DOWNLOADS: (112)

PLAYS: (213)

Embed

Millionaire former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney says that he's relieved to be back living "a normal life" following his 2012 loss.

During an interview on Wednesday, conservative radio host Dennis Miller asked the former candidate how it he was "extracting yourself from the bubble."

"The bubble is a different experience, being in your own charter aircraft, having the Secret Service accompany you everywhere go and outside your front door at night," Romney explained. "It's really quite an unusual thing and kind of exciting, certainly initially."

"But I have to admit, being able to go back to our own life and going to the grocery store and shopping on my own is kind of nice to do by myself," he added. "So, I like the life of being an American citizen."

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (317)

PLAYS: (3427)

Embed

The wife of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Thursday said that her husband and sons had not joined the U.S. military but had found "different ways of serving" by going on religious missions as part of their obligation to the Mormon church.

During an interview on ABC's The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked Ann Romney how she would explain to the families of fallen soldiers why her husband and sons had not served their country.

"When I read about your husband, what I had read -- and maybe you can correct this -- is that the reason he didn't serve in Vietnam was because it was against the religion," Goldberg said.

"That's not correct," Ann Romney insisted. "He was serving his mission, and my five sons have also served missions. None served in the military, but I do have one son that feels that he's giving back to his country in a significant way where he is now a doctor and he is taking care of veterans."

"So, you know, we find different ways of serving," she added. "And my husband and my five boys did serve missions, did not serve in the military."

The candidate's wife explained that Mormon missions were like military service in that "you're going outside of yourself, you're working and you're helping others. And it changes you. And are we so grateful in this country for those people -- men and women -- that are volunteering, they're sacrificing their life for us, and we cannot forget that or we have to acknowledge that always."

"So, when you're facing these mothers whose children have not come back, how will you explain to them that your sons haven't gone?" Goldberg pressed. "Will you talk about the missions they've gone on?"

"I would say it's probably the hardest thing that a president and a first lady probably do is to comfort those that have lost a love one and have gone in harm's way," Ann Romney replied, not directly answering the question. "It is an amazing country, we have the most extraordinary fighting men and women, and we have to be so grateful for them. Of course, it's hard, and I don't think that any of us can understand the sacrifice that are being made by families."

Mitt Romney announced earlier this week that he had canceled his Thursday appearance on The View due to "scheduling problems."

In a secretly-recorded video released by Mother Jones last month, the former Massachusetts governor told wealthy donors that going on The View was a “high-risk” proposition because the “sharp-tongued” co-hosts were not conservative enough.

“Apparently the idea of sitting next to Whoopi Goldberg was just a little too intimidating,” media critic Howard Kurtz told Daily Download founder Lauren Ashburn. “Doesn’t this make Romney look like he’s avoiding a confrontation with the ladies of The View? He said he would go.”

“It opens him up to the argument that, how is he going to negotiate with Vladimir Putin if he’s afraid of sitting down with Whoopi Goldberg?” Kurtz continued. “When he agreed to go on, he was down in the polls. And now: Bye, bye, Barbara.”

(h/t: Mediaite)

DOWNLOADS: (156)

PLAYS: (996)

Embed

On this weekend's The Chris Matthews Show, while discussing whether the Obama campaign might attempt to use Mitt Romney's Mormonism against him during the presidential campaign and the trouble Romney has had openly discussing his faith, panel member S.E. Cupp had this explanation for why Romney's religion might not be a problem for him:

CUPP: Second, you know, G.K. Chesterton said that the test of any good religion is whether you can make fun of it or not. And, you know, Mormonism has really come into its own in pop culture, whether you're looking at The Book of Mormon by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, or Big Love. I mean, Mormonism, as uneasy as America may have been about it in the past, I think it's having a pretty good day this year in pop culture. Mormons are kind of everywhere. So I don't know that it's as impenetrable and clandestine as it used to be.

I used to think Matthews' show on the weekend couldn't get a whole lot worse with the typical group of beltway Villagers he has as regular guests. I was wrong. This is the second show where he's had Cupp on there. I'm failing to follow the logic here. So somehow, a Broadway musical and a show on a cable premium pay channel, HBO, are Mormons being “everywhere?” And if I'm not mistaken, I don't think the church was exactly thrilled to put it mildly about either of these productions.

Sorry, but I don't think either is going to have a thing to do with the average voter, or anyone else for that matter, potentially being more comfortable with Romney's religion. As the other guests on there did point out a little later in the discussion, the hatred of President Obama is the one thing that will allow the Evangelical voters out there to get over Romney's religion and vote for him in the general election after snubbing him during the primary races. It's not going to be because of what those “elitists” in New York or Hollywood are doing and because they've made a play and a cable series making fun of the Mormon Church.

