Tag Archives: massachusetts

“I can’t believe you haven’t returned my call. Here I am making a second call…”

Posted on by

“I can’t believe you haven’t returned my call. Here I am making a second call… I haven’t heard from you.” — An incredulous Mitt Romney, leaving a second and third message in the voicemail of a grieving mother he’d called to console on the loss of her son in Iraq… Kern’s husband told the Boston Phoenix that he had heard Romney’s second and third messages and remembers Romney saying “I’m a busy man” in one of them.

Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, refutes the accounts of the fallen soldier’s mother and father — they’re lying, in other words.

The Boston Phoenix — The Huffington Post

Related: 

“I didn’t know you had families.” — Mitt Romney to LGBT constituents in Massachusetts

Posted on by

Unsurprisingly the Mormon Bishop Mitt Romney, who has been described as generous, helpful and kind by his past congregation, is a completely different person from the Mitt Romney dealing with non-Mormons and people he has no use for in the political and/or business realm. From Think Progress:

David Wilson and Julie Goodridge, two of the plaintiffs whose case led to the legalization of marriage equality in Massachusetts, described meeting with Romney to discuss their experiences. According to Wilson, “it was like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling.” At one point, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Goodridge recalls her final exchange with the governor, which proved to her that he had “no capacity for empathy”:

GOODRIDGE: Governor Romney, tell me — what would you suggest I say to my 8 year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can’t get married because you, the governor of her state, are going to block our marriage?

ROMNEY: I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.

Romney described the meeting to the press as “pleasant,” as Goodridge cried.

Because if you really are a human being, there are far different ways to disagree with someone or tell them “no,” than insulting their very existence and humanity. But to Romney, some people are more equal than others.

###

Mormon Christus commands you to insult people who are different!

Richard Cummins/Corbis - A sculpture in the visitors’ center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Why won’t Mitt Romney release his tax returns: the “voter fraud” theory

Posted on by

MS Bellows Jr. at the Guardian posits another ‘why Romney won’t release his tax returns’ theory: releasing them will prove he committed voter fraud:

“But the Romneys, arbitrarily, refuse to disclose a copy of the returns they filed in 2010 or 2009 (for tax years 2009 and 2008) – which, perhaps not coincidentally, bracket the time period when Romney allegedly committed fraud by voting in Massachusetts when he actually resided in California. So here’s the question: did Romney put his son’s basement’s address on the returns he filed in 2009 and 2010? Or did he truthfully use his real (non-Massachusetts) address, thus implicating himself in voter fraud?”

I’ll bet money that he doesn’t want to release his returns because of numerous, multiple reasons — and this could well be one of them.

Flashback: Paul Ryan on Romneycare and the individual mandate — “It is a fatal conceit”

Posted on by

Paul Ryan, like Mitt Romney, is also a big believer in the idea that you should only get as much health care as you can afford. And that includes you, grandma.

With the Romney campaign’s neck-breaking flip flop this week (they’ve tried to pretend Romneycare never happened up to this week when the campaign began praising it in defense of a political ad), The Pensito Review reminds us that “the campaign is going to have to somehow walk back Ryan’s thorough trashing of Romneycare — including the individual mandate, which was created at the Heritage Foundation…”  Go here to watch video of the following transcript:

C-SPAN HOST: Do you believe that the Massachusetts healthcare reform system worked? The system that Gov. Romney …

Rep. PAUL RYAN: Yeah, no, well. No, actually, I’m not a fan of the system. And I think that [garbled]. I’ve got some relatives up there in Massachusetts. My uncle’s a cardiologist in Boston, and I talk to a lot of healthcare folks up there who — what’s happening now, because costs are getting out of control, premiums are increasing in Massachusetts. And now you have bureaucracy that [garbled] all these cost controls and now rationing on the system.

So people in Massachusetts are saying, yes, we have virtually universal healthcare. I think it’s like 96 or 98 percent insured. But you see the system bursting by the seams. They see premium increases, rationing and benefit cuts. And so they’re frustrated with this system.

