As President Obama slowly releases his appointments for his second term, a trend is forming. The people nominated so far include Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary, John Kerry for Secretary of State, John Brennan for CIA Director and, just today, the press got word that Jack Lew is the choice for Treasury Secretary. The trend? White men.

Now, the advocacy group Women’s Media Center is formally asking Obama to consider more gender diversity in his appointments. Today, it launched a petition calling on Obama to consider a woman for the slot of the Federal Communications Commission Chair. The petition points out a shocking statistic: In its almost 80 years of existence, a woman has not once headed up the commission:

There has never been a female chair of the Federal Communications Commission – the independent agency that oversees America’s telecommunications and media policy.

The FCC is supposed to represent the American public. Half the public are women. It’s long past the time to close the gender gap in our nation’s leadership and in the media and telecom industries’ leadership, where only 28.4% of TV news directors were women in 2011, according to the Women’s Media Center’s 2012 Status of Women in the U.S. Media Report. And the post atop the FCC is one of the most important opportunities available to raise the bar for representational diversity and decision-making in the media and telecom sectors, which are the infrastructure of this generation and of the future.

Even in his first term, the Obama administration’s record on female appointments was not nearly as stellar as one might hope. The New York Times reported just yesterday that, “male appointees under Mr. Obama outnumbered female appointees at 11 of the 15 federal departments, for instance. In some cases, the skew was also deep. At the Departments of Justice, Defense, Veterans Affairs and Energy, male appointees outnumbered female appointees by about two to one.”

The appointments thus far also demonstrate a lack of racial diversity, as well. The only person of color whose name was floated for a new appointment in a top-level position in the next cabinet — Ambassador Susan Rice — was quickly driven out of the conversation by a right wing smear campaign.

On Monday, just one day after President Obama delivered a speech at a vigil in Newton, Connecticut calling the nation to action against gun violence, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney wouldn’t say if gun safety legislation was a top priority for the administration in the second term.

Carney reiterated Obama’s support for banning assault weapons and called gun control “extremely important,” but didn’t elaborate on what the president would do moving forward:

CARNEY: We have a lot of priorities as a nation. And this president will work on a series of issues that he considers priorities for the nation. And I think that we all as a country need to have the bandwidth to move forward on all of them. He certainly will do that.

Q: But Jay, as legislative items go, is this now a priority?

CARNEY: I’m not going to rank priorities. This is clearly extremely important.

Q: He made it sound like this was the most important thing on the nation’s agenda.

CARNEY: I’m not going to rank priorities. The president just met with the Speaker of the House and to continue discussions on the fiscal cliff and efforts to get our deficits under control. We have the priority of immigration reform. We have a further steps we need to enhance economic growth and job creation — and we need to take meaningful action when it comes to the problem and surge of gun violence in America. We need to do all of it. And this president is committed to just that.

Asked by ABC’s Jack Tapper what the administration has done to get guns off the streets, Carney simply reiterated that Obama backs the assault weapons ban. “He supports legislation that is designed to ban some weapons. But as you know, this is a complex issue and it requires complex solutions,” he said.

In a little-noticed September speech at the Cherish Life Ministries Christian Life Summit, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), the state Republican Party’s apparent choice for governor in 2013, took aim at the Catholic Church for its advocacy on behalf of the poor, immigrants, and the uninsured. Because the Church’s leadership has advocated for the government to provide a social safety net, a role he believes is the responsibility of the Catholic Church itself, Cuccinelli said, “they have made themselves out to be nothing but the largest special interest group in America.”

Though the gathering was titled “Defending the ‘Least of These,’” Cuccinelli, a devout Catholic, blasted his church for attempting to do just that:

I’m probably not the guy most Catholic bishops care to see anymore because I zero-in on them every time I spot them in the room and they get sort of the three-minute version of the church piece of this. They’ve helped create a culture of dependency on government, not God. And rarely do you see the two – once churches get out of the business of serving the poor, or not get out of the business but hand over and argue that they shouldn’t be the primary institution in a society that is responsible for service to the poor.

