Friday, July 06, 2012

Come on Romney, grow a pair and...


Obama repeats claim that Romney outsourced jobs to China and India

Romney slams 'distortion' after president says GOP hopeful was responsible for sending jobs overseas as head of Bain Capital
Barack Obama speaks on a campaign trip in Ohio
Barack Obama used his speech to highlight his role in saving the US car industry from bankruptcy in 2009. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Barack Obama has used a tour of the swing state of Ohio to renew his claim that his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, led the outsourcing of American jobs to India and China.
The assertion is controversial and has been largely discredited by independent fact-checking groups.
But Obama showed no sign of backing away from the claims on Thursday, telling an audience in Maumee, Ohio that Romney's executive experience was in "companies that were pioneers of outsourcing".
While Obama was still on his feet delivering the speech, the Romney campaign hit back, denouncing the claim as a "distortion" and saying there was no evidence that Romney, as head of Bain Capital, was responsible for sending jobs overseas.
Obama was speaking on the first day of a two-day bus tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania, two of three swing states – the other being Florida – that could determine November's White House election.
The president's speech came in advance of the publication on Friday of official jobs figures, the dominant issue of the campaign so far. Unemployment has been creeping down, but in recent months job growth has shown signs of slowing, a trend that could prove extremely damaging for Obama.

72 comments:

  1. Does Romney understand the concept of “Offense?” Obama is charging around in 100 degree heat on offense against Romney and Romney ’s response from his jet-ski in New Hampshire is, “It ain’t so and that’s unfair.”

    I know what I would be saying, what about you?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bring me a copy of Georgie Bush's book; if that thick-tongued Texan can get elected, anybody can.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I read that Obama plans to focus a second term on the border. That's a winning tactic, imo.

    The UK is treating its bankers with noticeably less circumspection and restraint than USA. Another good move. Even the notorious British reserve is crumbling under the hubris coming out of the investment sector. Not so sure its inherent deficiencies of central banking so much as failure to ... regulate and prosecute same.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What would I say? What could I say? These crazies have me running against everything I've ever believed in?

    With the exception of the 15% tax rate for hedgies, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  5. According to the BLS Household Survey, the economy has added 550,000 Jobs in the last two months.

    The Participation Rate is Up 0.2%, and the Employment/Population Ratio is Up 0.2%, also.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The "Household Survey" gives a much more accurate reading of the Economy during times of stress, because it picks up the small and medium-sized firms that typically Lead he economy, and that are missed by the "Establishment" Survey.

    ReplyDelete
  7. In the last year 3,030,000 people have become employed, and the Employment/Population Ratio has increased from 58.2% to 58.6%.

    Obama is being ill-served by his idiot Sec. of Labor for not pointing all this out.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm not at all convinced that messaging is that important.

    Mitt Romney had a very good June: His campaign raised more than $100 million in the month to set a Republican fundraising record, reports Mike Allen at Politico. President Obama's camp hasn't released numbers yet, but it's a safe bet that Romney will end up on top for the second straight month. States going above and beyond for Romney included New York, Colorado, Michigan, New Jersey, and Ohio.

    Romney reportedly raised about $7 million in one day alone at a pair of events in Michigan, notes CNN. And the ObamaCare ruling inspired nearly 50,000 people to contribute $4.6 million within 24 hours of the decision on June 28. Though the $100 million figure is impressive, it falls short of the $150 million overall record—set in September 2008 by Obama.

    I find it interesting to watch Romney's balancing act, suggesting a possibly more interesting alternative to Obama and the Dems. A Justice Roberts stealth candidate.

    Rupert Murdoch has never been a big fan of Mitt Romney, and the lukewarm feeling is mutual, the New York Times finds. On Romney's two visits to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal—which printed a scathing attack on the "confused" Romney campaign yesterday—there was "zero enthusiasm, no engagement," a Journal source says. Both Murdoch and Fox News chief Roger Ailes urged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to run because they admired his toughness and saw Romney as too soft, insiders say.

