Republicans accuse Obama campaign of “dishonest cover-up”
The RNC is out with a new video accusing President Obama’s re-election team of covering up an attempt to pressure Newark Mayor Cory Booker into walking back his critique of their campaign tactics.
On Sunday, Booker told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “very uncomfortable with” some of the attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, a strategy he said he found “nauseating.” Within hours, Booker released a video on his YouTube page revising his remarks. “Mitt Romney has made his business record a centerpiece of his campaign,” he says in the video. “And therefore it is reasonable — and in fact I encourage it — for the Obama campaign to examine that record and discuss it.”
Today’s RNC video, titled “Dishonest Attacks, Dishonest Cover-up,” shows a clip of Obama campaign Press Secretary Ben LaBolt claiming that Booker was not asked to backtrack on his remarks, followed by a clip of Booker affirming that he had communicated with members of Obama’s campaign team after his “Meet the Press” interview.
Asked on CNN yesterday whether anyone in the Obama campaign “reached out to fix this,” LaBolt said Booker “released that video of his own volition…the campaign did not ask him to do so.”
A few hours later, Booker went on TV and explained that he had indeed spoken to Team Obama — although he didn’t say they explicitly asked him to “expand” on his comments:
“They had good conversations with me, and after having conversations with them — especially after hearing the president’s remarks on this issue — all of those things made me say, ‘I need to go on and clarify.’”
Watch the video, via the RNC:
Super PAC hits Romney on steel mill record
The super PAC supporting Democratic incumbent Barack Obama announced on Tuesday a multimillion dollar battleground television advertisement and accompanying website attacking Mitt Romney for what it sees as a slash and burn style of capitalism practiced by the former private equity executive while at the helm of Bain Capital.
The roughly one-minute ad, launched the day after the Obama campaign hit Mitt Romney’s record at Bain, is the first in a series of the campaign ads that will run on television and online in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to a release from the organization, Priorities USA Action, run by former White House aide Bill Burton.
It features Pat Wells, a former steelworker at GS Steel, the target of a Bain leveraged buyout that Reuters highlighted in a special report in January. The super PAC’s video, and the Obama campaign video from yesterday, argue that Romney practiced a brand of corporate raiding that helped wealthy investors at the expense of workers.
“Whether the companies they came in and worked with made money or not was irrelevant. Bain Capital always made money,” Wells said. “He promised us the same things he’s promising the United States. And he’ll give you the same thing he gave us. Nothing.”
Despite the attack, President Barack Obama attended a fundraiser hosted by Tony James, the chief operating officer at Blackstone Group LP, the world’s largest private equity firm, on Monday evening. James’ boss, Stephen Schwarzman, is a fierce critic of Obama’s economic policies, particularly on taxes, and is a strong supporter of Romney.
Photo credit: Screenshot/Priorities USA Action
After gay marriage shift, high profile Romney backer switches to Obama
An openly gay, big-dollar donor to Mitt Romney’s campaign is asking for his money back after Vice President Joe Biden – followed by President Barack Obama – embraced gay marriage, the New York consultant told Reuters on Monday.
“When I heard Biden say he was comfortable with men marrying men I almost fell off my chair,” said Bill White, 42, a registered independent who has supported politicians across the political spectrum, including both President Bushes and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and who maxed out during the Republican primary for Romney, the former Massachusetts Governor.
“These guys are on the right side of history,” said White, who was married to Joseph Bryan Eure in October 2011, a wedding that was officiated by David Boies, a lawyer who defended gay marriage equality in California, and attended by — disclaimer — Thomson Reuters senior executives. Soul singer Aretha Franklin performed at the wedding, the first legal gay marriage ceremony at the Four Seasons hotel, the New York Daily News reported.
White initially backed Romney because the wealthy former private equity executive’s worry over America’s fiscal woes and his plans to rein in spending matched his own, White said.
“I was going to vote for Romney because I think he will be a guy who will have more fiscal control,” said White, who planned to donate more to Romney and had pushed his friends to cut checks to Romney, who has not yet refunded his money. White said he has not yet given to Obama this cycle, either.
The change came after the White House’s shift and Romney took to the stage of evangelical bastion Liberty University and said during a commencement speech that “marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.” White said seeing Romney make that speech made him worry over a possible constitutional amendment defining marriage.
Public support for same-sex marriage is evolving: half of Americans believe same-sex couples should have the same right to wed as heterosexuals do, slightly down from a year ago but marking the second year that a majority of Americans have supported same-sex marriage. Six states, plus the District of Columbia, have extended marriage rights to gay couples. Twenty-eight states ban such marriages.
Don’t let the door hit ya in the butt on the way out…oh wait, you might like that.
Obama campaign reveals new slogan: “Forward”
Team Obama today introduced a new, one-word campaign slogan, “Forward,” in a seven-minute web video of the same name that lays out a case for the president’s reelection.
