Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee raised a combined $76.8 million last month, outpacing President Obama and his Democratic allies.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee and the RNC said they have $107 million cash on hand.
Earlier today, Obama’s campaign announced it raised $60 million jointly with the Democratic National Committee. They did not report how much they have in the bank.
Ronald Reagan, the god of the Conservative agenda, said this, “do you think the millionaire ought to pay more than the bus driver or less?” The audience is heard in the background screaming, “MORE!”
The clip below compares what was said back in the 1980’s under the Reagan Republican presidency, to what is said now under the Obama Democratic presidency. The similarities between the two presidents on the issue of taxes are uncanny, and those similarities are what we now refer to as the Buffett Rule – asking the wealthiest among us to pay more in taxes than the average bus driver or secretary.
Today’s version of the Republican party believes that the poor should pay more than the rich and they go out of their way – even signing various pledges – to make sure the rich gets more at the expense of the poor… a move often called class warfare.
So while praising their leader, we will never hear today’s Republicans talk about Reagan’s position on taxes because these people are of a totally different breed than Reagan. The people we see masquerading around as Republicans are what we can affectionately call impostors!
What happened? There was a time when the situation was the same but the message was very different, when gas prices edged above $4.00 a gallon and Americans felt like they were being robbed at the pump. A “news” network called Fox News came to the rescue, armed with facts and a burning desire to tell us all that the president had no control over gas prices. That was 2007/2008.
Today, if you only listen to Fox News, you will be under the impression that the increases in the price of oil are nothing more than the handy work of President Obama and you may actually think that the profits deposited into Obama’s personal bank account.
But a quick travel back in time to 2007/2008 reveals these same Fox News pundits, as they go out of their way to make sure Americans know the president cannot bring down the price of gas.
So what changed? The president, that’s what. In 2007 a Republican president by the name of George Bush was in power and now, a Democrat name Barack Obama is in the White House.
So to conclude, Republican presidents have absolutely zero control over gas prices, but Democratic presidents does. Words of wisdom, according to Fox News.
For all you right winged nuts running around the jungles of the south and midwest in camouflage, training to one day invade DC and remove the democratically elected president, take notice: there is a secret army with bigger guns than yours and their only job is waiting for your dumb arrival.
Buzzfeed reports:
The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which includes the classified units that killed Osama Bin Laden, has another secret mission according to a new book by Marc Ambinder and D. B. Grady — protecting the continuity of civilian government in the event of a coup.
“JSOC is also a key part of the classified contingency plans to preserve the U.S. civilian government in the event of a coup from the military or anyone else.”
JSOC, which includes SEAL Team Six, and the Combat Applications Group, known colloquially as Delta Force, as well as other units of greater size and even more secrecy, is “the President’s secret army,” the authors contend.
“When the president travels overseas, a JSOC team usually shadows him. Its members are trained to take charge should the mammoth security structure of the U.S. Secret Service break down.”
The Secret Service did not immediately return a request for comment on the book’s revelations.
The Washington Post Reports: Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney are already knee-deep in what many observers are saying could be the nastiest presidential bid in decades—but a year from now, the ultimate victor, no matter who he is, may not get to claim the ultimate prize: the Oval Office.
According to sources familiar with the discussions, beginning sometime next year the President may be relocated from the White House West Wing and the iconic Oval Office to temporary office space next door in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, formerly known as the Old Executive Office Building.
How big will the displacement be? According to sources, who demanded anonymity in order to talk about non-public plans, the White House Mess and other parts of the West Wing will also undergo needed repairs—in other words, “the whole West Wing except the Situation Room,” as one source put it.
The displacement could last up to a year, according to two people who have been part of the discussions.
Mitt Romney made his millions from legal maneuverings done at his Bain Financial company that cost some smaller businesses their profits and cost thousands of employees their jobs. He is the poster boy of the top 1% of the richest people in America and he gladly carries that banner. In a world where greed takes the place of common sense and decency, a world where the rich are making more money now than anytime in our recent history – while the bottom 99% are asked to pay more of what they don’t have – this is not the time to put a poster boy for the top 1% in the White House.
