Well it was 1,504 days ago…but it does demonstrate how your words can come back to haunt you.
A win to the Romney camp on this one.
American Election
Another Romney flip-flop over gas prices
Mitt Romney, the king of ‘flip floppers’, has done it again and this time it’s around gas prices.
Yesterday he spoke out about why prices were so high.
“When he campaigned he said he wanted to raise the price of gasoline,” Mr. Romney said of Mr. Obama at a pancake breakfast here Sunday. “He said that under him energy costs would skyrocket.”
So yesterday it was Obama’s fault that gas prices were so high less than a month ago…
“I think the American people know that to a certain degree gas prices are driven by what’s happening around the world, supply and demand.”
Mitt must not have gotten the memo sent out by the Republican Party to make sure places like FOX News were not talking up small improvements in the economy but focusing on gas prices and unemployment.
So what’s all the hub-bub about with gas prices? Sure the prices has gone up in America…but to what?
Prices in the weekend averaged $US3.81 a gallon.
$US3.81 id $NZ4.61 and a US gallon is 3.79 litres
That means in America they are paying the equivalent here in NZ of $NZ1.22 per litre, close to half what we are paying here…I think it’s time to get over it America and count your blessings
The Daily Show with more insight into Palestine become a country in the UN
John Oliver from The Daily Show does a two part story on how when America decided to pull funding from UNESCO as they, along with 100 organisations have recognised Palestine as a country, there ended up being no winners.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Rick Santorum and the ‘All Gay Cruise’…the epitome of irony
Rick Santorum was in Puerto Rico over the weekend campaigning to win some of the 20 delegates there on his way to coming second in the GOP race.
He had a chance to take some time out so took an hour by the pool to relax when this photo was taken of him.
It has been reported that the snap was taken by a patron on an ‘all gay cruise.’
So why is there irony here?
Well if you don’t know, firstly I must warn you that if you are of a sensitive nature then you won’t to know so stop reading now, anyways you may have read a post I did a wee while back saying that no GOP nominee would beat Obama this year, in that post I said of Santorum.
the problem is his name…well maybe not his name…but what his name means
See in 2003 Rick Santorum championed a bill to make sodomy illegal which put him offside with the LGBT community. One activist within the community, Dan Savage, who had previously been responsible for coining new definitions for words with a sexual reference, challenged Santorum on his campaign and threatened to have his surname defined online by something negative if he didn’t withdraw what Savage saw as homophobic laws.
Santorum declined to back down and the now famous surname was re-defined to mean…well that’s where you can go find the meaning independently if you like…and now the LBGT community are trying to reinvigorate the meaning.
6 months ago if you Googled ‘Santorum’ it was the second result on the page, now it’s dropped off the front page but still comes up in Rick Santorum’s Wikipedia pages which is the top result.
Rick Santorum is still a top target for the LGBT community, and to have him turn up in the middle of a resort hosting a ‘gay only cruise’ is nothing but the height of irony.
What the gay community has started doing in America to candidates whose positions they find offensive is ‘glitter bomb’ them…which is a sit sounds having glitter dumped over you…I guess it’s better than a lamington ah Mayor Len Brown?
Gingrich will be nervous about a Perry endorsement
Today we hear the sad news that the last remaining hope for comedians the world over has left the race to be President of the USA. In the early hours of this morning NZ time Rick Perry announced he was pulling out from the race.
Comedians the world over have shed a tear, first Donald Trump, then Hermain Cain now the last of the ‘genuine’ jokes has fallen, Rick Perry says goodbye.
I guess they can still make jokes about Santorim’s name, or Romney’s uncomfortable natures…but the last of their bread and butter has gone.
About the last point of interest is who Perry will now endorse. Politicians in America do this hoping that their followers will then support that candidate…however in this case I am sure the candidate who if being touted by the media as the one likely to receive that endorsement is more than a little uneasy about it.
As a part of his withdraw from the race, Rick Perry also endorsed Newt Gingrich.
“There is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign,” he said in a news conference in North Charleston, S.C. “Today, I am suspending my campaign and endorsing Newt Gingrich for president of the United States.
He called Gingrich a “conservative visionary.”
Newt Gingrich found himself in a little hot water speaking to the N.A.A.C.P. saying “If the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention, talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” The N.A.A.C.P. was not impressed.
Gingrich was then challenged at the latest South Carolina debate asking if he acknowledged that some Blacks could have found that offensive, Newt’s response was a simple, “No!” and then went on another diatribe about teaching the unemployed how to get a job, keep it and own it.
So why would the Perry endorsement be of concern to the Gingrich camp. Well apart from the obvious ‘idiot’ factor, when the dumbest guy say’s your his guy and you think, “If the idiot is endorsing Gingrich…does that mean I am an idiot to support him as well”…apart from that, there is this…caution, contains offensive words
I was going to make some point about the hypocrisy within politics in America, or how these rich white men seem to have lost touch with the “99%” but I think I’ll just say that Perry and Gingrich are GOP nominees…what else would you expect?
