Posts Tagged ‘Romney’

Jewish Fascist David Horowitz Sputters Inanities About Obama

Posted: November 10, 2012 in David Horowitz Jewish Fascist, Jewish Extremists, Jewish Fanatics, Jewish Fascism, Jewish Fascist, Jewish Fascist Pamela Geller, Jewish Hatemonger, Jewish Radical Right, Jewish Right, Jewish Right Wing, Jewish Zealots
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Horowitz: Obama will use Climate Change to ‘Control Your Environment’ and ‘Everybody’s Life’
Submitted by Brian Tashman

David Horowitz talked to Frank Gaffney today on Secure Freedom Radio about what to expect in President Obama’s second term, where Horowitz warned that while the government through health care reform can “control your health, now they’re going to control your environment.” He said that the movement for environmental protection is America’s “biggest threat” because it is working with Obama to impose government “control over everybody’s life” under the excuse of preventing climate change, “the chimera of the left.” He even brought up the debunked claim that Obama will enforce a light switch tax.

The far-right author demanded that Republicans read his book Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion and learn that Obama is following the playbook of Saul Alinsky. Horowitz details how Saul Alinsky came up with the absolutely novel idea that politicians should make compromises, try to pass their policy agenda when they can and run negative advertisements against their opponents.

Horowitz also seems to be under the impression that Romney did not respond to any of the negative ads against him and did not go negative against Obama. “Character assassination is the middle name of every Democratic political operative,” Horowitz maintained, “What is wrong with Republicans that they don’t understand that this is a war? And the other side is playing for keeps.”

Horowitz: Alinsky advised, do what’s possible, not your ideal, make compromises, which Obama has done and he’s turned off some of the left because of it. SO he’s going to continue to fund the left with taxpayer money, that’s a given, that’s where the Stimulus money went, it went to the unions, he’s going to fund the unions. He’s going to pursue this other chimera of the left, the climate change, because it means control over energy policies. They actually want to control when you turn on your light switch, they want to tax you for the energy that you use. I have to tell you, this is the biggest threat, that environmental movement. That’s the powerful movement because it means control over everybody’s life. They won Obamacare and control your health, now they’re going to control your environment.

Gaffney: And energy. David, what would you recommend to the loyal opposition as to what it should be doing to contend with this radical and his agenda for the next four years?

Horowitz: Read my book. The big problem here is conservatives understand policy issues very well, they’re wonks like Paul Ryan. Romney by the way could have won this election if he had made Rubio his vice presidential candidate, as much as I admire Paul Ryan, it was Rubio we should’ve picked for the politics of it. But the main thing is you have to understand your enemy, it’s not good enough to do the policy, people never get to hear the policies. Romney never appeared to half the electorate, what appeared were all those negative campaign ads and that’s just what politics is about. You have got to understand how dedicated and vicious your opponents are. Stop calling them liberals and hopefully some people will read my book because my book is portraits of threes people so you understand who they are.

Gaffney: Right. One of the things that just jumps off of the pages is something that we saw play out, right out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook, I think it was “Rules for Radicals #11,” in which he said, select a target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. If that wasn’t the script for taking down Mitt Romney I don’t know what was. Horowitz: Yes. Character assassination is the middle name of every Democratic political operative, and everybody who is a conservative knows it, we’ve all been victims of it. It’s not a secret, everybody said, everybody said, this will be the dirtiest campaign ever and Obama has nothing to run on, he has to demonize Romney. And when he did that, did the Romney campaign respond? No. What is wrong with Republicans that they don’t understand that this is a war?

Gaffney: They have to read your book, that’s for sure.

Horowitz: And the other side is playing for keeps.

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Romney Was ‘Shellshocked’ Says Advisor | GOP Exists In a Fairyland Cocoon Isolated From Reality

Posted: November 10, 2012 in GOP Backwardness, GOP Clown Car, GOP Crazies, GOP Idiots
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Adviser: Romney Was ‘Shellshocked’

Reality is a harsh mistress! RomneyBOT MELTDOWN!

Details are now leaking out about what it was like in the final hours of the Romney campaign: Adviser: Romney ‘Shellshocked’ by Loss.

Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan’s wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

“There’s nothing worse than when you think you’re going to win, and you don’t,” said another adviser. “It was like a sucker punch.”

Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

“He was shellshocked,” one adviser said of Romney.

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Mormon Nutcase Glenn Beck On Romney Loss | “God Really Sucks”

Posted: November 8, 2012 in Jackass Glenn Beck, Loser Mitt Romney, Mormon Cultists
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BECK ON ROMNEY’S LOSS: ‘MAN, SOMETIMES GOD REALLY SUCKS’ -

David Edwards reports:

“Conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Wednesday declared that Mitt Romney’s loss to President Barack Obama proved that ‘sometimes God really sucks.’

“As it was becoming apparently that the president was going to be re-elected on Tuesday, Beck had told a panel on his Blaze TV network that ‘the body of America is even sicker than I thought it was.’

“’Twelve years ago, I could say with real assurance that I knew who Americans were,’ he explained. ‘And I can’t say that any more.’

“During his radio show the next morning, Beck told listeners that he had realized Romney was going to lose while praying before the polls opened on Tuesday.

“’Man, sometimes God really sucks’ the radio host lamented. ‘I got up yesterday at 3:00 in the morning and I knew. And I couldn’t sleep and I started to say my prayers and I got up and kneeled down by the edge of my bed and I knew that — or I suspected that my mind’s not God’s mind, and the peace and the comfort that he had given me and so many of my friends was not about an election.’

Beck on Romney’s loss: ‘Man, sometimes God really sucks’ – what are your comments?

Beck on Romney’s loss: ‘Man, sometimes God really sucks’

By David Edwards

Raw Story

…He added: “Just like those Christians that rolled up the Dead Sea Scrolls and put them in pots. I don’t know what happened to those Christians but they hid them. They hid them and they preserved them because it was important. The Bible was never wiped out, but the people who originally wrote the Bible were scattered.”

But in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election, Beck had repeatedly said that God was orchestrating Republican nominee’s path to the presidency.

Speaking to his radio listeners in September, he insisted that Romney’s poll numbers had fallen as a http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/01/beck-god-put-romney-behind-in-polls-to-prove-its-a-miracle-when-he-wins/”>part of a plan from God to make it obvious to the American people that divine intervention was responsible when Republicans took the White House in November.

The conservative radio host later speculated that Romney had lost the final debate because he was “being guided” by God to be “less contentious” and agree with President Barack Obama.

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The Dangerous Apocalyptic Visions of Mitt Romney and the Mormon Theocratic Edifice | The “war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews”

Posted: November 7, 2012 in Mitt Romney Birthers, Mitt Romney Bullshitter, Mitt Romney Conspiracy Theorist, Mitt Romney Crazy Prophecy, Mitt Romney Cultist, Mitt Romney Religious Fanatic, Mitt Romney The Liar
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Romney and the End-Times

Post by SARAH POSNER

There’s a lot of chatter about a video, made in 2007, when Romney was running for president the first time, that has (naturally) surfaced again just a few days before the election. Apparently filmed by hidden camera, it shows Romney arguing with conservative Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson, in studio but off the air, about his Mormon beliefs. Mickelson appears to be goading Romney into admitting or explaining ways that Mormonism differs from evangelical Christianity, and Romney gets pretty angry and heated throughout.

Earlier this year, Joanna Brooks wrote about how journalists who focus on, for example, Romney’s citation to Mickelson of Cold War-era Mormon figure W. Cleon Skousen (long a religious right, tea party, and Glenn Beck favorite) miss the mark about the Mormon world in which Romney functions, “a powerful multinational network of financial and political influence brokers connected by a profound common bond: their multigenerational membership and service in the LDS Church.”

