Republican and Retired General Colin Powell endorses President Obama

Republican and Retired General Colin Powell endorses President Obama

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama for reelection, arguing the president has improved the poor economy he inherited and sharply criticizing Mitt Romney’s foreign policy’s positions a “moving target.”

“I voted for him in 2008, and I plan to stick with him in 2012,” Powell said of Obama on CBS’s “This Morning.” “I’ll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month.”

One of the most coveted endorsements remaining in the 2012 presidential race, Powell said Obama walked into a horrendous economic situation and has begun to turn it around.

“I think, generally, we’ve come out of the dive and we’re starting to gain altitude,” said Powell, who served as George W. Bush’s secretary of state. “It doesn’t mean all our problems are solved.”

While Powell, a Republican, said that he had the “utmost respect” for Romney, he charged that the former Massachusetts governor hasn’t outlined how he would pay for increased defense spending or for his proposed across-the-board tax cut.

Powell had even harsher words for Romney’s foreign policy, questioning his changing stances on withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The governor who was speaking on Monday night at the debate was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier,” Powell said.

“I’m not quite sure which Governor Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy,” he added. “I don’t sense he’s thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have. He gets advice from his campaign staff that he then has to modify as he goes along.”

While in the Bush administration, Powell regularly clashed with neoconservatives, some of whom are now advising Romney. Powell said he has “trouble with” some of Romney’s “very strong neoconservative views.”

While Powell has endorsed the Democratic presidential candidate in back-to-back elections, he said he remains a Republican.

“I think I’m a Republican of more moderate mold and that’s something of a dying breed, I’m sorry to say,” Powell said.

Powell's endorsement is great, but his self image as a moderate Republican is somewhat misleading. Powell is pretty fair Right, it is just that the conservative movement moves further and further to the radical smiley-faced fascist Right every year. They just get wackier and crazier and Republican voters don't seem to punish them for moving so far from the mainstream that Republican candidates see no reason to reign in the craziness. Top 6 Lies Romney Has Told Women in an Election Season Full of Whoppers

Even the conservative magazine The Economist thinks Romney's budget is a laughable farce, The Economist Pounds Romney on the Economy

In The Elizabeth Warren Debate With Scott Brown, Brown Made It Clear He Would Rather America have a Second Class Education System and Shoddy Bridges Then Raise Taxes on His Billionaire Buddies

In The Elizabeth Warren Debate With Scott Brown, Brown Made It Clear He Would Rather America have a Second Class Education System and Shoddy Bridges Then Raise Taxes on His Billionaire Buddies

Brown literally attacked Elizabeth Warren, his Democratic challenger, from start to finish.

Warren, unruffled and showing the confidence of a woman who has moved ahead of Brown in most recent polls, sometimes rolled her eyes or shook her head in disappointment. She made her points about economic injustice and Wall Street wrongdoing, about holding corporations to account and establishing far tax policies, about relieving the crushing burden of student-loan debt and about making sure that Mitt Romney and a Republican Senate do not fill the next vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court. Brown could attack all he wanted, but the senator who joined fellow Republicans in trying to block President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagen to the high court could not change the reality that Warren was right when she said: “This really may be the race for the control of the Senate and the Supreme Court may hang in the balance."

Warren was smooth and effective, "explaining things" with the same confidence that Bill Clinton displayed in Charlotte. It wasn't always easy; as Brown interrupted at every opportunity -- to accrue Warren of lying about her heritage, of attacking asbestos victims, of starting Occupy Wall Street.

But Warren never sweated it. She knew she had the winning hand.

And she played it. Again and again.

In a very Democratic state that very much does not want Republicans to take control of the U.S. Senate, Warren kept emphasizing that -- for all Brown's talk of bipartisanship and moderation on abortion rights -- "It's not about Senator Brown's vote. It's about the votes of all the Republican senators."

