Who Said It: Mitt Romney or Mr. Burns?

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Republican Hypocrite Of The Week: Paul Babeu

If it's Tuesday then there must be another news story about a conservative Republican caught up living his or her life privately very differently from the image and ideology he or she is promoting in public.

The latest Republican Hypocrite of the Week is Paul Babeu a 43-year-old conservative Republican who had some national renown in political circles as the elected Sheriff of Pinal County, AZ and who is a declared candidate for the 4th Congressional District of Arizona. He is also apparently a closeted gay man who while maintaining a sexual relationship with a Mexican immigrant has repeatedly aligned himself with Pima County Sherriff Joe Arpaio and the racist, xenophobic nutjobs that fueled passage of Arizona's virulently anti-immigrant legislation SB 1070 into law.

With the astonishing title of "Paul Babeu's Mexican Ex-Lover Says Sheriff's Attorney Threatened Him With Deportation" the Phoenix New Times revealed the house of cards which was Babeu's private, public and political lives on Saturday February 18:

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu — who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times.

The latest of the alleged threats were made through Babeu's personal attorney, who's also running the sheriff's campaign for Congress in District 4, the ex-lover says.

He says lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

Babeu immediately resigned as co-chair of Mitt Romney's Arizona presidential campaign and held a press conference where he confirmed he was gay but denied all the other allegations in the New Times article. Other papers and political outlets have taken up the story, it was even repeated on NPR's Morning Edition today as a "distraction" for Romney as he tries to concentrate on winning the upcoming Arizona and Michigan Republican primaries.

In fact, the next Republican Presidential candidates debate is on Thursday in Phoenix, AZ! I wonder if Sherriff Babeu will show up? (And will he delete his adam4adam profile "studboi1" now?)

I will take the time to reiterate that I am boycotting the entire state of Arizona while SB 1070 is on the books. The United States Supreme Court should rule on Arizona v. United States by the end of June, resolving the constitutionality of the measure.

I have just two things to say about the entire story: hot mess!


UPDATE 02/21/2012 09:26AM PST
The full name and face of Paul Babeu's ex-boyfriend has been revealed by an Arizona television station. It is Jose Orozco and he is 34 years old and apparently NOT an undocumented immigrant.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

To Romney Means "To Defecate In Terror"

The word "romney" is getting the same Google bomb treatment by the group DogsAgainstRomney.com that LGBT activist Dan Savage was so effective at deploying to (re)define the word "santorum."

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Do The Math: We Don't Know Who Won Iowa 2012

On the first official presidential contest of 2012 on January 3rd the mainstream consensus was that Mitt Romney had "won" by 8 votes (out of nearly 120,000 votes cast) ahead of Rick Santorum. This was such a ludicrous claim that I didn't even blog about it, deciding to wait until the official vote tallies were released. 8 votes out of  120,000 is a MUCH smaller margin of error than the margin between Bush and Gore in 2000 (an alleged 437 votes out of 5.8 million). No voting system that we currently use has the capability to resolve that kind of margin (.00005%).

Well, now the official final vote tallies from the 2012 Iowa caucuses are in and they are:

Mitt Romney 29,805
Rick Santorum 29,839

Curiously, now Republican officials are coming around to mathematical realities and calling the results a "split decision" or tie. This is what they should have done at the very beginning! DO THE MATH. The point here is that, no, Romney did not win the first two nomination contests, he tied in the first and won in a state where he owns a house and was Governor of its largest neighboring state.

Whether this new information will be enough to stop Romney's supposed inevitable momentum to the Republican nomination for the presidency we will see. Also, this is an ominous sign that the 2012 presidential election may be as close as the 2000 election, and I really don't think we want the Supreme Court deciding two elections of the last four, do we?

Colbert SuperPAC: Mitt Romney Is A Serial Killer

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

The Flyer Mitt Romney Doesn't Want SC Voters To See

This flyer is from Mitt Romney's 2002 campaign for Governor of Massachusetts. Back in those days, Romney was portraying himself as a typical Northeastern liberal Republican, i.e. pro-choice and pro-gay.

Now that Romney has won Iowa* and New Hampshire it should be interesting to see how South Carolina voters react to Romney when they learn more about his past positions.

(*The Iowa results were essentially a tie.)

Relative Cost Per Vote In Iowa

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

Godless Wednesday: God and Politics

Since, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Willard Mitt Romney all apparently feel that God spoke to them to encourage them to run for President, who is lying, God or the presidential candidate?

Hat/tip to Friendly Atheist

WATCH: Mitt Romney Will Say Anything To Get Elected

Obama Well Ahead Of Rivals In 2012 Money Race

It should also be noted that these amounts shown here raised by the 2012 presidential candidates do not include the nearly $28 million more President Obama raised that went directly to the Democratic National Committee. None of the money raised by the Republican candidates is going to the Republican National Committee. In the previous quarter, President Obama raised a record $86 million ($47 for his own campaign and $38 million for the DNC).

Joe.My.God posted the numbers shown above before the Bachmann and Gingrich campaigns had filed their reports.

Herman Cain Leads Latest NBC Poll

Black Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is now leading the polls for the Republican nomination, breaking out of the single digit pack.

Cain also leads putative frontrunner Mitt Romney in recent polls in Florida, South Carolina, and Iowa..  Surely, a Black man could never be elected President of the United States, right?

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God.

Herman Cain Wins FL Straw Poll

Wowsa! Just when you thought things couldn't get any weirder in the Republican presidential nominating contest, comes  this:

Herman Cain: 37.11%
Rick Perry: 15.43%
Mitt Romney: 14.00%
Rick Santorum: 10.88%
Ron Paul: 10.39%
Newt Gingrich: 8.43%
Jon Huntsman: 2.26%
Michele Bachmann: 1.51%

Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's pizza and only person of color in the crowded Republican field, placed first in the Florida straw poll. Michele Bachmann, a notable homophobe, placed dead last, with stupid AND homophobic Rick Santorum placing 4th, behind Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Interesting!

Compare All The Candidates On LGBT Issues

Think Progress LGBT has this useful chart detailing the positions of all the current Presidential candidates on LGBT issues.

Romney Thinks "Corporations Are People"