Watch the video:

The comments convey his extreme view that the government should not provide services to those with the least. But when he claims that churches are asking the government “to step up and take on their role,” Cuccinelli unfairly suggests the Catholic Church has abdicated its own role in helping the poor. Through Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Church supports a wide array of programs aimed at reducing poverty in America. These include programs providing housing for the homeless, helping formerly homeless people rebuild their lives, and distributing food to the hungry. Both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney praised their vital work in serving the nation’s poor. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development also gives millions of dollars in grants annually to programs that work to address the root causes of poverty in America.

A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told ThinkProgress that in 2010, Catholic Charities USA provided food services to more than 7 million people, housing services to almost 500,000, and emergency services including assistance with clothing and prescription drug purchases to nearly 2 million.
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) turned heads last month when he told GQ Magazine that he didn’t know the age of the earth and sparked speculation that he is laying a foundation for a 2016 presidential run. “I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries,” he insisted.

But on Wednesday Rubio walked back his remarks, telling Politico’s Mike Allen that he could have given a “better answer, a more succinct answer.” The Florida senator said he recognized that scientists agree that the earth is at least 4.5 billion years old and explained that this belief is not inconsistent with his faith. He also claimed that his answer is similar to how then-presidential candidate Barack Obama replied to the question in 2007. Here is Rubio:

RUBIO: There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old. I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty health debate. And the theological debate is … how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches. Now for me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth, there is no conflict. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And I think that scientific advances have given us insight into when he did it and how he did it, but I still believe God did it…. I just think in America we should have the freedom to teach our children whatever it is we believe. And that means teaching them science, they have to know the science, but also parents have the right to teach them the theology and to reconcile the two things.

Watch it:

“My faith teaches that [the earth being 4.5 billion years old] is not inconsistant. God created the universe. In the beginning, out of nothing, God created heavens and the earth,” he said. “The more science learns, the more I’m convinced that God is real.”

Former House Republican Leader Richard “Dick” Armey (R-TX) confirmed Monday that he has left his position as chairman of FreedomWorks in what appears to be an acrimonious break from the right-wing group he has lead for nearly a decade. Mother Jones reports he told the Tea Party-linked astroturfing group, in a letter, “I expect that Freedom Works shall remove my name, image, and signature from all its letters, print media, postings, web sites, videos, testimonials, endorsements, fund raising materials, and social media, including but not limited to Facebook and Twitter.” An AP report Tuesday noted that Armey will receive $8 million in severance pay, over 20 years, from a wealthy board member.

Armey, who left Congress in 2003 and became a corporate lobbyist. He also joined the Koch-backed Citizens for a Sound Economy. In 2004, the group split into two: Armey’s FreedomWorks and David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation. Armey served as chairman of FreedomWorks from 2004 to November 30, 2012, receiving a $500,000 annual salary from the group and its affiliates.

While Armey and FreedomWorks have received a great deal of credit of incubating the Tea Party movement, Armey’s tenure was largely defined by a series of failures:

1. Despite spending millions on independent expenditures, the group failed to elect almost any of its favored candidates in 2012. FreedomWorks and its related entities spent at least $19 million on the 2012 elections. They spent at least $500,000 per race to defeat Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Rep.-Elect Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), Sen.-Elect Tim Kaine (D-VA), and President Obama. All won. They spent more than $2.5 million in Indiana’s Senate race to replace conservative Republican Sen. Dick Lugar with an even more conservative Republican; while their favored candidate won the primary, he was defeated by Democrat Joe Donnelly by more than 5 points in the general. And a nearly $1 million effort to defeat not-conservative-enough Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in Utah also proved a huge disappointment: Hatch won his primary with two-thirds of the vote. Among the group’s beefs with Hatch: he voted for many of the same-debt limit increases that Armey backed during his House tenure.