I haven't seen the play, but I watched Big Love on HBO and it sure didn't make me feel any more comfortable about the Mormon Church and their history of polygamy. I'm sure Romney doesn't want to remind anyone of that since it's not that far back in his own family's history where polygamy was practiced as well.

DOWNLOADS: (221)

PLAYS: (869)

Embed

I seem to remember a time not long ago when this woman's boss was running the country that talk like this would have had the right wingers screaming to the hills that you're an unpatriotic American who doesn't love their country and is on the side of the terrorists. Now, it's apparently perfectly acceptable to bet against America if you're running for president, or so says Lady McCheney, Mary Matalin.

She's not alone either. Here's McCain BFF and Romney supporter, Sen. Lindsey Graham saying the same thing: Lindsey Graham: 'It's Really American' To Avoid Taxes Like Mitt Romney Does .

Good luck with that to both of them with trying to get that to resonate with the general public. And good luck to Mary Matalin with trying to make the argument that people are going to care more about what Romney donated to the Mormon church than him hiding his money overseas so he doesn't have to pay taxes on it.

Transcript of Matalin's hackery on Anderson Cooper's show below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (490)

PLAYS: (5512)

Embed

This Friday during his New Rules segment, Real Time host Bill Maher went through the list of potential running mates for Mitt Romney and finally ended up suggesting... the Real Time host himself, Bill Maher. As Maher noted, they disagree on almost every issue, but so what? Romney's already disagreed with himself on every issue as well with his flip flopping.

DOWNLOADS: (332)

PLAYS: (1937)

Embed

As Rachel Maddow noted, with the recall election in Wisconsin this Tuesday, this story fell off of the radar and wasn't covered by much of the media, but hopefully that will change soon. After the swift-boating of John Kerry, the ousting of Dan Rather after he reported on George W. Bush and how he managed to avoid combat service in Vietnam and John McCain running on his military record and making it central to his campaign, Maddow wondered if the press will pay similar attention to Romney's revolving stories about his draft deferments and his claims that he actually desired to serve in combat in Vietnam.

We can add this to the long list of lies and flip flops that Romney has been telling since running for various political offices and as Maddow rightfully pointed out, I guess we'll find out before long which version of the story Romney is going to settle on during this presidential campaign.

Mitt Romney Faces New Scrutiny Over Vietnam War-Era Draft Deferments:

On a stage crowded with war heroes, Mitt Romney recently praised the sacrifice "of the great men and women of every generation who serve in our armed services."

It is a sacrifice the Republican presidential candidate did not make.

Though an early supporter of the Vietnam War, Romney avoided military service at the height of the fighting after high school by seeking and receiving four draft deferments, according to Selective Service records. They included college deferments and a 31-month stretch as a "minister of religion" in France, a classification for Mormon missionaries that the church at the time feared was being overused. The country was cutting troop levels by the time he became eligible for the draft, and his lottery number was not called.

President Barack Obama, Romney's opponent in this year's campaign, did not serve in the military either. The Democrat, 50, was a child during the Vietnam conflict and did not enlist when he was older.

But because Romney, now 65, was of draft age during Vietnam, his military background – or, rather, his lack of one – is facing new scrutiny as he courts veterans and makes his case to the nation to be commander in chief. He's also intensified his criticism lately of Obama's plans to scale back the nation's military commitments abroad, suggesting that Romney would pursue an aggressive foreign policy as president that could involve U.S. troops.

A look at Romney's relationship with Vietnam offers a window into a 1960s world that allowed him to avoid combat as fighting peaked. His story also demonstrates his commitment to the Mormon Church, which he rarely discusses publicly but which helped shape his life.

Romney's recollection of his Vietnam-era decisions has evolved in the decades since, particularly as his presidential ambitions became clear. Read on...

DOWNLOADS: (278)

PLAYS: (1642)

Embed

A Catholic cardinal who is supporting a lawsuit against the Obama administration's mandate that all health insurance cover female contraceptives refused on Sunday to say whether presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was a Christian.

During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Cardinal Donald Wuerl if Mormons were "true Christians."

"I never get into defining other people," Wuerl explained. "I define myself. That's one of the reasons, by the way, why we are in court."

"I don't want the president to define me so I'm not going to define somebody else."

Throughout his campaign, Romney has been dogged by the accusation by some evangelical Christians that faith was really a "cult."

Those accusations echo concerns that evangelical Christians also had about Catholicism while John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960.

