Tag Archives: Mitt Romney

Feckless? I Don’t Think So, Mitt

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Iran, Obama, Politics, Romney

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As I was reading Mitt Romney’s saber-rattling, tough talking, op-ed on Iran in the Washington Post yesterday, what jumped out at me was where Romney called President Obama “America’s most feckless president since Carter,” Feckless. Unsure of the meaning I did what any self-respecting 21st century American would do–I Googled it. Here’s what I found:

feck·less
adj.
1. Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.
2. Careless and irresponsible.

Careless and irresponsible. Maybe it’s just me, but I would consider the epitome of carelessness and irresponsibility in an American president to be rushing headlong into another war. Another war based on dubious claims from the usual suspects that if we don’t act immediately we face the imminent threat of seeing mushroom clouds over American cities. Haven’t we been here before?

President Obama properly addressed Romney, and the other Republican presidential candidates who have pretty much echoed Romney’s hawkishness, at his press conference yesterday:

“What’s said on the campaign trail, you know, those folks don’t have a lot of responsibilities,” Obama said. “They’re not commander in chief. And when I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war. I’m reminded of the decision that I have to make, in terms of sending our young men and women into battle, and the impacts that has on their lives, the impact it has on our national security, the impact it has on our economy…“This is not a game,” Obama continued. “And there’s nothing casual about it.”

Careless and irresponsible. I don’t think so, Mitt.

One more thing about Romney’s op-ed. He closes with this:

“We can’t afford to wait much longer, and we certainly can’t afford to wait through four more years of an Obama administration. By then it will be far too late.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said much the same thing in his speech at AIPAC:

“Israel has patiently waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work, we’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer,” he said.”

One thing to keep in mind when listening to the ‘we can’t wait’ crowd in Israel and in America. This ain’t the first time these boys have cried wolf:

1984: West German intelligence sources [say] that Iran’s production of a bomb “is entering its final stages.” US Senator Alan Cranston claims Iran is seven years away from making a weapon.

1992: Israeli parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu tells his colleagues that Iran is 3 to 5 years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be “uprooted by an international front headed by the US.”

1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999.

[I]n early 1992 a task force of the House Republican Research Committee claimed that there was a “98 percent certainty that Iran already had all (or virtually all) of the components required for two or three operational nuclear weapons.”

1995: The New York Times conveys the fears of senior US and Israeli officials that “Iran is much closer to producing nuclear weapons than previously thought” – about five years away – and that Iran’s nuclear bomb is “at the top of the list” of dangers in the coming decade.

1998:..Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reports to Congress that Iran could build an intercontinental ballistic missile – one that could hit the US – within five years.

‘Nuff said.

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Shared Sacrifice in Romney’s World

25 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in economy, Politics, Romney, Taxes

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The stadium may have been empty but the speech certainly wasn’t.

During Mitt Romney’s speech in Detroit yesterday, he laid out his bold, new economic policy. Massive tax cuts for the top bracket paid for by cutting spending on programs that benefit the neediest of the needy. As Ezra Klein put it:

“When Romney said he “wasn’t concerned about the very poor,” he wasn’t kidding. He’s using the policies they depend on most as a piggy bank for tax cuts.”

Most of what Romney addressed was familiar territory–raising the retirement age, privatizing Medicare, and repealing “Obamacare.” He also called for cutting things like subsidies to Amtrak and Planned Parenthood, which amount to pocket change in the federal budget, and bringing federal worker’s pay down to the same crappy level as people in the private sector.

But the bulk of the spending cuts would come from sending Medicaid back to the states:

“Romney’s real savings come in the next section. He’ll “send Medicaid back to the states and cap that program’s rate of growth,” and then “do the same for other programs, like food stamps, housing subsidies and job training.”

Sending the programs back to the states is a red herring. The key bit for deficit reduction is capping their rates of growth. Which is to say, cutting their rates of growth. Which is to say, cutting them.

What Romney is essentially proposing to do is finance a massive tax cut by cutting Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies and job training. In other words, the neediest Americans…will be financing a massive tax cut.”

This is Romney’s idea of shared sacrifice:

“My plan for America requires real leadership. And it calls for sacrifice. It doesn’t require a leader to promise bigger and bigger benefits, and something for nothing. Let me underscore that. It doesn’t require a leader to promise bigger and bigger benefits, and free stuff. It requires a leader … to call for sacrifice.”