The ad suggests Obama fell heir to, in Alan Greenspan’s words, a “once in a half-century, probably in a century” economic crisis, but argues that things are improving: the stimulus “saved up to 4.2 million jobs” and the auto bailout another 1.1 million; manufacturing has seen its first increase in jobs “in a decade”; between March 2010 and March 2012, 4.1 million jobs were created in the private-sector. The president “took on” credit card companies and “the Wall Street banks,” the ad says, passing reforms to stop “unfair fees and hidden penalties” and ensure financial institutions “never again wreck our economy.”
The video also hits on Obama’s healthcare reforms — now, the narrator says, “insurance companies can’t deny children coverage for preexisting conditions [and] seniors pay less for prescriptions” — and claims wins, despite what the ad portrays as an obstructionist Republican opposition, in middle class tax cuts, wind and solar power, equal pay for women, the eradication of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” foreign policy, small business tax cuts, spending cuts, reproductive rights, stem cell research, fuel efficiency standards, domestic oil and natural gas production, science funding, and more.
The RNC responded with a list of “a few things Americans can look forward to because of Obama’s policies”: “more poverty, more ‘missing workers’ and more people on food stamps”; “$6.4 trillion in cumulative deficits between now and 2022″; and “never getting back the $535 million given to #Solyndra,” among others.
Watch the full video, via barackobama.com, below:
It is ignored that government is high priced entropy – it is overhead, it produces nothing but overhead. It can direct “donations” to the funding of services that benefit all but government itself is just overhead. The money that it absorbs in the course of collecting and then redistributing money to the necessary entities/producers is waste so the smaller you can keep government, the more prosperous the people. Sure, you need some oversight to insure that none are kept from the freedom of creating their own wealth and some creation and oversight of infrastructure must exist but the more government you create, the less wealth there will be for those that feed the government. The largest step forward to create a flourishing economy would be for government to get out of the way.
Obama gets custom-made New Balance running shoes
President Barack Obama is well known as a basketball fanatic, but he might feel more like going for a jog after receiving a custom-made pair of New Balance running shows, embroidered with the words “President” and “Obama,” on them Friday night in Maine.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, or free sneakers, however. Obama will also get a nudge from a Maine lawmaker to require that the Department of Defense outfit service members with domestically-produced athletic shoes.
Mike Michaud, who represents Maine’s Second Congressional District, picked up Obama’s size 12D gray sneakers on Friday from New Balance’s facility in Norridgewock, central Maine. He will present the shoes at an Obama fundraiser at the Portland Museum of Art.
Michaud has been working on the defense issue since last year to promote manufacturing growth in his state. Maine is historically a major footwear manufacturer which has seen its production undercut by foreign competition. In all, tens of thousands of U.S. jobs in the footwear industry have moved overseas.
“The workers in Norridgewock produced a pair of high-quality sneakers, and I’m proud to be able to deliver this Maine-made product to the President,” Michaud said. “I’m hopeful he’ll make this policy change so that we can create more jobs in Maine. We also need to be doing whatever we can to encourage domestic procurement government-wide.”
The Berry Amendment, a law on the books for decades, requires the DOD to buy certain categories of products from American companies, including food, clothing (but not footwear, specifically), fabrics, stainless steel, and certain tools.
In crafting “American Shoes for American Service members,” a resolution demanding that footwear be covered by the law, Michaud said that the Department recently stopped providing American-made sneakers for the troops. Instead, service members are issued cash allowances to buy their own athletic shoes. And chances are, those sneakers might hail from Anywhere But Here – China or Vietnam, for example.
While some kids goes without shoes, Obama gets a custom design pair that he really doesn’t need. Doesn’t the guy feel any guilt?
“Linsanity” hits the White House
President Barack Obama is well-known to be a huge basketball fan, and he hasn’t missed the biggest story in the NBA — the rise of Jeremy Lin, the Harvard-educated, Taiwanese American guard whose record-setting scoring run has led the New York Knicks to six straight victories.
Lin added to his legend on Monday night by making a three-point shot as time expired that gave the Knicks a 90-87 victory over the Toronto Raptors.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said he and Obama had talked about Lin on Tuesday on the helicopter ride from the White House to catch an Air Force One flight to Milwaukee.
“The president is an avid sports fan and particularly avid basketball fan and we were speaking about Jeremy Lin on Marine One as we flew here to Andrews Air Force Base this morning,” Carney told reporters as they flew to Wisconsin.
“It’s just a great story and the president was saying as much this morning. Obviously terrific for the New York Knicks but it’s the kind of sports story that transcends the sport itself,” he said
“It’s a great story and yes, he’s very impressed and fully up to speed. I know he’s watched Lin play already and he’s seen the highlights from last night’s game,” Carney said.
We need to change our name to VSA, the vacuous states of america.
Newt Super PAC imagines Romney-Obama debate
A Pro-Newt Super PAC posted an animated version of how a general debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee would look.
The video titled “Obama’s Dream Debate” shows a cartoon Obama, voiced remarkably well, not only trouncing Romney in a debate but pointing out just how much the two have in common.
