November 1, 2012

Romney On Now Endorsing Racist Mr. 'Macaca' George Allen In Virginia

Mitt just keeps digging the hole deeper.....



September 2012:



WASHINGTON -- Workers' Voice, the super PAC affiliated with the AFL-CIO, launched an attack Thursday on Virginia Senate candidate George Allen's troubled history with minorities and issues related to race.

Online ads by the group targeting a union and non-union audience in northern Virginia and Richmond online ads ask voters to choose "the most deplorable of George Allen's past actions."

Choices include a report that Allen hung a Confederate flag in his living room, another that he kept a noose in his law office, and Allen's vote as a state legislator against recognizing Martin Luther King Day as a holiday. A final option is the former senator's use of the slur "macaca" while running for reelection in 2006 -- regarded by many as fatal to his reelection campaign.

Shortly after Allen announced his comeback last year, he tried to make amends for his comments, stating in an interview, "I made mistakes and I take responsibility for them." Earlier this year, he penned an op-ed honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

The goal for Workers' Voice is to rally African American and Latino households against Allen, who is locked in a close race with his Democratic opponent Tim Kaine. The super PAC has placed $54,000 behind the new ad buy.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/george-allen-workers-voice-afl-cio_n_1918049.html

November 1, 2012

ROMNEY'S SECRECY: Did HE Get Away With It?

In January, in a South Carolina debate just before that state's primary, Newt Gingrich hit Mitt Romney hard for releasing barely any of his tax returns: “Look, he’s got to decide and the people of South Carolina have to decide. But if there’s anything in there that is going to help us lose the election, we should know it before the nomination. And if there’s nothing in there, why not release it?” The audience applauded, and when Gingrich proceeded to trounce Romney at the polls the following Saturday, voters told me that Romney’s secrecy about his tax returns was part of their decision—they didn't necessarily care what tax rate Romney paid, but they didn’t like his declaration that it wasn’t any of their business.




Back then, it seemed only a matter of time before Romney would buckle to pressure and release a critical mass of returns—if not the 12 years worth that his father released when he ran for president, then at least, say, five or six. But here we are, with just five days until the election, and Romney has released no more than the two years he agreed to release back during the primaries. This has left voters in near-total darkness about basic questions about his very recent past. As tax experts have noted, there are any number of reasons why Romney doesn’t want to release more of his taxes—it’s possible he participated in an IRS amnesty program for secret foreign bank accounts; it’s more possible he gamed the system to avoid taxes on his huge retirement account and his sons’ $100 million trust fund, or that he paid very, very low rates these past couple years as a result of a tax code that favors people like him whose income is mainly taxed as capital gains. (In releasing his belated 2011 returns in September, Romney asserted, without providing any evidence, that he had not paid an effective rate lower than 13 percent during the past decade.) Just this week, Bloomberg News offered a new shred of insight, into the way that Romney used the Mormon church to shelter some of his investment gains from taxes. But the fact is, barring some future leak, we're simply not going to find out what was so worrisome in Romney’s taxes from only a few years ago.




Not only that, Romney has—unlike candidates Barack Obama, George W. Bush and John McCain—refused to identify his “bundlers,”the hundreds of people who have each raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for him. This has, among other things, spared him the sort of stories that Obama's had to contend with, looking at the unsavory connections and interests of his fundraisers. And, of course, Romney has provided exceedingly scant detail on basic elements of his platform, such as how he proposes to replace the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank law, both of which he says he will do away with, and how he plans to make up the revenue lost from cutting tax rates by 20 percent across the board. The candidate has not answered any questions from reporters in the past three weeks.




In essence, Romney has managed to make it through an entire presidential campaign having openly flouted longstanding norms of disclosure by candidates. This raises some important questions, ones I'm surprised are not being asked more widely in the campaign’s closing days (among the few to do so was veteran political correspondent Tom Edsall, with this sharp critique last week).
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/the-undisclosed-mitt-romney/

For the campaign press: how could it have allowed Romney to get away with stiffing it, and has it allowed him to establish a damaging precedent for future candidates? For the Obama campaign: could it have done a better job of prodding Romney into disclosure? And for Romney himself: was the secrecy really worth it?





cont'


http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/109464/romneys-secrecy-did-he-get-away-it#


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November 1, 2012

Michael Moore Rips CNN's Coverage of Hurricane Sandy

November 1, 2012

WSJ/NBC/Marist Poll: Obama Up 6 In Iowa, LEADS In Wisconsin, New Hampshire

President Obama leads Mitt Romney by six points in Iowa and holds smaller leads in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, according to Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist Poll surveys released Thursday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204707104578091063776868802.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines


In Iowa, Obama is up 50 percent to 44 percent. In Wisconsin, Obama leads Romney 49 percent to 46 percent. In New Hampshire, the president is up 49 percent to 47 percent.