2. Armey unsuccessful pushed for an end to federal funding for higher education. FreedomWorks believes the “size and scope of government must be returned to a level that the nation can afford.” In 2010, Armey told CNN that that size and scope should not include any support for higher education. Asked if he would prefer wanted federal funding at all, he said, “No. I don’t think the federal government’s involvement in education has benefited the students of America.” The statement ignored the billions of dollars in federally subsidized loans and grants that enable tens of millions of Americans students to be able to afford to go to college — and the proposal was not embraced by Republicans or Democrats.

3. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully proposed eliminating Medicare and Social Security as we know them. On the FreedomWorks website, the group says the “only true path to reform” on Social Security, Medicare, and entitlements, “is to greatly increase recipients’ ownership and control.”
In a 2010 interview, Armey — who has called Social Security a “corrupt Ponzi scheme” — explained that this means we should make these programs “voluntary.” Such a move would undoubtedly destroy the nation’s vital social safety net. The vast majority of Americans support these programs and have rejected proposals to make less radical changes. Armey even failed in his own bizarre attempt to have federal courts to rule him ineligible for Medicare.

4. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully sought to block the Recovery Act. As part of its opposition to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the group joined with other conservative organizations to launch ReadTheStimulus.org. The site encouraged people to read the bill, saying “$850 Billion, 1588 pages, and counting… somebody needs to read it!” Armey later conceded that he never read the bill himself. But this wasn’t entirely a failure for Armey — while the bill became law and saved or created hundreds of thousands of jobs, he was able to make money as a lobbyist helping corporate clients seeking stimulus funds.

5. FreedomWorks unsuccessfully tried to protect the right of insurance companies to discriminate against patients based on preexisting conditions. FreedomWorks strongly opposed Obamacare and continues to call the law’s individual mandate unconstitutional even after the Supreme Court rejected that claim. But more surprising was Armey’s argument against the provisions in the bill banning discrimination by insurers against people with pre-existing medical conditions. In a 2009 interview, he said that if people have “diabetes because they eat like a pig,” the government should not force companies to insure them. The wildly popular pre-existing conditions ban is one of the few pieces of Obamacare that even House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (VA) wants to keep.

Explaining his departure, Armey told the AP his “differences with FreedomWorks are a matter of principle.”

Rick Santorum has joined WorldNetDaily, a conspiracy theory blog best known for its indefatigable work advancing the birther movement, as an exclusive columnist.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who was voted out of office in 2006, will use the perch to remain in the conservative consciousness as he eyes another presidential bid in 2016. His column will be featured on the site every Monday.

Santorum’s extreme views will fit in well at WorldNetDaily. In the past, he has compared homosexuality to bestiality, told rape victims they shouldn’t be permitted to get an abortion but rather should “make the best out of a bad situation,” and said food stamps are unnecessary because obesity rates are so high.

Culling WorldNetDaily’s conspiracy theories to a manageable list is a herculean task, but here are a few choice headlines:

• ARPAIO: ‘PROBABLE CAUSE’ OBAMA CERTIFICATE A FRAUD
• POSTMAN: AYERS FAMILY PUT ‘FOREIGNER’ OBAMA THROUGH SCHOOL
• MICHAEL SAVAGE: WAS BREITBART ASSASSINATED?
• OBAMA’S ‘MISSING YEAR’ AT COLUMBIA FOUND?

The chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, Corey Stewart (R), is running for Virginia Lieutenant Governor in 2013. But the former co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s 2012 Virginia campaign effort will have to contend with his one of the same challenges in a state Romney lost with just 47 percent of the vote: Cayman Islands investments.

A ThinkProgress review of Stewart’s 2012 financial disclosures reveals that one of his largest personal holdings — between $10,001 and $50,000 as of January 2012 — is in the DWS Enhanced Commodity Strategy mutual fund. The fund, managed by Deutsche Bank’s DWS Investments, lists its largest investment as “DWS CAYMAN COMMODITY II LTD.”

