The Many Faces of US Politics...

[stew]

Some interesting figures in here on the campaign finances etc. Notable difference in the type of employee funding each

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/

If Goldman Sachs is top of your list of supporters you know there's something wrong right there!!!

Yet you are blind to number 5 on Obama's list. Rose tinted glasses and all that.

Now we have a president who has accepted funds from the Government he heads up, isn't that sort of wrong? where is the moral outrage? all you can see is Goldman Sachs and yet you fail miserably to see the one entity that should never donate to a parties drive for the white house. For shame!

[AZOffaly]

And there is the inferrence I was talking about, right on cue Take a look at the note Stew. The government does not directly donate to Obama's campaign, nor does GS to Romney. However, companies may be part of a PAC.

Connected PACs

Most of the 4,600 active, registered PACs are "connected PACs" established by businesses, labor unions, trade groups, or health organizations. These PACs receive and raise money from a "restricted class," generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation and members in the case of a union or other interest group. As of January 2009, there were 1,598 registered corporate PACs, 272 related to labor unions and 995 to trade organizations.[5]

[deiseach]

And there is the inferrence I was talking about, right on cue Take a look at the note Stew. The government does not directly donate to Obama's campaign, nor does GS to Romney. However, companies may be part of a PAC.

Connected PACs

Most of the 4,600 active, registered PACs are "connected PACs" established by businesses, labor unions, trade groups, or health organizations. These PACs receive and raise money from a "restricted class," generally consisting of managers and shareholders in the case of a corporation and members in the case of a union or other interest group. As of January 2009, there were 1,598 registered corporate PACs, 272 related to labor unions and 995 to trade organizations.[5]

Thank you for the explanation. I think...

[J70]

What is the problem with government workers contributing? Should they not be allowed to support their preferred political candidate? Don't they have a say in who runs the country?

[J70]

For those interested, the cans and cannots for federal employees under the Hatch Act and amendments when it comes to political campaigns:

http://www.osc.gov/documents/hatchact/ha_fed.pdf

[J70]

Some interesting figures in here on the campaign finances etc. Notable difference in the type of employee funding each

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/

If Goldman Sachs is top of your list of supporters you know there's something wrong right there!!!

Yet you are blind to number 5 on Obama's list. Rose tinted glasses and all that.

Now we have a president who has accepted funds from the Government he heads up, isn't that sort of wrong? where is the moral outrage? all you can see is Goldman Sachs and yet you fail miserably to see the one entity that should never donate to a parties drive for the white house. For shame!

Its government workers, NOT the government!!

[J70]

Goldman Sachs people actually gave Obama four times as much as McCain in 2008 (and more in total that Romney has received, to date). I guess that was before he was "mean" to Wall Street with his support for Dodd-Frank! There's also the fact that Obama was clearly going to win from six weeks out, so many probably threw in with the winning candidate.

McCain's top five contributors in terms of employers included Goldman and they were all banking organizations!

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contriball.php?cycle=2008

[Declan]

Yes, Romney's a Liar, But This Is Getting Ridiculous
by John Nichols
It is no secret that political candidates are capable of doing awful things when they are reach the desperate final days of an election campaign.

But trying to scare American workers into believing that a government initiative that saved their industry was some sort of secret scheme to shutter major plants and offshore jobs is more than just creepy. It's economic fear-mongering of a sort that is destructive to the spirit of communities and to the very future of the republic as an industrial force.

George Romney, who led the remarkable American Motors Company project that would eventually produce the Jeep, never in a political career that saw him win election as governor of Michigan and seek the Republican nomination for president would have engaged in such calumny.

But George Romney's ne're-do-well son, a very different sort of businessman who devoted his career to taking apart American companies and offshoring jobs, is trying to resurrect his presidential candidacy with a big lie.

And the lie is about Jeeps.

Jeeps are made in Toledo, Ohio, where the iconic American vehicle has been produced since 1941, and Romney needs to win Toledo and the rest of northwest Ohio if he is to stand a chance of winning the battleground state that is key to the presidency.

Last week, Romney went to the region and shocked voters by suggesting that: "I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China."