This week, one part of the Mickelson video in particular has generated some discussion: Mickelson asks Romney about the end-times, and about whether he believes the Second Coming of Christ will happen in Missouri. In the video, Romney tells Mickelson that, no, the LDS Church teaches (as do evangelical churches) that the Second Coming will happen in Jerusalem. He then goes on to explain, rather clumsily and without much detail, “what the church” teaches about this.

Mickelson seemed inspired to broach the topic by an interview Romney gave to George Stephanopoulos. Here’s part of that transcript:

George Stephanopoulos: In your faith, if I understand it correctly, it teaches that Jesus will return probably to the United States and reign on Earth for 1,000 years. And I wonder how that would be viewed in the Muslim world. Have you thought about how the Muslim world will react to that and whether it would make it more difficult, if you were president, to build alliances with the Muslim world?

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.: Well, I’m not a spokesman for my church. I’m not running for pastor in chief. I’m running for commander in chief. So the best place to go for my church’s doctrines would be my church.

Stephanopoulos: But I’m talking about how they will take it, how they will perceive it.

Romney: I understand, but that doesn’t happen to be a doctrine of my church. Our belief is just as it says in the Bible, that the messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives and that the Mount of Olives will be the place for the great gathering and so forth. It’s the same as the other Christian tradition. But that being said, how do Muslims feel about Christian doctrines? They don’t agree with them. There are differences between doctrines of churches. But the values at the core of the Christian faith, the Jewish faith and many other religions are very, very similar. And it’s that common basis that we have to support and find ability to draw people to rather than to point out the differences between our faiths. The differences are less pronounced than the common base that can lead to the peace and the acceptability and the brother and sisterhood of humankind.

Stephanopoulos: But your church does teach that Jesus will reign on Earth for the millennium, right?

Romney: Yes.

Mickelson asks Romney whether, contrary to what he told Stephanopoulos, he believes the Second Coming will take place in Missouri. After mentioning that a Skousen book explains LDS teaching on this, Romney seems either unwilling or at a loss to go into too much detail. Romney adds:

Christ appears, it’s throughout the Bible, Christ appears in Jerusalem, splits the Mount of Olives, to stop the war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews, it’s—our church believes that. That’s where the coming and glory of Christ occurs. We also believe that over the 1000 years that follows, the millenium, he will reign from two places, that the law will come forward from one place, from Missouri, the other will be in Jerusalem. Back to abortion.

A few things here. First, except for the part about Missouri, what Romney is saying about LDS belief about Christ’s return doesn’t deviate that much from what many evangelicals believe. I’m not in any way endorsing apocalyptic biblical literalism or proof-texting here, or saying that all Mormons or all evangelicals believe this. I’m just pointing out that Romney was relying on the same parts of the Bible many evangelicals do about Christ’s return. For example: “‘In the whole land,’ declares the Lord, ‘two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it.’” (Zechariah 13:8) and “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south” (Zechariah 14:4). I’ve seen preaching on this by evangelicals; I’ve talked to evangelicals who believe these verses to be true, accurate, and undeniable prophecy of what will happen in Jerusalem. (N.B.: Zechariah was not talking about Jesus, and what exactly he—or more than one he—was actually talking about is far from clear. But anyway.)

The question that’s being raised now, as this video resurfaces and generates discussion, is: does Romney himself really believe this? Does he somehow revel in a “war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews,” or see it as inevitable? I think that’s not evident from the video, or from his answer to Stephanopoulos. (Of course Romney’s a notorious liar, so we may never know.) Romney’s very defensive in the video, under questioning by Mickelson who clearly is trying to get him to admit that Mormon end-times theology is wildly different from evangelical end-times theology (which has many variants, incidentally, but none that include Missouri as a locus for anything except the second coming of Todd Akin). But Romney appears to be suggesting that “our church believes that” rather than saying, “I believe this is a literal prophecy of how world events will play out.” I’ve written before about how Romney’s public pronouncements on the Israel-Palestine conflict are out of touch with non-apocalyptic, contemporary Mormon thinking, but still, he’s never discussed his own beliefs on the end-times, or disagreements, if any, with LDS doctrine.

Apocalyptic beliefs are a Republican problem, though, not just a Romney problem; for example, George W. Bush, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee are all evangelicals who forged relationships with apocalyptic preacher John Hagee. I would very much like to know whether they co-sign Hagee’s apocalyptic visions.

I want to know the same answers about Romney, but not because he’s Mormon. Equally as pertinent to what Romney himself believes is what he thinks his base believes, and to what extent, as president, he’d be worrying about placating them. Remember, he was trying to show Mickelson he believes the same things evangelicals do. He’s running for president, for Pete’s sake!

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President Barack Obama Is Much Better on Most Issues and Worse on None!

Posted: November 6, 2012 in Republican Fascism, Republicans Regressive, Right Wing Clown Car, Right Wing Crazies, Right Wing Culture Wars
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The No-Brainer Progressive Case For Obama

Via Scott Lemieux

Should it be surprising President Obama has largely maintained the support of the left of the Democratic Party? According to a number of critics—notably Matt Stoller and David Sirota of Salon—the answer is yes. Essentially, this contrarian case depends on obscuring two crucial truths:

  • Either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election.
  • Whether you’re a moderate liberal or a democratic socialist, Obama is much better on many issues and worse on none.

In obfuscating this case for supporting Obama despite the undeniable flaws of his administration, third-party fantasists rely on three categories of argument: dismissing the achievements of the Obama administration, inventing a moderate of Mitt Romney, and exaggerating the benefits of third-party nihilism. None of these arguments can withstand any scrutiny.

Underrating Obama’s achievements

To put this in plain terms, Obama has the third most impressive record of progressive achievement of any president of the last century. Moreover, the two presidents with better legislative records—FDR and LBJ—were working in far more favorable circumstances, with larger majorities in Congress and rapidly growing economies. (Lyndon Johnson, who had the most impressive record of all, benefited not only from his own formidable skills but from the presence of liberal Republicans who increased his bargaining leverage and the halo effect of an assassinated president.) If Obama is re-elected, the Affordable Care Act—which will make health care more accessible to tens of millions of people, succeeding where numerous presidents had failed—will be seen as a monumental achievement. And as Michael Grunwald’s terrific new book demonstrates, as much as liberals grumble about the stimulus package, it was a substantial achievement. Assumptions that Obama left lots of potential money on the table are clearly wrong. These major bills are just the beginning.

Part of the problem is that once major progressive reforms have been achieved, they can seem inevitable—it can be easy to forget they wouldn’t have happened with John McCain or Mitt Romney in the White House. Overriding the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision and ensuring that women received coverage of contraception for their health care premiums were major feminist priorities before Barack Obama took office, but these accomplishments inevitably vanish down the memory hole when leftists urge people to reject Obama. Ten years ago, an administration that secured the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, and came out in favor of same-sex marriage would have seemed like too much to wish for—but, again, these remarkable advances are ignored when critics suggest we should be indifferent about whether Obama wins or loses.

This is not, of course, to say that leftists don’t have real reasons to be disappointed with Obama. His civil liberties record has generally been poor. The Bush administration’s torture regime was stopped but went unpunished. He wasn’t creative enough with using appropriated funds to alleviate the mortgage and housing crisis. But there’s no president in American history who doesn’t have demerits as bad or worse on their records. To call any of these issues “dealbreakers” is to inherently trivialize gender equity, access to health insurance, gay and lesbian rights, the enforcement of civil rights and environmental laws by the executive branch and the courts, the saving of the American auto industry, and the many other issues on which there are huge differences between the national parties. There’s nothing remotely progressive about doing so.