According to fund documents, that means the fund is heavily invested in a DWS Cayman Island subsidiary. The Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven, was famously a well-known home for Romney’s off-shored money.

While the tax advantages of investing the Caymans may not accrue to Stewart and other shareholders directly, they can provide a great benefit to the investment managers at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. Stewart is well-familiar with these rules, as a well-paid international trade lawyer for both U.S. and international corporations.

Stewart, like Romney, has been a strong advocate of the idea tax cuts magically lead to balanced budgets. Like Romney, he advocates deregulating business, wants to pursue anti-LGBT and anti-women social policies, and believes Arizona’s anti-immigrant laws are the ideal model.

At the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, President Obama jokingly name-checked the New York Times election stats guru Nate Silver. “Once again,” Obama joked, “Nate Silver completely nailed it,” referring to the President’s decision to “pardon” both of the turkeys in question after a Facebook vote by permitting them to live out their lives rather than be slaughtered to make a Thanksgiving meal.

Watch Obama’s remarks:

Like other statistical models, Silver’s algorithm correctly predicted all fifty states in the Presidential election, despite vicious criticism of his approach as having a “liberal bias.”

Former Mitt Romney adviser Dan Senor conceded that in the aftermath of President Obama’s re-election, Republicans can’t start every economic debate insisting on lower tax rates and must do a “better job of thinking through how to talk about middle class economics.”

“We have to spend meaningful time over the next several years developing a policy agenda that reflects our principles but is modernized,” he said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “Unless we address the core issue of middle class economics with innovative ideas,” Republicans will continue to struggle in future elections. Watch it:

Senor also agreed that Republicans must tackle immigration reform, arguing that the party “has been suffering on the issue of immigration for years.” “I think the problem transcends Mitt Romney. I don’t think his position helped the Republcian problem, but I think it predates him.”

Since the election, several prominent Republicans have called on the GOP to lead on the issue, though they remain split on whether to tackle the problem in a single comprehensive reform or piecemeal.

Election exit polls also showed that voters rejected the GOP’s main economic argument — their insistance that the nation should not raise taxes on the richest Americans. “Almost half of voters said taxes should be boosted on Americans making more than $250,000 per year, and one in seven voters said taxes should be increased on all Americans.”

Scientists agree: the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. But don’t tell that to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — he thinks the age of the Earth can be discovered by studying the Bible.

In an interview with GQ magazine, Rubio suggested that the age of the Earth was “a dispute among theologians” and that there is no way to know the truth about the age of the Earth:

GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?

RUBIO: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

The age of the Earth isn’t much of a mystery to scientists, who use methods like radiometric dating to determine how old the Earth is with relative precision. To suggest we can’t know how old the Earth is, then, is to deny the validity of these scientific methods altogether — a maneuver familiar to Rubio, who also denies the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Rubio isn’t the only figure in his party to challenge the scientific approach to the age of the Earth. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) said “I don’t have any idea” how old the Earth is, while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) suggested “we just don’t know.”

Mitt Romney’s comments to donors about the “gifts” that President Barack Obama gave to constituents to win the election continue to cause members of his party to run away from the former candidate. Despite their insistence during the election that Romney’s position on entitlement in America was accurate, the new consensus among the GOP politicians, if not their pundits, is that Romney’s statements could not be more wrong.

After several prominent Republican governors expressed their disagreement with Romney’s statements, the hits have continued coming. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, considered at one point by the Romney campaign as a possible running mate, said on Friday, “You can’t expect to be a leader of all the people and be divisive. You have to talk about themes, policies that unite people, and play to their aspirations and their goals and their hopes for their family and their neighbors.”

Tim Pawlenty, former Minnesota governor and another potential running mate for Romney, though silent on Romney’s 47% comments, likewise shot-down Romney’s “gifts” theory.

