Women earn just 77 cents to every $1 earned by men, proponents of new legislation say.

With a new poll may may have women once again moving toward Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader is reminding female voters that the GOP hasn’t ended its “war on women.”

Although President Obama had opened up a huge 19-point advantage among women just weeks ago in the midst of the debates over birth control and other women’s issues, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that gap has shrunk to just 7 percent.

The “war on women” has been a potent rallying cry to attract more women voters to the Democratic side.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada took to the Senate floor Wednesday to remind voters about the earlier Republican battles against women’s health care and access to contraception, and to challenge GOP senators to support the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) reintroduced the legislation Tuesday.

“Although women make up nearly half of today’s workforce, they still earn only 77 cents on the dollar compared to their male colleagues,” Reid says. “And with an increasing number of women heading American households, this is a problem that affects children and families across the country.”

Reid calls the Senate Paycheck Fairness Act  “a logical extension of protections under the Equal Pay Act” which he says would help close the pay gap by helping women negotiate for equal pay and “creating strong incentives for employers to obey the laws already in place.”

Supporters of the Paycheck Fairness Act complain that despite current law, women are still blocked from knowing what their colleagues make. And when they fight for fair pay, they can lose their jobs.

In 19 of the 20 most common occupations for men or women, women earn less for the same work, those supporters say. In 264 of 265 major occupations, women’s median earnings are less than men, they add. And the pay gap costs women an average of $434,000 over their career, they say.

Mikulski, other Democratic senators, and independent advocates also held a separate press conference Wednesday to press for passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act. Mikulski made state-by-state data on the wage gap available online here.

Mikulski and others say her bill would build on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed into law by Obama in 2009, which overturned the 180-day statute of limitations for women to contest pay discrimination. The Ledbetter law was the first legislation that Obama signed into law once in office as president. The Paycheck Fairness Act will close the loopholes that allow pay discrimination to continue in the first place, they say.

“Republicans deny they’re waging a war on women, yet they’ve launched a series of attacks on women’s access to health care and contraception this year,” Reid says. “Now they have an opportunity to back up their excuses with action.

“I hope they take that opportunity, and join Democrats as we send a clear message that America values the incredible contributions women make every day,” he adds.

Democrat Cory Booker may not want “to sit here and indict private equity” like that once run by Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, but a former Labor secretary was more than happy to take that plunge.

Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., stirred up a firestorm Sunday by appearing on national TV to seemingly undercut President Obama’s attacks on the way Romney handled his time at the head of private-equity firm Bain Capital.

However, Robert Reich, the Clinton-era Labor secretary and noted liberal economist, teamed up with MoveOn.org to create a lively and clever Web video which describes just why a political critique of private equity firms is entirely valid — “in eight simple steps.”

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:

Click here to view the embedded video.

by WALTER BRASCH

It’s time to retire the 99 percent.

Not the people, but the slogan that identifies the Occupy Movement.

“We’re the 99 percent” slogan focused upon two completely different groups of people. The 99 percent are the masses, the impoverished, the disenfranchised, the middle class; the 1 percent refers to the concentration of wealth in the top one percent of the population and in the dominance of large corporate and global financial systems.  

The Movement, following the Arab Spring, began in the late summer of 2011 with the Occupy Wall Street protest. Central to the Movement, which quickly expanded into more than 500 American cities and 82 countries, was a call for social and economic justice.

During the 2007 Great Recession, the accumulated wealth of the 1 percent decreased significantly less than the wealth of the 99 percent, large numbers of whom first became unemployed and then homeless because of the tactics of greed led by the financial empires.

Within the 1 percent are CEOs and executives of the banking industry that willingly took government bailout funds, and then used some of that money to give six and seven figure bonuses.

The 1 percent includes Ina R. Drew, chief investment officer for JPMorgan Chase, which lost $2 billion in funds through misguided investment policies. Drew, one of Wall Street’s power players—and widely recognized as one of the more brilliant financial managers—earned about $14 million in salary. Jamie Dimon, in a stockholder meeting this past week, humbled by the huge loss, told stockholders, “This should never have happened. I can’t justify it. Unfortunately, these mistakes were self-inflicted.” But, Dimon, both the chief executive officer and the chairman of the board, kept his job and its $23 million salary.