Imagining a moderate Romney.

To read Stoller and Sirota, you would think that the Republican primaries came down to battle between Lincoln Chaffee and Zombie Nelson Rockefeller. Sirota, asserting that the election won’t really affect the Supreme Court, points out that Earl Warren was a Republican appointee, a fact that’s about as relevant to politics in 2012 as Pat Boone is to today’s teenagers. Dismissing the Affordable Care Act, Stoller asserts that ” whether you call it Romneycare in Massachusetts, or Obamacare nationally, it’s the same healthcare program.” By this farcially transparent sleight of hand, Stoller transforms a statute that received zero Republican votes in Congress and was ruled entirely unconstitutional by four of the five Republican appointees on the Supreme Court into a bipartisan consensus.

It is true Mitt Romney talked like a moderate when he was the governor or Massachusetts, and if both houses of Congress consisted of supermajorities of Massachusetts Democrats this would be relevant to how he would govern as president. In the actually existing political context, there’s no reason to believe the Romney running for election in Massachusetts is the “real Romney.” If Romney wins, we’re not going to get someone like John Paul Stevens appointed to the Supreme Court and a moderate deficit-cutting deal; we’ll get another Alito and as many of the upper-class tax cuts and savage cuts to social programs in the Ryan budget as the Republicans can pass. Senate Democrats can contain the damage, but they can’t eliminate it—especially when it comes to executive branch actions and judicial appointments.

Third-Party daydream believing.

Another way of avoiding the fact that Obama is far superior to Romney for progressives is to evade the question by comparing Obama to a candidate with no chance of becoming president. In a particularly revealing argument, Robert Prasch uses the trite language of consumer capitalism to urge progressives to throw the election to Romney: “[a]nyone who has ever gone shopping knows that their bargaining power depends ultimately upon his/her willingness to walk away.” Voters, based on this line of reasoning, should see voting not as part of a collective project to choose the best available majority coalition for the country, but as an act of self-absorbed individual expression, like choosing a favorite brand of designer jeans.

These arguments are self-refuting. In actual politics, walking away “empowers” the left about as much as being able to choose between Coke and Pepsi “empowers” a worker negotiating with Wal-Mart. Conservatives didn’t take over the Republican Party by running third-party vanity campaigns. The legislative victories of the Great Society happened because civil rights and labor groups stayed in the Democratic coalition after decades of frustration (it was the segregationists who were repeatedly threatening to take their ball and go home by running third-party candidates.) And not only does third-party voting at the national level carry no benefits, there’s a serious downside risk. Ralph Nader throwing the 2000 election to George W. Bush didn’t radicalize the Democratic Party, but it did lead to the horrors of Iraq as well as a great deal of awful domestic policy. Indulging in fantasies that the Democratic Party could win as a European-style social democratic party if only Republicans make things bad enough is both bad strategy and grossly immoral.

There is, in other words, nothing complicated about the progressive choice in the 2012 election, which is Barack Obama. There are merely attempts by people unwilling to accept that major-party candidates are unlikely to represent their beliefs in every detail to make the choice appear more complicated than it is. Progressives should be critical about the inevitable failures of a second Obama term—but they should also be clear-eyed about the fact that this would be infinitely preferable to Romney and Ryan occupying the White House.

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Mitt Romney A Pathological Liar | A Danger to Democracy | 800+ Vetoes as Mass. Governor

Posted: November 6, 2012 in Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney Birthers, Mitt Romney Bullshitter, Mitt Romney Conspiracy Theorist, Mitt Romney Corrupt Politician, Mitt Romney Crazy Prophecy, Mitt Romney Cultist, Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges, Mitt Romney Impedes Disaster Relief, Mitt Romney Liar, Mitt Romney Lies, Mitt Romney Pathalogical Liar, Mitt Romney Scandal, Mitt Romney Sham
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Democracy Danger Signs: Mitt Romney’s 800+ Vetoes as Mass. Governor
Romney’s blocks were overridden over 95% of the time.

Mitt Romney’s “closing argument” redefines chutzpah. “You know that if the President is re-elected, he will still be unable to work with the people in Congress,” Romney said on Friday. He warned of a government shut-down, or another debt-ceiling crisis – two examples of Congressional Republicans taking the economy hostage for partisan gain – if Barack Obama emerges victorious next week. If elected, Romney promised not to “pass partisan legislation.”

It’s a dubious assertion. Romney has made one claim on the campaign trail that is undeniably true. He did bring bipartisanship to Massachusetts – by the time he left the governor’s mansion in 2006, many Republicans in the Bay State, like their Democratic counterparts, couldn’t stand him.

That’s probably not what he meant. In his first debate with Barack Obama, as he shook his Etch-a-sketch, Romney said of his time in Massachusetts, “I had the great experience — it didn’t seem like it at the time — of being elected in a state where my legislature was 87 percent Democrat. And that meant I figured out from day one I had to get along and I had to work across the aisle to get anything done.”

The reality of his time as Governor was quite different. Mitt Romney had the dubious distinction of vetoing over 800 measures passed by that Democrat-controlled legislature. According to the Boston Globe, in a television ad for his 2008 presidential campaign, Romney even gloated about it. ”I know how to veto,” he said in the ad. “I like vetoes. I’ve vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations as governor.” This endeared him to neither Democrats nor Republicans, according to the Globe:

What he doesn’t say is the Legislature overrode those vetoes almost at will. When the House decided to challenge him, Romney was overridden 99.6 percent of the time: 775 to 3, according to the House minority leader’s office. In the Senate, Romney was overridden every time, often unanimously.

In other words, the six Republicans in the state senate often joined their Democratic colleagues to kill Romney’s vetoes. That’s because he was aloof and, after a failed attempt to build up the Republican brand in his state, he withdrew, refusing to work with legislators – even Republicans.

According to NPR, “apart from health care, Romney defined success not with big-picture legislative accomplishments but with confrontation.”

Democrat Ellen Story recalls a Gov. Romney who had a policeman screen visitors and who did not allow lawmakers to use the bank of elevators just outside his office: “He was aloof; he was not approachable,” Story says. “He was very much an outsider, the whole time he was here.”

And Story remembers something else about the former governor: “The Republican reps would grumble that he didn’t even know their names.”

George Peterson was one of those Republicans; he does not take issue with his colleague’s characterization of Romney: “It took him a little bit to get used to dealing with elected officials, let’s put it that way,” he says.

“The first year was, I’d say, a struggle,” Peterson says. “He was used to being a top executive, ‘and this is where we’re going, and this is how we’re going to do it.’ And this animal [the state Legislature] doesn’t work that way. Not at all. Especially when it’s overwhelmingly ruled by one party.”

Frustrated by not being able to manage the state like he did Bain Capital, Romney spent most of his final year outside Massachusetts, laying the groundwork for a national campaign. According to Think Progress, “Romney spent 212 days out of state — more than four days each week, on average” in 2006. He then left office with a 34 percent approval rating. Today, his approval rating in Massachusetts is just 40 percent. In his final year, his unfavorable ratings among Massachusetts Republicans bounced between the mid-20s and the mid-30s.

If Romney wins on Tuesday, we can only expect more of the same inability to work with Congress – people whom Romney apparently views as “the help.” He’ll be forced to adhere to a severely conservative agenda by House Republicans, and he’ll get little help from Democrats given the hard-right policies he’s proposed. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said on Friday, “Mitt Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his ‘severely conservative’ agenda is laughable.”

