Citizens United has become the driving force behind the selling of the American Democracy. It allows Corporations to give unlimited amounts of money to any politician of their choosing. And because of the very foundation of the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United that classifies Corporations as people, unlimited amounts of money are flowing from unknown sources to people like Mitt Romney, thus, a willful effort by the richest few to purchase the presidency.
The Court believes that since Corporations are People, Corporations are now protected by the first amendment of the United States Constitution that gives people the freedom of speech.
But what is “speech?”
The First Amendment’s reference to “Freedom Of Speech” has always been a source of controversy, but to many Constitutionalists, freedom of speech refers to the ability to choose freely, the ability to decide without fear of retribution. That as an American, you have an unbridled say through your vote in the structure of our government and who is chosen to govern.
That is what Democracy is all about – people voting for their leaders with no mention of “money.” That is what the Founding Fathers wanted when they wrote the framework for the Constitution. But what you will hear in the video below, one of the Justices who decided that Corporations are people also decided that speech means money.
It would seem to the average person that the Court’s decision in Citizens United was wrong. Unlimited funds from unknown sources should not be allowed into the American political system. It would seem that this decision must be reversed as soon as possible. But as you listen to the Republican appointed Justice Scalia’s defense of the Court’s decision saying “money is speech,” you quickly realize that the American people is losing their voice, as the people with the most money… the top 1%… out-shouts us all.
We’ve all heard of the controversy surrounding a statementStephanie Cutter made about Mitt Flip Romney. But for those who may have forgotten, here’s a brief rundown:
Stephanie Cutter – an employee of Barack Obama – suggested that Mitt Romney may be a felon for lying to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) about his time at Bain. Documents presented to the SEC showed Romney being directly involved with Bain after 1999, the time Romney said he left.
To explain Romney’s departure, Ed Gillespie – one of Romney’s surrogates – said Romney “retroactively” retired from Bain. “He took a leave of absence and in fact he ended up not going back at all, and retired retroactively to 1999 as a result,” Gillespie said.
After Cutter made her statement that Romney is possibly a criminal, Romney took offence and demanded an apology. So in the video below, Stephanie apologies…well, kinda…well, not really! LOL
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me, first of all, say how grateful I am for all of you being here, and how much we appreciate everything that you’ve done. I know that there are a lot of people here who have been so engaged in the campaign, have sacrificed so much, people who’ve been involved back since 2007. (Applause.) And so I want all of you to know how appreciative I am.
And I know many of you came here today for a campaign event. I was looking forward to having a fun conversation with you about some really important matters that we face as a country and the differences between myself and my opponent in this election. But this morning, we woke up to news of a tragedy that reminds us of all the ways that we are united as one American family.
By now, many of you know, many of you have heard that a few miles outside of Denver in a town call Aurora, at least 12 people were killed when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater, and dozens more are being treated for injuries at a local hospital. Some of the victims are being treated at a children’s hospital.
We’re still gathering all the facts about what happened in Aurora, but what we do know is that the police have one suspect in custody. And the federal government stands ready to do whatever is necessary to bring whoever is responsible for this heinous crime to justice. (Applause.) And we will take every step possible to ensure the safety of all of our people.
We’re going to stand by our neighbors in Colorado during this extraordinarily difficult time. And I had a chance to speak with the Mayor of Aurora as well as the Governor of Colorado to express, not just on behalf of Michelle and myself, but the entire American family, how heartbroken we are.
Now, even as we learn how this happened and who’s responsible, we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this. Such violence, such evil is senseless. It’s beyond reason. But while we will never know fully what causes somebody to take the life of another, we do know what makes life worth living. The people we lost in Aurora loved and they were loved. They were mothers and fathers; they were husbands and wives; sisters and brothers; sons and daughters, friends and neighbors. They had hopes for the future and they had dreams that were not yet fulfilled.
And if there’s anything to take away from this tragedy it’s the reminder that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and it is precious. And what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things, which so often consume us and our daily lives. Ultimately, it’s how we choose to treat one another and how we love one another. (Applause.)
It’s what we do on a daily basis to give our lives meaning and to give our lives purpose. That’s what matters. At the end of the day, what we’ll remember will be those we loved and what we did for others. That’s why we’re here.
I’m sure that many of you who are parents here had the same reaction that I did when I heard this news. My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater, as so many of our kids do every day? Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I’m sure you will do the same with your children. But for those parents who may not be so lucky, we have to embrace them and let them know we will be there for them as a nation.
So, again, I am so grateful that all of you are here. I am so moved by your support. But there are going to be other days for politics. This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection.
So what I’d ask everybody to do, I’d like us to pause in a moment of silence for the victims of this terrible tragedy, for the people who knew them and loved them, for those who are still struggling to recover, and for all the victims of less publicized acts of violence that plague our communities every single day. So if everybody can just take a moment.
(Moment of silence.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. I hope all of you will keep the people of Aurora in your hearts and minds today. May the Lord bring them comfort and healing in hard days to come.
