Mitt Romney and Family Are Not Capitalists, They're Looters and Plutocrats

 Mitt Romney and Family Are Not Capitalists, They're Looters and Plutocrats

Marc Leder, a wealthy investor, played host to Mitt Romney last May at a private fundraiser at his $4 million home in Boca Raton. Little did Leder know at the time, however, that someone would videotape the event and later leak it to the world, revealing the GOP standard-bearer in the act of caustically dismissing 47 percent of the country as too “dependent upon government” even to consider voting for him this year.

Leder attempted to duck the ensuing storm of media attention, telling Fortune that he had simply “hosted a fundraiser for an old friend.” But Leder’s ties to the candidate run deeper than campaign contributions or an old friendship. As an investor, he is part of a network of links to the Romney family business empire that will acquire enormous relevance if the GOP nominee manages to ascend to the White House.

In 2008, soon after Romney ended his first bid for the presidency, his eldest son Tagg and his chief fundraiser, Spencer Zwick, formed Solamere Capital, a private equity firm named after the exclusive community in Utah where Romney owned a vacation ski lodge.

What Tagg lacked in experience in the world of high finance, he made up for with a vast network of political connections forged through his father, who seeded the firm with $10 million and was the featured speaker at its first investor conference in January of 2010. Romney also reportedly gave strategic advice to the company, which secured prominent campaign donors as some of its first investors.

Unlike most private equity firms dedicated to analyzing and buying companies, Solamere specializes in something else: billing itself as a “fund of funds” with “unparalleled networks,” it provides investors with “unique access” to an elite set of other private equity firms and hedge funds. Sun Capital Partners, the fund founded by Leder, is one of at least thirteen Romney-linked firms in Solamere’s network, according to a prospectus circulated among potential investors and uncovered by The Boston Globe last year. Solamere also has an investment relationship with Bain Capital, the pioneering fund founded by Mitt Romney.

Solamere, a firm predicated on its founders’ relationship with Romney, presents a channel for powerful investors to influence the White House if he wins. Private equity executives looking to lobby a Romney administration may very well have a leg up if they are already doing business with the firm that the president created for his son.

Requests for comment from a Solamere representative for this article were not answered.

The looming conflicts range from general matters that affect all private equity firms—such as tax changes or the new rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill—to more specific concerns relating to businesses owned or controlled by Solamere’s partner firms. Many of these businesses, in fact, depend on government contracts; indeed, some have been accused of fleecing taxpayers (which is ironic given that many private equity titans claim to support Romney for his unabashed belief in small government and free enterprise). A Romney administration could directly affect the profitability of these companies—and, by extension, potentially the success of Tagg’s venture.

“It’s absolutely a conflict of interest,” says Adam Smith, the communications director for the group Public Campaign, which works on issues concerning money in politics. “Romney can’t un-know that his son’s investment company could benefit financially from his policies. And the other investors—many of whom are likely Romney campaign donors—will have extra access and influence in a Romney administration.”

* * *

Take Leder, Romney’s Boca Raton host, whose Sun Capital firm bought a stake in the Scooter Store last year. The company, known for its ubiquitous television ads promising seemingly free motorized wheelchairs for Medicare beneficiaries, has struggled as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that governs the programs, implements rules to curb rampant billing fraud. As a CMS report noted last year, 80 percent of the claims for scooters and power wheelchairs did not meet Medicare requirements, meaning that $492 million a year is being improperly spent.

In 2007, the Scooter Store gave up $13 million in Medicare payments and paid $4 million to settle with the Justice Department over allegations that it had overbilled for its electric wheelchairs. The company, which has been bleeding money over the years as regulators moved to curb waste, still faces challenges that could make or break its business model—challenges that could be mitigated by pressure from the executive branch.

A Romney administration, for example, would have a role in the fate of a recently launched pilot program ensuring that patients see a doctor face to face to determine if a Medicare scooter is medically necessary—a program that has reportedly already reduced billings to the Scooter Store. Another challenge for the company is Section 3136 of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act. If Romney wins and repeals significant portions of the ACA, would he retain this provision, which compels Medicare to have a competitive bidding process for motorized wheelchairs?

Leder, who has donated nearly $300,000 to Romney and other Republicans in this campaign and another $225,000 to a pro-Romney Super PAC, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Disclosures, however, suggest that pressuring the government is the only way his investment in the Scooter Store can turn a profit.

Since Leder’s firm invested in the Scooter Store, the company has spent nearly $900,000 on lobbyists to push back on these two latest challenges to its motorized-scooter empire. Lobbyists not only try to influence legislation; they are also paid to gather information. Tips about government regulatory decisions can be as good as gold to investors who can act before the information is public knowledge. But what if the company had the ultimate lobbyists: the president’s oldest son, brother and personal fundraiser?

The Birth of Solamere

Shortly after his father conceded the Republican nomination to John McCain in 2008, Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick went to dinner at a San Diego resort with John R. Miller, the CEO of National Beef Packing Company. The pair had a proposition for Miller: that he should invest in their new business venture.

Miller, who has served as a top fundraiser in both of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaigns, signed on and even became an operating partner at Solamere. The scene, recounted earlier this year by The New York Times, is one of the precious few details made public about Solamere’s investment portfolio and client list, both of which are kept secret.

What is known has been drawn largely from a trail of documents filed by the investment group. Records indicate the firm was incorporated at the same Boston office where Romney’s campaign headquarters had been located, and later shared an office address with Romney’s PAC.

Zwick first worked for Romney during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. A student at Brigham Young University at the time, he has been at Romney’s side ever since, serving on his campaigns, working as an aide and leading his fundraising efforts since 2007. He has been referred to as Romney’s “sixth son.” And by all accounts, he’s one of the most trusted advisers in Romney’s circle. “When you’re talking to him, you know he’s got the ear of the candidate,” one Romney donor remarked to the press.

Two weeks after Romney’s concession speech in February 2008, Solamere Capital registered with the State of Massachusetts. Zwick and Tagg joined with Eric Scheuermann, a former Jupiter Partners executive, as the three managing partners of the firm.