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1 Not-So-Simple, Pretty Funny Question for the 73% of White Evangelicals Who Will Apparently Be Voting for Romney

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Religious Lunatics, Religious Racketeers, Religious Reich, Religious Right, Religious Wankers, Religious Zombies, Republican Loons, Right Wing Kooks, Right Wing Nuts
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By Frank Schaeffer

1 Not-So-Simple, Pretty Funny Question for the 73% of White Evangelicals Who Will Apparently Be Voting for Romney
A question that deserves an answer before election day.

According to polls 73 percent of WHITE evangelicals will be voting for Mitt Romney.

If the polls are correct here’s the question I’d like to ask evangelicals using their own style of language/concerns/theological thinking as applied to their choice:

What’s the explanation for the fact that white American Evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart lapsed Roman Catholic Dinesh D’Souza their anti-Obama hero, embrace a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, are working to elect a job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against an exemplary modest faithful husband good father compassionate smart black evangelical Christian President whose major accomplishments include saving the economy, ending a war, killing our greatest enemy, giving health care to children and the poor and the “least of these” and who has tried to reduce the number of abortions by helping women escape poverty in a reenactment of the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Go figure.

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Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges For Profiteering From Auto Bailout

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Mitt Romney Corrupt Politician, Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges
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Mitt Romney Faces Ethics Charges For Profiteering From Auto Bailout
By Kirsten West Savali

mitt romney

GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, will likely face charges for ethics violations on Monday for profiteering from the 2009 auto bailout initiated by the Obama Administration, reports AllVoices.com.

According to an in-depth report by The Nation.com,  Romney and his wife, Ann, “personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailout—and a few of Romney’s most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romney’s, were astronomical—more than 3,000 percent on their investment.”

This, even though Romney has consistently criticized the president for the bailout; in fact, writing a 2008 “New York Times” op-ed titled, “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,” that has haunted him politically throughout the campaign.

All Voices reports:

“A coalition of community, labor and good government organizations is calling on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate presidential candidate Mitt Romney for noncompliance with the Ethics in Government Act and compel him to either disclose his investments or divest them,” according to the United Auto Workers Union, who requested the charges.

The Romney profits came from Adelphi, a former parts supplier of the Delco division of General Motors. Adelphi was not technically supposed to be included in the federal bailout money given to the auto industry. But since neither GM nor Chrysler could survive without parts from Adelphi, $12.9 million in federal bailout money was demanded by investors and eventually diverted to hedge funds that Mitt and Ann Romney bought into.

Romney did not disclose his windfall profits from Delphi in his June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the office of Government Ethics, “because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds,” according to the UAW.

With the UAW charges coming to light, the reason for Mitt Romney’s hiden tax returns becomes more apparent and more important as he seeks the presidency.

This comes on the heels of the news that Senator Harry Reid was right to accuse Romney of avoiding paying his taxes.

As NewsOne reported, Mitt Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints– to avoid paying taxes for over 15 years. He “rented” tax-exempt status from them, setting up a Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT), that paid him yearly dividends, while donating a miniscule amount to the church. The trade-off is at his death, the balance of the trust is gifted to the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints.

Congress aggressively cracked down on this rich man scheme in 1997, but according to Bloomberg’s Jesse Rucker, Romney was grandfathered in because he established the tax shelter in 1996 while he was an executive at Bain Capital.

With only two days to go until the 2012 presidential election, it may or may not have any effect on the outcome. But, if the sky falls in and Romney wins, then is found guilty of ethics charges due to auto bailout profiteering, it may be slightly awkward to face criminal charges while in the White House.

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Why I’m Voting for President Obama

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Barack Obama, Pro Choice, Pro Freedom, Progressive, You Know I Tell the Truth
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Why I’m Voting for President Obama
Five years later, much has changed
Via:- Randall Gross

I’m voting for President Obama because I trust him to do the right thing, and even on the issues where we don’t agree I know that he will make his choices based on principles and what he sees as best for our country as a whole rather than based on political expediency or the dictates of narrow interests. I have confidence in him as President and I know that he’s principled because I’ve watched him in action first as a candidate and then as our president for five years now.

When this started out I was not a Barack Obama fan – instead I was one of the many here at this site writing posts against him and campaigning for his opponents (that included Clinton, Guiliani, Romney, and McCain at various points as the long primary season wound into the national election). I was against him as president and was pretty firmly seated in the “anyone but Obama” camp because I still believed all the far right bumper stickers about him, and even took part in some of the attempts to slime him with Reverend Wright and other things.

Even after he was elected I was still heavily criticizing him regarding jobs and the economy all the way into 2010, but over time he slowly turned all of those negatives around. He demonstrated his leadership time and again, and took a lot of heat not only from the right, but also from many of the progressives in his own party to work through issues with a highly recalcitrant Congress. Under his guidance I watched as multiple branches of our Federal Government became more open, more effective, and more efficient.

At the same time I watched the right become bitter and hardened, witch hunting not only our new president but also anyone in their own party who didn’t kow-tow to their hard right litany at every other step. The cracked pots were let in the back door, and I ran out the front, at first to become an independent, and then a year later a registered Democrat.

Meanwhile, President Obama took the fight directly to the specific terrorist organizations who were attacking us and destabilizing the subcontinent of Asia and the Middle East. He quickly got results, using a combination of drone warfare, sanctions, agreements and diplomacy to further US interests and missions.

He didn’t care if the terrorists were hiding in Yemen and Pakistan and being sheltered by factions of those country’s military. He went after them anyway, just as he had promised in his campaign; he took out leader after leader until we got Osama Bin Laden hiding in Abottobad, Pakistan. Both Romney and McCain had roundly criticized him for saying he would go into Pakistan during the campaign, but he persisted until justice was done.

I’ve watched our President in action, turning the country around, doing what was required to save the auto industry, putting the country back to work with construction projects across the nation when we needed it most, and I’ve seen him persevere while the rabid right did everything in their power to cause him and our country to fail. I’ve seen him smile and still try to deal with Republican congressmen even as one of them called him a liar during an address to a joint session of Congress.

That joint session was for his landmark health care initiative, and I’m glad it passed. Now all of my nieces and nephews have a chance to stay on their parents health insurance as they go into those starter jobs. Now my pacemaker isn’t a pre-existing condition hurdle to changing insurance if I want to.

It’s now five years later, and I’m a big supporterIt was that kind of bile and the over the top charges like “Death panels” at that joint session and Barack’s persistent work against our real foes overseas that made me reconsider the propaganda I’d been fed, and made me dig deeper into the issues. At most junctures I found myself deciding that our president was right, and his opponents were absolutely crazed, as I dug into the facts of each issue.

I found that we agree on most issues regarding climate, social issues like gay marriage, and women’s rights. I fully support the regulations on Wall Street — we can’t afford vulture and wild West capitalism of the sort his opponent wants.

It’s now five years later, and I’m a big supporter. I honestly don’t think there is anyone out there who can do a better job as President for the next four years. Instead, I firmly believe that putting anyone else into office would seriously jeopardize the slow but steady recovery that we are in.

That’s why our President, Barack Obama, not only has my complete confidence and trust as president, but also my vote for the next four years.

Obama: “You Know I Tell the Truth”

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Why I’m Voting Against Mitt Romney

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Mormon Cult, Mormon Theocracy, Right Wing Fascism
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Why I’m Voting Against Mitt Romney
Tomorrow I’ll tell you why I am voting FOR President Obama
Via:- Randall Gross

There are many reasons I’m voting Democrat this election but prime among them is that Mitt Romney has no core, no soul, no integrity. There are many words that you would never apply to him after his several years of unsuccessful campaigning, but chief among them are the words “courageous,” “consistent,” “principled,” “honest,” and least of all “caring.”