The 1 percent also includes Mitt Romney, who earned about $21 million in 2010, and has a net worth of about $230 million, according to Forbes, but hasn’t filed his 2011 taxes. Somehow, he wants the people to believe he will bring the nation out of the depths of the Great Recession, but needs an extension to file his own taxes.

The 1 percent also includes right-wing celebrity mouth Rush Limbaugh, who is in the middle of an eight year $400 million contract that allows him to spew lies, hate, and venom at anyone who doesn’t agree with his ultra-conservative philosophy, which includes Occupiers and just about anyone with a social, environmental, and economic conscience.

The 1 percent includes Sarah Palin, once an obscure politician who now has a net worth of about $14 million, most of it the result of her participation in the mainstream media, which she claims she despises. 

The 1 percent includes the Kardashian Sisters whose souls are wrapped in self-adulation, and who are worshipped by millions who have enhanced their importance by watching reality shows and reading vapid celebrity “tell-all” newspapers and magazines.

But the 1 percent also includes billionaire Warren Buffet, who is leading a movement to reduce tax loopholes and increase taxes on the rich, while improving the tax structure for the 99 percent.

The 1 percent includes Bill and Melissa Gates who are spending most of their fortune to improve the education and health of people throughout the world.

The 1 percent includes George Clooney, who has been at the forefront of the fight for justice in Darfur, whose citizens have been the victims of genocide by the Sudanese government.

The 1 percent includes Angelina Jolie who is Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and who has put her money and time into helping the world’s children.

The 1 percent includes Ed Asner, Bono, Mike Farrell, Bette Midler, Sean Penn, Rob Reiner, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, and thousands of other millionaire celebrities who have willingly put their reputations and money on the line to fight for the important social, economic, and political causes that should be the ones that define America as a land of freedom and opportunity, and which would be supported by most of the nation’s Founding Fathers. 

In contrast, the 99 percent isn’t composed solely of the victims of the 1 percent. Millions are as uncaring, as greedy, as self-centered as some of those in the 1 percent. Millions are racist, sexist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. Millions follow Tea Party philosophies that selfishly place the health and welfare of the people secondary to a belief that cutting spending, except for the military, will solve all problems. It is a philosophy that, if left unchallenged, would force even greater misery to the American Middle Class and underclass, and lead to destroying the balance of nature and the environment.

“We are the 99 percent” slogan, coupled with non-violent protest in the face of several violent police incidents, had served the Movement well, but its time is over. The Movement can no longer be an “us versus them” philosophy that has become divisive. It must now migrate to one that includes all people who are willing to fight for social, political, and economic justice in the Army of Conscience.

[Walter Brasch—as writer and activist—has been a part of the movement for social, political, and economic justice for more than four decades. His current book is the critically-acclaimed novel, Before the First Snow, the story of an activist and her relationship with a journalist over a 25 year period from 1964 to 1991, the eve of the Persian Gulf War.]

President Obama’s decision to come out squarely in favor of same-sex marriage quickly electrified Democrats, progressives and other supporters of marriage equality.

In the midst of his battle for re-election, Obama announced in an interview with ABC News: “I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

Previously, Obama had said only that his views on the issue had been “evolving.”

But with his declaration Wednesday, Democrats and other progressives quickly rallied to the president’s side.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), fired off an email titled “BREAKING: Historic announcement.”

“Today is an historic day in America. This afternoon, President Obama announced his support for marriage equality for all Americans,” Murray says. “I am standing with the President and I hope you will, too. As a result of taking this stand, President Obama will face attacks from every corner of the Republican Party. Everyone from Mitt Romney to the tea partiers will unite behind this issue to try to end his presidency.”

Murray’s email includes a link to an online petition in support of same-sex marriage which the senator encourages recipients to sign.

Democracy For America (DFA), a prominent progressive organization associated with former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean, portrayed Obama’s announcement in similar terms.

“This is a huge moment for DFA members who’ve been working towards full marriage equality across the country — in California, in New York, in North Carolina, in Vermont, in Washington and everywhere in between,” says Jim Dean, chairman of DFA and Howard Dean’s brother. “Our work’s not done yet, but this is a huge victory in that fight.”

DFA’s email includes a link to allow Twitter users to tweet their thanks to the president.

Meanwhile, the president himself emailed supporters to explain his sudden outpouring of support.

In the email sent from his 2012 re-election campaign website, Obama described how his thinking had changed.

