dominoes revisited

we've been here before, haven't we?

the trump retirement plan

picture of the day

overheard election evening: "i'm sorry to have to ask you again, governor, but could you repeat that just one more time? and even louder? the folks over here are just a little bit excited tonight."

nov. 6, 2012: president obama talks on the phone with former massachusetts gov. mitt romney in the presidential suite at the fairmont chicago millennium park in chicago, ill. (via tpm)

exit interview

enjoy your retirement, sam.

audio: detective calls comments about obama's death 'political hyperbole'

veteran JSO officer retires after confronted with perceived threat to president

the jacksonville sheriff's office has released audio of an internal affairs interview with a veteran detective accused of threatening the president and members of the democratic party the week of the election earlier this month.

that detective, sam koivisto, later retired from JSO.

in the interview, koivisto was asked if he knew why he was being questioned.

"my understanding is that, and all i can say, all there is to say, is any statements made are political hyperbole," he said. "such as when on tv, they go, 'hey, you know, the republicans want to, you know, take — put people on death lists and, you know, push them off the cliff or something.' i mean, that's all it is. it's just political hyperbole. i have not said it. i've not made any threats against anybody. i've not said anything other than to express a desire, not happy with the fact obama got elected. that's it."

an internal affairs investigator continued to prompt koivisto about the statements he made.

"the statement i made in the office was something of the nature — i think ms. field at some point said, 'you know, the poor people up north just got hit by one storm and now they're hit by another,'" koivisto said. "and i made the statement, 'well, you know, the whole northeast just generally has voted democratic, voted heavily obama, got him elected. and so i said something to the point, 'well, if a nuclear bomb exploded and killed them all, it wouldn't hurt my feelings any.' that's what i said. didn't make any statement about hurting anybody or anything of that nature."

the investigator, however, said the statement he wanted koivisto to speak on was one he made about a threat to kill the president.

"no. no. the only statement ever made about the president was, i said, 'you know, just like when they killed osama bin laden,' i said, 'if someone says, 'hey, he is the enemy of the state or whatever,' and they had to take him out, then i could be the guy to do it,'" koivisto said. "that's not, that's not a, that's not me saying i would kill the guy or anything of that nature. that's just to say that if the guy went away, it wouldn't hurt my feelings."

koivisto said he never told anybody he wanted to kill the president.

"it was a bad choice of words, perhaps," he said. "no intention with it whatsoever."

in koivisto's retirement letter, he requested to keep his badge and glock 27, and was allowed to.

sheriff john rutherford said his department learned the friday after the election of "threatening statements allegedly made by one of our detectives."

rutherford said in a preliminary interview with koivisto, he acknowledged making the statements, which "we found his comments to be unacceptable workplace conduct, as opposed to legitimate threats."

"it was never made, never a threat, never any, you know, ever going to ever take any action on it or anything of that nature," koivisto said. "it was just saying that, you know, i'm not real fond of the guy, and if he goes away it wouldn't hurt my feelings."

during the interrogation, he insisted it was all just talk.

"simply just saying that i'm not pleased with that whole situation of, of the country is in. period. that's it," koivisto said. "political hyperbole, nothing more, nothing less."

given the nature of the comments, JSO notified the united states secret service of koivisto's statements. the secret service said a decision on any possible charges would be up to the U.S. attorney's office.

rutherford said koivisto, who had 24 years with the department, elected to retire early.

the interviewer makes a keen observation the erstwhile detective so far is unwilling to acknowledge: "perception is reality. if they perceive that: hey you said that and you got the means to carry it out, you ARE a police officer ..."

koivisto wants to pretend otherwise but, unlike most random nutjobs off the street, the feds have no choice but to take his case seriously.

the interviewer's trying to tell him: someone believed you.

why romney ran

atrios @ eschaton asks:

who the hell would want that job

not going to waste too much of my beautiful mind on it, but I do wonder why romney wanted to be preznit. i wonder the same about anyone, of course, but the reasons do differ.

let me count the ways:

1. to prove Himself better than His Father, who, though being the better man, failed to become President

2. to see His Name writ upon the Pages of History, as a member of the Most Exclusive Club in the World

3. to walk in the Company of World Leaders, and not as a donor or favor-seeker or hanger-on

4. to bask in the Glow of His lessers, and have Senators, CEOs and Rock Stars seek His Attention and Kiss His Ring

5. to receive Presidential Awards, Prizes and Medals

6. to hear everyone speak His Name every day for eight continuous years

7. to place a Capstone on His Worldly Achievements

8. to culminate a life-long Quest for Validation

the sad trombone

via tumbler, scenes from the night republicans discovered that reality really does have a liberal bias:

four more years ...

not a fluke

finally, the home stretch

foreign policies

the 70's called — they want their foreign policy back!