Instead you can see him lie every day, blandly smiling and glad-handing the crowds as he puts another baldfaced whopper across. You have to wonder if he’s chuckling inside and thinking, “I wonder how many of these hapless rubes bought that one.”

There’s nothing worse than frat boy weasels who lie to your face knowing that they are lying, knowing full well that you see through their lie. It doesn’t matter if they are trying to sell a junker off a used car lot or running for president, most people can smell them coming — but others seem defenseless against their toothsome grins. Anytime that Mitt has seemed to say something solid on the campaign trail, the next day he sends his staff out to walk it back, since he seems not to have the spine required to retract it in person, or to stand for something specific himself.

Maybe you’ve been willing to accept the lies because Romney’s a “member of the GOP team,” or because you hate our current President — but politics is not a sport, and you need to be bigger than just a rooter for your team. The US can’t afford another second generation elitist sliming their way into office, not here, not now, as the economy is just recovering from the worst recession since the great depression. We don’t need more of the same deregulation, the same laissez faire, “who cares about all those bad loans” attitudes at the helm. We certainly don’t need a president who has so little faith in our country that he off-shores most of his money made after years of off-shoring our jobs and dumping insolvent and Bain debt-saddled companies into bankruptcy.

Almost worse than Romney are the people who would come into power with himWe don’t need a president who thinks 47 percent of us don’t matter, because the president is elected to serve everyone, not just the people who financed their campaign or who voted for them.

Almost worse than Romney are the people who would come into power with him, as the reactionary fundamentalist wing of the party is in full control of the GOP right now. With Mitt, we would get people from the clash of civilizations crowd (like John Bolton), who won’t rest until they get us into another world economy-wrecking war. Anti-science blustering blowhards for the oil companies and religious right, like Joe Barton and Todd Akin, are clinging tightly to his coat tails, and we sure don’t need “strict Bible constructionists” on the Supreme Court either.

We really can’t afford another anti-science administration — the world is changing much too fast and our children’s futures are entirely dependent our ability to adapt and foster new technologies. Mitt would bring a whole crowd of reactionary Luddites with him.

I can’t vote for Mitt as well because of his stance on gay marriage, I can’t vote for him because of his stance against women’s rights, I can’t vote for him because of all the misogynist cavemen that he would bring with him were he to win. And I can’t vote for him because there’s a chance that the Senate could flip this year, and I think we need checks and balances. The GOP in full control of all branches of government is the prime ingredient in a recipe for future disasters.

Most of all, I can’t vote for Mitt because there’s nothing behind the bluster and puff: he’s just a spoiled pile of meringue whipped together from bile and the last century’s GOP bumper stickers.

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Mormon Cultist Mitt Romney Could Be The Next Andrew Johnson

Posted: November 4, 2012 in Mormon Cult, Mormon Zombie, Right Wing, Theocracy
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Mitt Romney could be the next Andrew Johnson

By Colbert I. King,

The Washington Post

Tuesday’s presidential election is one of the most important political events to affect racial progress in America since the 1964 contest between Sen. Barry Goldwater and President Lyndon Johnson.

Fortunately, the much-feared Goldwater victory never came to pass. But in ’64, there was plenty of praying among people of good will.

And with good reason.

Widely regarded as a founder of the modern conservative movement, Goldwater entered the presidential race as an outspoken defender of “states rights” and a fierce opponent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Goldwater’s anti-civil-rights stance earned him the support of Deep South states, making him the first Republican since Reconstruction to carry Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana.

Operating with a well-earned inner sense of peril, African Americans voted overwhelmingly against Goldwater, helping to hand Johnson a landslide victory. A retreat on progress toward racial equality was averted.

What would be the consequences for race of a Mitt Romney victory?

A Romney takeover of the White House might well rival Andrew Johnson’s ascendancy to the presidency after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in 1865.

Let’s dispense with something right now. I am not asserting that, in the unlikely event President Obama loses, the result could be chalked up to his being black.

Yes, race still matters in America, as Romney surrogate John Sununu recently reminded us with his slur regarding Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama.

A Romney win would be worrisome, however, because of his strong embrace of states rights and his deep mistrust of the federal government — sentiments Andrew Johnson shared.

And we know what that Johnson did once in office.

His sympathy for Confederacy holdouts, and his distaste for Washington, led him to retreat from Reconstruction and avert his gaze as Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws, many of which lasted until the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

There is nothing in Romney’s record to suggest that he would be any stronger than Andrew Johnson in resisting the blandishments of his most extreme supporters, especially regarding federal enforcement.

Johnson stood by as Southern states enacted “black codes,” which restricted rights of freed blacks and prevented blacks from voting.

Romney stood by last year as Republican-controlled state legislatures passed voter-identification laws, making it harder for people of color, senior citizens and people with disabilities to exercise their fundamental right to vote.

Is a Romney victory out of the question?

Lest we forget, Abraham Lincoln was not a beloved president across the nation at the time of his death. To white Southerners, wrote historian Don E. Fehrenbacher, the 16th president was “The principal author of all the woe that descended upon them . . . a ruthless Attila bent upon the destruction of a superior civilization.”

In his April 1876 oration in memory of Lincoln, Frederick Douglass said, “Few great public men have ever been the victims of fiercer denunciation than Abraham Lincoln was during his administration. Reproaches came thick and fast upon him from within and from without, and from opposite quarters.”

In some quarters, the hatred of Lincoln bordered on fanaticism; similar sentiments are in evidence against Obama.

It was Lincoln’s declaration that, after the war, the nation would have “a new birth of freedom” that led to him taking a bullet on Good Friday, April 14, 1865.

Obama’s exhortation in 2004, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America,” goes down no better with some folks.

For months on end, Romney and his ilk have been stoking the country with the charge that Obama has been systematically undermining America’s economic and social structure. It has caught hold; how much, we’ll see.

If Romney prevails, who will dictate what policies a Romney administration pursues? Certainly not Mitt Romney, a panderer and flip-flopper whose convictions don’t extend far beyond getting elected.

But the next president will make appointments to the Justice Department, State Department, the Pentagon; the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services; the Securities and Exchange Commission; the Treasury Department; and probably a Supreme Court justice or two. And there will be political jobs galore to fill. With a Romney administration, that means recruiting people who hate the federal government.

So where will Romney turn for help? Why, from those who helped get him where he is today: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and the Fox news crew, to name a few.

The ghost of Andrew Johnson is lurking in the wings.

kingc@washpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/colbert-king-mitt-romney-could-be-the-next-andrew-johnson/2012/11/02/d55f124e-2476-11e2-9313-3c7f59038d93_story.html

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Romney’s Staged “Storm Relief” Event – a Hastily Organized Sham!

Posted: November 2, 2012 in Mitt Romney Sandy, Mitt Romney Sham
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Romney’s “Storm Relief” Event – a Hastily Organized Sham
Cynical

At Buzzfeed, McKay Coppins has the pathetic tale behind the Romney campaign’s frantic efforts to capitalize politically on Hurricane Sandy without looking like they were capitalizing politically: The Making of Romney’s Storm Relief Event.

After some deliberation, the campaign decided to use their existing venue in Ohio to stage a makeshift and nonpartisan humanitarian project. It would be a way for Romney to show leadership — and get on the local news — without looking craven or opportunistic.

The cryptic advisory went out to press several hours later, announcing the time and location of a “storm relief event” on Tuesday. As Sandy made landfall in New Jersey, Romney’s campaign jet carried the candidate, along with his staff and traveling press corps, back to Ohio after an afternoon rally in Davenport, Iowa.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Dayton, aides were working feverishly to depoliticize the planned event. Campaign signs were removed from the premises, long rows of folding tables were set up, and logistics were painstakingly arranged to accomodate physical donations. …

The plan was for supporters to bring hurricane relief supplies to the event and then deliver the bags of canned goods, packages of diapers, and cases of water bottles to the candidate, who would be perched behind a table along with a slew of volunteers and his Ohio right-hand man, Senator Rob Portman. To complete the project and photo op, Romney would lead his crew in carrying the goods out of the gymnasium and into the Penske rental truck parked outside.