Scheuermann was the only one with prior experience in private equity; Zwick had none, and Tagg’s previous experience ranged from working at the Monitor Group, an international consulting firm, to sports marketing jobs with Reebok and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

However, success for the firm seemed preordained. A press release the following year hinted at the type of assistance Solamere was enjoying from the Romney network. It announced that Lee Scott, the former Walmart CEO, was joining the firm as an operating partner. Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s longtime press aide, was listed as the contact name on the release. The former Walmart chief’s entry came after G. Scott Romney, Mitt’s brother, signed up as an adviser with the firm. So did Matt Blunt, the former Republican governor of Missouri.

Solamere surpassed its $200 million fundraising goal with help from an elite set of “high net worth” individuals, many of whom are close Romney allies. Meg Whitman, the former eBay executive, current Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican gubernatorial nominee in California two years ago, invested with Solamere (and her son scored a job at the firm). Two Romney donors, L. Scott Frantz, an investor and Connecticut state senator, and Mark Chapin Johnson, the CEO of a medical supply company, were also among the sixty-four investors to entrust Solamere with their money.

As a managing partner of Solamere, Tagg stands to make millions of dollars. The three managing partners will receive $16.8 million in management fees over the first six years, as well as “performance-based incentive” pay, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Little is known about the exact investment decisions at the firm. A tax return filed by Mitt and Ann Romney, made public in September, showed that Solamere has used an array of Cayman Islands entities to reduce its investors’ tax liability on its income. Rebecca Wilkins, a tax expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, says that Solamere likely uses “blocker corporations” to help its tax-exempt investors avoid paying the unrelated business income tax.

It seems that Tagg has taken after his father, whose former firm Bain Capital also uses these offshore structures. Most of the offshore entities do not have to file a tax return in the US or anywhere else in the world, making them an ideal shelter for Solamere’s investors, says Wilkins. “To me, the most egregious part of this is that they’re facilitating tax evasion.”

A complaint filed in August with the US Office of Government Ethics argues that Mitt Romney’s investment portfolio violates the Ethics in Government Act because so much of his money rests in opaque funds, like private equity firms and limited partnerships. The law states that presidential officeholders must disclose their investments and their investments’ underlying assets worth more than $1,000. The law, however, carries an exemption for qualified blind trusts.

In June, the Romney campaign announced that if he’s elected, the candidate would move his assets into a federally qualified blind trust, and would also likely sell off any assets that “are not fully compliant with federal disclosure and other rules applicable to the office of the presidency.” But if Romney wins, there’s almost no chance that the underlying assets of his son’s firm, Solamere, will be revealed. Solamere could have assets involved in healthcare, energy, telecommunications or any number of other industries, but the public will be left in the dark.

According to Republicans they're all risk takers that build stuff. Pull back the curtain and they're just mostly lazy pigs feeding at the trough.

How The Media Used Biden's Smile To Deflect From Ryan's Dishonesty

At The Vice Presidential Debate: Ryan Told 24 Myths In 40 Minutes. Ryan arrived thinking that it was not a debate, but a race to see how many falsehoods and bizarro conservative talking points he could spew. Ryan should not be vice president or a congressman or allowed anywhere near government. He is barely qualified to walk a dog much less govern this great country.

Memo to Joe Biden and All Concerned Americans About Debate With Radical Zealot Paul Ryan

Memo to Joe Biden and All Concerned Americans About Debate With Radical Zealot Paul Ryan

Beware: Paul Ryan will appear affable. He’s less polished and aggressive than Romney, even soft-spoken. And he acts as if he’s saying reasonable things.

But under the surface he’s a rightwing zealot. And nothing he says or believes is reasonable – neither logical nor reflecting the values of the great majority of Americans.

Your job is to smoke Ryan out, exposing his fanaticism. The best way to do this is to force him to take responsibility for the regressive budget he created as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Ryan won’t be able to pull a Romney — pretending he’s a moderate — because the Ryan budget is out there, with specific numbers.

It’s an astounding document that Romney fully supports. And it fills in the details Romney has left out of his proposals. Mitt Romney is a robot who will say and do whatever he’s programmed to do. Ryan is the robot’s brain. The robot has no heart. It’s your job to enable America to see this.

I suggest you hold up a copy of the Ryan budget in front of the cameras. You might even read selected passages.

Emphasize these points: Ryan’s budget turns Medicare into vouchers. It includes the same $716 billion of savings Romney last week accused the President of cutting out of Medicare – but instead of getting it from providers he gets it from the elderly.

It turns Medicaid over to cash-starved states, with even less federal contribution. This will hurt the poor as well as middle-class elderly in nursing homes.

Over 60 percent of its savings come out of programs for lower-income Americans – like Pell grants and food stamps.

Yet it gives huge tax cuts to the top 1 percent – some $4.7 trillion over the next decade. (This is the same top 1 percent, you might add, who have reaped 93 percent of the gains from the recovery, whose stock portfolios have regained everything they lost and more, and who are now taking home a larger share of total income than at any time in the last eighty years and paying the lowest taxes than at any time since before World War II.)

As a result it doesn’t reduce the federal debt at all. In fact, it worsens it.

On top of all this, Ryan is on record – as is Romney – for wanting to repeal both ObamaCare (taking coverage away from 30 million Americans) and the Dodd-Frank law (thereby giving cover to Wall Street).

Your challenge will be get this across firmly and clearly, with an appropriate degree of indignation – on a medium that rewards style over substance, glibness over detail, and optimistic happy talk over grim reality.

My suggestion: Be cheerfully aggressive. Take Ryan on directly and sharply but do so with a smile. Force him to take responsibility for the regressiveness of his budget and the radicalism of his ideology.

Prepare your closing carefully (unlike the President seemed to have done last week), and tell America the unvarnished truth: Romney and Ryan plan to do a reverse Robin Hood at a time in our nation’s history when the rich have never had it so good while the rest haven’t been as economically insecure since the Great Depression.