Noting again and again that Brown had told Republican donors across the country that then needed to help him win so that Republicans would take charge of the chamber, Warren kept returning to a basic theme: "This is about control of a Senate."

That was a powerful message, and a correct one.

But the even more powerful message came when Warren declared mid-way through the debate: "This really is about who you want as commander in chief."

In a state that once elected Mitt Romney governor but that will never vote for him again, Warren drew the line of distinction that her opponent feared most -- and that Republican candidates in other states are coming to fear as the Romney campaign stumbles from candidate-created crisis to candidate-created "crisis."

"I support President Obama," she said.

Brown just gulped.

He knows he's got a problem. And that problem is named Mitt Romney.

On the eve of first debate by 2012 election season's most intense contest, a Massachusetts group made a simple request of Scott Brown.

Progress Massachusetts asked the senator to level with the voters about where exactly he stands with regard to Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Does supposedly-moderate Brown think the country would be better served with the most extreme Republican ticket in the party's history assuming executive authority over the United States? And, if that is the case, how exactly will he help them to exercise that authority?

Basic questions. Easily answered.

Except by Scott Brown, whose debate performance Thursday night offered a striking example of how a career politician can talk out of both sides of his mouth without saying anything of consequence.

Brown kept trying to suggest that a handful of reasonably moderate votes made him a paragon of bipartisan virtue who should not be seen as a Republican.

In contrast, Warren, the Wall Street reformer and consumer champion who entered the Senate race with a real determination to change Washington -- even if it means standing up to her own party -- was clear and unequivocal.

"I want (President Obama) to stay on as commander in chief," she declared.

The contrast between Brown and Warren could not have been more stark.

But the real debate was and is between Brown and Brown.

The senator has objected to the Republican platform of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, decrying the document's extreme and inflexible language on social issues "a mistake." The senator has distanced himself from his party's vice presidential nominee, noting that he voted twice to block Senate consideration of Ryan's signature proposal, the "Roadmap for America's Future." And the senator has noisily rejected Romney's dismissal of 47 percent of Americans as a "dependent" class that Republicans should not bother with, saying "That's not the way I view the world."

Yet, Brown still wants to have it both ways. He wants conservative backers of the Romney-Ryan ticket to think he's with them. He wants moderate and liberal independents, and even some Democrats, to see him as a renegade Republican who has not taste for the ticker.

That's political gimmickry, and Progress Massachusetts executive director Michael Fogelberg -- a veteran Massachusetts activist with decades of experience as a tenant organizer and consumer and environmental campaigner -- called him on it.

In a letter delivered to Brown, Fogelberg wrote: "The Republican nominee for President - your endorsed candidate - has said in no uncertain terms that he believes that nearly half of America believes that they are "victims" who do not "care for their lives."  Mr. Romney cannot credibly serve as the Commander in Chief of our nation when he so clearly has such contempt for half of our nation's population."

"As such," Fogelberg continued, "Senator Brown, I urge you to immediately, and in no uncertain terms, rescind your endorsement of Mitt Romney for President.  Failure to do so is tantamount to an endorsement of Mr. Romney's reprehensible and divisive remarks.  Any half-measure, such as a mere Tweet criticizing the comments, would be seen as a cynical political ploy."

But Brown's entire career has been a cynical political ploy. He's got to keep the conservative money flowing. So it is hard to imagine that he will renounce Romney, and he certainly is not going to oppose his Republican caucus when it comes to organizing the Senate

Elizabeth Warren would have won the debate on points.

Scott Brown as just an average guy? Scott Brown as an independent? Scott is hoping what conservative radicals always hope, that no one pays attention to what they actually do. When Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says jump, Brown asks how high. If he doesn't brown doesn't get access to right-wing money from the Koch brothers and Karl Roves club of billionaires. Elizabeth Warren scares the heck out of conservatives who are used to bought and paid for special interests. Warren will look out for average Americans, and that is something Republicans like Brown and his clone Mitt Romney just cannot stand.

