mitt romney

Last month a $50,000 per couple fundraiser was held in Hollywood for Barack Obama. The right went crazy, decrying him as an "elitist". If $50,0000 per couple makes one an elitist, what does $75,000 per couple make one? An extremist elitist? Perhaps we should ask Mitt Romney, who is doing just that.

At the evening fundraiser at the estate of Julia and David Koch on Meadow Lane in Southampton, the suggested contribution was $75,000 per couple — with funds going to Romney's campaign, the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But let's face it, money isn't really the issue here. It costs hundreds of millions to run for President thanks to our very broken system of democracy and crappy Supreme Court rulings in Citizens United. What does matter is what happens at these fundraisers.

When you think of President Obama, you already know what his plans are. We have heard them for the past five years and see him try to implement them, even though an obstructionist GOP blocks them to put party first. But with Romney, what are the plans? We have heard before that he lays out actual plans at these fundraisers. Did he do it again this time?

The fact that Romney feels the only people deserving of hearing his plans are those that can drop $75,000 for a sit down with him should be the most alarming thing to every American voter. It's Romney telling you and me that we don't have money so we aren't good enough to know how to fix America. It also shows that Romney believes America is only for the rich, and the other 99% of us are just here. I find it an insult of massive proportions and the media needs to hit Romney on this.

Something I have hit Mitt Romney on time and time again is the fact that he has laid out no plans at all for our nation, should he win in November. All we hear is "Obama doesn't know what he's doing" and "repeal", yet details have been non-existent.

Well today the Wall Street Journal takes issue with a slew of Romney problems, but in the editorial they do hit on this point:

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault. We're on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that "Obama isn't working." Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better.

Voters really need to sit back and ask themselves if Romney is the right man to run this country. Put away all the partisan stuff and ask what this guy will do for the country. I think they will be shocked to find out that he has nothing planned. That is very scary.

If you are one of those people that can't stand Obama, you got to start feeling that you at least know what you are getting with him. And if Obama does win, then you only got to wait for 2016 to try and get a better candidate that will support your conservative beliefs. If Romney does win, then you are stuck with him being your nominee until 2020.

Are conservative voters ready to give up the next eight years for someone they can't trust and don't know what he is going to do? Well reading this editorial, it appears they aren't. Honestly, if I was on the right I would write off the White House run and focus all energies on the House and Senate. That's where they have the better chance of pushing their agenda this year.

Yesterday the Washington Post's fact chcker, Glenn Kessler, awarded the Obama Campaign 4 Pinocchios for this ad:

Here's how Kessler characterized it:

The Obama campaign apparently loves to ding former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney with the charge of “outsourcing.” On several occasions, we have faulted the campaign for its claims, apparently to little avail.

But wait! As I posted in my last entry we now know that this is true:

Mitt Romney’s financial company, Bain Capital, invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.

During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This wasn't posted by some lefty blog or conspiracy group. It is from an actual article that appears in today's Washington Post, Kessler's employer. So it now looks like Kessler gets his own "4 Pinocchios"

This is really interesting:

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign asked Florida Governor Rick Scott to tone down his statements heralding improvements in the state’s economy because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee’s message that the nation is suffering under President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state’s jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to the people, who asked not to be named.

Romney wants his talking points so bad that he is pushing governors in his own party to either lie or ignore their own accomplishments. This guy becomes more of a joke every single day!

Here's how the GOP supports small business:

COUNCIL BLUFFS(KPTM)-- Dianne Bauer opened up her cafe to Mitt Romney and his campaign for a small round table discussion Friday morning before his speech at Bayliss Park.

This isn't the first politician that has asked Bauer to use the Main Street Cafe in downtown Council Bluffs.

"With Rick Perry he made a point of stopping in the kitchen before he ever went to the other side to address the public and the media to thank us and introduce himself to us," said Bauer. "That's what I thought we would get here, just normal. This was all out, like you'd think Obama was here."

Bauer's issues with the campaigns staffers started the night before when they started staging the cafe for the event.

She described many of their demeanors as "arrogant".

She says her cafe was not treated with the respect it deserved.

"Stuff got broke. My table cloths they just got ripped off, wadded up and thrown in the back room,"

She says the boom truck she allowed the campaign to borrow to gain access to the roof now has an 8-inch gouge in it that she'll have to take the time to repair.

The campaign told her to send them an itemized list of anything that was broken, and they would pay for it, but Bauer says that won't fix everything.

"My dad's picture, an emblem my dad gave me, it got broke. Those aren't things you can replace,"

The AP has done some great fact checking into a speech Mitt Romney gave yesterday on the economy. It turns out, to no shock, that Romney is echoing many of the lies that the right has constantly been pushing for the past several years. Here's one of my favorites:

ROMNEY: "America counted on President Obama to rescue the economy, tame the deficit and help create jobs. Instead, he bailed out the public sector, gave billions of your dollars to the companies of his friends, and added almost as much debt as all the prior presidents combined."

THE FACTS. Hardly. Presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush ran the national debt up to $10.62 trillion, the amount it was on the day Obama took office. Today, it is $15.67 trillion, according to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt. So it has gone up by $5.05 trillion under Obama. That's roughly half of the amount amassed by all the other presidents combined.

In short, the debt has gone up by about half under Obama. Under Ronald Reagan, it tripled.

Today's Washington Post is out with a story of a young Mitt Romney:

Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

Mitt Romney is by far the biggest liar that I can remember in Presidential politics. This latest though is just a step too far:

Despite his 2008 call to "let Detroit go bankrupt," presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Monday that he would "take a lot of credit" for his impact on the U.S. automobile industry's comeback.

During an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland following a campaign stop, Romney said his views helped save the industry.

"I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy," Romney said. "And finally, when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back."

Here's what Romney said in 2009 about Obama's plan:

GM’s new proposal, clearly produced under government duress, is worse than virtually any of the alternatives. It would give GM to the UAW and the U.S. government and make taxpayers pick up the bills. Of course, billions more from government would be drawn down right away. But the UAW could also depend on the Obama administration to keep up the subsidy for years and years to come. Government and Union co-ownership: It would be as ineffective as it is un-American.

The right course for GM is an out-of-court restructuring or bankruptcy. Either would keep the company in business and rid it of burdensome costs, work rules and obligations. The government could backstop the post-restructuring debt, helping the company get on its feet. GM must not fail: If its costs are brought in line with its competition, it can ultimately thrive and grow jobs. What is proposed is even worse than bankruptcy–it would make GM the living dead.