In a NYTimes editorial, Charles M. Blow writes:

The Republican Party is experiencing an existential crisis, born of its own misguided incongruity with modern American culture and its insistence on choosing intransigence in a dynamic age of fundamental change. Instead of turning away from obsolescence, it is charging headlong into it, becoming more strident and pushing away more voters whom it could otherwise win.

And too many of those hard-liners have a near-allergic reaction to the truth.

…People like Bachmann represent everything that is wrong with the Republican Party. She and her colleagues are hyperbolic, reactionary, ill-informed and ill-intentioned, and they have become synonymous with the Republican brand. We don’t need all politicians to be Mensa-worthy, but we do expect them to be cogent and competent.

Frustrated that Romney/Ryan say they’re going to cut taxes without hurting the middle class or making the deficit explode — yet refuse to release any details on what they’ll actually do?

Wait no longer! Check out romneytaxplan.com for all the nitty-gritty!

It seems that Paul Ryan’s charity work holds up to scrutiny about as well as his marathon times:

The head of a charity in northeastern Ohio where Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan and his family were photographed cleaning dishes over the weekend said Monday that Ryan was not authorized to be on the premises and “did nothing” while there…

“They showed up there and they did not have permission,” [the charity's president, Brian Antag] said. “They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.” Antag added that Ryan and his family “did nothing” while on the premises.

“He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall,” he said.

Ryan was photographed cleaning “large metal pans that did not appear to be dirty” during a 15-minute visit, the Post previously reported.

The New Yorker provides this handy history of the United States, as explained through GOP quotes.

1500s: The American Revolutionary War begins: “The reason we fought the revolution in the sixteenth century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”—Rick Perry

1607: First welfare state collapses: “Jamestown colony, when it was first founded as a socialist venture, dang near failed with everybody dead and dying in the snow.”—Dick Armey

Unhappy about something you did in your past? Wish it hadn’t happened? Good news! You can simply say that you undid it, “retroactively”! No problem!

This handy technique via the Romney campaign, who admit that yeah, sure, Romney was the official, legal Chairman, CEO and President of Bain Capital during that 1999-2002 period when they caused lots of layoffs, but that Mitt “retired retroactively to February of 1999″ when he decided in 2002 that he wished he hadn’t been the official, legal Chairman, CEO and President of Bain since 1999.

(Folks on Twitter are having a field day with this one.)

Mitt Romney says he left Bain Capital in 1999. Problem is, Bain Capital says the opposite:

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm’s “sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president.”

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.

Romney, of course, says he wasn’t really in charge after 1999:

Romney did not finalize a severance agreement with Bain until 2002, a 10-year deal with undisclosed terms that was retroactive to 1999. It expired in 2009.

Bain Capital and the campaign for the presumptive GOP nominee have suggested the SEC filings that show Romney as the man in charge during those additional three years have little meaning, and are the result of legal technicalities.

Of course, if you actually read the paperwork…

The Globe found nine SEC filings submitted by four different business entities after February 1999 that describe Romney as Bain Capital’s boss; some show him with managerial control over five Bain Capital entities that were formed in January 2002, according to records in Delaware, where they were incorporated.

A Romney campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss the SEC filings, acknowledged that they “do not square with common sense.”

“Does not square with common sense” should be Romney’s campaign slogan.

The Guardian writes:

The lying from the Romney campaign is so out-of-control that Steve Benen, a blogger and producer for the Rachel Maddow show compiles a weekly list of “Mitt’s Mendacity” that is chockfull of new untruths. Benen appears unlikely to run out of material any time soon, particularly since Romney persists in repeating the same lies over and over, even after they’ve been debunked.

This is perhaps the most interesting and disturbing element of Romney’s tireless obfuscation: that even when corrected, it has little impact on the presumptive GOP nominee’s behavior. This is happening at a time when fact-checking operations in major media outlets have increased significantly, yet that appears to have no effect on the Romney campaign.

Why does this keep happening?

Romney has figured out a loophole – one can lie over and over, and those lies quickly become part of the political narrative, practically immune to “fact-checking”. Ironically, the more Romney lies, the harder it then becomes to correct the record. Even if an enterprising reporter can knock down two or three falsehoods, there are still so many more that slip past.

Mitt Romney has debuted a new talking point on the campaign trail… [T]he president was told by a reporter that a local company had closed and was moving jobs to Wisconsin because of Obamacare. Obama reacted with incredulity, noting that the law’s provisions impacting such a company haven’t been implemented yet. That led Romney to remark that Obama “didn’t understand that Obamacare was hurting small business,” and “you have to scratch your head about that.”

Of course, if you actually, you know, talk to the company,

“We never said health care reform is the reason we’re closing and consolidating that operation,” Schurman said. “We never said it’s the result of the health care reform legislation.”

Schurman said that lack of demand for the product was a leading culprit. He pointed to a variety of factors that are inducing companies that buy Nemschoff’s health care furniture to hold off, including general economic conditions, the continuing bad news from Europe, and — yes — the drive to repeal or change Obamacare in Congress and the Supreme Court.

“The ongoing uncertainty surrounding what health care reform will take place has caused some health care provider customers and other related aspects of the industry to defer investments in their facilities,” Schurman said… “The uncertainty is caused by the ongoing debate,” Schurman said. “Were there no ongoing debate, there would be no uncertainty.”

Scott Brown, pickup truck-drivin’ man of the people:

Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party supporter, defeated the far more moderate Dick Lugar to become the GOP nominee for Senate.