Their agenda is all the more remarkable in that we have a growing budget deficit to deal with, along soaring healthcare costs and aging boomers without enough to retire on because their net worth went down the drain with their homes.

The fundamental question is whether we’re still all in it together – whether as American citizens we continue to have obligations to one another to assure equal opportunity and help for those who need it – or we’re on our own, without a common bond or a common good. Romney and Ryan represent the latter view, a view utterly at odds with what we have accomplished as a nation.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License


Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.

If conservative plans for the economy, education, foreign policy, the environment, climate change ( or lack there of) are so wonderful how come conservatives cloak those radical anti-American plans in clouds of double-talk and code words. They're afraid that Americans will see the truth about how radical and utterly devoid of American values those plans are and not vote for them. Romney and Ryan are stealth candidates, trying to portray their deeply anti-progress positions as moderate. Biden and America should not let these wackos get away with such atrocious dishonesty and treacherous agenda.

Coal Miner’s Donor - A Mitt Romney benefactor and his surprisingly generous employees.

IT IS BOTH a pundit’s truism and a mathematical reality that Mitt Romney’s path to the White House runs through Ohio. And that path, in turn, runs through a firm called Murray Energy.

Over the years, CEO Robert Murray has brought in GOP pols from as far away as Alaska, California, and Massachusetts for fund-raisers. In 2010, the year John Boehner became House speaker, the firm’s 3,000 employees and their families were his second-biggest source of funds. (AT&T was in first place, but it has nearly 200,000 employees.) This year, Murray is one of the most important GOP players in one of the most important battleground states in the country. In May, he hosted a $1.7 million fund-raiser for Romney. Employees have given the nominee more than $120,000. In August, Romney used Murray’s Century Mine in the town of Beallsville for a speech attacking Barack Obama as anti-coal. This fall, scenes from that event—several dozen coal-smudged Murray miners standing behind the candidate in a tableau framed by a giant American flag and a COAL COUNTRY STANDS WITH MITT placard—have shown up in a Romney ad.

The ads aired even after Ohio papers reported what I was told by several miners at the event, a bit of news that an internal memo confirms: The crowd was not there of its own accord. Murray had suspended Century’s operations and made clear to workers that they were expected to attend, without pay. “I tell ya, you’ve got a great boss,” Romney said in acknowledging Robert Murray from the stage. “He runs a great operation here.”

The accounts of two sources who have worked in managerial positions at the firm, and a review of letters and memos to Murray employees, suggest that coercion may also explain Murray staffers’ financial support for Romney. Murray, it turns out, has for years pressured salaried employees to give to the Murray Energy political action committee (PAC) and to Republican candidates chosen by the company. Internal documents show that company officials track who is and is not giving. The sources say that those who do not give are at risk of being demoted or missing out on bonuses, claims Murray denies.

Republicans claim that anyone who belongs to a union is a thug. Unions have a lot of catching up to do to be as big a thugs as businesses run like Antebellum plantations such as Murray Energy.

The Laughable Myth That Taxes and Regulations Are Hurting Economic Recovery: Bank Profits Rebound To 2006 Levels, But Bankers Still Complain About Regulations

The Laughable Myth That Taxes and Regulations Are Hurting Economic Recovery: Bank Profits Rebound To 2006 Levels, But Bankers Still Complain About Regulations

In the last four quarters, the six largest Wall Street banks have made $63 billion, the most they’ve made since 2006. Despite having pushed the nation to the brink of economic collapse, and after receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, the banks are back to where they were when the housing bubble inflating.

However, according to Bloomberg News, a return to sky-high profits isn’t enough for the banking industry, which reacted to the numbers by whining about regulation and “a backlash against bankers“:

    Those billions of dollars in profits aren’t enough, according to interviews with more than a dozen bank executives and analysts. The lowest leverage in a decade, return on equity at a third of 2006 levels, higher capital requirements, shares trading below book value, declining bonuses, job cuts, the European sovereign-debt crisis and a backlash against bankers have damped the joys of profit, they said.

These six banks — Citigroup, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley — “will have combined profits of $9.9 billion in the third quarter, $17.4 billion in the last three months of the year and $75.8 billion in 2013? according to estimates. “When the banks say, ‘We’re doing very well but not getting a return on our capital,’ it’s completely incomprehensible, and it’s angering to the average American,” said Michael Greenberger, a former regulator who now teaches at the University of Maryland’s law school.

The banks’ return to massive profitability also refutes the argument that the Dodd-Frank financial reform law will cripple the ability of financial services companies to make money. According to a recent study, the nation’s banks went right back to making risky loans after receiving their taxpayer-funded bailout.

Higher taxes have actually helped with past economic recoveries.

Excellent satire on the Romney mentality: A manifesto for the entitled

Paul Ryan Fears the 30 Percent

RERUN: Fox, Carlson, Drudge Attacked Obama's Hampton Speech Five Years Ago. Carlson, Fox, Drudge and Hannity have hyped so much pure bullsh*t that has hurt America, one wonders how they can possibly think of themselves as patriots. Yet they never apologize or correct themselves. It is always onward to the next faux scandal, the next set of immoral lies, the next wave of racist tinged talking points.

Why Is CNN Pushing Factually Wrong Picture of Paul Ryan Medicare Plan

Why Is CNN Pushing Factually Wrong Picture of Paul Ryan Medicare Plan

CNN's Sanjay Gupta claimed that the proposed changes to Medicare that Congressman Paul Ryan has offered would allow seniors to choose between "a voucher" system and "traditional Medicare," while keeping the system affordable. In fact, experts say the Ryan plan would threaten Medicare's long-term viability and potentially would increase seniors' medical costs by thousands of dollars.