The story, an October 22 report by Bloomberg News, which specifically stated that: "Chrysler currently builds all Jeep SUV models at plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. [Fiat/Chrysler executive Mike] Manley referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China."

Yet, Romney spoke of the company that manufactures Jeeps "moving all production to China."

The statement stirred fundamental fears in a regional that has been battered by plant closings. So much so that Jeep's parent company, Chrysler, rushed to clarify that Romney was completely, totally, incredibly wrong. "Let's set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China," announced Chrysler.

Company spokesman Gaulberto Ranieri said that Romney had remade the facts so aggressively that: "It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats."

What was Romney's response to being caught in a lie.

He lied bigger.

Much bigger.

The Romney campaign is now airing an ad in Ohio that claims President Obama, with the auto bailout that saved domestic vehicle production, "sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China."

The ad concludes that Romney—whose Bain Capital enterprise identified as "a pioneer of outsourcing"—"will fight for every American job."

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the nation's top experts on political advertising reviewed the ad and dismissed it as "inferentially false."

"They are inviting a false inference," Hall said of the Romney campaign's attempt to suggest that Obama had engineered a change in Jeep's status that would see the Toledo plant shuttered and its more than 3,500 workers idled.

The Washington Post "Fact Checker" site reviewed Romney's ad and declared: "the overall message of the ad is clearly misleading—especially since it appears to have been designed to piggyback off of Romney's gross misstatement that Chrysler was moving Ohio factory jobs to China."

The pushback from Obama's backers and his campaign has been aggressive.

Former President Bill Clinton flew to Ohio and decried Romney's claim as "the biggest load of bull in the world."

Vice President Joe Biden said: "I have never seen anything like that. It's an absolutely, patently false assertion. It's such an outrageous assertion that, one of the few times in my memory, a major American corporation, Chrysler, has felt obliged to go public and say, there is no truth."

An Obama campaign ad announced that "now, after Romney's false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China, Chrysler itself has refuted Romney's lie."

What was Romney's response.

Up the ad buy.

Expand the big lie so that it is now enormous.

The deception has become such a serious issue that, on Tuesday, Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne felt compelled to clarify what is becoming an international controversy.

"Chrysler Group's production plans for the Jeep brand have become the focus of public debate. I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China," wrote Marchionne, who added:

North American production is critical to achieving our goal of selling 800,000 Jeep vehicles by 2014. In fact, U.S. production of our Jeep models has nearly tripled (it is expected to be up 185 percent) since 2009 in order to keep up with global demand...

With the increase in demand for our vehicles, especially Jeep branded vehicles, we have added more than 11,200 U.S. jobs since 2009. Plants producing Jeep branded vehicles alone have seen the number of people invested in the success of the Jeep brand grow to more than 9,300 hourly jobs from 4,700. This will increase by an additional 1,100 as the Liberty successor, which will be produced in Toledo, is introduced for global distribution in the second quarter of 2013.
There was nothing unambiguous about that statement. Yet Marchionne continued: "Jeep is one of our truly global brands with uniquely American roots. This will never change. So much so that we committed that the iconic Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio, plant, will never see full production outside the United States."

"Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand," confirmed Marchionne. "It is inaccurate to suggest anything different."

That's a rare commitment by a manufacturer—far more clear and unequivocal than the commitment Bain Capital made to the companies it bought up, tore apart and outsourced.

Yet, Mitt Romney's campaign is still running the ad.

Still lying.

That's made United Auto Workers union president Bob King furious:

It is especially hypocritical of Mr. Romney's statements and new ad is Bain Capital's closing of profitable U.S. facilities and shifting work to China to make even higher profits like what is happening today in closing a profitable Sensata plant in Freeport, IL, to move the work to China. Romney says in the ad that he will fight for every American job, so why isn't he fighting for the American jobs at Sensata? And why isn't he intervening with his own Bain Capital to keep these jobs in the U.S. rather than outsourcing them to China? We just wish that Mr. Romney was as committed to investing in the U.S. as Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne is.

