Year: 2012

Categories
Mitt Romney Osama bin Laden Politics

Arianna Huffington, You Are Wrong… Again!

Call it payback by the Huffington Post founder, Arianna Huffington. But when President Obama used her organization as the butt of one of his many jokes in Saturday’s Correspondents Dinner, everyone knew it was just a matter of time before Ariana attacked.

On Saturday, President Obama jokingly congratulated Arianna’s Huffington Post on winning the Pulitzer. The President then went on to say, “You deserve it, Arianna. There’s no one else out there linking to the kind of hard-hitting journalism that HuffPo is linking to every single day.” The joke was a hit and the audience enjoyed the moment. But in Arianna’s head, the wheels had to be turning and on Monday – two days after the President made his remarks – the Huffington Post Founder finally found her opportunity to strike back.

She used a video the President’s re-election campaign put out five days ago, where the question was asked if Mitt Romney would have made the same decision to capture and kill Osama Bin Laden. Of course, Mitt Romney found fault with this video calling it divisive, and the so-called “liberal” Arianna echoed Romney’s words almost verbatim.

“I don’t think there should be an ad about that. I think it’s one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job, it’s one thing to have an NBC special from the ‘Situation Room’ … all that to me is perfectly legitimate, but to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do,” Arianna said.

She then went on to say that the President had no way of knowing that Mitt Romney would not have made the same call to get Bin Laden.

“There is no way to know whether Romney would have been as decisive and to actually speculate that he wouldn’t be is to me not the way to run campaigns on either side.”

But the question on whether Romney would have made that decision if he were president is a very legitimate one and it is a question every voting American should ask. The person who occupy the Oval office should be someone of convictions, someone who is capable of making the right decisions not for political reasons, but for the good of the country. And from what we’ve seen from Mitt Romney so far, he is not a man of convictions. Mitt Romney’s decision-making process depends on what direction the winds are blowing at that particular time. There are tons of reasons why he’s called a flip-flopper.

Arianna, you are wrong on this one. Pointing out the fact that Mitt Romney changes his position faster than a porn star is not speculating, it is a legitimate point that the American voter must look at. Have you ever heard of the Etch A Sketch?

Categories
Politics

Barack and Bill On The Campaign Trail

Former President Bill Clinton gave a rousing endorsement of fellow Democrat President Barack Obama in his first 2012 campaign appearance with the president on Sunday night, and helped him raise more than $2 million.

A white-haired and svelte Clinton, 65, pounded the podium and pointed at the crowd while addressing about 500 Obama supporters outside the Virginia home of his friend and Democratic adviser Terry McAuliffe.

“I think he’s done a good job,” he told the crowd in his signature raspy voice, warmly introducing the man who beat his wife, Hillary Clinton, to win the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and then made her secretary of state. “We are going the right direction under President Obama’s leadership.”

Source: The Huffington Post

Categories
Jews Mitt Romney Politics

Jews Prefer President Obama Over Mittens – A 61% to 28% Blowout

Obama would defeat Mitt Romney among Jews by a margin fo 61% to 28% according to the survey of more than 1,000 American Jews conducted by the American Jewish Committee.

A spokesman for the American Jewish Committee, Kenneth Bandler, cautioned however that the AJC had retained a new polling company and cautioned against a direct comparison to past surveys.

Obama, who has faced criticism from community leaders over his handling of Israel and has struggled to raise money from some top Jewish donors, won 78% of Jewish voters in 2008 exit polls. But White House officials became worried that he would be unable to repeat that performance, and his numbers dipped steeply in last year’s annual AJC survey, which showed him beating Romney by a margin of just 50% to 32%.

Those numbers may actually understate Obama’s electoral strength with Jews. The survey which the AJC says it tries to keep as consistent as possible from year to year, but which is not a simple random poll, showed Obama leaning John McCain in September of 2008 by 57% to 30%, a somewhat narrower margin than he now leads Romney. In November, exit polls showed him winning 78% of the Jewish vote, part of a strong showing across demographic groups.

The new AJC survey also shows Obama’s approval rating among American Jews, which stood at 57% in 2010 and dipped to 45% in 2011, recovering to 57%.

