An Inexperienced Romney and his Neocon Bush Foreign Policy Advisors
May 14, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One of the things that ought to give anyone pause about Willard "Mittens" Romney is that he has surrounded himself with the Neoconservative war mongers from George W. Bush's presidency who gave us the bogus intelligence for an unnecessary war in Iraq that cost us so much in American lives and treasure. Not to mention set this country on a dark course to illegal torture and rendition as if we are the old Soviet Union.
These guys ought to be on trial for war crimes before a Nuremberg Tribunal-style court, not walking around free to peddle their "American Century" Pax Americana Empire wet dreams to Tea-Publican candidates for president.
Twenty three of Romney's senior advisers served under Bush in some capacity, several serving in key roles in the administration. Here is the full list of Mitt Romney's national security team.
There has been some very good reporting on Romney's Neocon foreign policy advisors recently:
- Mitt Romney's Neocon War Cabinet | The Nation
- The Romney-Bush mind meld – Salon.com
- Mitt Romney's Dangerous Foreign Policy Team: Nostalgic for Bush, Hellbent for War With Iran – Alternet.org
Steve Benen warns today, 'Engaging' on foreign policy — after the election:
Mitt Romney has assembled quite a few advisors on foreign policy, many of whom worked for the Bush/Cheney team, and given the former governor's inexperience and limited understanding of international affairs — Swiss bank accounts don't count as proficiency in this area — those who have his ear are getting a closer look.
With that in mind, the New York Times reports today that many members of Team Romney disagree with one another — and at times, even the candidate — about foreign policy, and occasionally, Romney's own advisors have no idea what he's trying to say.
On Afghanistan, for example, Romney's advisors support negotiations with the Taliban, as so most U.S. military leaders. The candidate, however, instead boasted at a GOP debate, "We should not negotiate with the Taliban. We should defeat the Taliban." A Romney advisor conceded, "none of us could quite figure out what he was advocating."
Similar problems have come up when Romney has talked about Iran, China, Russia, and nuclear proliferation — he contradicts himself and his advisors, who in turn contradict one another.
New Obama campaign ad on ‘job-killer’ Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney
May 14, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Obama campaign today returns to the theme of the vulture capitalism of Bain Capital and how "job-killer" Willard "Mittens" Romney made his fortune liking "to fire people" and to force companies into bankruptcy liquidation.
Greg Sargent writes at The Morning Plum: Turning Romney's biggest asset into a liability:
[T]he Obama campaign believes this story has not been told to swing voters yet, and it will be central to efforts to define Romney early on, just as general election voters are starting to tune in — and even more crucially, it will be central to defining Romney’s vision of the country’s economic future.
The Obama campaign is going up with a hard hitting two-minute ad in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia on GST Steel, a Kansas City company that Bain acquired a majority stake in, leading to hundreds of layoffs and at least $12 million in Bain profits (video below the fold):
Does Romney have any pics like this?
May 14, 2012
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by David Safier Obama's inner kid comes out when he's with kids. Maybe it's because he's usually so controlled that he loves to let loose with young folks. More pics like this on the Young People for Obama Facebook page. My favorites, though, are when he's reading the late, great Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild … Read more
Ken Mehlman needs to show some foresight, not just hindsight
May 14, 2012
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by David Safier In 2010, Ken Mehlman, former RNCC chair and anti-gay rights campaigner during the Bush years, came out as gay. He also said he regretted the part he played in the Republicans' anti-gay agenda. “At a personal level, I wish I had spoken out against the effort,” he says. “As I’ve been involved … Read more
Veterans upset with Jeff Flake’s attack on veteran Richard Carmona
May 14, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Last week Alexis Tameron from the Dr. Richard Carmona for U.S. Senate campaign sent out a memo to the media on the state of the race and predicted a long hot summer for Rep. Flake in his GOP primary contest with Richie Rich Wil Cardon. AZ/DC Blog – Carmona campaign predicts 'miserable' summer … Read more
Fact Check: Jesse Kelly’s ‘pants on fire’ – ‘saving’ social security and Medicare through increased domestic energy production
May 13, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One of the statements from Jesse Kelly that is a sort of "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" kind of analysis is when he claims that he is going to "save" social security and Medicare through increased domestic energy production in the United States. It is an attempt to connect together the two focus group tested issues that his campaign wants to run on.
No part of mineral severance, or royalties, or energy taxes, etc. are used for social security and Medicare. These programs are funded through payroll tax deductions from workers.