But the last-minute nature of the call for donations left some in the campaign concerned that they would end up with an empty truck. So the night before the event, campaign aides went to a local Wal-Mart and spent $5,000 on granola bars, canned food, and diapers to put on display while they waited for donations to come in, according to one staffer.

Cynicism is Mitt Romney’s constant watchword in this election. Another vignette from this crass display:

As supporters lined up to greet the candidate, a young volunteer in a Romney/Ryan T-shirt stood near the tables, his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting, “You need a donation to get in line!”

Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”

The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.

Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”

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Mitt Romney Deliberately Impedes Hurricane Response

Posted: October 31, 2012 in Mitt Romney Impedes Disaster Relief, Right WIng Callousness, Right Wing Crazies
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Mitt Romney continues to interfere with Hurricane Sandy response in an effort to use Sandy as an “opportunity” to bolster his presidential bona fides.
 Romney further impedes hurricane response, calls GOP hurricane governors
 by John Aravosis

Czar Romney coordinating Hurricane Response (for GOP states only)

We had reported earlier that Mitt Romney, in an attempt to use Hurricane Sandy for his own political benefit, was “impeding” hurricane relief efforts.

It seems, sadly, that Romney didn’t learn his lesson.

He’s now in a full-blown Hurricane Sandy recovery mode, coordinating relief efforts with GOP governors, even though it’s not entirely clear what Romney knows about disaster relief, or how a presidential candidate who’s not in office can even offer any assistant at all, other than some of millions as a donation to the Red Cross. Romney has found that disaster “opportunity” he was looking for throughout the entire campaign.

Mitt Romney continues to interfere with Hurricane Sandy response in an effort to use Sandy as an “opportunity” to bolster his presidential bona fides.

.@andreamsaul: Gov. Romney has also been in touch with [VA] Governors Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie about storm preparation

Democratic Hurricane Victims Needs Not Apply

Interesting that Mitt Romney appears to only be calling Republican governors.  Oh that’s right, Mitt Romney doesn’t think of the 47% who live in the other half of the country.  But in all seriousness, if this weren’t a political stunt meant to make an “opportunity” out of national disaster, Mitt Romney wouldn’t be calling states based on the political affiliation of the governor – he’d be calling the worst hit states.

Though, it’s not entirely clear what candidate Romney knows about storm preparation, and how exactly candidate Romney can help those states.  In fact, Romney’s calls are taking up the time of governors who should be focusing on saving lives. Romney knows that.  So why is he calling them?  What did they discuss?  Did the campaign come up?

Romney Says Feds Shouldn’t Coordinate Disaster Relief. But Fed Candidates? Okay!

Not to mention, it’s interesting that Mitt Romney wants to close down FEMA, because he doesn’t think the federal government does a good job at disaster relief – it’s “immoral” to spend money on disaster relief when we’re running a deficit, Romney said – yet he thinks that he, as a federal candidate, can be quite helpful at disaster relief.

So, the federal government doesn’t matter for disaster relief, but federal candidates do.

How long until we see Romney in a FEMA jacket offering to help?  Can a Paul Ryan visit to another closed soup kitchen be far off?  (Followed by the inevitable attempt by Romney voters to destroy the hurricane relief center that Romney and Ryan visit.)

Here’s the latest shot of Hurricane Sandy from moments ago:

hurricane-sandy-latest-image

Hurricane Sandy latest image, from NOAA.

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Sensible Libertarians Endorse Barack Obama

Posted: October 31, 2012 in Libertarians For Obama
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The Libertarian Case for Barack Obama

Mike Godwin |

Some snippets:-

Regardless of your preferences, you’re going to be looking at the inauguration of Mitt Romney or Barack Obama come January, so if you’re a voter in swing state, you should give some thought to voting for Obama as the lesser of the two big-government, Harvard-educated evils.

On some issues of course, like foreign policy, it’s hard to find daylight between Obama and Romney, although Obama clearly has more mastery of the details of being a head of state. Both guys are willing to deploy American military forces abroad even when there is little compelling reason to intervene. And Romney seems perfectly capable of adopting a liberal government program when it suits him. While Romney officially opposes Obamacare, it’s scarcely different from the health-care reform Romney presided over in Massachusetts. And Romney’s proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act seem designed to capture the inefficiencies of such a system while dispensing with the efficiencies (he would limit the risk pool, which will push individual premiums higher).

That’s the libertarian argument against Romney’s proposed revision of Obamacare, but there actually is a libertarian argument for Obamacare. (Bear with me!) Yes, a truly libertarian system would allow everyone to opt out, including emergency rooms that could opt out of caring for an insurance-free deadbeat who crawls in after a car crash. Given that health care in the U.S. doesn’t work that way – we require virtually all American emergency rooms to provide care regardless of ability to pay – a truly universal system is the best option for maximizing health-care efficiencies. And if we can preserve some aspects of competition among insurers (which Obamacare, mimicking the health-care plan proposed by the GOP to counter Bill Clinton’s efforts at health-care reform, attempts to do), that’s all to the good.

But there’s an even stronger libertarian argument for Obamacare. Namely, it frees more Americans to take better jobs without worrying about losing the health care plan they had in their old jobs. Worker mobility is one of the things that reliably fuels free enterprise, and workers will be more mobile under Obamacare than they would be under Romney’s semi-dismantled version of it.

Defending the Affordable Care Act to Reason.com readers is tough, of course. I doubt I’ve convinced many readers here. But let me underscore three points where Obama is surely closer to libertarians than Romney is. One of these is abortion rights, self-evidently. (If you don’t know about Romney’s current opposition to abortion rights, you shouldn’t be voting.) Another is immigration. Despite his horrible record so far in office, Obama wants to sign the DREAM Act, which needs to get past a GOP filibuster. Obama believes the American economy benefits when immigrants work here, create jobs here, and pay their taxes. Romney is all for cherrypicking educated foreign workers, and hooray for that, but he now heads a GOP that is much more focused on policing the borders than rolling out any sort of Welcome mat.

A third quasi-libertarian position is Obama’s late-arriving but still-welcome stance on gay marriage. Yes, of course, a truly libertarian system would take no position on marriage of any variety – to get there, though, we’d have to undo centuries of American law favoring traditional marriages, which is an interesting project, all right, but not one likely to be tackled anytime soon. Obama’s position – in essence, to end legal discrimination that favors heterosexual relationships over homosexual ones – is the position most in line with liberty interests.

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Obama Trumps Romney Under Superstorm Sandy Spotlight

Posted: October 31, 2012 in Obama Leads, Super Storm Sandy
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Obama trumps Romney under superstorm Sandy spotlight
  • by: Catherine Philp
  • From: The Times
Obama in disaster centre

President Barack Obama visits the Disaster Operation Centre of the Red Cross National Headquarter to discuss superstorm Sandy. Source: AP

President Obama has suspended a third day of campaigning to focus on the federal response to Superstorm Sandy, leaving his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, struggling for visibility before the election next week.

Mr Romney, who cancelled some campaign events on Monday “out of respect” for the storm’s victims, drew widespread criticism for turning a planned rally in Ohio yesterday into a storm relief event – complete with campaign videos and celebrity guests.

Supporters brought canned goods to the rally in Dayton to be be packed up and sent to storm survivors in New Jersey. “We won’t be able to solve all the problems,” Mr Romney said, “but you make the difference you can.”