“I’ve always believed that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally. I was reluctant to use the term marriage because of the very powerful traditions it evokes. And I thought civil union laws that conferred legal rights upon gay and lesbian couples were a solution,” the president says. “But over the course of several years I’ve talked to friends and family about this. I’ve thought about members of my staff in long-term, committed, same-sex relationships who are raising kids together. Through our efforts to end the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, I’ve gotten to know some of the gay and lesbian troops who are serving our country with honor and distinction.

“What I’ve come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered less than full citizens,” Obama says.

[* Thurston Howell III's kid.]

Seems that Mitt Romney tired of abusing dogs and turned his attentions to boating. Buzz Feed reports [emphasis added]:

Mitt Romney Was Arrested For Disorderly Conduct In 1981

According to what Romney told the Boston Globe in 1994, he had taken his family off to Wayland, Mass.’s Lake Cochituate, about an hour outside Boston, for a summer excursion. As Romney prepared to put his family boat into the water, a park officer told Romney not to launch because his license appeared to have been painted over. The officer told Romney if he put his boat into the water he would face a $50 fine.

Romney felt that his license was still visible and decided to ignore the order from the officer and pay the fine.

Because, you know, it’s only about what you’re willing to pay. Laws? LAWS? We don’t have to pay attention to no steenking laws. Listen to Thurston opine on the fundamental pestiness of these stupid laws. Mitt “felt” that he was in compliance with the law. So, rather than change his plans, he ignored the officer’s instruction.

Hey, what’s fifty bucks? A mere Grant. Here, buddy. Buy yourself a new nightstick. 

After Romney put the family boat into the water, the officer reappeared visibly angry and arrested Romney for disorderly conduct. Romney was handcuffed on the scene, taken to the local police station, and booked.

“There I was, dripping wet in a bathing suit,” Romney told the Globe. A magistrate let him go without bail.

Several days later, Romney appeared in Natick District Court and threatened to sue the arresting office for a false arrest. The charges were dropped and sealed at Romney’s request.

Aw. Jeepies. Turn the tables and bring in your legal eagles to personally attack and harass the officer and drain the resources of the local court? Why, anyone to the Manor Born would do as much.

Hell, Thurston Howell IV would utterly appreciate how “sporting” Mitt had been. He graciously felt (according to his self-serving recounting) that if the fine was only $50, then the law is actually a sort of vending machine. You plonk in your fifty bucks and do as you please.

GET THAT: your money entitles you to break most any law you please, and if you get arrested, use your immense wealth to intimidate the police and the courts. And, in return for charges being dropped, the PERSONALLY EMBARRASSED zillionaire (‘There I was, dripping wet in a bathing suit,’ Romney told the Globe. A magistrate let him go without bail. – from the story) had the records sealed — so that none could ever talk about what had happened.

Except Mitt, when it came up.

Thus, the only version that we hear is Mitt’s self-serving version. (I guess that’s the inner madman Ann Romney in her thousand dollar tee-shirt told us about?)

But it is a disturbing character trait. When he returned from taking credit for rescuing the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, in 2002, he was not eligible to run as a Massachusetts resident for Governor. RETROACTIVELY, he paid Massachusetts resident taxes for the years in question — when you have homes in several states, as Thurston Howell IV would understand, your “residency” is merely a matter of some tax laws. Hey. He’d pay the $50 fine.

And a grateful Utah refunded Mitt’s Utah taxes, his lawyers took charge, and,presto, chango! Mitt was a Massachusetts resident – despite very publicly living in Utah for two years.

Seriously.

Who you gonna believe? as Richard Pryor said, ME or your lyin’ eyes?

Then, on camera, Mitt and Paul “Eddie Munster” Ryan handed out what Wisconsin election law calls political bribes, and adjudges a low-class felony.

But I guess they threatened to sue the non-arresting officers and the court, because not a damned thing has even been heard about “Oh, I’d just go ahead and pay the fine” Mitt’s little FELONY IN PURSUIT OF THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE LAND.

Hey! After Watergate, what’s a few felonies among friends? You know. Give him a mulligan felony. Country Club rules. Gentleman’s agreement.

That is his APPROACH to law. That is his understanding of it. If you’re willing to pay the fine, fine. If you get in trouble, you know that in America, enough money turns the tables on the courts, when the Defendant has far more resources available than the harried local police, prosecutor’s office and court.

Just imagine those hands on the levers of power, and then think of the audacious immorality (if not to say treason) of Iran-Contra, and then get back to me on what the multiplicand would be. Tenfold? Fiftyfold?

