(Tom Toles via GoComics.com)
Meet your new owners, Mitt Romney’s Amercia(tm)! As Nicholas Confessore in the NYTimes explains it, “Cash and Clout Arrive Together“:
The railway giant CSX, which has spent $2 million this year lobbying on issues like greenhouse-gas regulation and hazardous-waste transportation rules, will park special train cars near the Tampa Bay Times Forum to host parties and meetings.
Reflecting the new power and prominence of “super PACs” and other groups in the Republican world, Americans for Prosperity, a tax-exempt organization that is spending millions of dollars against President Obama, will hold a reception, “A Salute to Entrepreneurs Building America.” The honorees are David H. Koch, the group’s billionaire co-founder, and Art Pope, a North Carolina businessman and generous donor to conservative causes.
The billionaire investor Paul Singer, who has given at least $1 million to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, has booked Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice for invitation-only briefings, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin for a private dinner, and himself for a breakfast seminar titled “A Pro-Growth Agenda for a Romney Administration.”
When thousands of delegates, elected officials and party leaders begin arriving in Tampa, Fla., for the Republican National Convention, hundreds of lobbyists, corporate executives, trade associations and donors will be waiting for them, exploiting legal loopholes — and the fun-house atmosphere — that make each party’s quadrennial conventions a gathering of money and influence unrivaled in politics. …
raven
If you would like to know about how swell the pukes are doing you can hear the choir on Joe in their fucking loafers and no socks.
raven
“Things were so much uglier for Bill Clinton than they have ever been for Barak Obama.”
amk
teh capitalism and teh moronism at its best.
amk
fat boy chris christie chickens out of veep offer from mittbot fearing a certain romney-was-doomed loss.
Of course, craven coward mittbot was also afraid of losing all the wall-street cash if the fat fucker stayed on as gov.
JPL
Wow.. I’m watching (streaming) morning Joe. It sounds as though they are going to paint Romney as the anti hope and change guy. Vote for me because I’m a narcissist.
amk, thanks for the link.
The Ancient Randonneur
On a July day in 2019, a nation of completely autonomous individuals, with no social contract and no collective purpose, will manage without any governmental interference or involvement and billions of dollars from out corporate friends to place two people upon Mars. (I also have a bridge for sale if anyone is interested.)
danielx
In 2008 it was AT&T sponsoring events for the Dems – oddly enough, shortly after a Democratic congress voted to remove any corporate responsibility for cooperating with the Bushies’ NSA spying program. This year it’s CSX along with a host of others sponsoring the Rs, and shortly thereafter it will be whomever sponsoring the Dems at their convention.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think the latter are a better alternative. But Charles Ferguson of Inside Job and Predator Nation (which I just finished) fame has it pretty well right: our elected representatives are the best that money can buy.
This, of course, should not be news to anybody with a pulse.
max
As Nicholas Confessore in the NYTimes explains it
There’s a couple of other good ones in the Times:
So, they’re gonna vote for Romney. Probably. Ron Paul is unhappy. Reed says wahoo, but the grassroots evangelicals are entirely unthrilled by being unceremoniously ditched.
Meanwhile:
I am going to say that, when Dan Quayle sounds like the smartest guy in the room (read the story!), it would be reasonable to suspect one’s party is in real bad trouble.
Romney’s coalition is fraying after he’s picked Ryan, even while he’s running 10,000 billion lying about everything. Probably doesn’t help that now he says he was in favor of Romneycare before he was against it, which was just before he was in favor of it again. Aside from the chirpy beat sweeteners, I haven’t seen a damn thing to suggest that Romney is in good shape. Or I should say that I haven’t seen anything to suggest that it gets any better for Mitt from here on out.
max
[‘Poor Mitt – it’s hard to buy a country these days. Maybe he shoulda tried Central America or Africa.’]
Kirbster
When Cokie Roberts said the words “horse race” on NPR this morning, I wanted to reach through the radio and strangle her.
Phil Perspective
@max: Danny boy should talk to Dickhead Armey and have them lay off the racism. I guess people have heard about the new Teahadist sponsored movie(no, not the Dinesh D’Snooza one) called Runaway Slave? It’s probably as bad and ugly as you can imagine.
Steve
@danielx: The Democrats have banned corporate sponsorships for this convention, so it won’t be sponsored by anyone.
SenyorDave
The adults in this country deserve a Mitt Romney presidency. The children don’t.
arguingwithsignposts
There is no more fitting name in politics than dick armey.
Baud
@Steve:
No amount of progress can overcome the “there’s no difference” meme. They should just take the money.