With that said, what if Americans continue in their slumber and buy into the Romney sales pitch, you know… that he’s one of us, that he’s looking out for our best interests, that he wants the middle class to prosper, that he’s from the streets? What if on election day, the bottom 99% elects the poster boy of the top 1% to the highest office in the land. What can we expect?
Well based on Romney’s own words – and as we’ve seen, his words really don’t mean that much because of his amazing flip-flopping abilities – Romney’s economic plan will lower taxes even more for his rich buddies. His plan would raise taxes on the 99% even more, and we, the 99%, will be asked to carry more of this economy on our backs while President Romney and his rich buddies continue raking in the dough.
Romney has also said on many occasions that he will “repeal ObamaCare,” the health care plan President Obama put in place. A plan that is already providing insurance coverage to millions more young people and ends the ability of insurance companies to drop your coverage if you were sick in the past. While he was governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney implemented the very same health care plan for the citizens of his state. But now that he is running for president, Mitt Romney is promising repeal of a health care plan that mimics his own, simply to get the votes of his far right Teaparty base.
And there is also Romney’s promise to end regulations on businesses so that they will be free to do whatever is in their best interest to survive. Even if it means taking away common sense requirements put in place to support the employees and the general public as a whole. And apparently agencies like the EPA and the Education Department will no longer exist. So companies would be free to dump all kinds of pollutants into the atmosphere or into our waters, if it meant their profit margins would increase.
Like Romney said at a campaign stop recently, “corporations are people my friends,” thus, if elected, a Romney presidency would make sure that Corporations/people continue to live and prosper, even if we the people – the people the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights were meant to protect – suffer in the process.
Are you a member of the 1%? Then you would be happy… no ecstatic with a Romney presidency. But for the rest of us, we must wake up and realise that what Bush started with his unpaid wars – a move that put billions into the pockets of Dick Cheney, Halliburton and other war mongering companies – and his trillion dollar tax cuts for millionaires among many other dumb policies, will only magnify and multiply if Mitt Willard Romney gets the #1 spot in the white house.
Newt Gingrich’s claim that President Obama is the “best food stamp president in America’s history” has been the topic of discussion for the past few weeks. Not just because Gingrich is playing to the racial stereotypes implied by the statement, but also because his claim is simply not true. And it was just a matter of time before it was fact checked.
Well, it was checked, and here are the facts as they stands now.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service tracks month-to-month figures dating back to January 2001. The numbers show that the total of food stamp recipients rose to 14.2 million during President Obama’s administration.
The highest in history so far is President George W. Bush. The number of food stamp recipients grew to nearly 14.7 million while he was in office. But, that’s eight years in office, compared to President Obama who has not finished his first term.
The Ag Department’s information also shows that 444,574 fewer recipients have signed up for food stamps under Obama’s watch, than under Bush.
A very interesting observation in a New York Times article titled, Five Consequences of Gingrich’s South Carolina Win asked this question;
“If Gingrich wins Florida, the Republican Establishment is going to have a meltdown that makes Three Mile Island look like a marshmallow roast.”
“Why? Because the Establishment will be staring down the barrel of two utterly unpalatable choices. On the one hand, Gingrich’s national favorable-unfavorable ratings of 26.5 and 58.6 percent, respectively make him not just unelectable against Obama but also mean that he would likely be a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country. And on the other, Romney has shown in two successive contests — one in a bellwether Republican state, the other in a key swing state — an inability to beat his deeply unpopular rival. If this scenario unfolds, the sound of GOP grandees whispering calls for a white knight… will be deafening.”
LOL.
Oh, the utter calamity that these Republicans have somehow found themselves in, and I’m loving every moment of it!
Note to all future Presidents: If you begin your team as president with a surplus, don’t push dumb policies, like a trillion dollars in tax cuts for very rich people while fighting two wars costing another 2 trillion dollars.
Don’t start programs like Medicaid part D, designed to put hundreds of billions of tax payers dollars into the pockets of insurance companies, while those companies provide mediocre services to their policy holders. And it would help if you don’t have an IQ of 2, while having the name George W. Bush.
And if you insist on doing the things mentioned above, someone in the middle east might try to introduce a pair of Reebok to your face. But most importantly, the American people will notice and rightly put the blame where it belongs – squarely on your shoulders.
A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.
Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.
Heck, even one in five Republicans say Bush is more responsible than Obama for the state of the economy!