People tell you who they are.

Even when they lie to you with a straight face, a clear eye, an untroubled brow and all the time.

Right, Thurston?

Courage.

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

It ought to be enough to know that, since “the liberal media” is going to distort the ‘truth,’ it’s OK to distort your ‘truth‘ up front, so that you can ‘balance‘ the bias.

Logically, whatever the truth or falsity of your premise (that there IS a ‘liberal media’ and it will ‘slant’ the news in a ‘liberal’ direction), it is indisputable that YOU are biased, and, therefore the justification of your need to be biased … is that bias is a bad thing.

Quod Erat Dumbonstrandumb.

The Romneyites met with the Blogosmear™ yesterday, and, while the press has eyes, they do not see, nor, with ears, do they hear. The particulars were reported without, seemingly, understanding what it all meant. Here are the particulars. Huffington Post:

NEW YORK — In an effort to reach out to conservative media, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney and wife Ann met for two hours Wednesday with several dozen conservative bloggers, reporters and columnists in an off-the-record gathering at a private Washington, D.C. club, according to attendees.

Romney, who struggled with some members of the conservative media during the Republican primary, is banking on their support in his campaign against President Barack Obama, regardless of whether they were previously in his corner or not.

The attendees came from numerous conservative sites and right-of-center publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator,Washington Examiner, Human Events, RedState, Right Wing News, Powerline, Townhall, Ace of Spades, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier and PJ Media. RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended.

Details of the Romney meeting did not previously leak out because of the off-the-record ground rules…

My first reaction to that list was, What? Where were Breitbart.com’s media assassins?

Gone, but not unsnotten

Not to worry. Buzz Feed reports:

The meeting, which included writers from RedState and Breitbart.com as well as a list of conservative publications reported by Huffington Post — National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator, Washington Examiner, Powerline*, Townhall,, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier, and PJ Media (though not, as an early report had suggested, the conspiracist site WorldNetDaily). RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended.

Notably, the meeting also included some grassroots bloggers with no real institutional ties to the Washington Republican Establishment, including the Twitter virtuoso Ace of Spades and John Hawkins of Right Wing News.

[* Powerline Proprietor John Hinderaker is the newest Koch installation on the Cato Institute Board of Directors, his firm does work for Koch and the blog was prominent in the takedown of Dan Rather via blogswarm. This memory will be important below.]

And, a bit further down, in the Huffington Post story, this:

Ann Romney told attendees that she planned to discuss economic issues on the trail from a women’s perspective. Last month, she pushed back against Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen for saying that the mother of five had never worked a day in her life, a charge Rosen later apologized for.

Forest: trees. Trees, forest.

Remember April 30th’s “The Witching Hour“? GOP modus operandi:

• Demonize
• Denounce
• Distract

They’ve already managed to turn the astonishing embarrassment of Lunatic Theodore Nugent into a successful distraction, instead of the unsuccessful “showing their cards” of bigotry, barely masked racism and manufactured paranoia:

Ted Nugent’s Bizarre CBS Interview Culminates In Profanity-Laced Speech About Being Moderate
VIDEO

Musician and activist Ted Nugent sat down with CBS’ Jeff Glor for his first on-camera interview since his talks with the Secret Service over comments he’d made about President Barack Obama at the National Rifle Association’s recent conference in St. Louis.

[...]

“I’m pretty moderate,” he told Glor.

Really? He says what he said (and similar ugly things about Hilary Clinton sucking his machine gun, et al.) and is FETED*? Is treated like a serious pundit, rather than a serious candidate for a rubber room? Listen to the interview and ask yourself how CBS ever sank so low as to air this vile tripe, and how lemming-like ABC is to have picked up on and REPORTED it? Good ghod, people. Joe the Plumber runs for Kongress while Ted the Dumber spews verbal sadism at the interviewer for merely doing his job in putting the Vandal on the airwaves.

[* More like "fetid."]

The “distract” mechanism is working puuuuuuuuurectly, to quote Mr. Burns. Excellent.

What Buzz Feed found was this:

The Twitter smackdown of Hilary Rosen

Here is what Buzz Feed reports:

At the Republican National Committee yesterday, conservative online writers and bloggers who arrived to meet with Romney were also shown a chart that seemed to explain the Romney campaign’s new warmth toward them. The chart (resembling, a source said, the one produced by Twitter above) illustrated the role a hyperactive conservative Twitterverse played in turning Hilary Rosen’s jab at Ann Romney into a great campaign moment for the Republican.

