#MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In!

God, I miss the Clown Circus of last November with Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and the rest (i.e., the two boring Mormons). Well, here's Mr. 9-9-9 giving his emphatic opinion about #MittsMissingReturns while seated in front of the Koch Brothers' "Americans for Prosperity" banner.

“Let me say this as emphatically as I can: Who cares about Mitt Romney’s tax returns? Secondly, I love the fact that the guy is rich. You got people who are trying to make it seem like being rich is bad.” -- Herman Cain

But Herman, how do you know if he's really rich if you haven't seen his returns?

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Catch up with earlier episodes in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking below:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16

Language Matters: What adjective do you put before "Capitalism"?

If you answered that question with anything other than the word "Crony" you haven't been paying attention to the 2012 GOP Presidential Primary (a.k.a., Clown Circus).

Newt Gingrich today is quoted as saying that "Crony Capitalism is not Free Enterprise" when talking about Willard "Mitt" Romney's brand of vulture capitalism.  (LA Times)

Michele Bachmann (how we miss you!!) invoked crony capitalism as a charge against Rick Perry in late December when talking about his campaign contributors and favor seekers in Texas (National Journal)

Mitt Romney jumped on the CroCap bandwagon a few days ago when talking about President Obama's recess appointments to the NLRB, stating: "This president is a crony capitalist. He's a job killer." I'm not sure how the "socialist" President or the socialist Unions he was serving could also be capitalists, but you'll have to go to Mitt for clarification. (CBS News)

Jon Huntsman worries about how "we have crony capitalism in Congress" because of the lack of term limits and the revolving door between K Street and Capitol Hill. (Investors.com)

Herman Cain jumped on the anti-crony capitalism express back in September when leaping onto the pile of conservatives gleefully swarming over the corpse of Solyndra. (ThinkProgress)

Ron Paul calls lots of people crony capitalists and he made it clear what CroCap isn't in early November: "Crony capitalism isn't when somebody makes money and they produce a product." I don't think anyone's accusing either Mitt Romney or Rick Perry of producing a product. (Politico)

It all seems to have started back in early September when their intellectual leader, Sarah Palin, first starting trotting out the Crony Capitalism label in association with Rick Perry. (firedoglake)

I personally can't think of a better adjective to be inextricably linked with  the word "Capitalism", but why is the GOP doing our work for us?  Did they check with Frank Luntz first before making "Crony Capitalism" (which always reminds me of Bushie and Brownie and Katrina) the unforgettable alliterative enunciation of the year?

Rick Perry, the original target of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann's "crony capitalism" jibes, went one step further in an interview with Fox today, accusing Mitt Romney of being a "vulture capitalist: "There’s a real difference between venture capitalism and vulture capitalism. I don’t believe that capitalism is making a buck under any circumstances." (FoxNewsInsider)

If they keep this up, "Capitalist" will be a worse insult than "Socialist" in their political lexicon (just as it always has been in mine).

I'm sorry, but somehow I seem to have forgotten Rick Santorum.

This Week in the GOP Clown Circus

The "GOP Clown Circus" has officially folded its tent and left town.  Calling the remaining travesty a clown circus after Paul Romtorum won Iowa is an insult to its star buffoons, Perry, Bachmann, and Cain.

• Michele Bachmann has just admitted that god made a mistake in telling her to run. (New York Times)

• Rick Perry seemed to be gone, but with Crazy Eyes out of it, he may not be dropping out. (Huffington Post)

• Herman Cain and his wife are doing fine in political retirement, and he promises, when he does endorse someone, to make it "unconventional."  (Politico)

Here's hoping that Herman's unconventional endorsement will be awarded to Sarah Palin or Donald Trump.  Then the Presidential race would be a full-blown clown circus again, something worthy of a painting by John Wayne Gacy, (Iowa's favorite Hollywood cowboy star).

This Week in the GOP Clown Circus

Rick Perry has upped the Culture-War ante by claiming in his new ad that President Obama has not only declared War On Christmas, but has declared War on Religion. (Washington Post)

Michele Bachmann has been helping the Democrats in the general election by calling Newt Gingrich an "influence peddler" and Mitt Romney a "chameleon" this week. (Miami Herald)

Jon Huntsman has shown he's finally serious about seeking the GOP nomination by showing that he can be a climate-change skeptic. Can doubts on evolution be far behind? (ThinkProgress)

Newt Gingrich, the front-runner of the week, hasn't made any new child-janitor proposals this week, but his speaking contract rider has been published online, asking for (along with the normal first-class accoutrements of a first-class celebrity speaker) two bathrooms in his hotel room. (The Smoking Gun)

Ron Paul has started marketing himself as a Ford F-150 to the pickup truck crowd. (Mother Jones)

Rick Santorum criticized President Obama for revealing that our military had killed Osama bin Laden. (Talking Points Memo)

Mitt Romney would probably like us to forget all of President Obama's foreign policy successes by accusing the President of "appeasement" and doing so on Pearl Harbor Day. (LA Times)

We were sad to see Herman Cain leave the circus this week, but there's hope for an even more entertaining replacement...

Donald Trump has said once again that "I would certainly think about running as an independent candidate" if he's not happy with the GOP nominee. (Wall Street Journal)

I can't wait to see who ends up showing up at The Donald's debate on December 27. He may try to anoint the winner and avoid that whole primary/caucus thing that begins in Iowa on January 3.