And here‘s everything you need to know about today’s GOP (emphasis added):

MOURDOCK: I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view. … If we [win the House, Senate, and White House], bipartisanship means they have to come our way, and if we’re successful in getting the numbers, we’ll work towards that.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan has written a perfect takedown of Mitt Romney’s claim that he helped the auto industry rebound:

As you know, Mitt, I was governor of Michigan during that horrible time, when the financial industry was melting down and the auto industry was in free fall. And you were running for president. You saw the polls about the unpopularity of bailouts and you lumped the auto industry in with the bank industry — the auto industry, where your father and so many of your family members had worked.

You raised your finger into the air, saw which way the wind was blowing, and followed it. Way to lead, Mitt.

…So Mitt, here’s my request: Just stop it. Stop denying that you were pandering to a national audience when you wrote that Detroit should “go bankrupt” and then stop taking credit for the success of the Obama administration’s intervention to save the auto industry and more than a million jobs that went with it.

The Koch brothers paid $6M for a stunningly incorrect and deceptive anti-Obama ad.

The Obama campaign’s to-the-point response:

Earlier this year, Romney aired an ad where showing Obama saying “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose”. Which was, of course, Obama quoting McCain, not Obama confessing weakness on the economy. When pressed about this deceptive ad, Romney’s team offered no apologies, and said the ad was “intentional” and that it “worked”.

Yesterday, Mitt Romney said he is “not concerned about the very poor”. Not long thereafter, as this quote got widely circulated, he followed that up with this:

“No no no no. I — no, no. You’ve got to take the whole sentence, all right, as opposed to saying, and then change it just a little bit, because then it sounds very different,” said Romney.

I say we stick with his original policy. So you heard it, folks: Mitt Romney says he’s not concerned about the very poor. I’m sure that quote was “intentional”.

According to Robert Bork (yes, the Robert Bork), who is Mitt Romney’s top legal adviser, gender discrimination is over! As he stated in an interview in this week’s issue of Newsweek:

Do you still beleive the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment should not apply to women?

Yes. Women are a majority of the population now. They aren’t discriminated against anymore.

Flawless logic from Mitt Romney’s top counsel! Because, as you know, as soon as women reached 50.00001% of the population, suddenly all the executives of every company began hiring and promoting women equally. I’m sure the twelve Fortune 500 companies with female CEOs would agree. 12 out of 500! That’s 2.4%. Pretty close to a nice non-discriminatory 50%, give or take 48%.

Which is more important — getting the politician you want into the White House, or helping America? The Tea Party Nation have made their choice with this pledge for business owners:

…Resolved that: President Obama has seized what amount to dictatorial powers to bypass our Congress, and that because the Congress is controlled by a Progressive socialist Senate that will not impeach one of their kind, they have allowed this and yielded what are rightfully congressional powers to this new dictator…

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

Mitt Romney told voters in Iowa that

“Corporations are people, my friend,” he said. “…Of course they are.”

At least now when he says he’s going to serve the American people, we know what he means.

Gosh, I can’t imagine why the advertisers were all fleeing his old Fox “News” show:

In the wake of last week’s massacre in Norway, U.S. conservative commentator Glenn Beck on Monday compared the summer camp where most of the 76 victims died to the Hitler Youth organization of Nazi Germany.

Beck, on his radio show, declared the killings “the work of a madman” and called the suspect “as bad as Osama bin Laden.” But before launching into that condemnation, he questioned what the victims were doing at a summer camp run by Norway’s ruling Labour Party.

Beck said the camp “sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler Youth or whatever. Who does a camp for kids that’s all about politics? Disturbing.”

Yeah, who does a political camp for kids, besides the Nazis?

However, politically-oriented camps are being organized in several U.S. states by chapters of the “9/12 Project” — an organization founded by Beck himself in 2009.

The Colorado 9/12 Project hosted a “Patriot Camp” for kids in grades 1-5 earlier this month, featuring programs on “our Constitution, the Founding Fathers, and the values and principles that are the cornerstones of our nation.”

Read on at CNN.

Here at Bray we have a category called “Lies”. It was practically invented for clips like this.

Put someone in a tremendous amount of pain, and they’ll do whatever you want, or say whatever you want to hear, to make it stop. This is not news. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that torture“enhanced interrogation” not only didn’t contribute to finding bin Laden, it gave us misinformation that clouded the trail:

“With so much misinformation being fed into such an essential public debate as this one, I asked the Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta, for the facts. And I received the following information:

“The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times. We did not first learn from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the real name of bin Laden’s courier, or his alias, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti — the man who ultimately enabled us to find bin Laden. The first mention of the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, as well as a description of him as an important member of Al-Qaeda, came from a detainee held in another country. The United States did not conduct this detainee’s interrogation, nor did we render him to that country for the purpose of interrogation. We did not learn Abu Ahmed’s real name or alias as a result of waterboarding or any ‘enhanced interrogation technique’ used on a detainee in U.S. custody. None of the three detainees who were waterboarded provided Abu Ahmed’s real name, his whereabouts, or an accurate description of his role in Al-Qaeda.

“In fact, not only did the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed specifically told his interrogators that Abu Ahmed had moved to Peshawar, got married, and ceased his role as an Al-Qaeda facilitator — which was not true, as we now know. All we learned about Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti through the use of waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ against Khalid Sheik Mohammed was the confirmation of the already known fact that the courier existed and used an alias.

The source of this quote? Noted liberal left-winger John McCain.

THERE. NOW SHUT UP.

The Obama administration is releasing copies of President Barack Obama’s original long-form birth certificate, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer announced Wednesday.

…”The president believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country,” Pfeiffer said. “It may have been good politics and good (television), but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country.”

“At a time of great consequence for this country — when we should be debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, was once again distracted by a fake issue,” Pfeiffer added. “The president’s hope is that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues that matter to the American people and the future of the country.”