    ReplyDelete
  9. You know what? This campaign is boring the crap out of me. One string of tired old cliches right after another. The only highlight was the venom spike after the recent Court decision, which was so touchingly heartfelt wasn't it, with the occasional "class warfare" outbursts between the teat-suckers and the armed and ready John Galt visionaries with a rock visage and cleft chins. But the rest of it? Most of us "average" types get it: systemic problems that won't be fixed overnight - by one man or even one team. The one thing that did surprise some of us was the depth of corruption. Mistakes are one thing. Americans are notoriously tolerant. But the depth and breadth of the corruption was just a tad breath-taking. If there is anything worse, it is listening to "our betters" explain it all away in terms of ideology. Ah for Professor Beck to lecture again on Fabian Socialism. Ah now I understand. 2001 and 2008 weakened this country. Let history and future wikileaks guys decide if the "Bildenbergs" were responsible. We'll see if beer-gutted ex-spooks get their Revolution. In the meantime, we now have two moderate candidates and the screamers are screaming.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yeah, it would take more screaming, I'm afraid, than even the "crazies" are capable of to obscure the fact that Romney is just a milquetoast Northeastern Progressive Republican.

    A "record" is a "record."

    ReplyDelete
  11. Part 1/2

    Obama came into office vowing to end business as usual, and, in the gray post-crash dawn of 2009, nowhere did a reckoning with justice seem more due than in the financial sector.

    ...

    To the dismay of many of Obama's supporters, nearly four years after the disaster, there has not been a single criminal charge filed by the federal government against any top executive of the elite financial institutions.

    ...

    But according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data-gathering organization at Syracuse University, financial-fraud prosecutions by the Department of Justice are at 20-year lows.

    ...

    Obama delivered heated rhetoric, but his actions signaled different priorities. Had Obama wanted to strike real fear in the hearts of bankers, he might have appointed former special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or some other fire-breather as his attorney general. Instead, he chose Eric Holder, a former Clinton Justice official who, after a career in government, joined the Washington office of Covington & Burling, a top-tier law firm with an elite white-collar defense unit.

    ...

    Two other Covington lawyers followed Holder into top positions, and Holder's principal deputy, James Cole, was recruited from Bryan Cave LLP, another white-shoe firm with A-list finance clients.

    ...

    Meanwhile, Obama's political operation continued to ask Wall Street for campaign money. A curious pattern developed. A Newsweek examination of campaign finance records shows that, in the weeks before and after last year's scathing Senate report, several Goldman executives and their families made large donations to Obama's Victory Fund and related entities, some of them maxing out at the highest individual donation allowed, $35,800, even though 2011 was an electoral off-year. Some of these executives were giving to Obama for the first time.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Part 2/2

    The Piece de Resistance:

    Some who heard the president's State of the Union speech thought they discerned a hidden purpose behind his new "special unit"--the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group, as it would be called. The day before the president's speech, state attorneys general from around the country met in Chicago with Justice officials to discuss a proposed national settlement with five major banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, over questionable foreclosure practices. The administration was pushing the settlement, as were the banks. But a handful of attorneys general were resisting the settlement, believing it gave too much away to the banks--including protection from mortgage-related investigations that were still unfolding. These holdout state officials were supported by a coalition of activists, who argued that the banks would never make meaningful concessions--such as the reduction of principal on underwater mortgages--unless they faced the threat of investigation.

    ...

    The absence of prosecutions, and the fact that the cops on the beat hail from the place that represents the banks, does not sit right with many who hoped Obama would fulfill his promise to hold Big Finance accountable. The left's frustration fuels the Occupy movement, and chills the Democratic base. And it gives Romney, the career capitalist, an opening he is avidly exploiting.

    ...

    Obama may yet fully liberate his inner populist--that Obama who in 2010 in an off-Prompter moment uttered a sentence that made blood run cold on Wall Street: "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."

    LINK

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's messaging that would have appealed to me.

      Yes, I want blood.

      (No, not literally, please don't knock on my door or otherwise destroy my life.)

      Is it wrong?

      Delete
  13. But it hardly differentiates the candidates.

    Except for that last part of course.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Holder needs to go.

    Not (as much) for the reasons the Republicans think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How about a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, something along those lines?

      But, who is to charge him? And, Obama too, who is to charge him?

      Because Obama signed off on that fiasco, one of so so many, hence the 'executive privilege' craparoo.

      Did you know our border agent was firing bean bags when he was gunned down by one of our own weapons, provided by our very own Pres and AG?

      That's what I read. Rules of engagement you know.

      b

      Delete
    2. I don't want to have this argument: what?? you didn't see the memo X wrote Y clearly showing blah blah blah.