Here’s who would bear the brunt of that sacrifice (BCCA is an acronym for Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act that allows states to provide early access to Medicaid to women with cancer).

Here are the Medicaid dollars spent per beneficiary:

So in order for cuts in the scope of what Romney is proposing to have any substantial affect, here’s what would have to happen:

“…[T]he amount we spent per blind or disabled person, or per elderly person, is much, much more than the amount we spend per child or adult. This means that if we really want to cut Medicaid spending, and we want to do it on the backs of adults or children, we will have to drop many, many more of them to make a real impact on spending.

If we cut 1 million elderly from the Medicaid rolls, we reduce Medicaid spending by about 5%. If we cut 1 million adults, however, we reduce Medicaid spending by only 1%. We need to cut 5 times as many adults. If we want to cut Medicaid spending by 10%…we’d need to drop more than 10 million adults from Medicaid. That’s almost three-quarters of all of them. If we want to cut overall Medicaid spending by 20%, then we’d need to drop all non-elderly adults, including all pregnant women, as well as about 10 million kids, or more than a third of them.

So what will we do? Should we cut some of their benefits instead? Again, look how little we already spend on children and adults. If we cut spending on every child and every non-elderly adult by 25%, that will reduce overall Medicaid spending by less than 8%.

Or do you want to go after the money we spend on the blind and disabled? Women with breast cancer or colon cancer? The elderly?”

Right on, Mitt. Let’s take all that “free stuff” away from all those “something for nothing” freeloaders like the blind, the disabled, the elderly, and women with cancer. They’ve had it too easy for too long. It’s high damn time they sacrificed something so your buds can have another yacht to water ski behind or another vacation home.

Smooth Moves, Mitt

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Election 2012, Politics, Republicans, Romney, Unions

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If Mitt Romney has any questions about why his hopes and dreams of winning the Republican nomination are circling the drain, he need look no further than the nearest mirror. Just the two latest examples; First, he brilliantly chose the week that GM announced record profits to re-iterate his opposition to President Obama’s rescue of GM and Chrysler. Two days ago he upped the ante with a little union bashing and support for making Michigan a right-to-work (for less) state:

“I’ve taken on union bosses before, and I’m happy to take them on again,” he told a crowd at an office furniture warehouse on Feb. 15 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I sure won’t give into the UAW. Romney also has been citing unions as a major reason for his opposition to the federal bailouts of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC — a position he spelled out in a widely publicized Feb. 14 column in the Detroit News.”

Somebody apparently forgot to pass along these two vital pieces of information to Mr. Romney regarding his home state:

“Union membership in the state is on the rise, bucking the national trend. Last year, 18.3 percent of the Michigan workforce was represented by a union, up from 17.3 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…More than a quarter of Michigan Republican primary participants in 2008 were from households that included a union member, exit polling showed.”

Oops.

“In his current race, he stresses his support for right-to- work legislation that would bar agreements making union membership and payment of dues a job requirement. “We’re to make it a level playing field,” he told a roundtable discussion of self-described Tea Party activists in Monroe, Michigan, yesterday. “We’re going to have right to work” (for less).

Mitt can’t get his own supporters on board for that one:

“[E]ven Rick Snyder, the fiscally conservative Republican governor of Michigan who endorsed Romney yesterday, has made clear he won’t take up right-to-work legislation in the state anytime soon, saying he considers other issues more pressing. Other Romney backers similarly shy away from the issue. “I can’t go there,” said Jack Kirksey, mayor of Livonia, Michigan, when asked about right-to-work legislation.”

Rick Santorum won’t even go there:

“Santorum, whose wins in three states last week made him the main alternative to Romney in the nomination race, is taking a softer line on unions as he casts himself as the Republican candidate best able to appeal to blue-collar Rust Belt voters.

Speaking in Detroit yesterday, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania voiced his support for private-sector unions, citing a grandfather who was treasurer of his coal mining union.”

For  reaction to Romney’s Michigan strategery, I turn to noted political analyst, Mr. B. Bunny:

Romney Doubles Down on GM, Chrysler Rescue

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Politics, Romney

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Mitt Romney’s op-ed in yesterday’s Detroit News, doubling down on while at the same time conflicting what he wrote about President Obama’s rescue of GM and Chrysler in November of 2008, pretty much comes down to this: Mitt is upset because union workers got to keep their jobs and health care benefits, the automakers’ “secured creditors” (read big banks) took a bit of a loss, and Mitt’s corporate-raider, Gordon Gecko wannabe buds didn’t get a chance to carve up and liquidate the two automakers (and as the cherry on the sundae put those evil union thugs in the unemployment line) for their own fun and profit.

“Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama’s management of the American economy are evident in what he did.”

So Obama’s management style was proven defective even though it worked. What the….?

“My view at the time — and I set it out plainly in an op-ed in the New York Times — was that “the American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing.”

Thus was also Romney’s “view at the time”:

“If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”

Good call, Mitt. Romney then ventures into very familiar territory: the land of self-contradiction. He says what Chrysler and GM needed at the time was a “managed bankruptcy.” Six paragraphs later he laments the outcome of the…uh…managed bankruptcy:

“By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.

Thus, the outcome of the managed bankruptcy proceedings was dictated by the terms of the bailout. Chrysler’s “secured creditors,” who in the normal course of affairs should have been first in line for compensation, were given short shrift, while at the same time, the UAWs’ union-boss-controlled trust fund received a 55 percent stake in the firm.”

“Free market doing what it does best” as defined by the Bain vulture capitalist who like to fire people. And never mind that in the 2008 piece Romney wrote:

“But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.”

The largest of those secured creditors at the time? The ones who “were given short shrift?” JP Morgan Chase. They took a $2 billion loss on loans to Chrysler. Well boo frickin’ hoo for Jamie Dimon and the gang at Chase, who pocketed a cool $68.6 billion in bailout money from the feds.

And about that “union-boss controlled trust fund”:

“He’s complaining, of course, that VEBA (the trust fund run by professionals that allowed the auto companies to spin off contractual obligations–retiree healthcare–to the unions) got a stake in Chrysler while Chrysler’s secured creditors took a haircut.

So, in part, he’s basically complaining that the bailout preserved the healthcare a bunch of 55+ year old blue collar workers were promised. He’s pissed they got to keep their healthcare.”

…Still, the UAW retirees who still have healthcare today instead of Jamie Dimon having another yacht probably don’t feel the same way as Mitt does.”

I just can’t figure out why Romney’s once upon a time commanding lead over Rick Santorum in Michigan is going, going, gone. Pay attention, Mittster. That sound you hear is the fat lady clearing her throat.

Drug Test Grandma

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Politics, Republicans

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Mitt Romney thinks it’s “an excellent idea” to drug test anyone who receives government benefits:

OK Mitt, let’s run with this “excellent idea.” Let’s drug test every member of Congress, all 9 Supreme Court justices. Let’s drug test every one of your buds on Wall Street who received trillions in “government benefits” when they were bailed out by the taxpayers. Let’s drug test every senior citizen who receives a Social Security check or whose health care is covered by Medicare. Drug test every disabled vet. Hand everyone who walks in the door at a VA hospital a plastic cup as a condition to receive treatment. How about every one who claims a mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Isn’t that a government benefit? Let’s test ‘em all, Mitt.

Of course, Romney’s not referring to any of those. Only those poor people he doesn’t care anything about and the unemployed who he likes to fire.

Speaking of Romney, Svengali Norquist pretty much endorsed him for president:

“All we have to do is replace Obama…We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it…Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.”

Well then, the Mittbot is your man, Grover. No convictions, no principles, willing to sell his soul and become whatever the right-wing extremists want him to be just so he can have a shot at the presidency. I’m sure he’ll gladly play Charlie McCarthy to you Edgar Bergen. Severely so.

How far the apple has fallen from the tree. During the race to win the 1968 Republican nomination, George Romney held to the courage of his convictions and stood up to the Party on the issues of civil rights, the Vietnam War, and corporate responsibility. Just imagine how this would fly in today’s GOP:

“As a CEO he would give back part of his salary and bonus to the company when he thought they were too high. He offered a pioneering profit-sharing plan to his employees. Most strikingly, asked about the idea that “rugged individualism” was the key to America’s success, he snapped back, “It’s nothing but a political banner to cover up greed.” He was the poster child for the antiquated notion that corporations have multiple stakeholders: the workers that breathe them life, the communities in which they are situated, and the nation to whom they owe a patriotic obligation – most definitely and emphatically not just stockholders.”

Mitt, you are no George Romney.