CNN's Gupta: Ryan Plan Will Give Future Seniors Option To Retain "Traditional Medicare"

Sanjay Gupta Claimed Ryan's Proposal Will Give Future Seniors A Choice Between Voucher System And Traditional Medicare. On the September 28 edition of CNN's Early Start, CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta reported on the differences between the Ryan Medicare plan and the Affordable Care Act and claimed that the Ryan plan would offer those under 55 "the option of getting a voucher to purchase private insurance, or they could stick with traditional Medicare":

    GUPTA: Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan proposed to cap malpractice insurance, cut Medicaid by $810 billion dollars over the next 10 years, give states more control over their Medicaid funds, overhaul Medicare. The overhaul? People now younger than 55, when they reach retirement, would have the option of getting a voucher to purchase private insurance. Or, they could stick with traditional Medicare. [CNN, Early Start, 9/28/12]

But Experts Say Ryan's Plan Threatens Medicare's Long-Term Viability

CBPP: Ryan's Promise To Ensure "Traditional Medicare Remains An Option" Cannot Be Kept. Paul Van de Water, an economist and senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in March that Congressman Paul Ryan's plans for Medicare in his latest budget could lead to the unraveling of traditional Medicare:

    Chairman Ryan claims that his proposal "ensur[es] that traditional Medicare remains an option." Unfortunately, that's not the case. Under premium support, traditional Medicare would tend to attract a less healthy pool of enrollees, while private plans would attract healthier enrollees (as occurs today with Medicare and private Medicare Advantage plans). Although the proposal calls for "risk adjusting" payments to health plans -- that is, adjusting them to reflect the average health status of their enrollees -- the risk adjustment process is highly imperfect and captures only part of the differences in costs across plans that stem from differences in the health of enrollees.

    Inadequate risk adjustment would mean that traditional Medicare would be only partially compensated for its higher-cost enrollees, which would force Medicare to raise beneficiary premiums to make up the difference. The higher premiums would lead more of Medicare's healthier enrollees to abandon it for private plans, very possibly setting off a spiral of rising premium costs and falling enrollment for traditional Medicare. Over time, traditional Medicare would become less financially viable and could unravel -- not because it was less efficient than the private plans, but because it was competing on an unlevel playing field in which private plans captured the healthier beneficiaries and incurred lower costs as a result. Ryan also would allow private plans to tailor their benefit packages to attract healthier beneficiaries and deter sicker ones, which only makes this outcome more likely. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/28/12]

CBPP: Voucher Systems That Include Medicare Option Could "Threaten Traditional Medicare's Long-Term Viability." In a September 2011 report titled, "Converting Medicare to Premium Support Would Likely Lead to Two-Tier Health Care System," CBPP explained that under a "premium support" system such as the one in the Ryan plan that was passed by the House in April 2011, "inadequate risk adjustment" could lead to healthier seniors abandoning traditional Medicare for private plans. The report explained that could leave only the less healthy in the traditional Medicare program, which could "drive up its costs and threaten traditional Medicare's long-term viability." [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 9/26/11]

Brookings Institute: Financing For Ryan Plan Would "Throw Into Doubt The Very Survival Of The Program." Brookings Institute senior fellow Henry Aaron evaluated the Ryan Medicare plan and concluded that "the financing for traditional Medicare would become progressively less adequate, throwing into doubt the very survival of the program":

Liberal media. The only people who think the media is liberal are the same people who dance with ghosts and think the Loch Ness monster talks to them in the shower - oh, and Republicans.

NBC’s David Gregory is a hack. he is of that right-of-center no real news school of journalism. Democrats says world id round, Republicans disagree. Though he has moved on to just making crap up like his conservative brethren - NBC’s David Gregory Misquotes Obama, Falsely Claims President Said ‘Al Qaeda Has Been Defeated’

Mitt Romney: Free Speech Is for Billionaires, Not School-Teachers

Shaking With Paranoia, Conservatives Hire Expert Sleazy Character Assassin To Take Out Obama

Shaking With Paranoia, Conservatives Hire Sleazy Expert Character Assassin To Take Out Obama

On Tuesday, the New York Times ran a story about how synchronized the anti-Obama messages in unrelated television commercials seem to be, despite being aired by a variety of ostensibly independent, conservative political groups involved in the 2012 Presidential campaign. “To see many of the anti-Obama ads that have run on television recently, it would be easy to conclude that they were made in the same studios, by the same producers working for the same campaign,” Jeremy W. Peters wrote.

....Recent F.E.C. filings show that McCarthy’s tiny Washington, D.C.,-based firm, McCarthy Hennings Media Inc., has been simultaneously involved in producing anti-Obama ads for Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a nonprofit “social welfare” group masterminded by the Republican political operative Karl Rove; the separate nonprofit “social welfare” group Americans for Prosperity, co-founded and partly funded by the conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch; and Restore Our Future, the main pro-Romney Super PAC. The filings show that during August and the beginning of September, McCarthy’s firm is identified as the “media production” company for $21.8 million worth of ad buys by Americans for Prosperity, a $21.7 million worth of ad buys for Restore Our Future, and $7. 1 million worth of ad buys for Crossroads GPS. Cumulatively, as the Times reported, these outside ads have filled huge gaps for Romney’s campaign, not just supplementing his campaign’s ad buys but at times outspending them.

Romney and Ryan cannot win on health care policy, tax policy, foreign policy, education policy, care for veterans policy, environmental policy, science policy, internet freedom policy or much of any other policy that will make government effective for the majority of Americans. So what do they do, they flood the airwaves with batsh*t insane propaganda. Yes it is legal to do that. To win an election like that is not an American value. It is not a Christian value. It is the values of radical who believe in The Big Lie.

A Republican columnists at Politico named Roger Simon did what he thought was some clever satire about Romney being behind in the polls and Paul Ryan's likely resentment. Saying that Ryan's political future was tarnished by the "stench" of Romney. because it is so badly written, some people of course believed that Ryan did call Romney The Stench. While right-wing bloggers try to blame the "liberal" media, they have only their own camp to blame.  This is Simon's orginal post, Paul Ryan vs. The Stench. Republican pundits should stay away from satire, they don't do it well. Add that to the very long list of things for which they are incompetent.