Jim DeMint (R) on The Daily Show
One of the things I love about Jon Stewart interviews is he actually reads the books of his interviews. Most do not. Here he interviews Tea Party darling and Senator from South Carolina Jim DeMint on, amongst other things, the Bush tax cuts, his opposition to regulation of the private sector, being bipartisan…oh, and his book.
New Hampshire Primary Results
If one of the GOP candidates wins NH with a commanding magin, there is a good chance they will also be the nominee to go up against Obama in November, that’s what history would tell us.
At the time of writing this post only 1% of the votes have been tallied, and in those results Mit Romney has about a 10 point lead over Ron Paul.
There is a live tracker here if you want to keep an eye on it over the next couple of hours.
You can also watch results as they start to come out here
Why Obama will win again in 2012
The answer is simple. Barrack Obama will win in 2012 because of Romney, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum and Paul. For the sake of the GOP I hope this isn’t the complete list of candidates to take on Obama in 2012, I hope for their sake there is a dark horse hiding somewhere in the wings that may give them a fighting chance. Anyone of the 5 names mentioned above is an ‘own goal’ for the Republican party. None of them can shine a light on Barrack Obama, all of them have ‘issues’ that I don’t think the American public can overcome.
Ron Paul is a libertarian with the GOP catch cry of getting big government out of Americans’ homes. That is the catch cry of all GOP candidates but Paul takes it to an extreme. In fact if I am honest he is probably the only candidate who takes that belief to its logical conclusion. In FOX News debate late last year he made it clear that marijuana, cocaine, heroine, prostitution and gay marriage should be legal. He is consistent, incredibly consistent, but the problem with that consistency is that he will come up against a public that really deep down likes their hypocrisy. The public that doesn’t want Muslims to have the same access to mosques as Christians do to churches, the public that don’t want homosexuals to have the same rights to marriage as straight people and the public who deep down actually want the government in their homes, telling them what to do ala the Patriot Act. His consistency will be his downfall.
Newt Gingrich. Ironically Gingrich began to gather some support when Herman Cain stepped out of the running for infidelity issues, the GOP support then went to Gingrich who has a past of serious and multiple infidelities. He has been married three times; his first marriage was to one of his high school teachers. He had an affair on her, for a sustained period including while she was in hospital for major surgery. He said of this first wife that “she’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer.” He then married the woman with whom he was having an affair on his first wife…and proceeded to have an affair on her with a woman 23 years his junior. This was all going on while he was he was in charge of the investigation against President Bill Clinton for perjury over his affairs. He then married again with the younger woman to whom he is still married today…or at least was at the time of writing this piece. How can a public trust a man who is untrustworthy with the person he is closest with in the world. They can’t…and won’t.
Rick Santorum is probably the person with the best chance of upsetting Obama is you put them head to head. He is a lawyer, 53 years old, has held numerous high level positions within the House of Representatives and the US Senate…but the problem is his name…well maybe not his name…but what his name means. You see in 2003 Santorum was support a bill to make sodomy illegal. When this bill was lost he compared homosexuality, amongst other things, to incest, bigamy and adultery. This incensed a gay rights activist who then set up a website to redefine what Santorum means, it’s pretty graphic but you can Google it and it’s still there as the number 1 and number 3 result. If you are of weak constitution thought you might not want to do it. In 2010 the activist offered to take the site down if Santorum donated $5 million to a group advocating same sex marriage. This did not happen. So whilst he looks a good solid candidate, I think the American public would be a wee bit gun shy of putting this man…with his newly defined name…in front of the world. Although it would be great for comedians.
Mit Romney is Mormon, now that may not sound like a failing to your and I, but to a religious country like America, where Presidents needs to be all about the baby Jesus, if Romney is selected there will be an aggressive advertising campaign to explain the difference between LDS and Evangelical Christian. I would go so far as to say that it would be a greater leap to elect a Mormon as President as it was to elect a black candidate, or as it would be to elect a woman. Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers; they also believe that women will be pregnant for all eternity populating their own planets. Mormons believe that God is an exalted man and we can all become Gods ourselves. Now I have no problem with Mormons, what I am saying is that if Romney is the candidate this is the information that will be broadcast to tell America why they shouldn’t vote for him.
And finally Rick Perry, just three little words for him, he’s a moron.
None of these men (and no I haven’t forgotten Michelle Bachman, I just think she is out of the picture) on their own, or as a candidate are necessarily bad, they may not be bad politicians, they are not bad Americans…but they are all bad choices to go up against Barrack Obama.
Barrack Obama is healthy, clean cut with a great marriage; he is young and vibrant and still have a solid base (30%-40%) of support. Say what you want about Obama, with the birth certificate tomfoolery, accusations of being a Muslim and even his lacking record in his first term are enough to remove him from the top job. It won’t be the margin it was in 2008 but there isn’t enough bad blood for a winning percentage of voters to back any of the top 5 Republican candidates. Not even an American wants to score an own goal in this economic climate.