I am grateful to all of you, and I hope that as a consequence of today’s events, as you leave here, you spend a little time thinking about the incredible blessings that God has given us.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, Obama! (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you. God bless the United States of America.
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney built his $250 million fortune with the help of two of Britain’s most disreputable business figures – Guinness fraudster Jack Lyons and crooked newspaper boss Robert Maxwell.
In the 1980s both men invested large sums in the Republican candidate’s first private equity fund, started during his years at Bain & Company, which launched his now highly controversial career in finance. Romney is under increasing pressure to release details of his business affairs including tax returns for the years before 2010 and details of offshore holdings, including a Swiss bank account.
Flamboyant publishing tycoon Maxwell was the former head of the left-wing Mirror Group newspapers and a one-time owner of the New York Daily News. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1991 at the age of 68 after falling overboard from his luxury yacht off the Canary Islands after which it was discovered he had plundered hundreds of millions from an employee pension scheme.
Lyons, who died in 2008, was one of the notorious ‘Guinness Four’ convicted for a massive share trading fraud in which they attempted to inflate the price of Guinness shares to assist a take-over bid for Scottish drinks company Distillers. He was subsequently fined £4 million for theft and false accounting and stripped of his knighthood.
In 1984 Lyons, a former colleague of Mr Romney’s at Bain & Company, along with members of his family invested almost $3million in Mr Romney’s capital fund.
Recently, President Obama made a statement that is now being attacked by the Republicans and Mitt Flip Romney alike. The President said that successful businesses did not become successful solely on their own efforts, but owes their success in part to the help of others like employees, the roads leading to their buildings, the internet and more factors that help bring products and consumers.
What the President said made absolute sense. He was not talking about the initial idea or the investment a business owner makes, he was talking about the community that comes together to make entrepreneurs profitable. Even Mitt Romney thought what the President said made perfect sense and he too started repeating the President’s words… until he realized he could do some selective editing and use those words to attack Mr. Obama.
The video below shows the lying hypocrisy of Mitt Romney.
“You people” just don’t get it, do you? Where do you come off thinking you have the chutzpah to ask Mitt Romney to show his taxes? You are not even in his class, you are not on the same caliber as Mitt. You cannot even see the things he’s seen, been the places he’s been and you will never make the kind of money he’s made.
So stop bothering the my husband with your stupid little concerns about taxes! Any secrets you want to know about Mitt will be revealed after he gets elected. Now just be the little sheep you are and vote for Mitt!
Well, that’s not exactly what Ann Romney said today, but what she told ABC went more like this:
Ann Romney dismissed concerns about her husband’s tax returns Thursday, contending that the two of them have “given all you people need to know.”
“You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially,” the potential first lady said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person who is trying to hide things, or do things? No. He is so good about it. Then, when he was governor of Massachusetts, didn’t take a salary for four years.”
“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life,” she added later.
A number of polls have been released in the past few days that continue to show the presidential race to be very close. What’s worth discussing at this point is the difference between polls that measure registered voters (RV) and those that have switched over to likely voter (LV) models. There’s a terrific article by Mark Blumenthal of HuffPost/Pollster that discusses this issue and he comes to some interesting, and ultimately unsatisfying conclusions. From the article:
The consistent difference between the registered and likely voter samples raises the question: If likely voter screens applied at the end of the campaign nudged the horse race numbers in a more accurate (and more Republican) direction, why not apply such screens now?
The answer, in part:
These “measures of engagement and intention to vote are useful as indicators of likely turnout on the aggregate level” at this stage in the campaign,” Pew Research associate research director Michael Dimock explained to The Huffington Post in June, “but they are only loosely predictors of whether an individual is or is not likely to vote this November.”
“As we get closer to Election Day,” he added, “particularly after the conventions and into the debate season — these indicators become stronger.”
With this in mind, let’s take a look at some recent polls that use LV models. Purple Strategies released a number of swing state polls showing Obama leading in Ohio (+3), Virginia (+2) and Colorado (+1)and Romney leading in Florida (+3). All of these results are within the margin of error and seem to suggest that Obama does well in states where he polls well with women and lags where men and independents do not support him. The Florida results are also in line with a Mason-Dixon poll that also uses an LV model and shows Obama with a 1 point advantage. Likewise, a new Rasmussen poll of Virginia also shows Obama with a small lead of 47-46%.
The Rasmussen daily tracking poll uses an LV model and shows Romney with a 1 point lead today, within the margin of error.
If it’s true that Republicans tend to do better with LV models, then we can assume that Obama is truly ahead in the states where he leads and that Romney will need to move the dials a bit to overtake him.
On the RV side, a new Quinnipiac poll of New Jersey gives Obama a 49%-38% lead while slightly oversampling Republicans. New Jersey is D 33/R 20/I 47 while the poll was D 34/R 24/ I 37.