The event underlined the problems that Mr Romney faces in the wake of a natural disaster that has put Mr Obama front and centre as the nation’s Commander-in-Chief. Mr Romney’s campaign announced that he would return to the stump in Florida today, with rallies in Tampa and Miami.

Mr Obama faces different uncertainties, including the possibility of a botched federal response for which he would be blamed. However, his actions have received lavish praise from one of Mr Romney’s staunchest backers.

Chris Christie, the Republican Governor of New Jersey widely tipped as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, said: “The President has been all over this. He deserves great credit. He gave me his number at the White House, told me to call if I needed anything and he absolutely means it.” Earlier he tweeted that the President’s response had been “outstanding”.

“It’s been very good working with the President and his Administration has been co-ordinating with us great – it’s been wonderful,” Mr Christie enthused. Such praise will have come as an extra blow to the Romney campaign and represents the kind of positive publicity that the Obama campaign millions could never buy.

What Superstorm Sandy’s eventual impact on the election will be remains uncertain. Of the swing states, the worst affected was Virginia, where thousands remain without power, mostly in the more liberal north encompassing the suburbs of Washington DC, on which Mr Obama is relying to help him to win the state. So far, Ohio remains largely unaffected, as do New Hampshire and North Carolina, the only other swing states in Sandy’s path.

But the storm has refocused attention on the gulf between the two candidates’ takes on the role of government. The New York Times published an editorial yesterday reminding readers of Mr Romney’s desire to break up the federal agency responsible for disaster management and devolve its powers to states. Mr Romney’s home-town newspaper, The Boston Globe, drew attention to his decision to veto both federal and state funding for defences for a flood-prone town in Massachusetts while he was governor of that state.

Both candidates, however, were able to agree on their support of the American Red Cross’s efforts, with Mr Romney’s website directing donors to make contributions to its crisis fund, while the Obama campaign sent out e-mails to its donor list soliciting aid for the organisation.

The Times 

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As Hurricane Sandy Strikes, Mitt Romney Wants to Drastically Cut Federal Disaster Relief

Posted: October 29, 2012 in Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney is Clueless
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As Hurricane Sandy Strikes, Mitt Romney Wants to Drastically Cut Federal Disaster Relief
Romney’s policies are dangerous and short-sighted

As Hurricane Sandy prepares to slam into the east coast, threatening disastrous flooding for millions of people, we should mention that Republican candidate Mitt Romney wants to drastically cut federal disaster relief programs like FEMA.

And we should also mention that the Republican Party’s 2011 spending bill slashed the budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cutting $700 million intended for an overhaul of America’s aging weather satellite system

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Barack Obama Labels Mitt Romney a “Bullshitter” in Rolling Stone

Posted: October 26, 2012 in Barack Obama, Mitt Romney Bullshitter, Mormon Cult
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Barack Obama Labels Mitt Romney a “Bullsh-tter” in Rolling Stone

by Hilton Haterat

Barack Obama is featured in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, and less than two weeks before the November 6 election, the President opens up to the publication with some choice words for Mitt Romney.

Foremost among them?

“You know, kids have good instincts,” Obama says about the young vote. “They look at the other guy and say, ‘Well, that’s a bullsh***er, I can tell.’”

Barack Obama Rolling Stone Cover

Oh, it’s on! Okay, it’s been on for months now. But still. Strong words.

Among other topics Obama touches on in his interview:

Problems with the rich and poor: There are a whole bunch of millionaires who aren’t paying any income tax, as well as people at the lower end of the income spectrum who may be taking advantage of the safety net we’ve put in place. We should hold everybody accountable who’s not doing their fair share.

Standing up against your own party: If you can’t say no to certain elements of your party, if you don’t have sets of principles that you’re willing to fight for, even if they’re not politically convenient, then you’re gonna have a tough time in this office.

Roe vs. Wade in peril: I don’t think there’s any doubt. Governor Romney has made clear that’s his position. His running mate has made this one of the central principles of his public life.

The future of his health care plan: Just like Medicare and Social Security, as time goes on, as people see what it does, as it gets refined and improved, people will say, ‘This was the last piece to our basic social compact’ – providing people with some core security from the financial burdens of an illness or bad luck.

His first-term achievements: Sometimes folks obsess with gridlock and the ugliness of the process down here in Washington. We passed health care – something that presidents have tried to do for 100 years…We passed the toughest Wall Street reform since the 1930s… We have expanded access to college through the Pell Grant program and by keeping student loans low. The list of things that we’ve accomplished, even once the Republicans took over, is significant.

What Romney should dress as for Halloween: I don’t know about this Halloween. Next Halloween I hope he’ll be an ex-presidential candidate.

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Mitt Romney IS the Economic Crisis

Posted: October 25, 2012 in Economic Crisis, Mitt Romney Divorce Trial, Mitt Romney Scandal
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Mitt Romney IS the Economic Crisis

Robert Reich says the attacks on Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital miss the larger point, one which even the White House is not prepared to acknowledge: Mitt Romney is not simply a callous vulture capitalist, he is the living embodiment of the financial catastrophe that brought this country to the edge of ruin.

[T]he real issue here isn’t Bain’s betting record. It’s that Romney’s Bain is part of the same system as Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase, Jon Corzine’s MF Global and Lloyd Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs—a system that has turned much of the economy into a betting parlor that nearly imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and devastating household incomes. The winners in this system are top Wall Street executives and traders, private-equity managers and hedge-fund moguls, 
and the losers are most of the rest of us.

The thousands of job losses caused by Bain’s “bad bets,” while providing rich fodder for the Administration’s campaign ads, are really just a microcosm of a self-perpetuating, labyrinthine tax system geared to rewarding the wealthiest with the privilege of betting their fortunes on money they’ve neither earned nor done anything to deserve, with little or no personal risk. Reich calls it “casino capitalism:”

The biggest players in this system have, like Romney, made their profits placing big bets with other people’s money. If the bets go well, the players make out like bandits. If they go badly, the burden lands on average workers and taxpayers.* * *

The fortunes raked in by financial dealmakers depend on special goodies baked into the tax code such as “carried interest,” which allows Romney and other partners in private-equity firms (as well as in many venture-capital and hedge funds) to treat their incomes as capital gains taxed at a maximum of 
15 percent. This is how Romney managed to pay an average of 14 percent on more than $42 million of combined income in 2010 and 2011. But the carried-interest loophole makes no economic sense. Conservatives try to justify the tax code’s generous preference for capital gains as a reward to risk-takers—but Romney and other private-equity partners risk little, if any, of their personal wealth. They mostly bet with other investors’ money, including the pension savings of average working people

.So when Romney touts his business acumen, he’s really bragging about his ability to take advantage of a tax code rigged by himself and others like him to skew the playing field in such a way that in reality poses very little personal risk to himself. For example, another “loophole” in the Tax Code permitted Romney, as a private equity partner, to place virtually unlimited amounts into a tax-deferred IRA by allowing Romney and his partners to grossly underestimate the “value” of their contributions, because the Code only considers a partnership interest in terms of its “future value.” You and I (and ninety-nine percent of Americans who did not have the good fortune and connections to work for a private equity firm) are limited to deferring a few thousand dollars per year from taxes. Mitt Romney’s IRA, according to Reich, approaches 100 million dollars.

The Tax Code also makes interest on debt tax-deductible, fostering a huge incentive to substitute debt for equity, leading to debt-fueled bets made by banks and financial institutions intent on “leveraging America to the hilt,” and culminating in the economic catastrophe that the Bush Administration was forced to finally confront in 2008, and that we still find ourselves mired in today.