How Romney Packed The Univision Forum

Romney's "Charity" to the Church is Just More Corporate Greed and Tax Evasion

Understanding the Federal Tax Debate

You know Mitt Romney is out of touch when he criticizes President Obama's call to let the Bush tax cuts expire for only the top two percent of earners as a "massive tax increase" for "on families, job creators, and small businesses," while proposing an average $264,000 annual windfall for the top 0.1%.

An Honest Comparison of Obama Recovery to Reagan's Should Include Public Sector Jobs

An Honest Comparison of Obama Recovery to Reagan's Should Include Public Sector Jobs

Fox News distorted economic history to criticize President Obama's record on jobs creation, using what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman has called "a stupid comparison" to President Reagan. But Reagan was aided by an increase in government spending and public sector employment, as well as drastic cuts to interest rates.

The Labor Department* released its monthly jobs report on Friday showing that the U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, compared with 64,000 the previous month. According to the report, unemployment increased by .1 percentage point to 8.3.

In response to those numbers, Fox Business analyst Stuart Varney compared the current recovery with that of Reagan, saying that "it is a very negative comparison for President Obama."However, Krugman has noted that the two recoveries are not comparable, explaining:

If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs.

    And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent -- significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage.

    One implication of this comparison is that conservatives who love to compare Reagan's record with Mr. Obama's should think twice. Aside from the fact that recoveries from financial crises are almost always slower than ordinary recoveries, in reality Reagan was much more Keynesian than Mr. Obama, faced with an obstructionist G.O.P., has ever managed to be.

In the words of the Economic Policy Institute, "the current recovery is the only one [of the last four recessions] that has seen public-sector losses over its first 31 months." EPI continued:

    If public-sector employment had grown since June 2009 by the average amount it grew in the three previous recoveries (2.8 percent) instead of shrinking by 2.5 percent, there would be 1.2 million more public-sector jobs in the U.S. economy today. In addition, these extra public-sector jobs would have helped preserve about 500,000 private-sector jobs.

 

Chief economist at Moody's Analytics Mark Zandi found that job losses at the state and local government levels have "the most serious weight on the job market." And when the public sector cuts jobs, it significantly affects private sector employment, as economist Joel Naroff noted:

    Behind those government job losses are budget cuts, particularly from states and local governments, many of which have lost revenues as lower incomes and lower property values lead to lower tax income. Those budget cuts mean fewer government contracts, which also leads to pain in the private sector. The winding down of the stimulus package also contributed to these losses, as federal assistance to state governments for things like extra Medicaid funding has disappeared, leaving many states with substantial budget gaps.

    Altogether, the strain on the national economy is considerable. "There's no such thing as a free budget cut." says Naroff. "If the public sector trims [20,000 to 25,000] jobs a month, then the private sector has to create those jobs before the economy can add one job. That's the hole that the public sector puts the economy in at this particular point," he says.

The Obama administration's jobs bill would have given about $35 billion to state and local governments to prevent many of these public sector job losses, but because of a Republican filibuster, the bill has languished. Since then, the public sector has lost 124,000 jobs.

The Reagan recovery is also owed to a large increase in government spending and the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates.

The Congressional Budget Office explained that because the 1980s recession was caused "by monetary restriction aimed at bringing inflation under control," "[l]ower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin." Today's Federal Reserve does not have this same ability, because the interest rates are already nearly 0.

What's more, President Reagan greatly increased government spending to aid the economic recovery. In contrast, government spending under President Obama is falling at a rate of 1.4 percent, the first decline in real spending since the 1970s, as The Wall Street Journal noted:

It is a little strange or just typical of radical anti-American Republicans to pretend the Bush era doesn't matter, never happened or they just can't see because of the tendency of conservative wackos to never take responsibility for anything.