Presumably, even if Quinnipiac went to an LV screen, Romney would not be within threatening distance of the president. My view is that New Jersey will remain blue this November.
A PPP Poll of Iowa has Obama leading by 48-43% with a D 35/ R 34/ I 30 split, when in reality, Iowa breaks D 31/ R 32/ I 37. PPP, which has a Democratic leaning house effect, has also slightly underpolled Republicans and overpolled Democrats. This leads me to believe that Iowa will probably lean Romney once polls move to an LV model.
At this point in the campaign, using likely voter models do not seem to be diverging a great deal from polls that use registered voters. As we get closer to the campaign’s major events, that will change. Romney has yet to choose a running mate, and that will help his numbers. The conventions will also provide major bumps for both candidates, as will the results of the first televised debate. If voters are settling in on one candidate, that will become evident by the middle of September, and as long as respondents tell the truth about their voting habits (what is the percentage of people who lie about such things?) we’ll get a fairly accurate view of any election trends.
Right now? Enjoy the summer, baseball and the Olympics.
The good folks at the Obama Re-election campaign came up with another ad hitting Romney and his refusal to release his taxes to the American people. The ad ask the question, how was it possible that Romney was the Chairman, CEO and sole shareholder of the company, but not responsible for anything that happened under his watch?
Romney is already claiming he is not responsible for any hidden secrets his taxes may reveal because he entrust the investments of his funds to a “blind trust.” Of course we’ve already debunked that claim using Romney’s own words.
John Sununu was born in Havana Cuba on July 2, 1939. He recently dialed up the Republican rhetoric trying to divert attention from Romney’s taxes, by claiming that President Obama does not know how to be American.
Sununu, a former Chief of Staff to the first President Bush, talked himself into a corner during a conference call with reporters. He was criticizing Obama for arguing in Virginia on Friday that wealthy Americans didn’t achieve success on their own, but rather were aided to varying degrees by government investments in infrastructure and education that helped fuel corporate profits.
Sununu said Obama’s rhetoric “clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea” how the American economy functions.
“The men and women all over America who — who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world,” he went on.
“It is the American way. And I wish this president would learn how to be an American.”
When questioned about the comment, Sununu backtracked — instead saying that Obama “has to learn the American formula for creating businesses,” ABC reported.
But earlier, speaking to FOX News, Sununu went even further in questioning if the President’s values were red, white and blue.
“He has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia; and, frankly, when he came to the U.S., he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure, and then got into politics in Chicago,” Sununu said.
For the second time in two days, Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked legislation aimed at making campaign groups more transparent.
In a party-line 53-45 vote, the Senate killed the DISCLOSE Act. It needed at least 60 votes to move forward.
Republicans said the DISCLOSE Act would discourage free speech by intimidating donors. The bill would have prevented outside campaign groups from hiding their donors by requiring organizations that spend $10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours and identify any donors who gave $10,000 or more.
“It is a predictable response,” Lisa Gilbert, Deputy Director at Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, told Raw Story. “It’s a false claim. Only those who have something to hide think that disclosure harms free speech.”
“Disclosure is obvious, easy and Americans want it,” she added.
In an interview with Politico today, John McCain let the cat out of the bag. He spoke about his vice president search in 2008 and told the online publication that from all the potential candidates, Romney included, he went “with the better candidate.”
“Why did we not take [Tim] Pawlenty, why did we not take any of the other 10 other people,” McCain said. “Why didn’t I? Because we had a better candidate, the same way with all the others. … Come on, why? That’s a stupid question.”
You heard that right, John McCain thought Sarah Palin was a better candidate for vice president. Sarah Palin, who didn’t know what news papers she read, who concluded that she had foreign experience because of Russia’s close vicinity to Alaska. John McCain thought that the woman who referred to herself as “a pitbull with lipstick” was better for the country than Mitt Romney.
Mitt Romney last Friday said he left Bain in 1999 and had absolutely nothing to do with the company he started – no meetings, no lunches with executives, no phone calls, no business discussions, nothing!
Well of course, that was a lie!
WASHINGTON — Between 1999 and 2001, Mitt Romney, then the CEO of Bain Capital, signed at least six documents that the private equity firm filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The documents run in direct contradiction to a claim that Romney has made repeatedly: that he had nothing to do with Bain, and therefore no responsibility for Bain investments, during that period.
It’s also a claim he made in August 2011 on the federal disclosure form he filed as part of his presidential bid. Romney didn’t leave any wiggle room: “Mr. Romney retired from Bain Capital on February 11, 1999 to head the Salt Lake Organizing Committee [for the 2002 Winter Olympics]. Since February 11, 1999, Mr. Romney has not had any active role with any Bain Capital entity and has not been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way.”
That is false.
SEC files include at least six instances of Romney signing documents after February 1999, proving — unless the signatures were forged — that his claim to not have “been involved in the operations of any Bain Capital entity in any way” is wrong.
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