Winning Our Future is the same PAC that made a short campaign film attacking Romney as a “corporate raider” while head of Bain Capital, an ad Gingrich eventually asked to be pulled because of inaccuracies.
Speaking over a peppy jingle, the Obama character talks about their shared views on abortion, gun control and health care.
“Let me be clear, I agree with Governor Romney on many things. For instance, abortion, he was pro-choice most of his adult life. So was I,” Obama says happily. He points out that up until Romney became “presidential candidate Romney” they had always agreed. The animated Romney tries to interject but Obama talks over him.
The video ends with Obama getting the last word.
“As presidential candidate Romney, I don’t even know the guy. Then again he doesn’t seem to know himself,” Obama says.
Ignoring polls, Santorum says he’s best GOP chance to beat Obama
You have to give him points for chutzpah. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has spent most of the GOP primary positioning himself as the candidate of the GOP’s conservative evangelical wing. With polls showing him running as high as third in Iowa, Santorum is out with a new ad in New Hampshire and Iowa making the case that he can win swing voters and is the Republicans’ best bet to win the general election.
Here’s the narrative:
Who has the best chance to beat Obama? Rick Santorum. A full spectrum conservative, Rick Santorum is rock solid on values issues. A favorite of the tea party for fighting corruption and taxpayer abuse. More foreign policy credentials than any candidate. And Rick’s ‘Made in the USA’ jobs plan will make America an economic superpower again. Rick Santorum, a trusted conservative who gives us the best chance to take back America.
Santorum has spent most of the campaign so far back in the pack pollsters have rarely surveyed him in head-to-head match-ups with the president. In fact there have been just three polls since July measuring how Santorum would fair against Obama. All three are by the Republican firm Rasmussen Reports and all three show Obama ahead by 10 points or more. Overall, polling has generally shown that Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman Jr. and Ron Paul would all fare better against Obama in a head-to-head match-up.
Alas, “Rick Santorum, fifth-best chance to beat Obama” isn’t a winning slogan.
LOL, the only top tier he will see for any much longer is the top tier of being the most corrupt. Only three senators were selected. He was one of them twice in a row, it’s almost like he was trying for it:
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in- washington-dc/rick-santorum-top-tier-on- most-corrupt-member-of-congress-list-2-y ears-running
On top of that he really is koo koo.
Democrats hit Romney on “Band-Aid” comment
By Jason McLure
Even as Newt Gingrich has soared to the top of most Republican presidential polls, Democrats continue to focus their attacks on former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Today New Hampshire and Iowa Democrats unveiled a new website attacking Romney for calling the president’s jobs bill a “temporary little band aid” during a debate in October.
Democrats say passing the jobs bill, which would extend a payroll tax cut for employees, would save the average family $1,500 next year – or “four months of groceries, over seven months of gasoline, an electric bill for an entire year,” according to a video on the site, littlebandaids.com.
It also takes a swipe at Romney’s wealth, estimated to be around $250 million, with the line “$1,500 might be a Band-Aid to Mitt Romney, but to a middle-class family, $1,500 goes a long way.”
As part of the effort, President Obama’s re-election campaign also released a new online tax calculator allowing people to compute how much money the extension would save them.
“President Obama’s failed policies have devastated millions of Americans with record jobs loss and record home loss, and that is why he is looking at a one-term proposition,” said Andrea Saul, a Romney spokesperson.
I only make about $40k a year. I’ll take a band-aid, especially seeing as how I paid for it to begin with.
GOP presidential field – looking Perry promising?
With polls showing President Barack Obama beating any current 2012 Republican presidential hopeful, some party leaders are casting around for additional contenders, especially those who are well-known and might appeal more to the party’s most conservative wing.
One name that has come up repeatedly is Texas Governor Rick Perry, a conservative Republican and rising star in the Tea Party movement who fueled speculation last year that he might run for the White House by going on a national tour to publicize his book “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington,” which takes aim at what he sees an intrusive and expansive federal government.
Perry has in the past emphatically said he will not run, but he more recently has seemed to be leaving the door slightly open by saying for now he is focused on Texas’ legislative session, which ends on May 30.
“I have said multiple times I’m not going to get distracted from my work at hand and I’m not going to get distracted today,” he said on Tuesday when he was asked if he would run.
He also is known for saying in 2009 that Texas might secede from the United States, a remark that Democrats criticized as unpatriotic, but which has endeared him to many conservatives, particularly in southern states where many Republicans are particularly hostile to Washington.
With former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour saying they will not join the 2012 Republican field, there is also appetite for a fiscal and social conservative from a southern state. The two current Republican front-runners, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, are former governors of Massachusetts and Minnesota.
Remember where Bush came from. The Ivy league, like the imposter Obama.
So – the Republicans are outraged that Obama “covered up” something that wasn’t even a crime?
That doesn’t make any sense – until you consider the fact that the GOP represents a LOT of racist groups. Once the racist factor is considered, the unfounded criticism is explained.