Mitt Romney's tragic/comedy at the Republican Convention seems to prove that the conservative movement is one of the most morally corrupt in American history. Romney's ability to lie, lie deeply and often is a clue to the gutter to which conservatism has fallen and pans to stay: Mitt Romney's Speech at RNC - all lies all the time. Conservative think lying is a moral virtue, where normal Americans do not.

Mitt Romney Fails History and The Integrity Test. Mitt thinks wearing a suit makes him appear less than like the sleazeball liar he is.

Republicans lack the moral depth to tell the difference between lies and falsehoods.

Republican behavior is so perverse, so disconnected from reality, is it possible they are all clones grown from the spores of bacteria,  The Romney campaign’s surreal arguments about the economy

Only a Republican drunk of the mind altering kool-aid of conservatism could get up in front of America, look straight in  the camera and tell the deeply disturbing immoral lies that Paul Ryan (R-WI) The Most Dishonest Convention Speech

Republicans are morally lost, bereft of both rational thought and ethical constraints of any kind. No wonder they're mad at normal patriotic Americans, with egos instead of a conscience, Republicans are enraged that anyone should challenge their carefully constructed fantasy and fake patriotism.

Freaky Republicans Line Up to See D'Souza Propaganda Film About Obama. Because As We ALL Know Everything You See In Movies Must be True

Freaky Republicans Line Up to See  D'Souza Propaganda Film About Obama. Because As We ALL Know Everything You See In Movies Must be True

The marketing materials for the upcoming film 2016: Obama's America claim that it "takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world's most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years." If the movie is anything like its source material, we can expect it will be a mostly fraudulent journey.

The movie is based on Dinesh D'Souza's book The Roots Of Obama's Rage, which received high praise from people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, neither of whom have shown any qualms about promoting outright lies, distortions, and outlandish claims in the past.

The New York Times reports that the film is partially financed by billionaire investor Joe Ricketts, who previously considered financing a multimillion dollar political ad campaign linking the racially charged rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to President Obama.

The central thesis of the book is that Obama has some sort of anti-colonial world view, handed down to him by his ancestors, that acts as the motivation behind his actions and policies as president. It is just another form of birtherism, albeit a more highbrow variety of the ongoing conservative conspiracy theory. Appearing on Beck's Fox show, D'Souza explained:

    Obama is not anti-American in that he wishes ill on America. He wants what's best for America. He thinks it's really bad for us to be a colonial power. And therefore, in his view, he is doing right for America by pulling us out, by knocking us off our pedestal, by in a sense taking us from being the world's arrogant superpower. He wants us to share the wealth. He thinks he's gonna get a better America. The problem is, he's stuck in this theory, he's frozen in this time machine. In a sense, he's a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s. It's an incredible idea.

D'Souza boosts this ludicrous premise (Obama ran for the presidency because he hates colonialism ... just like America's founders!) using several claims that are simply not rooted in reality. A few examples:

    D'Souza claims that TARP and the federal bailout were programs that "Obama launched." Both programs began under the Bush administration.
    D'Souza claims Obama went by the name Barack to adopt his father's "African identity," but Obama has explicitly said his name change "was not some assertion of my African roots."
    D'Souza insists that references in Obama speeches to a "nuclear-free world" are evidence of "anti-colonialism," but Ronald Reagan made multiple references to the same concept.
    D'Souza claimed that Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber because he sometimes "supports the release of terrorists who claim to be fighting wars of liberation against American aggression." But the Obama administration formally opposed the release in an official letter from the State Department.
    D'Souza claimed that Obama referred to BP as "British Petroleum" in a May 2010 speech. He never did.

And D'Souza just goes on and on, inventing incidents that never happened, making historical claims that don't match up to the facts, shoehorning these made-up stories into a false narrative of racial resentment.

It doesn't appear that D'Souza has corrected or amended his flawed premise. 2016: Obama's America is just repeating the same falsehoods with moving pictures.

The makers of the movie must have had editing tips from Mitt Romney. Yes it is true America, you can take bits and pieces of video and edit them to make the person you hate to begin with, look like a bad person.