This additional bit of information fills out the picture:

The event, two bloggers told BuzzFeed, was organized by Patrick Hynes, a veteran online GOP consultant. It featured some friction on issues like health care, but a broader sense that ranks are closing against the common enemies of Obama and the liberal media.

“It was facing reality — what are we going to do?” asked one attendee. “Everybody agrees with Romney that, policy-wise, Obama is a disaster and a threat.“

All right. We can now solve the puzzle. (And, I hope that the deeply conspiratorial nature of the GOP-blog-media linkage in an Information War is not a surprise to my readers.)

At the highest level (as when Bush met with the Right Wing Bloggers in the fall of 2007), the Romney/RNC is organizing a fanatical opposition (“disaster and a threat”) to President Obama for the election, and, flush with success (Buzz Feed headline: “After A Twitter Win, Romney Meets The Online Right – A united front against Obama and the liberal media.”), the Rovian Strategy becomes apparent.

The “Ann Romney, Victim” meme was as false a meme as any con man ever shucked a rube by. We now have the evidence of HOW that falsehood was spread (see “The War on the War on Women Woman“ April 13).

This is the Rovian tactic of dominating EVERY news cycle of every day (ofttimes with a George Dubya speech in the morning), so that the “initiative” (as in chess) is always with the black pieces, as the black kings and queens, the black knights and bishops and their black pawns attempt to rook us all about the Black president.

Instead of dominating every day, they have focused their attention to dominating every HOUR, every MINUTE via coordinated Twitter attacks, a la Ann Romney’s apotheosis and translation to Maternal Heaven and Virgin Maryhood, via a Chariot of Ire. Don’t believe me? Take a look at what Mitt’s “store” is selling for your bumper:

From the Romney Store (captured 4-27-12)

Do you get it? They MADE their coordinated false meme into “reality.” That Mitt meeting with the Mendacious was not to coordinate “news.” It was to coordinate the creation of “news” irrespective of facts. Their “triumph” was akin to Big Brother’s triumph over Winston Smith when Smith finally sees that 2 + 2 really DOES = 5. (You just have to spend enough time in Room 101. Simple.)

OK. When we crunch all the data (and the simple collusion of Rightie bloggers, openly, with the Romney/RNC campaign OUGHT to, itself — by the standards of “JournoList” and Shirley Sherrod — be worthy of SCREAMING and SCANDAL!), the Rightie/Romney/R-Money tactic of choice for fall becomes clear.

Where, beginning with Dan Rather, the blogosmear­™ was used to drive news cycles, the new weapon of choice is Twitter. And that can mean only one thing:

Twitskrieg.

As Roman historian Tacitus notes in Chapter XI of the Annals, “Crime once exposed had no refuge but in audacity. They had accomplices in all who feared the same fate….“

Courage.

==============

UPDATE 1:33 PM PDT: Look what just showed up on my radar – The New York Times adds the following evidence, looking through the other end of the telescope:

May 4, 2012, 8:11 AM
Republicans Use Crowdsourcing to Attack Obama Campaign
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

[...]

An e-mail from the Republican National Committee urged conservatives to use the Twitter hashtag #Julia to mock the timeline. And mock they did. Throughout the day, Twitter was filled with sarcastic messages that described “Julia” as a ward of the government.

Facts is facts, folks. (Republicans, excepted, of course.)

====================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog

The White House last year released this photo of President Obama and top members of his team gathered in the Situation Room during the raid which led to the killing of bin Laden.

Citing a 2009 Senate report as evidence, two Democrats sought to debunk Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s claim that “any president” would have given the order against terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.

As the first anniversary of bin Laden’s death approaches Wednesday, Robert Weiner, a former Clinton White House spokesman, and Weiner associate Richard Mann say they prove wrong the statements by Romney and other critics of Obama that “any president” would have given the order that launched the raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year.

Weiner and Mann contrast Bush’s 2001 outsourcing a raid on Bin Laden’s 2001 Tora Bora location to the Afghanis who failed — on purpose or through ineptness –  to Obama’s U.S. solo action in Abbottabad, Pakistan that succeeded when Obama did not reveal or leak the strategy.

Weiner and Mann say they document their claim with information from a 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, “TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN.”