      It looks to me like the ATF guy in Phoenix - the Cowboy in Chief - went rogue and stupid, resulting in death of an agent, which opened up his operation in Washington. What Holder is hiding is DOJ attempts to "cover up" the ATF mess, whatever "cover up" means in this case. Obama bailed his ass. I have no further interest.

      Delete
  15. Really shitty job report, which is good news from my point of view, at this particular time, but I've done my part, increased my hiring by 100%, hiring a drug dealing felon recently out of the pen to put in two mail boxes, mow some lawns. But, its only part time, and didn't move the needle much.

    Romney should take Sarah's advice, attack, attack, attack. Don't follow the McCain model, she said.

    She's make a better candidate.

    And Romney would be better off on a horse, than a jet ski. More Americans (I imagine) would tune in to that than to a thousands of dollars jet ski.

    And soon, it's off on a world tour for the Mormon.

    b

    ReplyDelete
  16. At least it won't be an 'apology tour'.

    That was really embarrassing, wasn't it?

    b

    ReplyDelete
  17. He went against the grain of elite opinion in the 50s by predicting that the Soviet Union was doomed to break up, and break up along nationalist lines; he foresaw the danger of allowing Ayatollah Khomeini to control the Iranian revolution and urged military action to forestall him; in the late 70s, he forecast the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.[break]

    He’s been so right on Soviet matters that it is downright disconcerting to read in his new book Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power that America now exhibits the same symptoms of decay as the Soviet Union did just before its fall: a gridlocked governmental system incapable of enacting serious policy revisions, bankrupting itself with a gross military budget; failing in a decades-long attempt to control Afghanistan; a ruling class cynically insensitive to widening social disparities while hypocritically masking its own privileged lifestyle; and finally, in foreign affairs, becoming increasingly self-isolated while precipitating a geopolitically damaging hostility with China.

    ...

    He commends both Chinese and American current policymakers for downplaying ideology while embracing a concept of “constructive partnership” in global affairs. His anxiety is whether our West, disunited and economically turbulent, can get its act together to be a balancer and conciliator between the new powers as Britain was in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

    The central message of Strategic Vision is how much more ghastly it will be on all fronts if America cannot urgently mobilize a national will for renewal.

    Brzezinski is making the case that renewal starts at a psychological level. My psyche would soar at the smell of some Wall St blood (not literally, please don't come knocking at my door or otherwise destroy my life.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brzezinski is an idiot. Doug is right. Mucking around in Afghanistan was the dumbest thing we ever did, almost.


      Brzezinski is making the case that renewal starts at a psychological level.


      Well, duh, where the hell else does it start? With a divine intervention?

      b

      Delete
    2. With removal of the regulatory burden

      A less than subtle reference to the persistent reduction of all things live to ideology.

      Let it go b. I don't care for you and I'm too tired to regress to my inner high school testosterone-driven bully.

      Delete
    3. And Doug is right - in the hindsight of his armchair. Afghanistan was popular at the time and widely regarded as an effective campaign. Ten years later it was not.

      Delete
    4. That's what we pay the Brzezinski's of the world for - hindsight! Not foresight, who cares?

      b

      Delete
    5. I don't care for you either you faux intellectual but I can't recall anything about regulatory burden.

      b

      Delete
    6. He went against the grain of elite opinion...

      Delete
    7. It was Brzezinski (Obama's mother's former boss, and mentor) that plucked Obama out of Occidental College, and brought him to Columbia.

      Understanding Brzezinski is Key to understanding Obama's foreign policy.

      Delete
    8. Which I don't see as all bad, R2P stuff notwithstanding, which strikes me more as diversionary, for public consumption, than hard foreign policy.

      The shift east, out of ME, and, if rumors correct, southwest internally.

      This country has done worse.

      Delete
    9. If there's a BIG oil play left, it's the South China Sea.

      Movin' the Carriers, Boss.

      Delete
    10. We're not going to try to "Cut China, Out," but we will try to carve off a "piece of the play" for the Philippines, Vietnam, Malasia, and perhaps, Brunei (the latter, a long-shot, for sure.)

      Delete
    11. I don't care for you either you faux intellectual

      Unlike Sarah Palin, I am inquisitive about my world. I used to read WSJ op-eds in HS, not because someone was watching but out of curiosity what people more informed than I were thinking. I am less impressed with my "betters" and my level of interest has waned over the years, but I still seek.