Obama Makes Nice-Nice With the Banksters

13 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by in economy, financial reform, Obama, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street

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FDR, 1936:

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.”

Barack Obama, 2011:

Can’t we all just get along?

“A few weeks before announcing his re-election campaign, President Obama convened two dozen Wall Street executives, many of them longtime donors, in the White House’s Blue Room.

 The guests were asked for their thoughts on how to speed the economic recovery, then the president opened the floor for over an hour on hot issues like hedge fund regulation and the deficit.

Mr. Obama, who enraged many financial industry executives a year and a half ago by labeling them “fat cats” and criticizing their bonuses, followed up the meeting with phone calls to those who could not attend.

The event, organized by the Democratic National Committee, kicked off an aggressive push by Mr. Obama to win back the allegiance of one of his most vital sources of campaign cash — in part by trying to convince Wall Street that his policies, far from undercutting the investor class, have helped bring banks and financial markets back to health.

[…]

 The president’s top financial industry supporters say they are confident that the support Mr. Obama needs will ultimately be there, despite the financial industry’s unhappiness over his efforts to tighten regulation of their businesses. But it is clear that those supporters will have to work much harder to win over the financial services industry than they did in 2008, before Wall Street’s bust, the subsequent clashes over policy and the sometimes bitter personal differences that lingered afterward.”

Just what in the Sam freaking Hill does the financial industry have to be unhappy about? “Too big to fail” is bigger than ever, no meaningful reform of the industry was passed, their salaries and bonuses are back at or above what they were before these greedy bastards nearly wrecked the world’s economy, none of them has gone to jail, and one of their lackeys is still the Treasury Secretary. Yeah, the big banks are back to good health alright. Nobody else is, but they are.

 “And as Mr. Obama seeks to rebuild, Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, is using his background as a venture capital executive and his policy proposals to woo financial-industry donors.

Last week, Mr. Romney held three fund-raisers in Greenwich, Conn., and New York, including a reception hosted by Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager who donated to Mr. Obama in 2008. Mr. Scaramucci said he wanted a president who embodied pragmatism and middle-of-the-road solutions. In 2008, that candidate was Mr. Obama, he said; today, it is Mr. Romney.”

So if next year’s presidential election comes down to Obama vs. Romney it’s just a question of whose lips best fit on the bankster’s backsides as to who gets the biggest campaign contributions, not to mention the attached strings that come with said contributions. No matter who wins, Wall Street can’t lose.

And the beat goes on.

President Obama’s Iran Policy is the Right One

17 Wednesday Jun 2009

Posted by in McCain, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

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Proving that they have learned absolutely nothing from our experience in Iraq, the neo-conservative interventionists, led by former Republican presidential candidate, Mr. Bomb, Bomb Iran himself, Senator John McCain, are beginning the drumbeat of “do something” following the fraudulent Iranian election.

And naturally the cries of “weak” and “appeaser” in reference to President Obama and his non-interventionist policy are also being heard.

Mitt Romney saying:

“It’s very clear that the president’s policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren’t working. … Look, just sweet talk and criticizing America is not going to enhance freedom in the world.”

Noted neo-con and former presidential advisor Richard Perle:

“Normally, when you unclench your fist it benefits the hardliners, because Obama appeared to be saying we can do business with you even with your present policies.”

Frank (the president is a closet Muslim) Gaffney:

“It underscores the folly of the president’s basic premise that the problem we have with bad actors around the world is that they don’t understand us. These people are thugs and they have been emboldened by our weakness.”

But President Obama’s course of action is exactly the right one. The Wonk Room explains it best:

“Were the U.S to clumsily wade into this Iranian political crisis, as McCain would have us do, it would support Ahmadinejad’s main arguments against his domestic opponents, and likely provide the perfect pretext for a more intense crackdown. In other words, the preferences of hardliners in Iran and the U.S. are pretty closely aligned here.

As with McCain’s impetuous response to the Georgia crisis last summer, his first reaction to the events in Iran is condemnation and a call to “act.” Fortunately, we have an administration in power that understands that knowing when not to act is as strategically important as knowing when to do so, and that the most productive thing the United States can do for Iran’s reform movement -and human rights- at the moment is to keep itself, to the extent possible, out of the equation.”

Read the words of another well-known “appeaser” and “apologist” and tell me if his views on foreign policy more closely resemble those of President Obama or Senator McCain.

“Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.”

George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 17,1796.