But for the banks, private equity firms, hedge funds and other financial institutions who brought on the crisis–and for Mitt Romney– there was no catastrophe. Two-thirds of all income gains realized between the mid-1980′s and 2007 were in the financial sector, showered on the people who made their livelihood playing with other people’s money. People like the folks at Bain Capital, who structured their deals so they would always profit, even though some of the companies they funded ultimately collapsed under the weight of excessive debt. And when the collapse ultimately occurred, the same people who had profited mightily from leveraging the rest of the country were given a massive bailout. The fact is that the economic crisis directly felt by nearly all “ordinary” Americans was never really felt by the people who caused it. That’s the benefit of playing with other people’s money.

The Tax code is an opague behemoth, unfathomable to most Americans. When Americans think of tax issues, they think of income tax rates, they think of how their tax money is spent. They generally don’t think in terms of whether interest on debt obligations may be deductible, because your average American doesn’t have the wherewithal to get his hands other people’s mortgages. But the folks who are attempting to buy the election for Mitt Romney think of nothing else. While people like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers have their pet social issues to amuse themselves, the real issue here is and has always been taxes, or, more correctly, ways to avoid paying taxes.

We’ve entered a new Gilded Age, of which Mitt Romney is the perfect reflection. The original Gilded Age was a time of buoyant rich men with flashy white teeth, raging wealth and a measured disdain for anyone lacking those attributes, which was just about everyone else. Romney looks and acts the part perfectly, offhandedly challenging a GOP primary opponent to a $10,000 bet and referring to his wife’s several Cadillacs. Four years ago he paid $12 million for his fourth home, a 3,000-square-foot villa in La Jolla, California, with vaulted ceilings, five bathrooms, a pool, a Jacuzzi and unobstructed views of the Pacific. Romney has filed plans to tear it down and replace it with a home four times bigger.We’ve had wealthy presidents before, but they have been traitors to their class—Teddy Roosevelt storming against the “malefactors of great wealth” and busting up the trusts, Franklin Roosevelt railing against the “economic royalists” and raising their taxes, John F. Kennedy appealing to the conscience of the nation to conquer poverty. Romney is the opposite: he wants to do everything he can to make the superwealthy even wealthier and the poor even poorer, and he justifies it all with a thinly veiled social Darwinism.

So in response to the greatest Economic crisis since the Depression, the Republican Party has coalesced behind the crisis’ own walking, talking, living embodiment. The mantra that such a person represents the class of “job creators” is just a newly packaged form of Social Darwinism: survival of the “fittest” at the expense of economic “inferiors.” This philosophy was embraced and expanded by 19th Century “thinkers” such as William Graham Summer (cited by Reich), and now channeled by the Republican Party in foisting upon us its nominee for the Presidency:

In 1883, Sumner published a highly influential pamphlet entitled “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, in which he insisted that the social classes owe each other nothing, synthesizing Darwin’s findings with free enterprise Capitalism for his justification.[citation needed] According to Sumner, those who feel an obligation to provide assistance to those unequipped or under-equipped to compete for resources, will lead to a country in which the weak and inferior are encouraged to breed more like them, eventually dragging the country down. Sumner also believed that the best equipped to win the struggle for existence was the American businessman, and concluded that taxes and regulations serve as dangers to his survival.

It’s hard to find a better description of the Republican Party platform or Mitt Romney’s campaign, wouldn’t you say?

When Romney simultaneously proposes to cut the taxes of households earning over $1 million by an average of $295,874 a year (according to an analysis of his proposals by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center) because the rich are, allegedly, “job creators,” he mimics Sumner’s view that “millionaires are a product of natural selection, acting on the whole body of men to pick out those who can meet the requirement of certain work to be done.”

Reich believes too few in the Democratic Party are willing to acknowledge the obvious, either because they are similarly tethered to Wall Street’s millions, or because to acknowledge that Romney is in fact the perfect face of the economic crisis would be to acknowledge the overwhelming pervasiveness of the problem. And to acknowledge the scope of the problem would require them to come up with solutions. Circling above all of this discussion, of course, is the haunting shadow of Citizen’s United. But for Reich, the “clear and present danger” facing this country is the plutocrat about to accept the Republican nomination for the Presidency–

at the very time in our nation’s history when these views and practices are a clear and present danger to the well-being of the rest of us—just as they were more than a century ago. Romney says he’s a job-creating businessman, but in truth he’s just another financial dealmaker in the age of the financial deal, a fat cat in an era of excessively corpulent felines, a plutocrat in this new epoch of plutocrats. That the GOP has made him its standard-bearer at this point in American history is astonishing.

The face of every foreclosure, of every job loss, of every dream of retirement or a secure future wiped out by what we euphemistically call the “financial crisis” will mount the stage at his Party’s convention in Tampa Bay this August

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Vulture Capitalist Mitt Romney | Destroying Jobs, Leaving Ordinary Mums and Dads Unemployed and Penniless!

Posted: October 22, 2012 in Romney and the God of Greed, Vulture Capitalist Mitt Romney
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Mitt Romney used to work for a company called Bain Capital.

Mitt Romney and Bain Capital are not job creators, but job destroyers. In the process of investing in these companies, once they went public, acquired new investors and hired new employees, Bain sell off their ownership and receive a large profit.

Bain Capital would walk away with a pretty penny and the workers of these companies they invested in would now be under new management. Some of the companies went bankrupt due to many reasons: the new management had a bad business model, less demand etc. But after the bankruptcy, many workers lost their jobs, which coined Mitt Romney’s “job destroyer” label.

In his 2009 book The Buyout of America: How Private Equity Is Destroying Jobs and Killing the American Economy, Josh Kosman described Bain Capital as “notorious for its failure to plow profits back into its businesses,” being the first large private-equity firm to derive a large fraction of its revenues from corporate dividends and other distributions. The revenue potential of this strategy, which may “starve” a company of capital,[135] was increased by a 1970s court ruling that allowed companies to consider the entire fair-market value of the company, instead of only their “hard assets”, in determining how much money was available to pay dividends.[136] In at least some instances, companies acquired by Bain borrowed money in order to increase their dividend payments, ultimately leading to the collapse of what had been financially stable businesses.[52]

Vulture capitalists do not simply initiate hostile corporate takeovers with conjured assets. They don’t even pretend to have a turnaround business model. Instead, vulture capitalists are about equity extraction, mass layoffs, and new debt.

The resulting company, if it survives, does so as a shell, or a carcass, of its former self, as a barely-living debt slave.

Matt Taibbi explains the mindset in a series of rather savage quotes:

“Four years ago, the Mitt Romneys of the world nearly destroyed the global economy with their greed, shortsightedness and – most notably – wildly irresponsible use of debt in pursuit of personal profit. The sight was so disgusting that people everywhere were ready to drop an H-bomb on Lower Manhattan and bayonet the survivors. But today that same insane greed ethos, that same belief in the lunatic pursuit of instant borrowed millions – it’s dusted itself off, it’s had a shave and a shoeshine, and it’s back out there running for president.”

“A takeover artist all his life, Romney is now trying to take over America itself.”

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Mormon Chosenite | The Extremist Religious Views of Mitt Romney

Posted: October 19, 2012 in Mitt Romney Religious Fanatic, Mormon Extremism
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Romney’s Extreme Religious Views Should Scare Voters
Mitt Romney’s religion has managed to stay out of the headlines of mainstream media for most of the campaign, but as we get closer and closer to this election, it has become clear that this is an issue worth discussing in detail, and Mike Papantonio recently spoke with author Nancy Cohen about Mitt Romney’s tenure as a Mormon Bishop, and what his extreme religious views actually mean to voters.
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