Number one, they’re already paying for it. They don’t want to pay for another system on top of it. That was, I think, Scott Brown’s message. They see how this idea of having the government being the single regulator of health insurance, defining what kind of health insurance you can have and then an individual mandate. It is a fatal conceit. And these kinds of systems, as we’re now seeing in Massachusetts, are unsustainable.

REMINDER: we do still want to see Mitt Romney’s tax returns. 

Slippery Mitt’s belly flop of the day: “President Obama’s soft on welfare”

Posted on by

President Obama is hardly the candidate who’s anywhere near “soft” on welfare. Did you know the Boston Herald used to call Governor Romney’s welfare program in Massachusetts “Welfare Wheels“? Joe Klein has the details:

The theme of the day for the Romney campaign was, as Alex Rogers notes below, that Obama’s Soft on Welfare. It sort of flopped. The factoid planted at the microscopic center of the non-story is that the Obama campaign allegedly granted states the right to request waivers from the current welfare work requirements…which is true, except for the following things:

1. The waivers would be granted only if states came up with alternative ideas to create jobs for people on welfare.

2. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney himself asked for such a waiver in 2005.

And, this third bit is just too good…

3. As governor, Romney offered welfare recipients free auto insurance, registration, inspections and memberships in AAA.

Mitt lies and withholds information like this EVERY SINGLE DAY just to convince the feeble minded Fox / Rush fans to vote for him. I can only imagine what those tax returns he’s hiding would really tell us.

source image: paxamericana

Bill Clinton: Romney’s welfare reform attack ad “not true” and “especially disappointing”

Posted on by

LGF reports that “President Bill Clinton is calling out Mitt Romney for his latest dishonest attack ad: Bill Clinton Slams Romney ‘Misleading’ Welfare Ad.”

“Governor Romney released an ad today alleging that the Obama administration had weakened the work requirements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. That is not true.

“The act emerged after years of experiments at the state level, including my work as Governor of Arkansas beginning in 1980.  When I became President, I granted waivers from the old law to 44 states to implement welfare to work strategies before welfare reform passed.

“After the law was enacted, every state was required to design a plan to move people into the workforce, along with more funds to help pay for training, childcare and transportation. As a result, millions of people moved from welfare to work.

“The recently announced waiver policy was originally requested by the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada to achieve more flexibility in designing programs more likely to work in this challenging environment.  The Administration has taken important steps to ensure that the work requirement is retained and that waivers will be granted only if a state can demonstrate that more people will be moved into work under its new approach.  The welfare time limits, another important feature of the 1996 act will not be waived.

“The Romney ad is especially disappointing because, as governor of Massachusetts, he requested changes in the welfare reform laws that could have eliminated time limits altogether.  We need a bipartisan consensus to continue to help people move from welfare to work even during these hard times, not more misleading campaign ads.”

Another day, another lie for the Romneybot version 2.012.

Romney’s “Plan for a Stronger Middle-Class” wouldn’t create ANY American jobs

Posted on by

Pat Garofalo explores our man Mitt Romney’s claim that he’d create 12 million jobs and finds that Romney’s plan would actually kill jobs in America:

“Romney claims his plan will create 12 million jobs is one that his economic advisers have been echoing. However, a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis found that Romney plan would actually kill 360,000 jobs next year alone…

“[...] Several of Romney’s proposals entail no change in policy, so its unclear how they would create jobs. Several others — including tax incentives for outsourcing — would actively undermine U.S. employment. Remember, Romney’s job creation record as governor was hardly stellar, as Massachusetts was 47th in job creation during his tenure.

“163,000 jobs created is encouraging, albeit too few to substantially bring down the unemployment rate. But the unemployment rate would be a full percentage point lower were it not for the hundreds of thousands of public sector layoffs that have occurred as a result of budget cutbacks. And Romney would double down on those sort of austerity measures, slicing the budget while cutting taxes for the rich under an economic ideology that has failed to produce results.”

