Jobs Report ‘Truthers,’ Romney Cheating Allegations, and More

Working the Spin:

When it came to the good news presented in the latest unemployment report on Friday — the figure dropped below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years — Republicans had a difficult time swallowing the truth. Panic and desperation set in. With a month until the election, President Obama was finally bolstered by some positive economic numbers, something he could point to in the next debate against Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Cue the conspiracy theorists. In an effort to spin the jobs figure, conservatives and right-wing media outlets charged that the Obama administration must have fixed the number. Yes. That’s obviously what happened. And this is obviously the same reaction conservatives would have had if the jobs report had been negative. (Read more)

Kill Big Bird?: Rick Santorum is not only defending Mitt Romney’s remarks about firing Big Bird during the first presidential debate this week, he’s also taking it another step. Santorum would kill, and possibly eat, Big Bird if he had the chance, even though he, too, likes the “Sesame Street” character. Said Santorum: “I’ve voted to kill Big Bird in the past. I have a record there that I have to disclose. That doesn’t mean I don’t like Big Bird. You can kill things and still like them, maybe to eat them, I don’t know. That’s probably that. Can we — can we go back on that one?” Too late. (Read more)

Mitt’s Hanky-Panky: Did Mitt Romney cheat during Wednesday night’s debate? That was the question after a video posted to Reddit appeared to show the GOP White House candidate pulling cheat notes out of his pocket. However, the whole thing seems to be much ado about nothing. According to the Romney campaign, its candidate was just pulling out a handkerchief. Furthermore, analysis of the video supports that claim. (Read more)

Better Late Than Never: Mitt Romney, continuing his move to the political center before next month’s election, wants us all to know he’s sorry for disparaging the 47 percent of Americans who do not pay federal income tax, calling the comment “completely wrong” Thursday night. It seems Romney finally figured out he needs those 47 percent of voters he had written off to win the election. And it took him only 17 days after the video was leaked! You may recall that the day after the story broke, Romney stood by the comment but said that it was not “elegantly stated.” (Read more)

Helter Skelter Tax Shelter: Who needs the Cayman Islands? In a video from 2011 that was recently unearthed by Mother Jones, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said he would like to make the U.S. “a tax shelter for other countries instead of having other countries be a tax shelter for America.” Because the problem is, what, corporations pay too much in taxes in the U.S.? As Mother Jones pointed out, that is hardly the case. (Read more)

Scalia Says What?: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia (you might know him better as Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown’s ideal justice) said Friday that deciding issues like abortion and gay marriage will be insanely easy for him. Here is how he told it: “Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.” Why it is so easy? Well, Scalia is a “textualist,” and he bases his judicial conclusions on how things were understood by the people who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago. So he can basically ignore all the progress this country has made since then and think like it’s the 1700s. (Read more)

Video of the Day: Steve Martin, actor, author, comedian and expert craftsman, is out with a unique endorsement video of Nebraska Senate candidate Bob Kerrey. Watch and you’ll also learn how to make a wad of paper … the Steve Martin way.