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[PantherLotus]

I know I've said it before, and I've seen the general sentiment echoed throughout the punditry, but sometimes it seems like Romney is a character written up by Axelrod and the gang to be the perfect Obama foil.

Look back to every thing he's done in his campaign to date and tell me what he hasn't fucked up. He can't run on his governorship because of the ACA, which HE was partially responsible for painting himself out of the room. He can't run on being a business guy because he's not actually a business guy -- he's a finance guy, and finance guys fucked up our country as much if not more than the Bush Clan. While we're fuckin' at it, let's sprinkle some Bushies in there.

What has Romney done right? What has Romney done in his campaign that tells anyone that he'd be a competent leader of anything? Anybody?

 

[PantherLotus]

That Warren ad is particularly amazing BECAUSE it's empowering. I'm so goddamn tired of hearing that the government should not be proactive, that it should just leave things alone and hope they work out for the best.

It's empowering because the word infrastructure has not yet been raped by the wordsmiths on the right. In my world, healthcare and making sure poor people don't starve and paying for clean air and water counts as infrastructure, but I'm a wild-eyed bleeding-heart liberal.

 

[DeathbyVolcano]

I know I've said it before, and I've seen the general sentiment echoed throughout the punditry, but sometimes it seems like Romney is a character written up by Axelrod and the gang to be the perfect Obama foil.

Look back to every thing he's done in his campaign to date and tell me what he hasn't fucked up. He can't run on his governorship because of the ACA, which HE was partially responsible for painting himself out of the room. He can't run on being a business guy because he's not actually a business guy -- he's a finance guy, and finance guys fucked up our country as much if not more than the Bush Clan. While we're fuckin' at it, let's sprinkle some Bushies in there.

What has Romney done right? What has Romney done in his campaign that tells anyone that he'd be a competent leader of anything? Anybody?

SALT LIKE CITY!!!!

 

[Jackson50]

I like Warren, but in everything I've seen her in she lacks a certain charisma. How's she doing in the polls?

There's been a dearth of polling. But everything indicates a virtual tie.

Romney Campaign responds to the gaffes in the UK

The advisers are incompetent. Romney's nescient, witless, and gauche. A wonderfully entertaining mixture. And if he can't catch a break in Israel... It's a prudent decision to shutter him from the media.

 

[PantherLotus]

SALT LIKE CITY!!!!

In which Romney's only fucking instinct is to put down the CURRENT HOST CITY (accidentally or otherwise). Seriously, this man has nothing. The Olympics in the middle-of-nowhere, where Romney accidentally wrote the script for praising you-didn't-build-it-gate, mean absolutely nothing.

What's he got?

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

 

[B-Dubs]

In which Romney's only fucking instinct is to put down the CURRENT HOST CITY (accidentally or otherwise). Seriously, this man has nothing. The Olympics in the middle-of-nowhere, where Romney accidentally wrote the script for praising you-didn't-build-it-gate, mean absolutely nothing.

What's he got?

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

He's good at not being Obama?

 

[Aaron Strife]

In which Romney's only fucking instinct is to put down the CURRENT HOST CITY (accidentally or otherwise). Seriously, this man has nothing. The Olympics in the middle-of-nowhere, where Romney accidentally wrote the script for praising you-didn't-build-it-gate, mean absolutely nothing.

What's he got?

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

He's good at playing the right-wing media.

Day 1: Obama doesn't understand our special connection with Britain cuz that foo ain't white

Day 2: Fuck Britain

We have a candidate using blatantly racist tactics against the first black president and the media totally lets him get away with it.

 

[The Technomancer]

Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

Buying ads that say "I'm awesome and Obama sucks"

Sadly that may be enough.

 

[Al-ibn Kermit]

We have a candidate using blatantly racist tactics against the first black president and the media totally lets him get away with it.

Something tells me his advisors brought up the anglo-saxon thing without his approval. It's too hard to believe he would attack Obama on foreign policy, and with such a stupid point.

The advisers are incompetent. Romney's nescient, witless, and gauche. A wonderfully entertaining mixture. And if he can't catch a break in Israel... It's a prudent decision to shutter him from the media.

Your vocabulary makes everything more entertaining.

 

[Dr. Pangloss]

I'm still waiting for a Lee Atwater type ad. Something along the lines of this: Jesse Helms "Hands" ad. Now that would be really pushing the envelope, and interesting in how the media would respond.