America certainly doesn’t need to be “Bain Capitalized” anymore than it already has been: outsourcing American jobs overseas, austerity measures, and replacing living wages with minimum wage—all to benefit corporations and the one percent. Thanks, but no thanks.


via: atsirka

2002 SLC Olympics: key records destroyed, Romney claims he was long gone before it happened

Posted on by

Déjà vu! More records destroyed under Mitt Romney’s leadership and another embarrassing situation where Romney now claims he was long gone before the questionable stuff happened.

This time it’s when he’d “promised “complete transparency” when he took charge of the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Olympics, a pledge that included access to his own correspondence and plans for an extensive public archive of documents related to the Games,”  as reported by Boston.com:

“Archivists now say most key records about the Games’ internal workings were destroyed under the supervision of a staff member shortly after the flame was extinguished at Olympic Cauldron Park, after Romney had returned to Massachusetts.

““Transparency? There was none with [the Salt Lake Organizing Committee] when he was there,” said Kenneth Bullock, a committee member who represented the Utah League of Cities and Towns. “Their transparency became a black hole. It was nonexistent.”

“According to Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul, “Mitt Romney resigned from SLOC in early 2002 to run for governor of Massachusetts and was not involved in the decision-making regarding the final disposition of records.”

“Romney and the Salt Lake Organizing Committee had no legal obligation to preserve their records or make them public, even though the state paid $59 million, and the federal government spent $342 million on the Games and contributed roughly $1 billion more in indirect aid for transportation projects and other capital improvements in the Salt Lake region.

“Like other Olympics, the 2002 Winter Games were managed not by a public entity but by a private, nonprofit corporation that was exempt from public records laws.

“Earlier Olympic organizing committees, too, had destroyed internal documents. Organizers of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, burned records of their bid to host the Olympics — a move widely believed to have covered up bribery.”

This is clearly a feature, and not a bug, of how Romney does business: as the president of Bain Capital, as governor of Massachusetts, and as chief executive of the Olympics! And then there’s his tax returns…

How can the GOP / Teaparty even consider a candidate for president who conducts himself like this?

Imagine the outrage if Obama had destroyed government records like Mitt Romney did

Posted on by

People with nothing to hide don’t destroy emails and remove hard drives from government computers. Secrecy and hidden dirt is becoming Mitt Romney’s theme song.

Flashback from November 2011 — Romney admits he destroyed government records:

Think Progress: “…a Boston Globe investigation uncovered that former Gov. Mitt Romney’s administration destroyed emails, purchased hard drives, and otherwise obliterated all digital records of his time as governor of Massachusetts. This happened as Romney was leaving the state to campaign for president (the first time), and observers immediately speculated that the systematic destruction was politically motivated to hide embarrassing data. Romney and his campaign have so far denied this, with the candidate saying this weekend in New Hampshire that his staff took the highly unusual step of purchasing their work hard drives because they might contain “confidential and private” information. Meanwhile, he’s made calls for greater White House transparency a part of his campaign message. [In an interview on Nov. 21, 2011] Romney suggested that his administration deleted emails because they didn’t want “opposition research teams” to have access to them.” 

The flying monkeys would have been unleashed permanently if Obama had done something like this.

via: questionall 

Mitt Romney agrees with the President on health care mandate: it’s a penalty not a tax

Posted on by

Yesterday, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom appeared on MSNBC to say that Romney does not agree with the current GOP hissy fit that the health reform mandate is a tax. Like President Obama and the Democrats in Congress, he considers it a penalty:

“The governor believes that what we put in place in Massachusetts was a penalty and he disagrees with the court’s ruling that the mandate was a tax.” Todd expressed his confusion given that this contradicts the existing Republican talking point on the health care law as a tax: “So he agrees with the president that you shouldn’t call the tax penalty a tax?” “That’s correct,” Fehrnstrom said. “But the president also needs to be held accountable for his hypocritical and contradictory statements because he’s described it variously as a penalty and a tax. Lest you fear this does not represent a classic Romney flip-flop, too, fear not. As others have pointed out, Romney previously referred to the Massachusetts law as a “tax penalty” more than once, including in a 2009 USA Today Op-Ed and in a 2008 debate.