♬ all mitt is saaaying, is ... ♬

a tale of two campaigns

and this is the way the debates end:

say what, governor?

booman tribune:

last night's debate was different for a lot or reasons. the president let himself get pushed around a little bit early on, but not without some resistance. and he eventually found the perfect moment to rope-a-dope Romney into the threshing blades with his comments on terrorism in benghazi. thereafter, obama was the undisputed alpha dog of the debate, which was capped by his good fortune in having the final say of the night. if it were a boxing match, romney was knocked down at least two times and the fight ended with mitt on the ropes taking a pummeling from the champion. the judges' cards were not close.

a tale of two campaigns

a tale of two campaigns

via twitter:

ari rabin-havt: clearly biden warmed up with some p90x tonight

oliver willis: fox calls ryan "the budget whiz." ffs.

jasons linkins: NOBODY BEATS THE WHIZ

a tale of two campaigns

let romney savor his moment.

he's worked his entire life for it.

romney unplugged

(original artwork by alex ross)

fox news:

bill o'reilly: i don't understand what the controversy is. i think mr. romney should campaign on this point. if i'm governor romney, i run with this all day long.

sean hannity: it is romney unplugged as the GOP presidential nominee delivers one of his sharpest critiques yet of president obama and the entitlement society that he enables.

stuart varney: i think this will be seen as a win for romney.

pollster nate silver @ fivethirtyeight:

after a secretly recorded videotape was released on sept. 17 showing mitt romney making unflattering comments about the "47 percent" of americans who he said had become dependent on government benefits, i suggested on twitter that the political impact of the comments could easily be overstated.

"ninety percent of 'game-changing' gaffes are less important in retrospect than they seem in the moment," i wrote.

... since then, however, mr. obama has gained further ground in the polls. as of thursday, he led in the popular vote by 5.7 percentage points in the "now-cast," a gain of 1.6 percentage points since mr. romney's remarks became known to the public.

it's hard to tell whether this recent gain for mr. obama reflects the effect of the "47 percent" comments specifically. but the most typical pattern after a party convention is that a candidate who gains ground in the polls cedes at least some of it back.

instead, the more pertinent question seems not whether mr. obama is losing ground, but whether he is still gaining it.

... what we can say with more confidence is that mr. romney is now in a rather poor position in the polls.

... the overall story line, however, is fairly clear: mr. romney is at best holding ground in the polls, and quite possibly losing some, at a time when he needs to be gaining it instead. further, it's increasingly implausible for mr. romney to attribute the numbers to temporary effects from the democratic convention. mr. obama's probability of winning the electoral college advanced to 83.9 percent in the nov. 6 forecast, up from 81.9 percent on wednesday.

romney-ryan: a post-mortem

so how did romney-ryan flub their campaign? plainly stated, they attempted to play the electorate for total fools. the fools, however, were not amused.

romney-ryan (and their moneyed backers) wanted to see just how far they could get away with outright lying as a central strategy, one that was dependent on the media playing along in its contemporary role as neutered stenographers. the stenographers, however, were not amused. the plan fell apart with romney's attacks on obama's welfare waiver; the press, not really enjoying serving romney as thankless eunuchs, chose their remaining credibility over complete irrelevance.

romney-ryan wanted to see just how far they could get away with running a campaign on nothing but glib generalities and baffling banalities. trust my wonk, romney assured us; everything makes sense in the details, which we'll happily bore you with ... after the election. however, a certain now-famous and doubtlessly pivotal tape revealed:

romney: if we win on november 6th there will be — a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. and we'll see capital come back and we'll see — without — without actually doing anything, we'll [chuckling] actually get a boost in the economy.

heh heh heh... surprise! no grand vision up my sleeve, no master plan beyond untethered hope, something conservatives invoking obama's 2008 campaign currently sneer at. meanwhile, the 47% were not amused.

