Archive

Posts Tagged ‘romney’

Bayonets and battleships

October 23rd, 2012 Comments off

Judging by social media commentary since yesterday evening’s presidential debate on foreign policy, Obama’s quote about the US military having fewer “horses and bayonets” today has become quite popular—especially among Romney supporters attempting to hold it up as an example of how clueless our president is.

In case you missed the debate last night, Romney criticized Obama on military spending cuts, pointing out that America’s navy is at its smallest size since 1916. Obama retorted: “Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military has changed.” Cue social media explosion as thousands of angry Romney supporters swarm Twitter and Facebook to point out that the military still trains with bayonets, and even utilizes horses from time to time.

Even GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan had something to say on the subject. In an interview that aired this morning on CBS’s This Morning,  Ryan stated “To compare modern American battleships and Navy with bayonets, I just don’t understand that comparison”.

Paul Ryan, like much of the American public, does not understand how analogies work.

Read more…

America: where the fate of a big, yellow, costumed bird takes center stage in a presidential election

October 10th, 2012 Comments off

Big BirdSince Mitt Romney declared that he would cut funding to PBS during last week’s presidential debate, whether or not taxpayers should continue to fund public educational TV programs like Sesame Street seems to have become one of the key issues surrounding the coming election. Facebook and Twitter are both abuzz with people bickering over the issue. Obama’s camp even released a (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) campaign ad dedicated to attacking Romney over his comments.

Whether you’re a fan of Sesame Street or not (and really, who isn’t?), anyone taking part in a debate over whether or not PBS should continue to receive public funding is probably an uninformed idiot. Romney should have been laughed off the stage for even mentioning Sesame Street last Wednesday—cutting funding to PBS is essentially the equivalent of the average American family holding a serious discussion over whether or not they should cut one cup of coffee out of their entire yearly budget in order to help them overcome hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. It’s simply idiotic.

Read more…

Mitt Romney wants to know: why don’t the windows open on airliners?

September 25th, 2012 1 comment

Mitt Romney held a fundraiser in Beverly Hills this past weekend, where he briefly commented on his wife Ann’s recent scare on-board a plane that was forced to land after an electrical malfunction filled the cabin with smoke. Romney was upset about what he apparently considers a glaring safety oversight on current passenger planes, offering this tidbit in a short commentary about the incident:

“When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no—and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem.”

Windows that open on airliners? Who hasn’t wanted to pop theirs open while cruising at 600 mph and 35,000 feet for a bit of fresh (and delightfully invigorating, at about -50 degrees Celsius) air? It’s genius. No wait, it’s that other thing—what is it? Oh right, it’s abysmally fucking stupid.

This man is running for president.