Romney was wrong about there being 47%. It is more like 96% of Decent Americans who pay into and receive benefits from government, including millionaires.

Eric Bolling's Obama Conspiracy Theory Trifecta. America, please forgive Mr. Bolling, he is part of the Fox News attempt to give jobs to people are are too weird to get honest work.

Why Do Republicans Hate American Farmers and Love High Food Prices

Conservative wackos like to portray Obama as a Muslim, but some Muslim protesters see him as a tool for Israel

Why Do Republicans Hate American Farmers and Love High Food Prices

The 2012 Farm Bill is still languishing in the House, with GOP leadership in the chamber intentionally preventing action on the legislation for political reasons. According to the New York Times, “House leaders declined to take up either [the Senate or the House] version of the legislation. They are not eager to force their members to take a vote that would be difficult for some of them, nor would they wish to pass a measure largely with Democrats’ votes right before an election.”

But without a new five-year Farm Bill or at least a temporary extension of current legislation, the Department of Agriculture may be forced to shutter almost all of its operations.

The Farm Bill serves as a mass funding mechanism for the USDA — it provides funding for roughly 90 percent of the Department’s operations, meaning those operations may have to shut down if the Farm Bill isn’t renewed. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Commission, the effect of even a temporary shutdown could be long-lasting:

    USDA would be forced to occupy a multiple-month holding pattern, temporarily stopping many services and programs. Program administration involves a certain amount of planning and preparation, stakeholder input, rulemaking, and outreach. Even if program opportunities aren’t announced until later in the year, the preparation work that leads up to announcements takes time and certainty. Programs can’t simply be “turned off” and then “turned on” again with the expectation that program delivery and administration will not suffer.

The programs that the NSAC believe would be affected include “all the major programs for beginning and minority farmers, farmers markets, organic agriculture, renewable energy, and rural economic development” and new enrollment in the “the Wetland Reserve, Grassland Reserve, and Conservation Reserve Programs.” USDA programs funded by the Farm Bill are critical to addressing the crippling drought that has spread over four-fifths of the United States. The USDA also takes a lead role in shutting down brutal factory farms and administers the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), a cost-effective food assistance program for needy families.

This isn’t to say that the House bill is necessarily worth passing in its current form — the House version contains, among other things, deep cuts to critical food stamp programs. But failure to pass at least a stopgap necessary to keep USDA could have dangerous consequences.

Conservatives either live in gated communities of McMansions are have a gated community mentality. They just cannot connect to the basic needs of working class Americans like farmers. They haven't been able to relate to regular folks since at least before Herbert Hoover.

Anti-American Republican Media Dubiously Accuse Hillary Clinton Of Ignoring Warnings Of Embassy Violence 

Romney’s Jaw-Dropping Incoherence On The Safety of American Embassies

Now, Romney has pounced on a well-meaning – though ultimately unsuccessful – effort by the U.S. embassy staff in Cairo to tamp down anger caused by an incendiary anti-Muslim video that appeared designed to elicit the kind of violent rage that is now sweeping the Middle East.

Seemingly without regard for the delicate circumstances, Romney issued a statement that transformed the embassy’s criticism of the video into an expression of sympathy by the Obama administration for the protesters who attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts in Egypt and, fatally, in Libya. However, to make his point stick, Romney had to reverse the actual chronology of events.

Like his multiple statements about what he would do with health care, Romney later reversed himself and agreed with everything Pres. Obama said. Mitt has always been a flake, and now it seems the pressure of running for office on a platform that is a rehash of the Bush years is getting to him.

What Liberal Media? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin Helps Spread Romney's Sleazy Lies

What Liberal Media? The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin Helps Spread Romney's Sleazy Lies

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is facing a torrent of criticism from Democrats, tax analysts, and even a stray conservative or two over the lack of specifics in his tax proposals. But as per usual, there is one person who's standing by Romney, ready to fabricate any excuse she can in defense of the GOP candidate: Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, who is defending Romney's lack of detail by arguing (falsely) that President Obama doesn't have a tax plan.

Romney finds himself in this situation after both he and running mate Paul Ryan appeared on Sunday morning news shows and repeatedly declined to identify the tax loopholes they'd close to pay for the steep tax cuts their plan would put in place.

Rubin, who recalibrates her opinion on the specificity of Romney's tax plan depending on how it better serves Romney's interest, argues today that Romney's level of detail is less important than Obama's alleged failure to release a tax plan:

    The media have accused Romney of being nonspecific about his tax plan. (At least he has both an individual and corporate one; the president does not.) He explained: "I can tell you that people at the high end, high-income taxpayers, are going to have fewer deductions and exemptions. Those -- those numbers are going to come down. Otherwise, they'd get a tax break. And I want to make sure people understand, despite what the Democrats said at their convention. I am not reducing taxes on high-income taxpayers. I'm bringing down the rate of taxation, but also bringing down deductions and exemptions at the high end so the revenues stay the same, the taxes people pay stay the same. Middle-income people are going to get a break."

    This won't fly with the media (the same people who never ask Obama where his tax plan is or where his entitlement reform plans are), which will continue to press him for details.

For the moment, let's set aside the spectacle of someone with a Washington Post byline criticizing the media for wanting too much detail. The assertion that President Obama has not released a tax plan is flatly untrue.

It's right here, as part of the president's FY 2013 budget proposal. The Tax Policy Center has a whole section of its website devoted to the tax provisions contained therein. You can critique Obama's plan, disagree with it, argue that it has insufficient detail, but you can't say it doesn't exist.

With regard to corporate taxes specifically, the president released a plan in February for overhauling the corporate tax code, which one can read here. It calls for cutting the corporate tax rate and closing specific loopholes and tax expenditures (for instance, taxing carried interest as income and ending "last in, first out" accounting).

