says:

    Missed the live blogging tonight, but I was watching on PBS.
    I didn’t hear or see anything that would change my vote.
    Obama/Biden 4 more years

    I’m off to FEA’s Delegate Assembly in Orlando,
    so Brian and I will be pallin’ around with Union thugs,
    er, agitators,
    er, Community Activists.

    Solidarity and sweet dreams,
    thatcrowwoman

    • Beaglemom says:

      We have a ballot proposal about collective bargaining for public employees here in Michigan (of all places). Today we received a mailing describing how passage of the proposal would mean that “drunk” and “stoned” and “drug dealing” teachers would get to keep their jobs. It is just incredible the lies that the right wing in this country will resort to. The ad was paid for by a bogus group called “Protecting Michigan Taxpayers.”

  14. Alaska Pi says:

    Thanks AKM!
    thank you Mr Obama- pretty good job!
    Had 3 browsers open on 3 different fact checking outfits- you did pretty well sir.
    Mr Romney torched his shorts while doing a half flip off his soapbox.

  15. Ben in SF says:

    Sorry about your shoe.

    What’s this Ledislastion he kept talking about?

  16. Alaska Pi says:

    we have no radio on here anymore because the doof got on his trickle-down-govt soapbox again.
    Are we gonna have a shining-city-on-the-hill with married-hetero-parents-and-no-gun-violence-while-entrepeneurs-fart-rainbows-and-women-can-get-flexible-work-times-so-they-can-cookand-clean-and still-be-in-binders??
    Oh Joy.

  17. Alaska Pi says:

    So when these babies from married parents get guns , Mr Romney? Hmmm?
    You can yap all you want about good familes and good upbringings but that is BESIDE the frickin point about assault weapons you #%^&*$@@%^&ing twit!

    • That whole argument is the dumbest thing the repubs have ever come up with. My mother was widowed when I was ten and she didnt remarry, making her a single mom. I did not turn out to be a drug user or serial killer. I also worked and then married and chose to stay home with our children because I could afford to do it. So I’ve lived both sides of the picture and I can honestly say that one kind of family isn’t better than the other – they are just different. Why does he bring up the whole “we have to get everyone married” thing anyway. Just how does he plan to do that? I hope someone tells him he can’t force people to marry just because he wants them to do it.

      Besides which, Romney never answered that question.

      • Alaska Pi says:

        no- he didn’t answer that question.
        He posed one of those skippety do dah fairy tale things with the good married families thingy and avoided answering.
        And you are right- that fairytale foo-foo family thing is so full of holes it doesn’t even signify as an argument in reality

  18. Alaska Pi says:

    uh oh- Mr Romney just got a pants-on-fire from PolitiFact
    Also too- fact checkers calling out his horsepunky on national debt Mr romney and GOP keeps saying.

  19. Alaska Pi says:

    Hang in there AKM!
    needing your humor to keep from smashing my radio!

  20. Lacy Lady says:

    Mr President is kicking Ass tonight!

  21. Alaska Pi says:

    Go President Obama!
    You’re doing pretty well in the fact dept sir.
    Mr Romney – not so much…
    https://twitter.com/politifact

    • AKMagpie says:

      Your comments have been so descriptive and directly to the point tonight,AP. Love your take on the debate. Do we need to take up a collection for AKM to buy a matched pair of shoes?

      • Alaska Pi says:

        🙂
        I think that is a great idea!
        I also think AKM should send the other shoe to the President’s advisors. They should not be mis-representing Mr Romney’s AZ thingy nor pushing the Pres to do so either.
        Mr Romney needs to be called out on his trickle-down-government crap . Usurping notions of the meaning of trickle-down-economics to make a play for people’s votes ranks right up there as a candidate for winning horsepunky of the decade.
        Rove and Co have gotten away with usurping “special-interest”, “entitlement”, “personal responsibility”, etc . Time to stop all of it.
        No more .
        None.