      Blow me you miserable little bastard.

      Delete
    12. OH, BABY!! If you're ever in the mood for "messin' 'round," give Me a Call!!

      :)

      Delete
    13. :)

      Can't decide whether I should delete that, or not.

      Delete
    14. :)

      I can't help but think that you and ZB would enjoy each other's company.

      (Or not.)

      Delete
    15. ZB . . . ZB . . . . . ZB . . . . .

      ZB?

      Delete
    16. I'm pretty sure I'd spend most of my time hittin' on the waitress. :)

      Delete
  18. Just 80,000 jobs added in June...
    One-third at temp agencies...
    85,000 WENT ON DISABILITY IN JUNE!
    Broader Jobless Rate At 14.9%...
    Unemployment rate for blacks jumps to 14.4%...
    Rate stuck at 11% for Hispanics...
    780,000 Fewer Women Employed Under Obama...
    WHITE HOUSE: 'NO QUICK FIXES'...
    Romney: 'It Doesn't Have To Be This Way'...
    Anxiety mounts as economy limps into 2nd half...
    DOW PLUNGES...
    Team Obama predicted 5.6% today with stimulus...
    IMF to cut global growth forecast...
    'Tilted to the downside'...

    See?

    It's all good.

    b

    ReplyDelete
  19. It wasn't That bad a report. The Economy has Added 550,000 Jobs over the last two months, but they've been added by "small to medium-sized businesses" (where the jobs are Always added in a recovery.)

    The "Household" Number is Always way the most important number during Recoveries. It will lead the "Establishment Number" - the one the "stocks-oriented CNBC/Wall St. Crowd touts - by anywhere from 3 months to 6 months, or more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Republicans "remembered" this when it was Bush trying to get the country out of recession.

      Delete
    2. You deserve a job as a 'spin Doctor' for the Obama Administration!

      Good work!

      b

      Delete
    3. I hated partisan stupidity when it was the Dems, and I hate it now that its coming from the pubs. In essence, I just hate partisan stupidity.

      Delete
  20. I'm off to watch the alfalfa harvest.

    See ya.

    b

    ReplyDelete
  21. Another thing the Pubs are conveniently forgetting (and the poor, inumerate jobs secretary seems to have never known) is that the Rapidly Strengthening Dollar is hurting Exports, thus Chilling Hiring by the Large, Exporting Industries.

    The entire Eurozone going into Recession cannot "not" have consequences in our own economy - all Obama can do is pray that the lag-time is long enough to get him through the election before the worst of it hits.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Germans are going to "Rock this cheap Euro," to the rafters in Indonesia, and the other SE Asian markets. Obammie needs to "git bizzy" with that Transpacific Trade Agreement. Really Bizzy.

      Delete
  22. .

    Bain? Jobs? It's all politics at this point.

    Romney and Bain merely recognized an opportunity and a trend, an inevitible one,
    and made a lot of money by investing in companies geared to take advantage of that trend. Obama's add campaign? Lies, distortions, misrepresentations, you know, political discourse as we have come to know it today. Nothing new here.

    Jobs? Neither party knows what to do about jobs. Obama has shot all his bullits. He hasn't a clue as to how to create private sector jobs. The problem is that neither does the GOP. The FED can help the day traders on Wall Street but they can't create jobs. The economy is slowly recovering, but only time and the business cycle will eventually get us out of this funk.

    Trying to parse anything positive out of today's jobs report is a real stretch.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  23. Having been somewhere over 6'3" in my younger days, the moniker, "Stretch," is not unfamiliar to me. :)

    ReplyDelete
  24. "It's a step in the right direction."

    Obama on jobs report.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w

    Obama, master of silly walks.

    ReplyDelete
  25. So far, Rufus is the only economist or business expert I've heard that thinks the jobs and unemployment numbers should be trumpeted.

    ReplyDelete
  26. May 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

    April 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

    March 2012: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is helpful to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.”

    February 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”

    January 2012: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.”

    December 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    November 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    October 2011: “The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August’s jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    September 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    August 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    July 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    June 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    May 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    cont...

    b

    ReplyDelete
  27. April 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    March 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    February 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    January 2011: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    December 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    November 2010: “Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    October 2010: “Given the volatility in monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    September 2010: “Given the volatility in the monthly employment and unemployment data, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report.”