 

[NullPointer]

The advisers are incompetent. Romney's nescient, witless, and gauche. A wonderfully entertaining mixture. And if he can't catch a break in Israel... It's a prudent decision to shutter him from the media.

I didn't even have to look to know who wrote this post.

I had to look up two of those.

 

[RustyNails]

In which Romney's only fucking instinct is to put down the CURRENT HOST CITY (accidentally or otherwise). Seriously, this man has nothing. The Olympics in the middle-of-nowhere, where Romney accidentally wrote the script for praising you-didn't-build-it-gate, mean absolutely nothing.

What's he got?

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

I'm just sad that the rest of the country cannot see Mitt for the shallow unicellular amoeba he is.

 

[War Peaceman]

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

Romney has a great record, one of the best I'd wager for a potential president. Certainly better than Obama's. Successful businessman, yes in an outsourcing firm, but this could be tailored to a coherent economic philosophy (was it Nate Silver who pointed this out?) about creative destruction and efficiency. Reasonably successful governorship - prototyping the ACA, which is one of your most significant pieces of legislation in years and he's ran an Olympics.

Which makes it all the more astonishing how he has tossed it away. Most of it is a result of circumstance - Republican extremism - but ultimately he is personally responsible for his lack of spine. He could have made a competent moderate Republican candidate, but Obama himself is exactly that. With social skills.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Romney has a great record, one of the best I'd wager for a potential president. Certainly better than Obama's. Successful businessman, yes in an outsourcing firm, but this could be tailored to a coherent economic philosophy (was it Nate Silver who pointed this out?) about creative destruction and efficiency. Reasonably successful governorship - prototyping the ACA, which is one of your most significant pieces of legislation in years and he's ran an Olympics.

Which makes it all the more astonishing how he has tossed it away. Most of it is a result of circumstance - Republican extremism - but ultimately he is personally responsible for his lack of spine. He could have made a competent moderate Republican candidate, but Obama himself is exactly that. With social skills.

.....I can't tell if this is a serious post or not.

 

[jamesinclair]

I didn't realize he had control over such things.

Hes the boss of all the federal employees right? He could have stopped it.

 

[Black Republican]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/netanyahu-obamas-sanctions-havent-stopped-iran

[

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that sanctions against Iran — largely pushed by President Barack Obama — have failed to stop that country's nuclear program.

Speaking with presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney at his side, Netanyahu said a "strong and credible military threat" was needed on top of the sanctions to get Iran to make a change.

“I think it’s important to do everything in our power to prevent the Ayatollahs from possessing that capability," Netanyahu said. "We have to be honest and say that all the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota. And that's why I believe that we need a strong and credible military threat coupled with the sanctions to have a chance to change that situation."

Romney's campaign outlined a nearly identical position earlier in the day, criticizing those who call the talk of military action irresponsible as making peace less likely.

Obama has claimed to have put in place the "toughest sanctions yet" on Iran, but —at least according to Netanyahu — they haven't worked.

thats gotta hurt team obama whether u agree with his quote or not

 

[War Peaceman]

.....I can't tell if this is a serious post or not.

What is wrong with it? EDIT: 'Great' record, may be taking it too far, but the point remains. He does have a decent record, on paper. But through consistent backflipping, Republican extremism, a lack of moral and intellectual rigour, he has thrown it all away.

 

[XMonkey]

The Republican party is the problem. The situation we're seeing right now was written on the wall awhile ago. It's bigger than Romney throwing something away.

 

[War Peaceman]

The Republican party is the problem. The situation we're seeing right now was written on the wall awhile ago. It's bigger than Romney throwing something away.

I did say that!

 

[Drek]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/netanyahu-obamas-sanctions-havent-stopped-iran

thats gotta hurt team obama whether u agree with his quote or not

It won't move anything. Those in favor of a militant response to all of Israel's concerns already hate Obama. Mostly because he wants Israel to play by the rules they themselves set in 1963, but then logic isn't the strong suit of the pro-Israel camp.

He'll still win the vast majority of the Jewish vote and will still lose almost all the evangelical vote.

The big X factor here is how much Romney plays this up when talking about foreign policy. I don't think I'm the only one who thinks he's tone deaf enough not to understand just how war weary this country is. Right now almost no one in the U.S. wants to hear tough talk about military action in ANOTHER Middle East country.

