At a campaign stop storm relief event last Tuesday in Kettering, Ohio, ex-financier Mitt Romney rolled up his sleeves, hitched up his blue jeans, and accepted donated cans of soup and bottles of Gatorade on behalf of Hurricane Sandy victims on the East Coast. Of course, Mr. Romney’s campaign really bought $5,000 worth of those groceries at Walmart, and the Red Cross and other aid agencies discourage such well-intentioned but unhelpful in-kind donations.
“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to boost the size of the Navy by roughly 15 percent as part of a broader defense buildup. ‘Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917,’ he complained in Monday night’s debate. ‘That’s unacceptable to me.’
But for one of Romney’s most important advisers on Navy issues, a man who oversaw a massive naval expansion for Pres. Ronald Reagan, there’s more at stake than U.S. national security. John Lehman, an investment banker and former secretary of the Navy, has strong and complex personal financial ties to the naval shipbuilding industry. He has profited hugely from the Navy’s slow growth in recent years — raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet.”
–”Romney’s Big Navy Guru Made Millions From Building Ships,” David Axe, Wired Danger Room
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Image (“Admiral Romney’s Navy”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Hello Kitty for President
Campaign Party
Saturday, November 3rd
8pm to 12am
LivingSocial
918 F Street, NW
DJ: Biz Markie
Big Bird for Veep?
More:
“Hello Kitty is Running for President with Biz Markie on the Decks,” Neda Semnani, Roll Call
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Despite defensive maneuvers by the Tea Party Cavalry and artillery barrages from Koch Brothers battleships, Mitt Romney’s gas-filled airship tumbled from the skies over Boca Raton on Monday. Republican strategists blamed Soviet-inspired Sopwith Camels.
Ex-financier Mitt Romney in a conference call to corporate CEOs in June:
“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections. And whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope — I hope you pass those along to your employees. Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well.”
The editors of the Salt Lake Tribune, leading newspaper in “largely Mormon, Republican, business-friendly” Utah, really wanted to endorse “the Beehive State’s favorite adopted son,” Mitt Romney. Instead, they concluded that Barack Obama has earned another term. Here’s why:
“From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: ‘Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?’”
“More troubling, Romney has repeatedly refused to share specifics of his radical plan to simultaneously reduce the debt, get rid of Obamacare (or, as he now says, only part of it), make a voucher program of Medicare, slash taxes and spending, and thereby create millions of new jobs. To claim, as Romney does, that he would offset his tax and spending cuts (except for billions more for the military) by doing away with tax deductions and exemptions is utterly meaningless without identifying which and how many would get the ax. Absent those specifics, his promise of a balanced budget simply does not pencil out.”
The US unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent in September, its lowest level in 44 months. Employers added 114,000 workers to payrolls last month, and 86,000 more jobs were created in July and August than previously thought. There’s a great chart here for you visual learners. As economic news, this is only mildly encouraging; as political news it’s better for the Obama campaign than for Mr. Romney.
The Republicans responded to these facts the way they usually do, with conspiracy theories. This time the lunatic accuser wasn’t Herman Cain , Michele Bachmann, or Donald Trump. This time it was former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who claimed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics manipulated the figures, the kind of thing Mr. Welch did at GE. The BLS isn’t GE, though.
“Just what to do with the nation’s healthcare system has been argued time and again – but it always seems to come back to the ‘death panels.’
Such was the case at the debate in Denver on Wednesday night, when moderator Jim Lehrer asked the candidates whether Obamacare, one of the most contentious issues this election season, should be repealed.