JPL
@SenyorDave: GA has always leaned to the right. The Democratic administrations have been more like moderate Republicans. As I say that our elected officials have grown more extreme, tea party Republicans. The result is massive cuts in schools, shifting state funds to charters and high unemployment. The populace blames Obama. The problem is not what will happen under a Mitt but whether or not he will be blamed.
JPL
After the Bush administration, you would think that it would take decades before Republicans would rule again. They already have the house and there is a real possibility they will gain control of the Senate and the Presidency. The future does not look bright.
batgirl
@JPL:
Exactly. The people vote in the anti-government party who makes sure that government doesn’t work, then the GOP blames the Democrats for government not working and the people buy it voting for the GOP again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Ann Rynd
Chris Matthews on Morning Joe just tore Reince Prebus a whole new asshole big enough to drive a weinermobile through. It was a splendid moment with Reince muttering “garbage, garbage.” Haven’t seen a moment like this since Bulkley/Gore a long time ago.
gene108
The SuperPAC money scares me. Not so much in 2012, but in 2014 and especially 2016, because, whoever the Dem nominee is in 2016, you can expect hundreds of millions of dollars of lying ads from SuperPAC’s that may successfully define him/her before he/she has a chance to fight back.
They’re spending millions lying about Obama, but after 3+ years as President, he’s pretty much defined in the minds of voters.
In 2016, think about what Bush, Sr. did to Dukakis, in 1988, in a span of a few months multiplied by a 1000x more lying, more ads, and more months of constant bullshit.
Valdivia
@gene108:
I think it will depend on how the economy is doing and how far to the right on insanity the Reps have gone (and how the Dem candidate is). If they continue on the current path there will be no money that can buy them the squishy middle
Elizabelle
@gene108:
Once Obama is re-elected (please, please, please), perhaps we can get a saner Supreme Court and revisit the Citizens United travesty.
Perhaps legislation to stop selling the government to multigazillionaires.
Perhaps, perhaps, but enough people could make that happen.
jeffreyw
No rainbow bridge for you!
Cassidy
@gene108: If we get the House, that can ppossibly be fixed.
Elizabelle
@Ann Rynd:
Props to Chris Matthews.
About 20 mins ago, Morning Joe brought up some farfetched argument and got blowback from Matthews. Joe sniffed that they had to stop the discussion because of Matthews’ behavior.
Chris Matthews: “That’s because you’re losing.”
Wish I could remember quotes better. Exchange made me laugh out loud.
Sparrowgal
@Elizabelle: The general discomfort of the hosts following this exchange was simply delicious…humminah, humminah.
Steve M.
I thought they were always our owners.
robertdsc-PowerBook
Funny, I first noticed that they made Mitt look like a swastika. Not too surprising given the GOP’s fascism.
Valdivia
Oh wait I see from USA Today (via Think Progress where I saw a transcript of that delicious Matthews moment) that Romney’s official line is that Obama gut welfare to shore up his base. So, all the lazy people on welfare vote Obama ah? God that man is utterly despicable.
bjacques
@Phil Perspective:
This “Runaway Slave?” With the symbol at the bottom that’s probably meant to look a little like the NYFD symbol but also looks sorta like a Ku Klux Klan badge?
My dad was pestering me about how I had to see “2016: Obama’s America” for “education,” so I guess I’d better get up to speed on this one, which no doubt proves Democrats are the real racists.
gene108
@Valdivia:
My personal theory is it’s not so much how far right Republicans go, because for whatever reason ‘x’% of people will vote for them no matter what, especially in places like Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Utah, etc.
The real issue is how successful Obamacare will be, when it is fully implemented in 2014.
If by 2016, people don’t want to go back to an era of being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions, being married to a job because there’s no other way to get affordable healthcare and whatever else gets people stressed out about medical care in the country, I think no amount of right-wing money can mask the fact every Republican voted 30+ times to repeal this in the current Congress and would want to get rid of all the protection people have begun to enjoy by 2016.
HCR is a scary for the Right, because it brings in middle class people under the umbrella of “big government” in ways Medicaid, SNAP, etc. just can’t.
PaminBB
I was pondering the oxymoron that is the name “Restore our Future”. If you are trying to restore something, seems you are seeking the past, not the future.
I know, over-thinking it.
AHH onna Droid
@max: yeah, I read the article. The right honorable tosser from Oklahoma stated that Repubs were tossing incumbent conservatives for tea party dead-enders because of the growth of the federal government in the last two years.
Deficit is the new n*gger, n*gger.