Friday, September 14, 2012
Friday, August 31, 2012
Sigh...
From Think Progress:
FACTS MATTER: The Ultimate Guide To Mitt Romney’s Convention Speech
Romney lies and misleads about his Tax Plan, not deregulating Wall Street, his Massachusetts record, his Job-Creation Record at Bain, costs/savings of Obamacare, cuts versus savings to Medicare, Women's Health, Energy, Global Warming, the Auto Bailout, Welfare Reform, Food Stamps, National Security, Gay Rights.
To accept the guy who can't tell a hard truth let alone an obvious one as the leader of our country would be to accept that our government is no longer for our 'General Welfare' but rather for the use of the oligarchs, billionaires and multinational corporations.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Romney Spins into Lies
Everybody spins. Everybody wants to tell the story in a way that puts them in the best light. Politicians are spinners extraordinaire. But stating the opposite of the fact is not spinning. It is lying. Saying that the President took work out of the Welfare program is not spinning. It is deceiving. Saying that the President stole $716 Billion from Medicare in not spinning. It is malevolent manipulation.
Mitt has instances of crossing the boundary between opining with spin and lying.
As a Mormon, this embarrasses me and saddens me. I don't expect anybody, much less a politician, to totally live up to his stated religious values. But I do expect everybody to honestly try. Especially Mitt.
Mitt has been a Bishop (the Catholic equivalent of a Priest who heads a Parish) and a Stake President (equivalent of presiding over a diocese.) He has had meetings with the General Authorities (the centralized leaders of the world-wide church) discussing his political possibilities. Going to Salt Lake to discuss political aspirations with the Prophet is the exception, not the rule for Mormon politicians. So in a very real way Mitt represents what being a Mormon is much more than I do and much more than most of the Mormons who have won public office.
Hence the problem when Mitt prevaricates and deceives and lies.
What am I talking about? Let's consider one of his first ads concerning President Obama. Here's the offending part:
Even PolitiFact rated that a Pants on Fire Lie.
It would have been one thing had he used the whole context (the McCain campaign not wanting to talk about the economy) and then argued the reasons he could claim Obama had failed to turn the economy around. Perhaps he could have argued then that like McCain before him, Obama didn't want to talk about the economy.
But the President was talking about the economy: 2 million private sector jobs created; the auto industry saved and more. Here's what Obama was saying in November 2011.
The Obama policies turned that around and by March of 2010 we were consistently creating jobs every month. And if Congress would have passed his Jobs Bill (or any jobs/infrastructure bill) so that hundreds of thousands of teachers and police and essential government workers and private sector construction workers could still be on the job we would now be below the 8% unemployment rate.
In June 2012 Mitt declared, "You know how many trade agreements this president has negotiated? Zero." Yet just the year before Obama had negotiated free trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama that Congress ratified that October.
Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos chronicles the sea of deceptions spread by Romney.
Steve Benen started a blog which on Fridays he catalogs Mitt's Mendacity, a list of Romney lies accumulated during the week on the campaign trail.
VandyBruin at Vandy Mania chronicles 20 instances of Mitt's prevarications including him claiming that Obama hadn't put forth a plan to "get us working again." Mitt must not watch the news. (Or maybe he only watches Fox News.) He certainly couldn't have watched the President address Congress about his jobs bill and then still made such a whopper of a claim.
Of late Brother Romney has taken to making things up out of nowhere. Such is his egregious falsehood about welfare. Romney claims that the Obama administration has quietly taken the work requirement out of the welfare program. In July, the Obama Administration approved the possibility for states to develop their own welfare-to-job transition programs. If the state could come up with a program that got 20% more people off the welfare rolls and back into the work force, the state could be relieved of some of the Federal requirements. Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts had asked for a similar waiver. Romney's punch lie (rather than punch line) at his rallies concerning this was that he'd "put work back into welfare,"-- a sure applause line for him.