This is after all the election cycle where the masks have come off the radical conservative movement - they hate facts, they hate fact checkers - they're running on winks and secret handshakes. Its like a club that speaks in a secret language only they know and understand. "Just trust" them, they'll get around to some details about how they're going to increase spending yet cut tax revenue to pay for it when they are elected. We had that before, it was called the Bush presidency. The one that took a budget surplus, ran up the biggest debt in history, cut taxes for millionaires and crashed the economy. M's Rubin is not just a boot licking liar, she is a dangerous ideologue for the cult of conservatism.

Paul Ryan (R-WI) is a serious wonk who knows his stuff as long as you do not start to use any analytical tools, like arithmetic.

Romney Myth Busters: Making the Wealthy Even Richer With More Tax Cuts Will Create More Jobs

Romney Myth Busters: Making the Wealthy Even Richer With More Tax Cut Will Create More Jobs

With cunning and contempt and catechismal fervor the super-rich have argued that all money should move to the top, where it will be used to stimulate the economy and create jobs. But they ignore the facts that prove them wrong. And it doesn't take much to prove them wrong.

1. First, a look at the success of the super-rich: Money has quickly moved to the top

Based on IRS figures, the richest 1% nearly tripled its share of America's after-tax income from 1980 to 2006. That's an extra trillion dollars a year. Then, in the first year after the 2008 recession, they took 93% of all the new income.

Wealth is even more skewed. The richest 10% own 83% of financial wealth, which they've skillfully arranged to be taxed at just 15%, ostensibly because they pump that money back into job-creating ventures. More on that misconception later.

Conservatives claim that wealth inequality has remained steady for the richest Americans. But data from Edward Wolff shows that the excess wealth was simply redistributed among the rest of the top 5%, who saw their share of America's net worth increase by 18 percent from 1983 to 2007. It was also noted by Sam Pizzigati that much of the top-level wealth was socked away tax-free overseas, a fact largely confirmed by a Tax Justice Network study.

2. Corporations are just as successful: profits have doubled, taxes cut in half

While corporate profits have doubled to $1.9 trillion in less than ten years, the corporate income tax rate, which for thirty years hovered around the 20-25% level, suddenly dropped to 10% after the recession. The biggest firms basically said "We're not paying."

That's a half-trillion dollars a year unpaid by the very companies who have successfully convinced much of America that their tax rates are too high.

The tax they actually pay is very low relative to other countries. U.S. corporations paid a smaller rate of income taxes than all but two of the OECD countries analyzed by the Office of Management and Budget and the Census Bureau. A Treasury report agreed, noting that the Tax/GDP rate for U.S. companies was 35% lower than the OECD average from 2000 to 2005.

Corporations even pay less than low-wage American workers. On their 2011 profits of $1.97 trillion, corporations paid $181 billion in federal income taxes (9%) and $40 billion in state income taxes (2%), for a total income tax burden of 11%. The poorest 20% of American citizens pay 17.4% in federal, state, and local taxes.

3. Some Non-Job-Creation Facts

The Wall Street Journal noted in 2009 that the Bush tax cuts led to the "worst track record for jobs in recorded history." 25 million people remain unemployed or underemployed, with 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates in one of those categories. Among unemployed workers, nearly 43 percent have been without a job for six months or longer.

For the jobs that remain, most are low-paying, with the only real employment growth occurring in retail sales and food preparation. A recent report by the National Employment Law Project confirms that lower-wage occupations (up to about $14 per hour) accounted for 21 percent of recession losses and 58 percent of recovery growth, while mid-wage occupations (between $14 and $21 per hour) accounted for 60 percent of recession losses and only 22 percent of recovery growth.

The minimum wage is shamefully low, about 30% lower than the inflation-adjusted 1968 figure. And the tiny pay can't be blamed on small business. Two-thirds of America's low-wage workers, according to another National Employment Law Project report, work for companies that have at least 100 employees.

All these job woes persist while productivity has continued to grow, with an 80% increase since 1973 as median worker pay has stagnated.

4. So what are the "job creators" doing with all their money?

Over 90% of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), the stock market, and real estate. Business startup costs made up less than 1% of the investments of high net worth individuals in North America in 2011.

Perhaps, instead, they're building businesses on their own? No. Only 3 percent of the CEOs, upper management, and financial professionals were entrepreneurs in 2005, even though they made up about 60 percent of the richest .1% of Americans. A recent study found that less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs came from very rich or very poor backgrounds. They come from the middle class.

That deserves repeating. Entrepreneurs come from the middle class.

Not surprisingly, then, since the middle class has been depleted by the steady accumulation of wealth at the top, the number of entrepreneurs per capita has decreased 53% since 1977, and the number of self-employed Americans has decreased 20% since 1991.

5. Big business is even worse at job creation

First of all, the cash holdings for non-financial U.S. firms increased to $1.24 trillion in 2011, with about 57 percent of it stashed overseas. Commerce Department figures show that U.S. companies cut their work forces by 2.9 million from 2000 to 2009 while increasing overseas employment by 2.4 million.

The top holders of cash, including Apple and Google and Intel and Coca Cola and Chevron, are also spending their money on stock buybacks (which increase stock option prices), dividends to investors, and subsidiary acquisitions. According to Bloomberg, share repurchasing is at one of its highest levels in 25 years.

6. The Big Fraud: Tax us less, and the jobs will come

Despite their unwillingness to invest in jobs, and even in the face of damning evidence against their tax myths, the super-rich fight like wildcats at any suggestion that they support the country that provided their wealth. Way back in 1984, right after the Reagan tax cuts, the U.S. Treasury Department came to the obvious but belated conclusion that tax cuts cause a loss of revenue. A 2006 Treasury Department study found that extending the Bush tax cuts would have no beneficial effect on the U.S. economy. Other sources have confirmed that economic growth was fastest in years with relatively high top marginal tax rates.

Ample evidence exists to show that no relationship exists between the capital gains tax rate and investment. As noted in the Washington Post, "The top tax rate on investment income has bounced up and down over the past 80 years - from as high as 39.9 percent in 1977 to just 15 percent today - yet investment just appears to grow with the cycle, seemingly unaffected." In fact, the low rate may even have a negative effect on growth. A Congressional Research Service report states: "Capital gains tax rate increases appear to increase public saving and may have little or no effect on private saving. Consequently, capital gains tax increases likely have a positive overall impact on national saving and investment."