Of course this opinion can (and probably will) change at any minute, so prepare to shake the Etch-A-Sketch.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) has said he meets secretly with “kings and queens” at least five times

Posted on by

“Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been discussing issues … in secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military leaders talking, voting, working on issues every single day.” -- Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) says he holds daily secret meetings with kings and queens. (via think-progress)

Boston.com: Remember Scott Brown’s gaffe on Thursday? The one about meeting with kings and queens? His staff was quick to say the comment was a flub, acknowledging that the senator has not actually met with royalty. “He misspoke when he said kings and queens,” Brown spokesman Colin Reed said in a statement. But the Massachusetts Democratic Party today released a video showing four prior examples when Brown used the same phrasing about meeting with “kings and queens” while speaking to audiences as part of his reelection bid.

A compilation of Senator Scott Brown and his “secret meetings” with “kings and queens” (via: )

…
And here’s the fifth example.

HOW is this a close race in Massachusetts? How?
image
via: cognitivedissonance

If you’d rather vote for someone who doesn’t imagine they’re meeting secretly with kings and queens every single day, vote for Elizabeth Warren.

Wildfires and the GOP: when those who want less government still want essential public services

Posted on by

Charles P. Pierce points out an interesting (or maybe sad? pathetic?) bit of Republican hypocrisy regarding the High Park Fire in Colorado and federal firefighters (i.e. government parasites):

I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but, contra Willard Romney, I think both Colorado and New Mexico could use some more firefighters right now. That is certainly the opinion of the Colorado congressional delegation, which has dispatched a letter to the federal government appealing for more help. The delegation includes Rep. Scott Tipton (R -3d CD), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4th CD), Rep, Mike (Stuck In A Groove) Coffman (R-6th CD). (As it happens, Gardner’s district is the one most directly affected by the wildfires.) Needless to say, but we’ll say it anyway, all three of these folks voted for the Paul Ryan budget, which would cut the daylights out of things like federal firefighting programs, which already are pretty imperiled.

Maybe the Republican delegation from Colorado should discuss their concerns with Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney — let their party leaders explain why it’s a good idea to have fewer firefighters? Especially Romney, who has a long history of hating on firefighters:

Mitt Romney came under fire this weekend from Democrats after he suggested that we shouldn’t hire more firefighters. Then top Romney surrogate John Sununu, the former governor of New Hampshire, doubled down on Romney’s firefighter comments today, telling MSNBC they were not a “gaffe.” This is hardly the first time the presumed GOP nominee has tangled with firefighters. In fact, he has a long, bitter history with them. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney often ended up sparring with firefighters and their unions. He proposed stripping collective bargaining rights for firefighters and police officers in a city that needed a state bailout, and cut funding to a fire station to be built on the site where six firemen died. He also proposed tripling the state police budget to deal with homeland security concerns in the years after 9/11, but didn’t offer a dime for firefighters, angering many at the time.

Morning Bunker Report: Wednesday 6.6.2012

Posted on by

WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

“But if people only watch the three big networks … a lot of people will assume that Obama really is just doing a great job and he just can’t get those crazy Republicans to help him out.” – Mike Huckabee, commenting on what people would think of President Obama without Fox News