so the romney-ryan bamboozlefest 2012 crashed and burned more than a month before the election, before even a single debate. in truth it never really got off the ground. perhaps they were doomed from the start. the republican brand has suffered nothing less than a total loss of credibility. with credibility goes a certain deference normally given, certainly by the press, to those cloaked in the authority of their reputations. they might have held onto a remnant of it by admitting their mistakes and cooperating in fixing them.

so who knows if it could have worked? perhaps if the team weren't so clearly incompetent, unable to turn either a scripted event, like their london tour or an unforseen one, like the libyan riots, to their advantage. one thing is clear, though: the electorate isn't nearly as idiotic as romney-ryan themselves turned out to be.

romney-man to the rescue

(story and art by ty templeton)

a tale of two campaigns

a tale of two campaigns

a campaign about nothing

(via "seinfeld" fan booman tribune)

[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of November 3rd, 2008, the day after Barack Obama is elected president. Mitt Romney and long-time Bain Capital consigliere Bill White enjoy poached eggs.]

BILL: Salsa is now the number one condiment in America.

MITT: You know why? Because the country is being overrun by people who like to say "salsa." "Excuse me, do you have salsa?" "We need more salsa." "Where is the salsa? No salsa?"

BILL: You know it must be impossible for a Spanish person to order seltzer and not get salsa. (Angry) "I wanted seltzer, not salsa."

MITT: "Don't you know the difference between seltzer and salsa?? You have the seltzer after the salsa!" You really should look into acquiring the Serrano's salsa company. They're up and coming.

BILL: See, this should be the campaign. This is the campaign.

MITT: What?

BILL: This. Just talking.

MITT: (dismissing) Yeah, right.

BILL: I'm really serious. I think that's a good idea.

MITT: Just talking? Well, what's the campaign about?

BILL: It's about nothing.

MITT: No policy?

BILL: No forget the policy.

MITT: You've got to have policy.

BILL: Who says you gotta have policy? Remember when we were waiting for that table at L'Espalier that time? That could be the campaign.

MITT: And who runs against us? Who are the characters?

BILL: Rick Santorum could be a character.

MITT: Santorum?

BILL: Yeah. He's a riot.

MITT: So, on the campaign, there's Rick Santorum?

BILL: Yeah. There's something wrong with that? He's a character. People are always saying to him, "You know you're a quite a character."

MITT: And who else is on the campaign?

BILL: Michele Bachmann could be a character. Newt...

MITT: Now he's a character.

BILL: Right.

MITT: And our campaign will be about nothing?

BILL: Absolutely nothing.

MITT: So you're saying, I go in to the big donors, and tell them I got this idea for a campaign about nothing.

BILL: We go to the big donors.

MITT: "We"? Since when are you a campaign strategist?

BILL: (Scoffs) Campaign strategist? We're talking about the American public!

MITT: You want to go with me to the big donors?

BILL: Yeah. I think we really got something here.

MITT: What do we got?

BILL: An idea.

MITT: What idea?

BILL: An idea for the campaign.

MITT: I still don't know what the idea is.

BILL: It's about nothing.

MITT: Right.

BILL: Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing.

MITT: So, we go into the big donors, we tell them we've got an idea for a campaign about nothing.

BILL: Exactly.

MITT: They say, "What's your campaign about?" I say, "Nothing."

BILL: There you go.

(A moment passes)

MITT: (Nodding) I think you may have something there.

[Scene: breakfast at fancy hotel restaurant, morning of January 21st, 2009, the day after Barack Obama is inaugurated as president. Mitt Romney and future campaign manager Matt Rhoades enjoy poached eggs.]

(Matt Rhoades pitches campaign strategy)

MATT: ...And you're the manager of the circus.

MITT: A circus?

MATT: Come on, this is a great idea. Look at the characters. You've got all these freaks on the campaign. A woman with starry eyes? I mean, who wouldn't tune in to see a women with starry eyes? You've got the dumbest man in the world; a guy who's just a head.

MITT: You mean Bachmann, Perry, and Gingrich?

MATT: Look Mitt, the show isn't about the circus, it's about watching freaks.

MITT: I don't think the networks will like it.

MATT: Why not?

MITT: Look, I don't want to do a campaign that is just about freaks.

MATT: Oh come on, Mitt, you're wrong. People they want to watch freaks. You'll be a shoe-in. This is a "can't miss."