The Democrats published their argument as a column in the the Naples (Fla.) Daily News.

“When placed in a similar situation with parallel choices, George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor, failed to succeed because he made the opposite decision,” Weiner and Mann write. “In December 2001, Bush had the chance to capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, was faced with the choice of doing it ourselves or involving a foreign government, and asked the Afghanis to do it. Whether by ineptness or intent, the Afghani troops allowed bin Laden to escape.”

Weiner and Mann show how Obama’s approach was totally different: “When Obama was questioned as why he did not inform the Pakistanis in advance about Abbottabad, he said, ‘I didn’t tell most people here in the White House. I didn’t tell my own family. It was that important for us to maintain operational security.’  When asked during the 2006 presidential campaign debates what he would do with ‘actionable intelligence’, he said he would have the United States ‘act unilaterally’ rather than in consort with foreign intelligence if necessary to capture bin Laden. That’s precisely what he did, as the President restated at a White House news conference yesterday.”

Weiner and Mann cite the 2009 Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “The Committee says its review ‘removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora.’”

Weiner and Mann note that the Committee chairman at the time expressed the “hope that we can learn from the mistakes of the past.”

“Obama did,” say Weiner and Mann.

Obama recognized that bin Laden’s compound could not exist without local and likely some kind of government cooperation, Weiner and Mann say.

“During the years after the Tora Bora debacle, the Bush administration went even further in the opposite direction from Obama’s later actions. Bush closed the CIA’s unit on bin Laden. In contrast, Obama reprioritized the search for bin Laden. Bush said, ‘I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.  I really don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.’ Likewise, Governor Romney said he ‘would not move heaven and earth’ to get bin Laden,” the Democrats say.

Further, the pair argue, the notion recently raised by former Bush administration honchos Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, and Dick Cheney that Bush deserves a share of the credit for Obama’s bin Laden operation is ridiculous and should be recognized as “sour grapes.”

“Obama’s team had as key players Vice President Joe Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former Senate Armed Services Committee member, and their emphasis on using intelligence and special operations over a large military footprint ultimately proved successful. Despite 100,000 troops and another 100,000 contractors, the Taliban actually grew stronger,” Weiner and Mann say. “It was the surgical raid by a small team that defeated the man behind the 9/11 attacks.”

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

Four years ago, young voters turned out big for Barack Obama, helping power the coalition which propelled him to the White House. Now, with signs that so-called Millennials are starting to once again line up for the president, Obama and his allies think they’ve found an issue to keep these young voters in the Democrats’ corner.

Obama made a surprise appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s late night TV program to have a little fun — but also to warn about the coming rise in college-loan interest rates coming this summer. Interest rates on student loans are set to double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent – effectively socking 7.4 million students with $1,000-a-year in student loan costs.

“In 2008, young people voted in record numbers and went for President Obama over John McCain by more than 2-to-1.1 This year, every election expert agrees that if that happens again, Obama will win easily—and the Democrats will probably win back the Congress,” says Steven Biel, of the prominent progressive group MoveOn.org. “And now Republicans have handed us a golden opportunity to fire up young people to vote in 2012.”

MoveOn.org is soliciting funds to pay for an online ad campaign in which Biel says the organization plans to place ads on the Facebook page of “every college student in America to warn them about this Armageddon of student debt.”

Clearly, Democrats and their allies believe the student-loan issue will motivate the nation’s 18- to 29-year-olds to turn out for Obama come November. After turning out so strongly for Obama in 2008, this Millennial Generation largely sat on the sidelines in the 2010 midterm elections — one reason why the GOP did so well that year.

A new national poll of 18- to 29-year-olds by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP), finds that Obama has widened the gap between likely general election opponent Mitt Romney and himself. Obama now leads Romney by a 17-point margin, a gain of six percentage points over the 11-point lead the president held in late November IOP polling.

The IOP’s newest poll results also show a plurality of Millennials now predict the president will win re-election in November (43 percent: win; 27 percent: lose), a reversal from four months ago when a greater proportion of 18- to 29-year-olds believed he would lose than win (36 percent: lose; 30 percent: win).

“Over the last several months, we have seen more of the Millennial vote begin to solidify around President Obama and Democrats in Congress,” says Harvard Institute of Politics Director Trey Grayson.

Results from the Harvard survey show that despite moving to their way, Obama and the Democrats may need a strong issue like student loans to keep them out of the hands of the GOP.