The surveys of over 1000 likely voters in each state were conducted Oct. 28 - 29. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points in Wisconsin, +/- 3.1 in New Hampshire and +/- 2.9 in Iowa.




http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/wsj-nbc-marist-poll-obama-up-6-in?ref=fpb

November 1, 2012

4,544% PROFIT!!- A Conflict Of Interest: Romney Didn't Comply With Ethics In Government Act

Unions, good government groups to file ethics complaint against Romney for failing to disclose his big auto rescue profit



Groups urge Office of Government Ethics to make Romney disclose or divest


WASHINGTON -- A coalition of community, labor and good-government organizations is calling on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for noncompliance with the Ethics in Government Act and compel him to either disclose his investments or divest them.


"The American people have a right to know about Governor Romney's potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue," said UAW President Bob King. "It's time for Governor Romney to disclose or divest." "While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation's most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others," King added.


The groups sending the complaint letter, including SEIU, UAW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Public Citizen, Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group, believe that Romney's undisclosed stock holdings create serious conflicts of interest. They point to the auto rescue as a key example.


The Nation recently reported that the Romney family personally profited by at least $15.3 million from the auto loans of 2009 through his investment in the Delphi Corp. auto parts company.
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
Yet Romney's June 1, 2012, Public Financial Disclosure Report to the Office of Government Ethics did not reveal this windfall because he did not disclose the underlying holdings of his private equity and limited partnership funds.




Here are details of a joint news conference to be held Thursday in Toledo, Ohio:









http://www.uaw.org/articles/unions-good-government-groups-file-ethics-complaint-against-romney-failing-disclose-his-big

November 1, 2012

Bloomberg's Al Hunt on Romney's Jeep Ads: "THATS JUST DESPERATION"

November 1, 2012

The REAL Reason Why Republicans Want To ABOLISH FEMA: So They Can PROFIT From Natural Disasters

Hey JEB,....are you thinking about running 2016? Bashing Obama and FEMA.....why?



September 2011 Flashback:



It looks like we finally know the reason why Republicans are refusing to fund FEMA, the federal agency that responds to natural disasters.Former Republican Governor Jeb Bush is set to lead a newly formed FOR-PROFIT natural disaster response company. According to the Maritime Executive, Bush’s newly created firm, Old Rhodes Holding LLC, joined forces with O’Brien’s Response Management, a subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings, to form a for-profit disaster response company.



“We are pleased to enter into this partnership with one of the leading response organizations in the United States, backed by SEACOR’s global network,” Bush said. “Together we look forward to helping a broader array of organizations and communities become more resilient through preparation, response, communication and recovery.” Of course, this response team only helps people for a price. Rather than come to the aid of people affected by a natural disaster out of the kindness of their hearts, like FEMA and other organizations do, the response team led by the former Florida Governor will respond to disasters if the price is right. In other words, they’ll profit off of death and destruction.



All of this comes as House Republicans continue their assault against FEMA, an organization that helps people at no charge beyond the taxes paid to the United States Government by the American people. This is all too coincidental to not be connected in some way. If FEMA is non-existent, people, cities, and states would have to hire disaster response companies to come to their aid which is a recipe for fraud, as these companies could hold disaster areas hostage until they get the price they demand. Worse, these response companies could hold individual disaster victims hostage until the company gets the price it wants or ignore helpless victims altogether if they don’t pay the fee. Remember the home in Tennessee a couple years ago that was allowed to burn down by the local for-profit fire house because the residents failed to pay the fee? Well, you can bet that same scenario will play out across the country and on a more sickening scale.



This is precisely why we pay local, state, and federal taxes to fund our emergency services. Private companies only care about their bottom line and thus don’t care about the human lives at risk of dying in the aftermath of disaster. Their first priority would be money and they would fleece the people in their most desperate time of need. It’s a blood profit that each of us should find morally unacceptable.






http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/09/16/the-real-reason-why-republicans-want-to-abolish-fema-so-they-can-profit-from-natural-disasters/


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