7. So what becomes of the jobs?

Corporations are hoarding over a trillion dollars. The richest 1% take a trillion dollars a year more than productivity-based earnings since 1980. Over eight trillion untaxed dollars is being hidden overseas.

That's a present value of ten trillion misdirected dollars. Just 1/10 of that would create 25 million jobs, one for every unemployed or underemployed worker in America. Or a $45,000 a year job for every college student in the United States.

But the people who call themselves "job creators" do nothing to make that happen.

Yet the Romney-Ryan plan to create jobs - and Republican governors as well - is to further cut taxes. Never mind that we've had ten years of tax cuts not producing jobs. Demand creates jobs. People with jobs who buy cars, toothpaste, cereal and gadgets create jobs, not billionaires who make most of their money from capital gains. It is no coincidence that as we keep the Bush tax cuts and state level conservative politicians cut local taxes, our infrastructure needs needs an upgrade and education spending is down.

Cenk Uygur Unravels Anti-Obama Smiley faced Fascist Wacko Dinesh D’Souza and Conspiracy 2016: Obama’s America

Author Dinesh D’Souza, whose The Roots Of Obama’s Rage is the basis for the newly-released hackumentary 2016: Obama’s America, is making the rounds to promote the film. On Tuesday night’s The Young Turks, host Cenk Uygur confronted D’Souza with the facts behind the film’s deranged view of President Obama, and asked him why he never complained about the George W. Bush policies that exploded the debt, and that President Obama is still paying for.

Dinesh D’Souza could not even bother to look up the correct deficit left by Republicans and Bush in 2008.

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.

There Were Many Lies In Romney's Convention Speech, This Is The Biggest

There Were Many Lies In Romney's Convention Speech, This Is The Biggest

Who knew that Mitt Romney was such a fan of Barack Obama's 2008 campaign?

"How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?" Romney told thousands of Republican delegates, alternates and hangers-on Thursday night. "Many of you felt that way on Election Day four years ago. Hope and Change had a powerful appeal."

Speaking of the "fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president" Americans felt upon Obama's election, the man who will now seek to prevent the Democratic president's reelection told the 40th Republican National Convention about how much he had hoped Obama would succeed "because I wanted America to succeed."

But it wasn't just that citizens wanted America to succeed. As Romney noted: "Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they could get ahead a little more, put aside a little more for college, do more for their elderly mom who’s living alone now or give a little more to their church or charity… This was the hope and change America voted for.”

In this, Romney was right.

When Americans went to the polls in 2008, the clear majority voted for Barack Obama because they wanted a president who would address the economic missteps and misdeeds that had caused a stock market meltdown on the eve of the election -- handing the new president what even one of his harshest critics, Republican vice president nominee Paul Ryan, admitted in his Wednesday night acceptance speech was "a crisis."

The response to that crisis, Americans hoped, would do more than just bring a measure of stability to the markets. They hoped that it would bring a measure of prosperity to them and to their communities.

Unfortunately, Obama and his party did not have partners in addressing the crisis.

While Romney says he wanted Obama to succeed, Rush Limbaugh said before the new president was inaugurated in January, 2009, "I hope Obama fails." Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said on behalf of the president's legislative partners: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

Paul Ryan saw to it: rallying opposition to a stimulus that was designed to jumpstart the economy, opposing health-care reforms that mirrored those Romney implemented as the governor of Massachusetts, and refusing even the most minimal compromises as the nation's credit-rating was threatened during a absurd fight over whether to raise borrowing limits that Democratic and Republican presidents had raised in the past.

Even in the rare instances where Obama put the needs of the nation -- and the moment -- above politics, other members of "the loyal opposition" merely opposed. One of them even argued against providing the support that was needed to preserve the American auto industry, writing an article that declared: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

Who was that guy?

Oh, right, Mitt Romney.

Much was made of the web of deception that Paul Ryan wove with his acceptance speech on Wednesday night,. But Romney actually tried to one-up his running-mate.

The man who stood before the convention of his party and declared that he wanted Barack Obama to succeed campaigned against Obama's election in 2008 -- attacking the Democratic nominee and his supporters for proposing "timid, liberal empty gestures."

Throughout Obama's first-term, Romney was a steady critic -- not just of auto bailouts but of virtually all of the policies of the new administration. He never demanded, as Wendell Willkie did after the 1940 elections, that Republicans recognize the necessity of working with a Democratic president. Like Ryan, Romney abandoned the traditional "one nation" Republicanism of Dwight Eisenhower and a former Michigan governor named George Romney, which argued that Republicans could and should work with Democrats, especially in tough times.

On a night that was all about telling Mitt Romney's story, with reflections on his humane service with his church, on his not so humane service with Bain Capital and of his moderate Republican service as governor of Massachusetts (well, except for the Romneycare part), Romney and his enthusiasts had plenty to say about Obama's failings. Even in speeches that were ostensibly about Romney's business acumen, there were sharp, at times unrelenting "they just don't get it" attacks on the president.

Then, Romney went for the jugular with lines like: "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family."

Applause.

"To the majority of Americans who now believe that the future will not be better than the past," he told a crowd filled , 'I can guarantee you this: if Barack Obama is re-elected, you will be right.'"

Thunderous applause.

That just does not sound like a guy who wanted Barack Obama to succeed.

It sounds more like a guy who formed part of a partisan opposition that did everything in its power to make Obama "a one-term president."

Three years into the first Obama term, veteran Washington watchers Thomas Mann (who works for a think tank packed with former Republican White House aides) and Norman Ornstein (who works for Dick Cheney's old think tank) wrote an article titled: "Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem."

"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," observed Mann and Ornstein.

"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," they continued. "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."

The Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, of Dwight Eisenhower and George Romney, of Gerald Ford, and, yes, of Ronald Reagan, never moved so far from the mainstream that it would not cooperate and compromise when it came time to do right by America.