“Although this generation is not as supportive of President Obama and Democrats as they may have been in the historic 2008 campaign, this in no way implies that the Republican Party has successfully captured the hearts, minds and votes of Millennials,” says Harvard Institute of Politics Polling Director John Della Volpe. “Instead, Millennials have clearly shown that they are a generation that cares deeply about our country, their role in it –- and feel that the political system as represented by both parties has not effectively engaged them on the issues that will shape their and our nation’s future.”

WATCH VIDEO OF PRESIDENT OBAMA ON JIMMY FALLON’S SHOW HERE:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Scott Nance is the editor and publisher of the news site The Washington Current. He has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade.

Pundit on way to work

Today, the sober analysts of the Pew Institute have lain the GOP Presidential Sweeps of 2012 to rest. (Although, it might be noted that there are still two other candidates in the race.)

Journalism.org

HOW THE MEDIA COVERED THE 2012 PRIMARY CAMPAIGN  —  LESS HORSE RACE THAN 2008  —  By Tom Rosenstiel, Mark Jurkowitz and Tricia Sartor of PEJ  —  Mitt Romney needed 15 weeks once the primary contests began to gain a secure hold over his party’s nomination for president…. Now the race takes a new turn. The focus will shift to the contrast between Romney and Obama, and, with Election Day seven months away, the pace of the narrative will also be altered by the calendar. This retrospective of how the primaries were covered reveals how the two presumptive nominees have been portrayed to this point and what the public has been told about them….

But, what I told you back on January 4th (the day after the kickoff of actual people choosing, the Iowa Caucuses) has remained true throughout. Take a gander, and maybe NOW you’ll believe me:

4 January 2012 · 9:10 AM

The Facts of Life, Iowa Edition

Mitt Romney — or, rather, Romney’s handlers — showed his teeth last week. Not a pretty sight, orthodontists notwithstanding.

The invisible hand always leaves a footprint, though, and we can begin to limn the nature of the campaign’s movements and strategies, as they shake the Etch-A-Sketch and move into full-on campaign mode.

In APRIL!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

But there is a method to that madness, as well.

What have we seen of Mitt’s weaknesses in the past couple of weeks? And what has been done to alter perceptions?

Well, Mitt has been sucked into the GOP’s war on women. So, the narrative was, first, THERE IS NO WAR ON WOMEN. Then: Oh My Ghod! They’ve attacked MOTHERS! (Never question motherhood in a nation whose natal chart is ruled by Cancer, the astrologer would tell you.)

And then: 92.5% of all JOB LOSSES UNDER OBAMA ARE WOMEN’S JOBS!!

OK. Mission Semi-Accomplished. The stark division has been muddied, and the “War on Conservative Women” meme can launch, absorbing and deflecting women’s legitimate anger into being mad at that LESBIAN who said them awful things about Ann Romney not working and Bill Maher says horrible misogynistic stuff and he gave Obama a MILLION DOLLARS and Obama HAS TO GIVE IT BACK!!!!

And, today’s Weakness du Jour: Mitt Romney is mean to dogs.

Mitt Romney belongs to a religious cult that does not allow dogs to gamble.

Again, don’t criticize dogs in the Good ‘Ol USA. (I’m only being semi-Sirius about this.)

It’s all right. This campaign is not going to be run on rationality. It is going to be run on pure reptile brain. Obama SCARY! Mitt NOT a cultist!

And so forth.

But look at what the Rovian Brains behind Mitt’s fangs have ginned up as a response to the famous “Seamus the Irish Setter” scandal, and, significantly, we see the Usual Suspects working hand-in-glove here:

Bam Bites Dog
The political perils of personal attacks.
By JAMES TARANTO
The Wall Street Journal

… In January Obama adviser David Axelrod–not to be confused with Axelrod, the Flying A Dog–blew a dog whistle. He tweeted a photo of the president with Bo, the White House canine, in what appears to be the back seat of a limousine. Axelrod’s comment: “How loving owners transport their dogs.”

In a more serious vein, Lincoln Mitchell of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute writes at the Puffington Host: “For many voters, treating a dog this way is unimaginable and could only be done by somebody who has a problem empathizing with others.”

But then Jim Treacher, the Daily Caller’s resident wag, picked up his dog-eared copy of “Dreams From My Father,” Obama’s 1995 autobiography, and sniffed out this passage from the second chapter. If Axelrod’s tweet was a dog whistle, Treacher’s post is a dinner bell:

With Lolo [Obama's stepfather], I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.

