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Romney’s pants on fire
By Eugene Robinson, Updated: Monday, May 28, 7:05 PM
There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.
Every political campaign exaggerates and dissembles. This practice may not be admirable — it’s surely one reason so many Americans are disenchanted with politics — but it’s something we’ve all come to expect. Candidates claim the right to make any boast or accusation as long as there’s a kernel of veracity in there somewhere.
Even by this lax standard, Romney too often fails. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies. Quite a bit.
“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” Romney claims on his campaign Web site. This is utterly false. The truth is that spending has slowed markedly under Obama.
An analysis published last week by MarketWatch, a financial news Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co., compared the yearly growth of federal spending under presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Citing figures from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, MarketWatch concluded that “there has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romneys-distortions-about-obama-do-us-a-disservice/2012/05/28/gJQA9JuTxU_story.html?hpid=z2
Stay CLASSY, Grampy McCain!
John McCain Calls Romney’s Tenure At Bain Capital ‘Cruel’ (VIDEO)
May 28, 2012
By Stephen D. Foster Jr.
During an appearance on Fox News with host Chris Wallace, McCain talked about Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital, and I’m sure Mitt Romney is not happy about it. You see, McCain confirmed what most of us have known for years. McCain says Romney’s record at Bain Capital was the “cruel” part of the free enterprise system.
“This is the free enterprise system. The only place in the world that I can recall where companies never failed was the old Soviet Union. This is what investors do in the free enterprise and capitalism system.
And, yes, the free enterprise system can be cruel. But the problem with this administration is that small businesses have been the ones that have suffered the most, the kind that need investors, the kind that don’t need the hundreds of pages, the thousands of pages of regulations that continue to plague them and have them continue to hold back on hiring and investment.”
YOU’RE A LIAR,, JOHN MCCAIN
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/05/28/john-mccain-calls-romneys-tenure-at-bain-capital-cruel-video/
Are Republicans Bending On ‘Obamacare’?
Sahil Kapur-May 28, 2012, 12:31 PM5974
As the landmark Supreme Court decision looms next month, Republicans have been privately considering a plan to reinstate some popular provisions of “Obamacare” if it’s struck down.
The revelation sent conservative advocates — who have demanded nothing less than total repeal — into a tizzy, which forced House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to reaffirm his commitment to “repealing Obamacare in its entirety,” declaring that “[a]nything short of that is unacceptable.”
But more evidence is emerging that Republicans believe that’s not tenable.
Rep. Allen West (R-FL), a tea party darling, told ThinkProgress that he supports preserving three popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act — the same three that his party’s leaders are reportedly considering.
“You’ve got to replace it with something,” West said. “If people want to keep their kid on insurance at 26, fine. We’ve got to make sure no American gets turned back for pre-existing conditions, that’s fine. Keep the doughnut hole closed, that’s fine. But what I just talked to you about — maybe 20, 25 pages of legislation.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/are-republicans-bending-on-obamacare.php
http://youtu.be/GwZ6UfXm410
Memorial Day: Remembering America’s black war heroes
by Marquise Francis | May 28, 2012 at 8:00 AM
Memorial Day has come to be known as a day off of school or work and a day of fun in the sun for many Americans. Many forget that this day was started by President Lyndon B. Johnson in May of 1966 in order to remember those who have fought and died in service of our nation. Today, we should remember and celebrate those soldiers who have died, those who are currently serving and are military veterans who survived combat in any capacity. This Memorial Day, theGrio has compiled a list of African-American war heroes who have left their mark on this great nation.
http://thegrio.com/2012/05/28/memorial-day-remembering-americas-black-war-heroes/#s:crispus_attucks
Thanks for this.
GOP Dishonors Veterans’ Sacrifice with Benefit Cuts and Privatized Healthcare Schemes
Another Memorial Day is upon us to remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces, and with American soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, it is important to reflect not only on their service and sacrifice, but on the reason they are in harm’s way. Using the military should be a last resort and only to defend this nation, however, there are politicians and leaders who take advantage of the military’s dedication and force to advance their own self-interests and they dishonor America’s service members with their cavalier attitude toward human life and taxpayer dollars.
The men and women who volunteer to defend America do so out of a sense of duty, and they are to be commended profusely for their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice in service of their country. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly had nothing to do with defending the homeland, and looking back on the Bush administration’s folly in both countries invokes myriad feelings of betrayal because the terror attacks on 9/11 that precipitated the wars was avoidable if Bush et al heeded warnings in August of 2001 that Al Qaeda intended on flying commercial airliners into buildings on American soil. It is now part of the historical record that when Bush entered the White House in 2001, one of the first questions his team asked was “where are the war plans for Iraq,” and despite volumes of evidence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction or involvement in the terror attacks on 9/11, the cowards Cheney and Bush fabricated evidence, lied to the American people, and sacrificed thousands of American service members lives to enrich the oil industry, Dick Cheney’s company Haliburton, and the evangelical mercenary army, Blackwater Inc. Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, and five of their legal counsel were convicted of war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo; the criminals remain free and the blame lies solely with the media, but that is another story.