 

[gcubed]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/netanyahu-obamas-sanctions-havent-stopped-iran

thats gotta hurt team obama whether u agree with his quote or not

People give a shit about that warmonger?

Also, Diablos, Nate came under fire here for his move to NYT, not his numbers. He made it more difficult to find everything you were looking for and now covers good background research with 4 pages of rambling.

 

[ToxicAdam]

The chart above shows annualized growth rates for: a) the quarterly, non-government, private-sector components of real GDP (personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, and net exports), see blue bars in chart, and b) the quarterly component of real GDP for "government consumption expenditures and gross investment" (brown bars).

First Trust Portfolios (Brian Wesbury et al.) is the only organization I know that calculates and reports "private real GDP" on a regular basis, here's their most recent commentary: "We’ve been tracking real “private” GDP (real GDP excluding government purchases), which grew at a 2.2% annual rate in Q2 and is up 3.3% in the past year."

http://www.mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/07/maybe-private-sector-is-doing-fine.html

 

[cartoon_soldier]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/netanyahu-obamas-sanctions-havent-stopped-iran

thats gotta hurt team obama whether u agree with his quote or not

Obama has always said that a military strike against Iran is an option. Even Romney's plan for dealing with Iran involves sanctions that Obama Admin has already put in place. Of course this was the best way for Bibi to throw his support behind Romney.

Also, http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/romney-campaign-muddles-iran-stand

An adviser's vague remark to reporters here left Mitt Romney's staff and the press scrambling for nearly three hours this morning to determine whether Romney had promised to commit American forces or other support to a hypothetical Israel strike on Iran.
In fact, Romney appears to be stopping a step short of such commitment, promising only to respect — but not necessarily support or agree with — an Israeli move.

The most important story though is that Romney broke with precedent and Obama to say he does not support the Palestinian demand for Refugees to return. Obama has said that is something for Israel and Palestine to decide.

 

[Suikoguy]

[IMG.]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3ksqWXFNets/UBP4TchCleI/AAAAAAAAT5U/zWmtysHvYSg/s400/gdp.jpg[/IMG]




http://www.mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/07/maybe-private-sector-is-doing-fine.html

More proof that if the government did not cutback spending to the degree it did, we would not be in as bad a shape. Thanks for the post.

Edit; To clarify. States had to cut back to a degree. Revenue was way down, but the federal government could have helped bridge the shortfall past the stimulus to a degree.

 

[DeathbyVolcano]

edit: wrong thread!

 

[Learn2read]

 

[Tamanon]

Oh boy.

 

[Amir0x]

fucking newsweek

 

[eBay Huckster]

Or it could be all the more reason why they're a bullshit pollster.

Well yes, it is Rasmussen we're talking about and not a pollster who'd ever be respectable.

Eh well if there are at least 50-51 GOP seats in the Senate they could use reconciliation to repeal.

There won't be 50-51 GOP seats; at most, there's going to be 49. (Even if there's 50, it won't be accompanied by That Guy winning and his VP tiebreaking for them)

 

[Chichikov]

Fuck you Joan Juliet Buck, you're not weaseling out of that shameful fluff piece you did on Assad's wife.

Yeah, they tried to scrub it off the web, but it's still on Assad's website.
You know what's else on his website?

Yeah, I'm hotlinking from your site bitch, come at me bro.

 

[kehs]

In which Romney's only fucking instinct is to put down the CURRENT HOST CITY (accidentally or otherwise). Seriously, this man has nothing. The Olympics in the middle-of-nowhere, where Romney accidentally wrote the script for praising you-didn't-build-it-gate, mean absolutely nothing.

What's he got?

"Leadership"
Bain - outsourcing / toxic
MA - Romneycare / toxic
Olympics - lol

Foreign Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Domestic Policy:
Bush / Cheney - toxic

Tax Policy:
More for me and other rich guys like me. - toxic


Please tell me what this guy is good at! I can't fucking see it!

He has a legit birth certificate.

 

[ezekial45]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua4cg9VG9nU

100 Days ad from the Obama Campaign.

 

[empty vessel]

http://www.mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/07/maybe-private-sector-is-doing-fine.html

Bill Mitchell has written about this fairly in depth. Some graphs:

Summary: the government is acting as a drag on the economy by shrinking. The state governments have little choice given their use of foreign currencies, but the federal government has failed to pick up the slack, both by failing to make up for shortfalls in state budgets and by failing to maintain its own levels of employment.