Those who didn’t outright disagree with Romney’s words disagreed with his message. Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated that it wasn’t his intention to vilify those who are beneficiaries of public assistance programs:

People can be on public assistance and scheme the system and that’s real, these systems are teetering on bankruptcy. But most people on public assistance don’t have a character flaw. They just have a tough life. I want to create more jobs. The focus should be on creating more jobs, not demonize those who find themselves on hard times.

Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) gave an interview highlighting his issues with Romney’s belief. “I don’t want to rebut him point by point. I would just say to you, I don’t believe that we have millions and millions of people in this country that don’t want to work,” Rubio said. “I think we have millions of people in this country that are out of work and are dependent on the government because they can’t find a job.”

New Mexico governor Susana Martinez (R) and top Romney surrogate to the Hispanic community Carlos Guiterrez have also joined in the chorus disparaging Romney’s statements and calling for more inclusiveness in the Republican party. It’s unfortunate that this many Republican politicians seem to have discovered the divisiveness of their party’s policies towards minorities and the working class only after a massive loss to President Obama.

We’re now well into the political aftermath of the 2012 election, and the pattern of destruction is telling. In demographic after demographic, Obama defeated Romney by remarkable margins: 55 percent among women, 60 percent among voters under 30, 71 percent among Hispanic voters, and a stratospheric 93 percent among African-Americans. Rather than a fluke, the Obama coalition of 2008 looks like it’s here to stay, and the recriminations and soul-searching amongst conservatives and Republicans are in full swing.

The sudden post-election shift of major politicians and media figures on immigration reform betrayed a fear that their party’s hard-line stance wrecked its chances with Hispanics. A chorus of conservative bloggers, Republican strategists, and even what’s left of the party’s moderate politicians have laid blame on its nurturance of white nativism, its tone-deafness on women’s reproductive challenges, or the absolutism of its anti-abortion rhetoric.

There’s certainly some truth to these takes. But this notion that scattershot appeasement of various voting blocks is the path back for Republicans makes a fundamental error. It buys into conservatives’ silly caricature of Democrats as a party without a vision — “an incoherent amalgam of interest groups, most of which are vying for benefits for themselves and their members at the expense of other Americans,” as Yuval Levin bitterly put it.

There is, in fact, a fundamental vision that unites virtually all the disparate groups in Obama’s coalition. It’s sitting right there in the exit polling and the narrative of the campaign, for anyone willing to see it. Crudely put, it’s the economic issues: on the practical level, the recognition that the free market, whatever its virtues, does not deal justly with people when left to its own devices. And on the moral level, the simple, elegant, age-old conviction that we are all our brother’s keeper. And it’s the GOP’s rejection of these propositions that set it on the path to electoral defeat.
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The owner of the Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinetop, Arizona is testing out a new business strategy: banning anyone who voted for President Obama from the store.

Owner Cope Reynolds took out an ad in the local newspaper announcing his new policy, writing “If you voted for Barack Obama, your business is not welcome at Southwest Shooting Authority.” A similar sign is posted on the front door of the shop as well.

Reynolds prefaced his ad campaign with a letter posted to firearm news website AmmoLand:

Effective immediately, if you voted for Obama, your money is no good here. You have proven beyond a doubt that you are not responsible enough to own a firearm. We have just put a sign up on the front door to save you the trouble of walking all the way in here….

Gun advocates have been notoriously critical of the Obama administration for its perceived slights of the second amendment, this despite overseeing the expansion of gun rights during Obama’s first four years in the White House.

Reynolds’ feelings about a second Obama administration were hardly a secret before his ad appeared, taking to Facebook to lend his support for the fringe secessionist movement that has sprung up in reaction to Obama’s reelection as well as the notion that President Obama is coming for conservatives’ guns.

[h/t TPM]

On Thursday, the head of the Maine Republican Party found himself on the wrong side of controversy after he questioned the legitimacy of “dozens” of black people voting at the polls on Election Day. “Nobody in town knows anyone who’s black,” Charlie Webster — who has since apologized for his comments — declared.