The Word of the Week is "Draconian" for the performers in America's favorite clown circus

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich brought this word to our attention when we read about his infatuation with Singapore's "draconian" (and deadly) approach to the drug war. (Information Liberation)

We then stumbled upon an article posted yesterday about Michele Bachmann's draconian plan to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants at a cost to our economy of 2.6 trillion dollars. (ThinkProgress Justice)

So then we had to do a search for "Draconian" in connection with all the other performers in the circus.

Rick Santorum was quoted back in mid-November as saying that he would support “the most draconian sanctions that I could think of” against Iran, even if they hurt the United States. (Des Moines Register)

Back in late October, Ron Paul explained to David Gregory that "Draconian cuts after World War II ... stimulated the economy" (transcript on Project Vote Smart)

Here's an article from October 25: "Why Mitt Romney's Medicaid Cuts Are Even More Draconian than Paul Ryan's" (ThinkProgress Health)

From early September we have Amanda Marcotte's "Pushback on Draconian Rick: Stay Out of Women's Sex Lives" about Rick Perry and radical anti-abortion laws in Texas. (AlterNet)

Herman Cain, who may be leaving the circus soon, opening up a spot for Sarah or Donald, was asked the meaning of "Draconian" for this article and he thought we were concerned with the secondary definition, "resembling a dragon, dragon-like". He adamantly denied that he had ever been a follower of Sauron.

Jon Huntsman only seems to use the word when he is disparaging the more radical clowns in this circus. He's still trying to paint himself as the more cultured and quiet -- and boring -- Marcel Marceau in this troupe of Bozos.

Lowlights from this week in the GOP Clown Circus

Rick Perry wants to end civilian control of the military. (Think Progress)

Herman Cain shows a similar lack of understanding of the Constitution by pledging to 'overturn the Supreme Court' if they rule that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. I guess there were minimal checks and balances for the CEO of Godfather's Pizza. (Raw Story)

Newt Gingrich not only says that child labor laws are 'truly stupid', but he suggests a job for the kids, having them perform janitorial tasks after breaking up the school janitors' union (LA Times)

Michele Bachmann is not waiting to be elected President before giving orders to the Pentagon to begin making plans to go to war with Iran. (msnbc.com)

Rick Santorum told us that gay marriage will make our country fall, whatever that means in his indecipherable world view. (Huffington Post)

Ron Paul stated the obvious (but usually politically fatal) idea that US actions may have had something to do with the motivations of terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. (CBS)

Jon Huntsman tells the voters in New Hampshire that he doesn't care what the rest of the country thinks, and GOP voters in the rest of the country return the sentiment. (cnn.com)

The other Mormon, Mitt Romney, gave a confused speech in front of a defense contractor, telling his receptive audience that the budget for the bloated militarized police state of America should not be cut. Where should the money come from? We can take it away from healthcare for the poor. And he's the "moderate" in this group of clowns. (Raw Story)

There's certainly no room to cut anything here:

say the secret word and the duck will drop from the rafters and give you the gop nomination!

Wouldn't it be great to see one of the many upcoming GOP debates hosted by Groucho Marx in You Bet Your Life format? The clowns on stage would finally be treated in the manner they deserve, with wisecracks rather than unearned respect.

The Marx Brothers came to mind while I was thinking of Herman Cain's videotaped brain freeze last week when asked a simple question about Libya, and the deeper hole he is digging every time he's asked another foreign policy question. I wondered if any interviewer was going to ask him a question about a fictional nation to see if he might simply make things up to avoid another uncomfortable silence. I tweeted a couple of hours ago that I would ask him about the hostilities between Freedonia and Sylvania, the war declared by Groucho's Rufus T. Firefly in the Brothers' 1933 classic, Duck Soup.

Little did I know that Spy magazine already pulled this trick in 1993. The writers asked incoming members of Congress about the ethnic cleansing taking place in Freedonia, and 20 of our new Representatives responded with opinions or expressions of concern about the imaginary atrocities in the imaginary kingdom.

The idea of making people look silly with questions about Firefly's fictional Freedonia wasn't new with Spy either. Thirty years earlier, Candid Camera's Woody Allen asked victims what they thought of Freedonia's bid for independence. I wish I could find a video with which to end this post...

I couldn't find that video, but basic film literacy should require Americans, whether politicians or not, to know the source of the Freedonian references (if only to avoid tricky questions from comedy shows and magazines), so I'll end with this clip from the original source:

Rick Santorum gets his five inches of fame on TBL dot org.

Rick Santorum isn't actually in this Santorum video, but we just couldn't believe that Herman Cain is being damned for three minutes - and losing the vote of America's fetuses - just because Piers Morgan forced him to admit an obvious truth about how criminal it would be to have a government that would make the victim of a sexual crime carry a rapist's embryo.

When he finally calls it quits in his current role in the travelling clown circus, at least Santorum will always be famous for his one lasting contribution to the English language.

Herman "Borat" Cain starts his media drive with a bang

Every one of the Republicans deserves five inches of fame on True Blue Liberal dot org, so here's the only video that can do justice to the man with the 9-9-9 plan:

And the only explanation I found that can even begin to make sense of this official video starring Herman Cain and his campaign manager, Mark Block, is the one that I read earlier today from Doug Mataconis at outsidethebeltway.com:

"I’m not at all sure what to say about this. Except to repeat the theory I came up with last night that the Herman Cain campaign is Sacha Baron Cohen’s big follow-up to Borat."

I can't wait for the movie, when "Herman Cain" pulls off the mask and we all have a big bellylaugh at the gullible GOP voters who have made "Herman" their current front runner.