    July 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative. It is essential that we continue our efforts to move in the right direction and replace job losses with robust job gains.”

    August 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    June 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    May 2010: “As always, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    April 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    March 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    January 2010: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    November 2009: “Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, positive or negative.”

    Once again, out of 41 months, that’s 30 warnings not to take monthly jobs reports too seriously. With unemployment sitting at 8.2 percent, and the election only four months away, the verdict is already in, and it’s not based on “any one monthly report, positive or negative.” It’s based on a record nearly four years long – a record that clearly shows this president can’t be trusted with this economy any longer.

    b

    ReplyDelete
  28. from Red State

    http://www.redstate.com/jeff_emanuel/2012/07/06/for-the-thirtieth-time-the-obama-administration-admonishes-voters-not-to-read-too-much-into-one-months-jobs-numbers/

    b

    (don't read too much into it, Rufus)

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  29. The private sector is doing just fine.


    b

    ReplyDelete
  30. Well, it's doing one hell of a lot better than it was when the Republicans left the White House.

    I'll take 80,000 Gained over 900,000 Lost, any day.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. .


      You and Bob are both falling for the same old 'lying with statistics' ruse. If you can pick the start date for any of these series, you can pretty much say anything you want.

      But if you say Bush got us into this mess, you have to admit Obama has done little to get us out of it.

      .

      Delete
    3. Markets and businesses are forward looking, as always, and a lot of folks made decisions based on a future headed by a business-hating redistributionist.

      They bet right.

      ...except in RufusWorld.

      Delete
  31. Obama In 2004 dismisses Job creation of 310,000 new jobs.

    http://www.therightscoop.com/obama-in-2004-dismisses-job-creation-of-310000-new-jobs/

    Now, now, Rufus, Bush isn't the President any longer.

    b

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Obama in speaking of the GOP,

      As he said here Friday morning, “We tried it, and didn’t work.”

      But it has become increasingly difficult for the president to argue that what he has tried is working well, or that he has something new to offer. Each month that the economy produces fewer jobs than are needed just to keep pace with population growth adds to the burden the president faces as the clock ticks toward November.


      WaPo

      .

      Delete
  32. "But operations on a database — any database — can only be safely performed if the data is left uncorrupted; and if the reconciliation process has integrity.

    But if transactions are routinely and intentionally writing the wrong values into the database it eventually diverges from the objects which it purports to represent.

    At some point the database becomes effectively worthless
    . "

    ---

    Thaddeus!!!

    Mr. McCotter was running for re-election in a race that didn’t seem to be much of a contest, especially since he has carried the district since 2003.

    But his front-runner status quickly evaporated after 1,563 of the 1,830 signatures he turned in to get his name on the primary ballot were found to be fraudulent. Only 1,000 were required.

    Longtime Michigan elections officials called the level of fraud “unheard-of,” and the state attorney general’s office announced a criminal investigation into the petitions.

    ---

    Mr. McCotter’s resignation has left his party without an obvious candidate in a Congressional district that would otherwise have been a Republican stronghold.

    One G.O.P. candidate who will be on the ballot for the Aug. 7 primary is Kerry Bentivolio, who, according to his official biography, raises reindeer “trained to pull Santa’s sleigh.”

    Hope Springs Eternal...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      You're right. Where do they get these guys?

      Ashleigh

      .

      Delete
    2. Maddogg wrote:

      "Walsh is mentally disturbed."

      Maddogg, a master of understatement.

      Surprised he didn't brag about putting his pants on one leg at at time, like all true American Heros.

      Delete
  33. "“Today I have resigned from the office of the United States Representative for Michigan’s 11th Congressional District,” he said in the statement.

    He added: “The recent event’s totality of calumnies, indignities and deceits have weighed most heavily upon my family. Thus, acutely aware one cannot rebuild their hearth of home amongst the ruins of their U.S. House office, for the sake of my loved ones I must ‘strike another match, go start anew’ by embracing the promotion back from public servant to sovereign citizen.
    "

    Yep, that's out Thaddeus, all right.

    ---

    Initial quote from Wretch's latest.

    ReplyDelete
  34. "out" = OUR

    ...although he has been outted.

    ReplyDelete
  35. He should pick up a few tips from Carolla before appearing on Miller again,

    ...this time with his appendage between his legs.

    ReplyDelete