Tagged: fake

Posted: September 21, 2012 at 8:36 pm

Did Mitt Romney “Aztec”?

If you had told me, a year ago, that the 2012 presidential campaign would feature somebody wearing blackface, I might have believed you because it’s the kind of thing I can envision a Tea Partier doing. But I’m certain I would never have predicted that the person doing it would be Mitt Romney.

As Politico reported yesterday, Mitt Romney, in his appearance on the spanish-language Univision network, appeared to have dyed his skin an extra shade of brown, or orange as it were.

Among Latinos, this is known by the slang term “aztecing” (pronounced Az-teck-ing). It’s a way to describe the make-up related actions of one who wants to artificially come across as more Latino. Romney might believe, mistakenly, that since his father was born in Mexico, it would naturally be the case that his father’s offspring would have darker skin, at least when appearing on spanish language TV.

But from the looks of him, Romney must think that Latino people are not tan, but orange. He needs to get out more and meet some of them. In his Univision appearance, he looked not like a Latino, but like one of Willie Wonka’s Oompa-Loompas.

Posted: February 24, 2012 at 7:19 am

What You Won’t Read in the Gazette about the Arrested Anti-Choice Activist

The man that the Gazette paints as a hapless local minister arrested for tresspassing is actually the national leader of the hardline anti-choice group called “Personhood USA.”

The Billings Gazette calls Calvin Zastrow, “a Billings resident and minister for the Assemblies of God.” But, a quick Google search of the man (what an amazing tool, Google) reveals a much different picture.

Cal Zastrow co-founded Personhood USA, the out-of-state group pushing initiatives to ban abortion and some forms of birth control in several states. He is the group’s national leader and spokesperson. He lists a DC phone number and calls himself “America’s premier trainer” for the anti-choice initiative and petition process. Zastrow boasts that he works today with Operation Rescue. The group has been linked to the bombing of women’s clinics, not to mention clinic blockades and invasions, arson, bombing and arson threats, death threats, chemical attacks, stalking, physical violence and gunfire.

It turns out the Billings arrest isn’t his first rodeo. Zastrow has made a career of getting arrested and openly brags about his various arrests and sentences across the U.S. (Getting arrested is part of his strategy for getting in the press. We can see it’s working.) This isn’t even Zastrow’s first arrest in Billings–he worked up a similar scheme when he visited the state over a decade ago.

Cal Zastrow encourages people to get young people involved in the anti-choice movement, “because they have less to lose by getting arrested.” He thinks his arrests make him a martyr. He thinks getting arrested allows him to compare himself to Martin Luther King Jr.

Get this:

Cal’s incarceration for loving his neighbor is in the tradition of men like John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Alan Keyes, and Martin Luther King Jr. His longest jail sentence, of 90 days in the Saginaw County Jail, Michigan, leads Cal to conclude that going to jail isn’t as bad as being dismembered by Planned Parenthood.

Sure, he’s been to Montana before. Zastrow was the national big-wig brought in to kick off the new, more extreme, Constitution Party of MT. The MT group broke off from the National Constitution Party for being “too liberal.” Zastrow told the splinter group that the problem isn’t political parties:

Instead, Cal says the problem is “demons from hell manifested as lies,” because a “law that lets women murder unborn children is hell.”

The absolute ban on abortion and some forms of birth control that Zastrow is pushing recently failed in Mississippi. In fact, it’s failed in every state that Zastrow’s group has attempted the ballot initiative.

Among all Montana’s anti-abortion activist groups (Montana Catholic Conference, the Montana Family Foundation, the Eagle Forum, the Concerned Women of America, and the Right To Life of Montana not one is supporting the so-called “Personhood Amendment.”

Posted: July 22, 2011 at 7:49 am

A Fake and a Liar (And Not Very Smart)

Steve Daines is googlewashing his record, but that’s not all that’s fake about him.

His facts aren’t real either, and his public, on-the-record support for a bill that forces cuts to Medicare and Social Security shows that he’s also not very smart. Daines has made a major miscalculation that is expected to negatively impact his campaign. In the Missoulian,

Daines said the “Cut, Cap and Balance” plan “explicitly spells out that there will be no cuts in benefits in Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits and services.”

In response to critics who say the plan would inevitably require cuts to Social Security, Daines said, “It’s important that we move away from scare tactics and political rhetoric and start solving the problems our country faces. Reform will be needed to save these programs. We must ensure we protect seniors today and also work to ensure we save the system for future generations.”

You know Daines read the Republican talking points that say this bill exempts Medicare and Social Security, the problem is, that isn’t true. As the non-partisan Center for Budget Policy Priorities points out, that claim “falls apart under scrutiny”:

“The measure does not cut Social Security or Medicare in 2012. And it does not subject them to automatic cuts if its global spending caps are missed. It is inconceivable, however, that policymakers would meet the bill’s severe annual spending caps through automatic across-the-board cuts year after year; if they did, key government functions would be crippled.”

The legislation technically exempts veterans’ benefits, Medicare, Social Security for the first year. But these programs comprise roughly 2/3 of all entitlement spending. That means that under the House GOP plan, spending cuts will “fall on programs like school lunches, student loans, food stamps, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance – some of the very programs designed to automatically increase when the economy is down in order to lessen the impact of job losses and associated economic hardship.” And 70% of Medicaid goes to care for seniors and people with disabilities.

According to the National Economic Council:

“When you’ve already made such deep cuts to discretionary spending, Medicaid and other programs, it becomes difficult to imagine any credible ways to achieve those spending levels without including Social Security in the reductions and making substantially deeper reductions in Medicare.”

Cuts to Medicare and Social Secirty will be a major issue this campaign, and the fact that Daines’ expressed support for cutting them though his support of this legislation is a major misstep on his part that will be used against him again and again, and tilts this race back in favor of Democrats, in spite of his initial fundraising lead.