These instances are not spin. They are instances of Romney not being honest; Romney not being true; Romney not being benevolent; Romney not doing good to all. Romney not being what Mormons claim to believe to be at their core. (see the 13th Article of Faith)
In his quest for the Presidency of the United States Romney has given away his moral standards and in so doing has tarnished the Mormon brand. Because of his nationwide image as a prevaricator, all Mormons will now be somewhat tainted with a credibility gap. That is not good for him nor me nor the work of the Church.
Were Mitt truly a Mormon Mitt none of these lies would have ever seen the light of day. Hopefully Mitt will find his moral compass again and we won't have to keep adding to these lists.
As a Mormon, this embarrasses me and saddens me. I don't expect anybody, much less a politician, to totally live up to his stated religious values. But I do expect everybody to honestly try. Especially Mitt.
Mitt has been a Bishop (the Catholic equivalent of a Priest who heads a Parish) and a Stake President (equivalent of presiding over a diocese.) He has had meetings with the General Authorities (the centralized leaders of the world-wide church) discussing his political possibilities. Going to Salt Lake to discuss political aspirations with the Prophet is the exception, not the rule for Mormon politicians. So in a very real way Mitt represents what being a Mormon is much more than I do and much more than most of the Mormons who have won public office.
Hence the problem when Mitt prevaricates and deceives and lies.
What am I talking about? Let's consider one of his first ads concerning President Obama. Here's the offending part:
Even PolitiFact rated that a Pants on Fire Lie.
It would have been one thing had he used the whole context (the McCain campaign not wanting to talk about the economy) and then argued the reasons he could claim Obama had failed to turn the economy around. Perhaps he could have argued then that like McCain before him, Obama didn't want to talk about the economy.
But the President was talking about the economy: 2 million private sector jobs created; the auto industry saved and more. Here's what Obama was saying in November 2011.
"Well, you know, I think we are better off now than we would have been if I hadn't taken all the steps that we took," a hesitant Obama said. "I don't think the country is stronger yet then it was when the economy was still booming and we didn't have Wall Street crisis, and we didn't have the housing bubble burst. But, we've made steady progress, we just need to make more."And we were better off than we would have been. As you recall at the end of the Bush Administration we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. That was a trajectory to hell.
In June 2012 Mitt declared, "You know how many trade agreements this president has negotiated? Zero." Yet just the year before Obama had negotiated free trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama that Congress ratified that October.
Meteor Blades at the Daily Kos chronicles the sea of deceptions spread by Romney.
Steve Benen started a blog which on Fridays he catalogs Mitt's Mendacity, a list of Romney lies accumulated during the week on the campaign trail.
VandyBruin at Vandy Mania chronicles 20 instances of Mitt's prevarications including him claiming that Obama hadn't put forth a plan to "get us working again." Mitt must not watch the news. (Or maybe he only watches Fox News.) He certainly couldn't have watched the President address Congress about his jobs bill and then still made such a whopper of a claim.
Of late Brother Romney has taken to making things up out of nowhere. Such is his egregious falsehood about welfare. Romney claims that the Obama administration has quietly taken the work requirement out of the welfare program. In July, the Obama Administration approved the possibility for states to develop their own welfare-to-job transition programs. If the state could come up with a program that got 20% more people off the welfare rolls and back into the work force, the state could be relieved of some of the Federal requirements. Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts had asked for a similar waiver. Romney's punch lie (rather than punch line) at his rallies concerning this was that he'd "put work back into welfare,"-- a sure applause line for him.
These instances are not spin. They are instances of Romney not being honest; Romney not being true; Romney not being benevolent; Romney not doing good to all. Romney not being what Mormons claim to believe to be at their core. (see the 13th Article of Faith)
In his quest for the Presidency of the United States Romney has given away his moral standards and in so doing has tarnished the Mormon brand. Because of his nationwide image as a prevaricator, all Mormons will now be somewhat tainted with a credibility gap. That is not good for him nor me nor the work of the Church.
Were Mitt truly a Mormon Mitt none of these lies would have ever seen the light of day. Hopefully Mitt will find his moral compass again and we won't have to keep adding to these lists.
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