Such faulty logic is more widespread throughout the Republican party, it seems. Racial justice news site ColorLines published a video the day after the election of a self-identified Republican poll worker in Colorado who can be heard phoning in his concerns that “a very high concentration of people of color” were turning out in his precinct, and that such turnout was suspicious because he normally sees fewer minorities “at the mall”:

“Yeah, a very high concentration of people of color. It’s not a problem, but, you know, when I go to the mall I see, you know this amount. Well I’m seeing at least double or triple that amount here. So what I’m saying is, it looks to me like this voting location was selected as the place they told everyone to come.”

Watch it:

As with Webster, the poll worker, identified by Color Lines as Dayton Conway, offers no evidence of any foul play at all other than his gut feeling that there were more minorities at his polling location than he normally sees at the mall. Conway perhaps failed to note that his polling location — the Arapahoe County CentrePoint Plaza in Aurora, Colorado — was one of 32 designated voting centers where voters who are registered anywhere in Arapahoe County could cast their ballots, meaning the turnout there might not be reflective of the precinct’s actual demographics.

Sadly, Conway’s instinctual suspicion of minority voters is something of a trend for Republicans this year. After the election, Rep. Paul Ryan blamed “urban voters” for costing him the vice presidency, while Mitt Romney argued that Obama won reelection by doling out “gifts” like health care, affordable education and food to minority groups and the impoverished.

Republican governors Bobby Jindal (LA) and Scott Walker (WI) spoke out against Mitt Romney’s claim that Obama won because he gave minorities and young people “big gifts” in the form of Obamacare, his DREAM directive, and partial college loan forgiveness. At the Republican Governors Association meeting in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Jindal called the statement “absolutely wrong,” saying, “I absolutely reject that notion.” Walker, who was on a panel with Jindal when he denounced Romney, agreed that the GOP isn’t “just for people who are currently not dependent on the government. It’s for all Americans.”

Both governors, who were Romney surrogates, stayed quiet during Romney’s earlier iteration of this idea, when he told donors that 47 percent of Americans “believe they are victims” and will never “take personal responsibility.” Walker ducked the controversy at the time, saying “That’s a statement he has to take on, not myself.” Jindal also deferred judgment, refusing to “be one of these political pundits.”

But after a definitive loss down the ticket on Election Night, Republicans are doing some “brutally honest” soul-searching about the future of their party. Jindal was especially outspoken, imploring the GOP to “stop being the stupid party.” He was blunt in his newfound criticism for Romney in an interview with Politico:

The Republican Party is going to fight for every single vote. That means the 47 percent and the 53 percent…We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything. We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.

Other top Republicans lavished blame on Romney at the conference and complained that the campaign did not offer enough specifics to combat Obama.

Romney told donors in a call on Wednesday that Obama won because he “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift,” before going on to explain how several of the presidents’ policies have directly helped these Americans.

Mitt Romney is attributing his loss in the 2012 election to the “gifts” President Obama gave to minority voters, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. Speaking to donors on Wednesday, the former Massachusetts governor praised his own campaign, but speculated that Obama won because he was “very generous” to his base:

Mitt Romney told his top donors Wednesday that his loss toPresident Obama was a disappointing result that neither he or his top aides had expected, but said he believed his team ran a “superb” campaign with “no drama,” and attributed his rival’s victory to “the gifts” the administration had given to blacks, Hispanics and young voters during Obama’s first term.

Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-aged women to back the president. [...]

“The President’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift—so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

The comments echo the claims Romney made during a private high-dollar fundraiser earlier this year. In the video first published by Mother Jones, Romney argued that 47 percent of Americans are “dependent upon government.”

In his first interview since losing the election, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) also wouldn’t admit that voters rejected the ticket’s economic vision and instead chalked up Obama’s victory to a large turnout of the “urban vote.”

Romney and Ryan however, also lost states with very low minority populations, including New Hampshire, Iowa, Maine and Vermont.