So unless Kelly' is proposing new taxes on energy producers to be dedicated to social security and Medicare — rest assured he is not — his statement requires some explanation: Kelly is arguing that producing more domestic energy –> creates more jobs –> creates more payroll tax deductions for social security and Medicare.
Have you noticed that he never estimates how many new jobs (from a credible source)?
For April, the Bureau of Labor Statisitics estimates there are 12.5 million unemployed actively seeking work. There are another 7.9 milliom who are considered involuntary part-time workers. And another 2.4 million who are marginally attached to the work force — persons who want and are available to work, but who have looke for work marginally in the past year, many of whom have given up hope. The Employment Situation – April 2012 – US Bureau of Labor Statistics (.pdf).
That's 22.8 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed. The Bush years were a "lost decade" of job creation compounded by the catastrophic job losses of the Bush Great Recession. Repost: The Bush Years Were a Lost Decade. The U.S. is still digging out of the unemployment hole that GOP economic policies produced in the last decade, let alone creating enough jobs for new workers entering the work force today. (If the Bush tax cuts actually encouraged the so-called "job creators" to create jobs, "Mr. Boehner, where are the jobs?")
The one energy production project that has received the most attention this year is the Keystone Pipeline. TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, says Keystone would create 20,000 "direct" jobs. That includes 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 jobs making stuff like pump houses and the pipe itself. It also projects nearly 120,000 "indirect" jobs — think restaurant workers and hotel employees to support the construction. Keystone pipeline: How many jobs it would really create – CNN Money:
But TransCanada numbers count each job on a yearly basis. If the pipeline employs 10,000 people working for two years, that's 20,000 jobs by the company's count.
The estimates also include jobs in Canada, where about a third of the $7 billion pipeline would be constructed.
The U.S. State Department, which must green light the project, forecasts just 5,000 direct U.S. jobs over a two year construction period.
Even according to TransCanada, the amount of permanent jobs created would be only in the hundreds.
Another study from Cornell University said the pipeline could actually lead to a decline in jobs in the long run. One reason is that the pipeline would lead to higher fuel prices in the Midwest, the study said, and that would slow consumer spending and cost jobs.
So TransCanada says only "hundreds" of permanent new jobs. When we have 22.8 million Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed. This is only one project, but it is illustrative of the fact that increased domestic energy production is not going to create anywhere near the millions of new jobs needed –> to create more payroll taxes for social security and Medicare –> or substantially reduce the unemployment rate. Massive numbers of new jobs in domestic energy production is a "pipe dream."
The Real Impact of Obama’s Same Sex Marriage Stance
May 13, 2012
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Posted by Bob Lord As AZBlueMeanie has pointed out, this was quite a week in the Presidential campaign. I found the analysis of the “thinking right” particularly interesting. The Wall Street Journal noted the political risk that Obama was taking, especially in North Carolina, where voters adopted a constitutional same sex marriage ban on a … Read more
Barber-Kelly article in the Star: Textbook false equivalence
May 13, 2012
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by David Safier
Before carefully and accurately taking apart Brady McCombs' front page article in the Sunday Star, "Seniors' benefits dominate CD 8 race" (print edition only), AZ Blue Meanie accuses me of being a soft old teacher, always looking for the good in people. Guilty as charged. See, the high school English teacher in me saw a marked improvement in McCombs' article on the Kelly press conference in the print edition over the earlier online version. It went from a C- online to a B+ in print. But then he didn't write a similar article, online or in the print edition, covering the Barber press conference the next week even though he was there taking notes. That's a double F for failure to turn in required work. And as the Meanie demonstrates in detail, today's article creates a false equivalence between the truth and falsehood of a number of assertions made by the Barber and Kelly campaigns.
Grading today's article is bit of a stumper for this old teacher. I'll have give it a B+ for style and readability over a D for giving readers the information they need to separate fact from fiction. Since I prize content over style, the overall grade is a C-.
Eight paragraphs into the article, there's nothing but a simplistic "He said, He said" recitation of the way the two sides portray each other on Social Security and Medicare. Since most readers won't get much farther than that, the takeaway is: Both sides are spinning equally, so when you vote, choose the guy whose looks you like the best.
[Note: I understand this is how articles are structured, moving from the general to the specific. But instead of wasting the sidebar with a list of mind-numbing figures, the space could have been used to summarize the arguments on both sides and to rate their validity.]