The Bush administration’s blatant disregard for the lives of our brave soldiers is only matched by the deceit and machinations the warmongers perpetrated in order to enrich their wealthy corporate friends, and for we Americans who lost loved ones and friends, there is nothing but contempt that should serve as reminders that any politician who lusts for war is not worthy to lead. This author’s family has lost six precious lives to Bush’s cowboy diplomacy, and nurtures a beloved son-in-law who fought in the Battle for Baghdad and still struggles with horrific nightmares and regret at taking lives because of a lie. Every combat veteran returns home inexorably altered, and it behooves America’s leaders to carefully consider the psychological, physical, and financial impact of their decision to go to war.
The presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Willard Romney, has made no secret that he is panting to send Americans to engage in a war with Iran, and it is in part because of his Bush-Cheney chicken hawk sensibilities and his cult’s belief that they are “latter day American Israelis.” It is Willard’s lifelong trait to promote sending other Americans to fight and die on foreign soil while he avoids making any sacrifice, and according to the Mormon cult, missionary service is more important than serving in the military. When Romney was queried whether his five sons served their country, he said they were serving by working to get him elected president, and pointed out that they proselytized for the cult for two years.
When most Americans today are honoring veterans’ sacrifice, Romney is six months into promoting giving veterans vouchers for their healthcare benefits to enrich the health care industry, and it informs where his true loyalties lie. Instead of increasing funding to care for the men and women who served in the military, Romney hopes to cheat them out of the benefits they earned. Romney’s hero and Republican’s courageous fiscal guru’s budget that passed in the Republican House of Representatives cuts $11 billion from veteran’s spending, or 13% less than President Obama proposes in his budget. In fact, in the nearly 100-page Ryan Path to Prosperity budget, the word veteran is not mentioned one time. Romney’s privatization scam would “be inadequate, and become more so over time, so that veterans who don’t make enough money to top them up would fail to receive essential care” according to noted economist Paul Krugman.
http://www.politicususa.com/memoral-day-gop-va-cuts.html
Happy Memorial Day, Everyone :)
IT’S NO.HOLES.BARRED.
Hope: The Sequel
For Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear.
By John Heilemann
Published May 27, 2012
SNIP
But if the Obama 2012 strategy in this regard is all about the amplification of 2008, in terms of message it will represent a striking deviation. Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.
The Obama effort at disqualifying Romney will go beyond painting him as excessively conservative, however. It will aim to cast him as an avatar of revanchism. “He’s the fifties, he is retro, he is backward, and we are forward—that’s the basic construct,” says a top Obama strategist. “If you’re a woman, you’re Hispanic, you’re young, or you’ve gotten left out, you look at Romney and say, ‘This fucking guy is gonna take us back to the way it always was, and guess what? I’ve never been part of that.’
http://nymag.com/news/features/barack-obama-2012-6/
Have a Peaceful Memorial Day.
Monday, May 28, 2012
If You Can’t Steal A Presidential Election…
Posted by Zandar
...suppress the vote beforehand to make sure the results will never be in doubt.
Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters are the most likely to be targeted in a state hunt to remove thousands of noncitizens from Florida’s voting rolls, a Miami Herald computer analysis of elections records has found.
Whites and Republicans are disproportionately the least-likely to face the threat of removal, the analysis of a list of more than 2,600 potential noncitizens shows. The list was first compiled by the state and furnished to county election supervisors and then the Herald.
The numbers change by the day. The state’s Division of Elections says it initially identified roughly 180,000 potential noncitizens by performing a search of a computer database that doesn’t have the most-updated information.
About 58 percent of those identified as potential noncitizens are Hispanics, Florida’s largest ethnic immigrant population. They make up just 13 percent of the overall 11.3 million active registered voters.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/
US poised to vet possible arms for Syrian rebels
WASHINGTON (AP) — As one diplomatic effort after another fails to end more than a year of brutal violence in Syria, the Obama administration is preparing a plan that would essentially give U.S. nods of approval to arms transfers from Arab nations to some Syrian opposition fighters.
The effort, U.S. officials told The Associated Press, would vet members of the Free Syrian Army and other groups to determine whether they are suitable recipients of munitions to fight the Assad government and to ensure that weapons don’t wind up in the hands of al-Qaida-linked terrorists or other extremist groups such as Hezbollah that could target Israel.
The plan, which has not yet been finalized, reflects U.S. frustration that none of the previous efforts – including diplomatic rhetoric from the United Nations and the multinational Friends of Syria group, and special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for a cease-fire – has even begun to nudge President Bashar al-Assad from power. The vetting would be the first tiny step the U.S. has made toward ensuring that the Syrian opposition uses the weapons to fight Assad and not to turn it into a full sectarian conflict.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, stressed that the United States, which is already providing non-lethal aid to Syria’s political opposition, is not supplying military assistance to Assad’s foes.
Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_US_SYRIA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-05-24-12-52-53