 

[scorcho]

It's comforting to know that Romney's returning to the ol' GOP bailiwick in one regard - his Middle East foreign policy will be an extension of Israel's. We have to make up for the mistakes of both Bush and Obama on that (disregarding how much in the tank both were with AIPAC).

 

[ErasureAcer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua4cg9VG9nU

100 Days ad from the Obama Campaign.

Da beats. DA BEATS!!!

 

[Tim-E]

While in Europe, Romney should've made a stop in Switzerland for a photo-op of him making a deposit at one of his favorite banks.

 

[PhoenixDark]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua4cg9VG9nU

100 Days ad from the Obama Campaign.

oh boy, lemme buy a pizza to listen to Obama's speech!

also I like how the guy apparently has no job. Fitting

 

[B-Dubs]

Really? This is what they're going with?

 

[speculawyer]

 

[B-Dubs]

Why does he look so sad? He's at the Olympics! I'd give my left nut to see the hundred meter final live! Heck I'd probably throw in my right one as well.

 

[hydragonwarrior]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/netanyahu-obamas-sanctions-havent-stopped-iran

thats gotta hurt team obama whether u agree with his quote or not

Huffpo just raised a similar article - quite a bit of sensationalism in the title though:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/...ike-israel_n_1715574.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

 

[blame space]

http://mindymeyer4senate.com/index.html

 

[cartoon_soldier]

We can finally say that GOP Policy when it comes to Israel is for Israel's victory over Palestine and not really a solution that somewhat favors both sides?

It is not that Dem policy is much different, but they have tried to stay away from declaring that Jerusalem can only belong of Israel, that Israel must be recognized as a Jewish state by the Arab countries and that evicted Palestine settlers have no right to return.

Huffpo just raised a similar article - quite a bit of sensationalism in the title though:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...p_ref=politics

So has Obama.

I will never get it. Obama has always said he is prepared to launch at attack on Iran if needed. He is just not war mongering it in the way GOP and Bibi want.

 

[reilo]

Not to diminish the Winter Olympics, but they are the Winter Olympics. I'd imagine setting those up is a wee bit less troublesome, but what do I know?

 

[RustyNails]

All this foreign policy blabber by Romney is a waste. Obama currently holds a 15 point lead over him when it comes to foreign policy. I think the only reason why he's doing it is to distract from his Bain tenure and his taxes.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

All this foreign policy blabber by Romney is a waste. Obama currently holds a 15 point lead over him when it comes to foreign policy. I think the only reason why he's doing it is to distract from his Bain tenure and his taxes.

A portion of Jewish voters vote based on whether the President puts Israel's interests over America's or not.

 

[KtSlime]

A portion of Jewish voters vote based on whether the President puts Israel's interests over America's or not.

Let's be fair. A portion of the Christian voters do the same. Let's just call them Zionists regardless of their religion.

 

[RustyNails]

A portion of Jewish voters vote based on whether the President puts Israel's interests over America's or not.

Jewish voters are highly educated and favor a pragmatic approach to the issue of Israel and Palestine rather than a cowboy solution that involves declaring whole Jerusalem as Israel's capital and nuking Iran. Only people Romney can court with his nonsense are Evangelicals.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

Let's be fair. A portion of the Christian voters do the same. Let's just call them Zionists regardless of their religion.

Good point!

here is the kicker, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/29/israel-citizens-dont-want-war-iran

According to a poll released last month by the Israeli Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, 63% of Israelis oppose a unilateral Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. An earlier poll, for the University of Maryland in February, revealed only a fifth of Israelis favoured a strike on Iran without the support of the United States.

Somebody should have asked Romney that. The Israel public doesn't support a strike on Iran, what do you say to that?

I mean what do these guys think is going to happen? Strike Iran, end of story...

Jewish voters are highly educated and favor a pragmatic approach to the issue of Israel and Palestine rather than a cowboy solution that involves declaring whole Jerusalem as Israel's capital and nuking Iran. Only people Romney can court with his nonsense are Evangelicals.

That's why I said a Portion, like Sheldon Adelson and a few other Romney bundlers. Obama will have a lower share among Jewish voters than 2008 for the simple reason that economy sucks.

 

[Particle Physicist]

A portion of Jewish voters vote based on whether the President puts Israel's interests over America's or not.

Those tend to be the small portion that always vote republican.