Source: Buzzfeed

Categories
Politics

Surf’s Up! The Right Wing’s Gnarly Ride To a Wipeout

It was easy for me to say that the conservative movement would come crashing down this year not once but twice. After all, the GOP primaries were a virtual orgy of anti-women, anti-gay, anti-immigrant and anti-responsible economic policies, so saying that the far right would implode was like shooting fish in a barrel of domestic oil.

Now that we’re in the general election, you’d think the Republicans would want to moderate their stances. Not a chance.

Over the past few days the GOP has managed to crystallize their reactionary agenda against women and college students by questioning President Obama’s commitment to lowering student loan interest rates as a campaign ploy, and then by tying the rate reduction to cuts in health programs that especially benefit women. What a curious move by a party, and nominee, that’s already losing the female vote by a score or more.

With that kind of thinking, you can kind of see the Republicans passing a burka law, then loosening it and claiming to be pro-women.

The party also continues to bash the health care law that is allowing families to cover their children through age 26 and is forcing insurance companies not to drop people with pre-existing conditions.Their argument? That the law is causing health costs to rise. Well, wrong again GOP. Health care spending seem to be slowing,

Mitt Romney is certainly doing his part to lose the race by alienating Latino voters in Florida during the primaries, and then trying to woo them back for the general election. As a famous Republican once said, “How’s that workin’ out for ya?” Not well at all, it seems, due to a combination of the recession, changing health industry habits, and the law itself.

And in case you thought the Republicans were ignorant of history, along comes  Florida GOP Representative Alan West, who famously said that there were between 78 and 81 (curious set of numbers) Communists in the Democratic Party. Obviously, this is intended to lock up the elderly white male vote that’s the only reliable voting population the GOP has left, and to remind us that McCarthyite tactics will never go out of style.

What does this show? That the GOP is moving to the fringe at an alarming rate and is taking a great deal of accepted American values with it. The problem is not with both parties. It’s with an increasingly reactionary Republican Party that will oppose anything Obama says, even if it means opposing its own interests.

For more please go to:
www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest  

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Politics

New Slogan For The Obama Re-Election Campaign – Forward! Video

The Obama re-election campaign has decided on a new slogan for the 2012 Presidential election. It is one simple word… Forward. The campaign has also put out a 7 minute video emphasizing some of the challenges the country faced when President Obama took office, as well as some of the policies the administration implemented to correct the mess left by the Bush administration.

Some of the policies highlighted in the video are: The stimulus, the auto bailout, the health care law,  ending combat operations in Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan, and the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.

If President Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, one can safely assume that Mitt Romney’s slogan would be… Backwards… and one would be correct to make that assumption.

Categories
Mitt Romney Politics

The Ultimate Flip Flop – Romney Now Takes Credit For The Auto Bailout

Okay, okay…! Now this is going too far and it shows exactly what Mitt Romney’s campaign think of the American voters – that we’re really slow to understand, and we’re easily guided… or misguided for that matter!

Of course you remember the auto bailout that Republicans in Congress voted against. Their claim was that the only way for the auto industry to succeed, was if it failed. Mitt Romney even wrote an opinion piece saying that a bailout of the auto industry was a bad idea. In fact, Romney went as far as saying that Detroit should “go bankrupt.” Democrats and the President however, took a different position and helped the struggling auto manufacturers.

Needless to say, this position by Mitt Romney and the Republicans proved to be wrong as Detroit and the auto industry have made a complete turn-around. American auto makers are now number one in the world again and the Republicans are on the wrong side. So it comes as no surprise that they are now trying to take credit for the success of the auto industry.

This is what The Hill is reporting;

One of Mitt Romney’s top advisers said Saturday that President Obama’s decision to bailout Chrysler and General Motors was actually Romney’s idea.

“[Romney’s] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed. I know it infuriates them to hear that,” Eric Fehrnstrom, senior adviser to the Romney campaign, said.

“The only economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed Mitt Romney’s advice.”

Amazing… absolutely amazing! Not only is it amazing, their claim is also hilariously amusing!