It reminds us of the conclusion of the sci-fi tale “A Boy and His Dog”: “It’s a cookbook.”

Which is, in addition to the snark and the sleaze, literarily incorrect. Passing over the lack of ethics in giving away the ending to a classic short story, it ought be noted that Harlan Ellison wrote “A Boy and His Dog,” and its tagline was NOT “it’s a cookbook.” That was Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man,” which you might remember from the Twilight Zone episode made from it.

Harlan Ellison, not-author-of “To Serve Man”

And it clearly doesn’t remind “us,” since the amateurish error is entirely Taranto’s, as any superficial fact check would have quickly proven. (Ellison’s novella, “A Boy and his Dog,” ends with a witty pun on good taste, which is probably why it escaped Taranto’s memory, since, demonstrably, that is a subject in which he is unversed.)

Never let it be said that James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal was well read. No: Rupert don’t want no writers what read good, Rupert wants writers who write bad. (Or, actually, write bad good.)

Taranto sets up the false dichotomy. Then, quoting someone else, supplies the reptile-brain “counter-argument.”

The Daily Caller, funded by Foster Friess — who’s such a control freak that when the SuperPac he funded wouldn’t spent more money in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, PERSONALLY made Santorum radio ad buys – continues its role as a political assassin. Here’s the reptile brain argument:

Mitt may not be good to dogs, but AT LEAST HE HASN’T EATEN THEM!

OBAMA EATS DOGS!

And, I guess, he’s Hitler, but that’s a slur for another day.

But consider the clear strategy emerging: whatever your weaknesses, turn them against your enemy. (I don’t say “opponent” because the President is not seen as an opponent, as, say, John McCain still understood. No: Obama is the ENEMY.)

Being sold online

Women hate Mitt?

Obama is evil to women! He takes money from WOMAN-HATERS who use the C-Word! Someone who likes him said that MOTHERHOOD ISN’T HARD WORK!

Mitt has a problem with dog-lovers?

OBAMA EATS DOGS! OMG! (Panties twist and untwist, cue the Evil Barbie Corps on Faux Nooz.)

And just LOOK at the blogswarm of MEETOOs that was launched.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

Ask yourself who that invisible hand is, but don’t doubt its handy footwork.

But this is targeted media manipulation at the sub-rational level. It is utterly amoral and historically effective.

Your mind is not important to them. Only your gut-level reactions are.

If that doesn’t bother you, then fasten your seat belt, sit back and enjoy the ride.

But please don’t call it “democracy.”

It barely reaches the moral heights of demagoguery.

Courage.

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UPDATE: Right wing tool Jake Tapper (of ABC News) helps to push the non-story, as though he were an actual journalist. Tapper has a long history of sleazy, amateurish stories on President Obama, going back at least to his “I smelled tobacco on him” bit of high-school newspaper journalism in 2008. Oh wait. No high school newspaper editor would have run that. I wonder if they’d have run THIS:

Apr 17, 2012 11:02pm
Romney Campaign Notes that Obama as a Boy Ate Dog Meat*

Much has been made about Mitt Romney, in 1983, putting his family dog Seamus in a kennel on top of his roof and driving from Boston to Canada, with said canine Seamus making his displeasure known in a rather scatological way.

Democrats have signaled they have every intention of making sure the American people — especially dog-lovers — know the tale. In January, senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod tweeted a photo of the president and Bo in a car, with the snide observation: “@davidaxelrod: How loving owners transport their dogs.”

The Romney campaign signaled Tuesday night that they are not about to cede any ground when it comes to a candidate’s odd past with man’s best friend.

And the Obama campaign shot back, with a spokesman suggesting the Romney team was attacking a child, since the Obama act in question took place when he was a kid.

The Daily Caller noted that in President Obama’s best-selling memoir, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” the president recalls being fed dog meat as a young boy in Indonesia with his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.

[...]

*This post has been updated.

Headline. Young Obama ate Dog as a child, while Jake Tapper eats something far worse as an adult …

And, I have been (snarkily) informed that Taranto’s little literary trope is a “joke.” Which is funny since, in order for something to be a joke, it has to a) be funny and b) be funny.  If you have to explain that it’s a “joke” and not another clueless assertion in an article filled with clueless assertions and snark, then it’s not a “joke.”

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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted  from his blog