"Catholics in America faced perils virtually since the beginning of the republic," Columbia University Professor of History Alan Brinkley recently wrote. "They experienced Protestant fears of the Vatican and the pope. They have struggled against the belief that Catholicism was something close to a secret cult."

"In 1960, this fear threatened the campaign of John F. Kennedy – the first and still only Catholic president. Everywhere he went, Catholicism dogged Kennedy’s path."

DOWNLOADS: (836)

PLAYS: (10360)

Embed

Bill Maher did his best with this parody on Mitt Romney's Mormon church and their history of polygamy to take a shot at the crazy Republican birthers who were still out there this week pretending they are not fully aware that President Obama is a citizen of the United States.

All I can say is turnaround is fair play and if anyone deserves the amount of scorn they were given here by Maher, it's the birthers.

MAHER: The media can keep giving this story oxygen, but I think they're neglecting a much bigger scandal, which is wiferism. Mitt Romney comes from a Mormon background. I don't know how many wives he has. I'm not saying I believe in that. I just say he was born in a Mormon compound, I'm not a wifer, but for some reason he has never shown his original marriage certificate and we'd like to show it to you now.

Now I'm getting a lot of my information, I must say from a book called Me So Romney, the Secret Love Life of the World's Horniest Mormom. Again, I'm not a wifer, I'm just saying that he has the blood of a nomadic polygamist tribesman, and I think that has shaped his world view.

Now this is a copy of Mitt Romney's marriage license. I specifically asked for the original. I even offered to go to the Romney house and take it out of Ann Romney's wedding scrap book, but for some reason they frowned upon that idea and instead sent me this obvious photocopy, and isn't it a little weird that they chose to only send the short form license?

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (315)

PLAYS: (1224)

Embed

Televangelist Pat Robertson may think Mormonism is a cult, but he has given his most vocal endorsement of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney yet because "you don't have Jesus running."

Robertson began Monday's edition of CBN's The 700 Club by highlighting Romney's commencement address to Liberty University, a Christian school founded by Baptist Minister Jerry Falwell.

"His opposition to gay marriage scored big points with this audience," CBN's Terry Meeuwsen noted.

"Looks like the people who were worried about his Mormonism, that crowd is diminishing somewhat," Robertson agreed. "The question is if you have two candidates, you don't have Jesus running against somebody else. You have Obama running against Romney."

Although Robertson has called Romney "an outstanding Christian," he had previously declined the to offer an endorsement of the Republican candidate, who a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. CBN's website lists Mormonism as an example of a "cult," arguing that "the Mormons are far from the truth."

Earlier this year, Robertson came to the conclusion that Romney would not "interject the Mormon religion into the way he governs."

An endorsement of the current Christian White House resident is apparently out of the questions because the TV preacher worries that President Barack Obama may secretly be a Muslim.

"I don’t know if he was trained in a madrassa, one of those Muslim schools, but nevertheless that is his inclination," Robertson said in 2011.

But Robertson's endorsement may not even matter because earlier this year, the televangelist revealed that God had already told him who the next president would be -- and it's a secret.

“I think He showed me the next president, but I’m not supposed to talk about that,” Robertson explained. “So I’ll leave you in the dark — probably just as well — I think I’ll know who it will be.”

DOWNLOADS: (426)

PLAYS: (2032)

Embed

MSNBC host Martin Bashir on Thursday read from the Book of Mormon to make the point that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney might win the White House by lying but he would be condemned to "eternal damnation."

"Mr. Romney seems to be having some trouble telling the truth," Bashir explained. "In fact, yesterday Mitt the mendacious offered a hat trick of falsehoods."

The MSNBC host pointed to disputed claims that Romney's campaign had not sought the endorsement of Ted Nugent, that there was a "vast left-wing conspiracy" by the media to defeat him and that President Barack Obama promised to keep unemployment "below 8 percent."

"It is something that the president had never written or said," Bashir pointed out. "Mitt Romney prefers to tell lies, which brings us the moral codes of Mormonism that Mr. Romney claims to live by."

According to Section 63, in verse 17, of The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, "[T]he fearful, and the unbelieving, and all liars, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, and the whoremonger, and the sorcerer, shall have their part in that lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

And the Book of Mormon's 2 Nephi 9:34 says, "Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell."

Bashir concluded: "Given what the Book of Mormon is clearly saying, Mr. Romney has but two choices. He can't either keep lying and potentially win the White House, but bring eternal damnation upon himself or he can start telling the truth. The question for him, I guess, is which is more important?"

(h/t: The Huffington Post)