If President Obama had “followed Mitt Romney’s advise” like this adviser is saying, the American auto industry would be an unpleasant memory. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) would have lost their jobs, the unemployment rate would be in double figures and the economy would have taken a suicidal jump over the edge of the proverbial cliff. That is what the Republicans wanted and that was what Mitt Romney meant when he said “let Detroit go bankrupt.”

But now… now they want to claim credit!

Yes, these Republicans must think the American public have an attention deficit disorder!

Categories
Health Care ObamaCare Politics Repeal

Health Care Spending at Slowest Pace in More Than 50 Years

The New York Times is reporting that the growth of health spending has slowed substantially in the last few years, surprising experts and offering some fuel for optimism about the federal government’s long-term fiscal performance.

Much of the slowdown is because of the recession, and thus not unexpected, health experts say. But some of it seems to be attributable to changing behavior by consumers and providers of health care – meaning that the lower rates of growth might persist even as the economy picks up.

Because Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest contributors to the country’s long-term debts, slower growth in health costs could reduce the pressure for enormous spending cuts or tax increases.

In 2009 and 2010, total nationwide health care spending grew less than 4 percent per year, the slowest annual pace in more than five decades, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. After years of taking up a growing share of economic activity, health spending held steady in 2010, at 17.9 percent of the gross domestic product.

The growth rate mostly slowed as millions of Americans lost insurance coverage along with their jobs. Worried about job security, others may have feared taking time off work for doctor’s visits or surgical procedures, or skipped nonurgent care when money was tight.

Still, the slowdown was sharper than health economists expected, and a broad, bipartisan range of academics, hospital administrators and policy experts has started to wonder if what had seemed impossible might be happening – if doctors and patients have begun to change their behavior in ways that bend the so-called cost curve.

If so, it was happening just as the new health care law was coming into force, and before the Supreme Court could weigh in on it or the voters could pronounce their own verdict at the polls.

Source: The New York Times

Categories
Politics

Government Is Not The Problem, Republicans In Government Is The Problem

An article in the Washington Post attempts to pinpoint where the problem lies in Washington, and the conclusion was what we’ve all been saying for a long time – Government is not the problem, Republicans in Government is the problem.

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

Categories
Mitt Romney Osama bin Laden Politics

The President is The Decider-In-Chief. What Would Romney Have Done? Video

In the video below, former President Bill Clinton explains, the President’s job is “to make the calls when no one else can do it”—and President Obama chose the “harder and more honorable” path to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.

What would Mitt Romney have done facing this same decision? Romney once said that it was “not worth moving heaven and earth” to try and “catch one person.” He has since flip-flopped on that statement too.

Watch the video below.

Categories
Politics Senate

Al Franken Weeps On Senate Floor While Discussing ‘Violence Against Women Act’

After months of Republican opposition to the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, it finally passed the Senate yesterday on a 68-31 vote. All 31 votes against the re-authorization of the bill came from Senate Republicans. For the other Republicans who joined with the Democrats to pass the bill, maybe it was this emotional plea from Sen Al Franken that did it.

The bill now goes to the Republican controlled House of Representatives where it will face a much harder time.

Categories
News trayvon martin

George Zimmerman Raise $200,000 in Online Donations

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – The attorney for the Florida man charged with murder in the shooting of an unarmed black teen said Friday he didn’t know his client had raised $200,000 before a bond hearing last week in which his client was granted $150,000 bond.

George Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after weeks without an arrest led to protests nationwide over racial profiling and controversial self-defense laws in Florida and other states. Martin was black; Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is from Peru.

Zimmerman has gone into hiding since his release this week after paying 10 percent of his bail, though he has to wear a GPS ankle bracelet that authorities can use to track his location.

Zimmerman’s lawyer, Mark O’Mara told a judge Friday that Zimmerman’s family hadn’t told him about the money raised before his client was granted $150,000 bond.

Source: USA Today

Categories
Politics

Part 2 – This is Too Easy – Obama Points Out The Romney Lies

We recently brought you Part 1, where some of the lies Mitt Romney have told over the last few years were easily debunked by President Obama.

Now, we bring you Part 2 – Even more Romney lies and misinformation debunked!

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