But the party that Mitt Romney now leads moved so far that it was, indeed, "nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges."

They did not achieve Limbaugh's dream of forcing an Obama failure. But they made the president's tenure dramatically harder, and the prospect for renewal dramatically more difficult to achieve. And, now, Mitt Romney says: "Today the time has come for us to put the disappointments of the last four years behind us. To put aside the divisiveness and the recriminations. To forget about what might have been and to look ahead to what can be."

Or, it could be a time to consider the successes that might have been if the party that has nominated Mitt Romney for president and Paul Romney for vice president was not "an insurgent outlier in American politics. (that was) ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science."

"You might have asked yourself over these last years whether this is the America we want," Romney said in his acceptance speech.

Yes, Americans might have asked just that.

 Most voters know that President Obama inherited the worse recession since 1929. Ironically or maybe not, Romney inherited a small economic slump when he was governor of Massachusetts. In his RNC speech he holds Obama responsible not not fixing a catastrophe caused by Republicans, yet it was Mitt who complained as governor that he should not be blamed for not fixing the economy left by his predecessor - a Republican by the way. Republicans did everything in their power to make Obama and the USA fail. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) famously confused about the Republican tactics on the debt ceiling negotiations - McConnell Debt Ceiling Strategy: 'I Refuse To Help Obama Reelection' . This is the same anti-American fanatic that voted to raise the debt ceiling seven times under the Bush administration. Mr. Romney, supposedly a shining example of values, has the values of an old Soviet propagandist, Fact check: Mitt Romney's convention speech. Mitt is no more than George Bush with a better haircut. Romney represents all that is wrong with the conservative movement - their agenda is about catering to the compliants of billionaires who want even more money and ethnocetric women haters.

2012 Republican National Convention Is Proving What Patriotic Americans Already Know, Republicans Have The Values of Pond Scum

2012 Republican National Convention Is Proving What Patriotic American Already Know, Republicans Have The Values of Pond Scum

1. The "You didn't build that" deception. By now, Obama's rhetorical trip-up on the campaign trail is the stuff of legend, because in the construction of a series of sentences, Obama left an opening for Romney and his allies to suggest that the president meant something entirely different from what he said. At a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., Obama said that a business owner's success requires government investment in infrastructure such as roads and bridges. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that," he said -- meaning, quite clearly, the roads and bridges. Republicans, however, pulled the quote from its context and ran with it. And Romney is determined to carry that ball to the finish line.

Never mind that even mainstream media have repeatedly refuted the meaning falsely imparted to the president by Romney and company. As of Tuesday night, the Obama quote was altered even further in the "Hands" videos to make it seem that he was shaking his brown finger in the face of lighter-skinned business owners: the audio track takes the words, "Let me tell you" from earlier in the speech, and sets them just ahead of the out-of-context quote to make it sound like this:

    "Let me tell you, if you've got a business, you didn't build that."

Here's the actual quote in its entirety, with the Romney edit in bold:

    "There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

    If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

2. The welfare lie. The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that it would consider providing waivers to states from the implementation of welfare-to-work requirement in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program if the states could demonstrate that they had a more effective means of helping welfare recipients find work. Romney has seized upon this announcement to claim that Obama is "gutting welfare reform" and eliminating the TANF work requirement -- a blatant lie that has been reported as such by many news outlets.

If facts actually mattered to the Republican Party, and truth-telling actually mattered to Romney, that would have put an end to the promulgation of the lie. But when a lie feeds a false but effective narrative about a black president and welfare, Romney and his allies apparently can't bear to give it up.

Several convention speakers took up the theme, most notably Rick Santorum, who said:

    "And this summer [Obama] showed us once again he believes in government handouts and dependency by waiving the work requirement for welfare."

Artur Davis, the former Alabama Democrat turned Virginia Republican, put it this way:

    Bill Clinton took on his base and made welfare a thing you had to work for; this current crowd guts the welfare work requirement in the dead of night.

Davis' part in promoting the lie is especially sweet for the G.O.P. Because he's African American, he provides a certain amount of insulation from charges of racism, despite the obvious racial dog-whistle to those voters who see welfare as a black thing.

3. The "dependency" lie. The Republicans have found a useful corollary to the welfare lie in their invention of a Democratic dependency doctrine, which sells the false idea that Democrats deliberately seek to make people dependent on government benefits as a means of winning votes. It flows from the Republicans' emerging producerist narrative, which was a staple of the racist rants of President Andrew Jackson -- the idea that the world is inhabited by "makers" and "takers," with the "takers" characterized as anybody outside of one's own constituency.

The most juvenile articulation of this steaming pile of prevarication was delivered by radio host and former actress Janine Turner, who followed up a Ben Franklin quote with this:

    Patrick Henry said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Today Obama enables an entitlement society that says, "Give me liberty and gimme, gimme!"

    Why? Because Democrats depend on dependence.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose entire political career is a creation of the Koch brothers' Americans For Prosperity enterprise, chimed in with this description of the outcome of progressives' attempts to recall [7] him from the governor's mansion after he gutted labor protections for public employees and slashed the education budget:

    On June 5th, voters in my swing state were asked to decide if they wanted elected officials who measure success by how many people are dependent on the government, if they wanted leaders who believe success is measured by how many people are not dependent on the government, because they control their own destiny in the private sector. ( there are three more examples at the link)

Republicans are real worked up over someone down on their luck getting $4 a day in food assistance until they get back on their feet. In contrast they think its great that America's largest corporations and billionaires get billions in subsides from the capital created by American workers. It is not just the 2012 RNC convention, the entire conservative movement is based on a foundation of lies, just like every radical authoritarian movement in the last 120 years..

Why do Republicans hate science based facts- Todd Akin (R-MO) Claims Breast milk Cures Homosexuality

Paul Ryan stands on a foundation of lies. If there was a way, a humane way, to make Ryan tell the truth or be rendered mute, he would not be able to talk.