You couldn’t get this low of an approval even if you tried.
Hammered by bipartisan discontent with its partisan rancor, the U.S. Congress reconvenes Tuesday with its lowest approval rating on record in polls dating back nearly 40 years –ideal fodder not just for late-night comedians, but also for President Obama in the election year ahead.
Just 13 percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of the way Congress is handling its job, while 84 percent disapprove – its worst rating in poll results since 1974. Sixty-five percent disapprove “strongly,” a vast level of high-intensity criticism.
Congress’ rating is a broad 35 points below Obama’s 48 percent approval, the biggest gap between approval of the president and Congress since 1990
On this day when we honor d Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we are sadly reminded of an unfortunate fact, that here in America, there are still those who will base their opinions on the color of one’s skin, rather than the content of their character.
Today on MSNBC, the question was asked if the people in South Carolina would vote for Mitt Romney or for Barack Obama. Mr. Jimmy Williams, himself born in South Carolina, tried to answer the question and in his answer, the ugly truth was revealed.
I think that Romney could eek out a win… I think South Carolinians would do something interesting, I think they would hold their noses because they hate Barack Obama so much. And I’ll tell you why they don’t like Barack Obama, because he’s black.
Happy Martin Luther King’s Day people… and welcome to 2012!
There is a big debate going on right now about a few pieces of legislation in Congress geared to fight online piracy. The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and the Online Protection and Digital ENforcement Act (OPEN) are making their way through the legislative body, but another bill called SOPA – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – has created a firestorm of controversies because of its wide and far-reaching powers.
If enacted and signed into law, SOPA, according to opponents of the bill, will (among other things) have the authority to tell Internet Service Providers to block the Domain Name Systems (DNS) of most law-abiding websites – including websites that operate under the Creative Commons License – simply because the site may have used contents protected under the Commons License, but not explicitly authorized by the content’s owner.
The author of the bill Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and those in favor of SOPA maintain that only sites outside the United States that violates the owner’s intellectual property, will be affected.
The debate over this particular piece of legislation cause the White House to put out the following statement, detailing their where they stand on the issue. The statement was issued by Victoria Espinel, Aneesh Chopra, and Howard Schmidt.
While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.
Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small. Across the globe, the openness of the Internet is increasingly central to innovation in business, government, and society and it must be protected. To minimize this risk, new legislation must be narrowly targeted only at sites beyond the reach of current U.S. law, cover activity clearly prohibited under existing U.S. laws, and be effectively tailored, with strong due process and focused on criminal activity. Any provision covering Internet intermediaries such as online advertising networks, payment processors, or search engines must be transparent and designed to prevent overly broad private rights of action that could encourage unjustified litigation that could discourage startup businesses and innovative firms from growing.
We must avoid creating new cybersecurity risks or disrupting the underlying architecture of the Internet. Proposed laws must not tamper with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS), a foundation of Internet security. Our analysis of the DNS filtering provisions in some proposed legislation suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity and yet leave contraband goods and services accessible online. We must avoid legislation that drives users to dangerous, unreliable DNS servers and puts next-generation security policies, such as the deployment of DNSSEC, at risk.
Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders. That is why the Administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year that provides prosecutors and rights holders new legal tools to combat online piracy originating beyond U.S. borders while staying true to the principles outlined above in this response. We should never let criminals hide behind a hollow embrace of legitimate American values.
This is not just a matter for legislation. We expect and encourage all private parties, including both content creators and Internet platform providers working together, to adopt voluntary measures and best practices to reduce online piracy.
So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration. The organizer of this petition and a random sample of the signers will be invited to a conference call to discuss this issue further with Administration officials and soon after that, we will host an online event to get more input and answer your questions. Details on that will follow in the coming days.
Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue websites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge.
Moving forward, we will continue to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis on legislation that provides new tools needed in the global fight against piracy and counterfeiting, while vigorously defending an open Internet based on the values of free expression, privacy, security and innovation. Again, thank you for taking the time to participate in this important process. We hope you’ll continue to be part of it.
Victoria Espinel is Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator at Office of Management and Budget
Aneesh Chopra is the U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to the President and Associate Director for Technology at the Office of Science and Technology Policy
Howard Schmidt is Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator for National Security Staff