Americans will remember that President Obama stood behind American working families and American communities in rescuing the U.S. auto industry and that Mr. Romney opposed the rescue and now attacks Chrysler with misinformation. In putting out this misinformation, Romney is recklessly undermining Chrysler's reputation and threatening good American jobs.
Imagine if Mitt Romney were to be elected president of the United States.

Imagine if he had to go into negotiations with Marchionne, or another CEO of another industrial giant, about protecting US jobs. Or expanding US manufacturing.

Would the executive trust Romney?

Or would the executive remember Romney as the politician who lied and then lied bigger in order to get what he wanted?

That's a question that American voters who want their country to have a future as a country that makes cars and trucks and Jeeps would be wise to ponder as November 6 approaches

[FL/MAYO]

I'm in line to vote as I type this, the wait so far is one hour and still have another hour to go. Tuesday is going to be a mess here in Florida. At least ten constitutional amendments on the ballot just to add further confusion to the  already long ballot.

[give her dixie]

This is an excellent article showing how Romney and his buddies took over a bankrupt automotive company, made billions on the GM bailout, closed the factories and sacked 25,000 workers, moved  production to China, and floated the company for billions.....

http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#

Seems Romney has a few questions to answer about his involvement in the auto bailout as outlined in  The Nation article......

UAW Files Charges Against Romney for Auto Bail-Out Profiteering
By Greg Palast, GregPalast.com
02 November 12


Broke ethics law hiding millions, say good government groups

or Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon he will charged with violating the federal Ethics in Government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bail-out.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney's potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue," "It's time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest."

"While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation's most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others," King added.

The Romneys' gigantic windfall was hidden inside an offshore corporation inside a Limited Partnership inside a trust which both concealed the gain and reduces taxes on it.

The Romneys' windfall was originally exposed in Nation Magazine, Mitt Romney's Bail-out Bonanza after a worldwide investigation by our crew at The Guardian, the Nation Institute and the Palast Investigative Fund. [Ed. - The full story of Romney and his "vulture fund" partners is in Palast's New York Times bestseller, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits.]

According to ethics law expert Dr. Craig Holman of Public Citizen, who advised on the complaint, Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust. An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union, Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which Presidential action can have little effect. By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment.

In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bail-out fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain. Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romney's tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi - and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job - 25,000 - and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

Forensic Economist Greg Palast's investigative reports can be seen on BBC Television. His latest bestseller, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps contains a comic book by Ted Rall and chapters by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. www.BallotBandits.org

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/14318-focus-uaw-files-charges-against-romney-for-auto-bail-out-profiteering

[stew]

A terror attack on a US Embassy happens, within two minutes a terror group claims responsibility for the attack, the Prez is asked by CBS the next day id it was a terrorist attack, he is non commital, CBS sits on it until late on the eve of the election.............why???

Sandy hits America's shores, what does el Presidente do, he shows up for a photo op and fcuks off, never to be seen again............meanwhile at the ranch people have no water, food or heat, where is the fcuker???

You socialists should be ashamed of yourselves, when Obamanation took office 32 million were on food stamps, today there are 46 million on food stamps today!!!

There has been an 84% hike on gas prices.

Six trillion more debt, the prez calls for "revenge"

Fcuk the prez, we need change, we need it now and the Prez has been complete and utter shite, the man apologized to the people for losing touch with them two years ago..........................fast forward two years, Obama's Catriona and fcuks aff!

and he shows up for a photo op

With Sandy you saw Obamacare at it's finest, this thing could be won yet by Romney because Obama is hideous.

[Eamonnca1]

Is it true Paddy Power has already paid out to people who backed Obama?

[Declan]

Too close to call? This guy knows why hes voting for GOP though


Enjoyed this - http://www.youtube.com/embed/EDxOSjgl5Z4

[Premier Emperor]

Obama has it in the bag.
Any pundit who claims it's too close to call should be sacked.
He is ahead in more than enough swing states.
There aren't enough backward, redneck states to get Romney into  the White House.

[deiseach]

Any pundit who claims it's too close to call should be sacked.

Should be, but won't. Getting everything wrong hasn't been an impediment to Bill Kristol's punditry career.