Romney should probably stop talking about the auto-industry rescue altogether — The Republican has repeatedly argued that GM and Chrysler should have relied on private funding to restructure and get back on their feet. That, of course, was impossible. In early 2009, the credit markets were frozen and there was no private funding available. (When a company called Bain Capital was approached, it refused to invest.) And so it appears that Romney is shifting once again, not only taking credit for a policy he attacked, but also saying taxpayer support “was fine,” after arguing for three years it wasn’t fine. The new twist is that Romney is on board with public support after, but not before, bankruptcy, but that doesn’t make sense, either — GM and Chrysler would have never survived the bankruptcy process without federal intervention. Romney could simply try the truth — he should admit, “I was wrong” — but that seems to be the only position he hasn’t tried yet. – Steve Benen

 
images: sandandglass

How things change! Emails show how Romney pushed Massachusetts health bill: Romneycare – The emails show the Republican governor was closely engaged in negotiating details of the bill, working with top Democratic state leaders and drafting early copies of opinion articles backing it. Mr. Romney and his aides, meanwhile, strongly defended the so-called individual mandate, a requirement that everyone in Massachusetts have or buy health insurance. And they privately discussed ideas that might be anathema to today’s GOP—including publicly shaming companies that didn’t provide enough health insurance to employees. – WSJ

This can’t be re-stated enough: if Romney wins, he’ll pay himself  $5 million – One of the perks of being a Republican president: Under his plan, Romney’s tax rate would fall from its current 14.7 percent to 13.1 percent, while under Obama’s tax plan, Romney would pay a 34.3 percent rate. The difference in these rates means about $5 million for Romney’s tax bill. By the way, Romney’s $5 million personal tax cut would add to the deficit. You know, because he’s a fiscal hawk and really, really cares about the deficit and debt. – Bob Cesca

Hey, struggling homeowners! Mitt Romney hates you.

Nobel-winning economist predicts Romney recession – Economist Joseph Stiglitz is hitting the media circuit to promote his new book.. Speaking to reporters in New York on Monday, the Nobel Prize-winner and former World Bank chief claimed that if former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) is elected president in 2012, the risk of another recession will go up “significantly.” “The Romney plan is going to slow down the economy, worsen the jobs deficit and significantly increase the likelihood of a recession,” he said. – Raw Story

Lindsey Graham wants more wars – SO YES TO TAXES! Mr. Graham is openly talking about revenue increases to offset the costs. Even South Carolina’s ardently conservative House members, Mick Mulvaney, Joe Wilson and Jeff Duncan, said last week that they were ready to talk.  [...] “The debate on the debt is an opportunity to send the world a signal that we are going to remain the strongest military force in the world,” he said. “We’re saying, ‘We’re going to keep it, and we’re going to make it the No. 1 priority of a broke nation.’ ” To that end, his arguments grow increasingly complex, involving a near-term confrontation with Syria and what he is sure will be a military strike on Iran late this summer, “an air and sea campaign from hell,” he tells an audience in Sumter. A large screen at the Third Army command center in nearby Shaw Air Force Base seemed to back him up on that. It broadcast a multicolored map of Iran with its air defenses demarcated in loud, red circles. – NYTimes

Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA ) blatantly lies about Obama giving TSA waivers to Muslims – on conservative talk radio Monday… Landry [blatantly lied about the Obama administration and an imaginary] Transportation Security Administration program that lets Muslim passengers through security without even so much as a sideways glance. [...] The TSA gives no waivers, special rights or exceptions based upon religious beliefs. The only people who get special treatment are those willing to pay for it by submitting to a pre-screening process. Minorities, such as Muslims, Sikhs and people who appear to be from the Middle East, have typically reported facing even greater scrutiny by TSA agents than other passengers. Rep. Landry appears to have invented the claim as a way of illustrating another imagined controversy: that Obama is secretly punishing people of his own faith because of his spiritual preference for Muslims. — Raw Story

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

“Nobody has seen a communist in over a decade.” — Bill Clinton, quoted by The Hill, criticizing House Republicans for failing to reprimand Rep. Allen West (R-FL) who claimed as many as 80 Democrats in Congress are members of the Communist Party.

Michigan had sixth highest rate of growth in 2011: no wonder Romney keeps etch-a-sketching his earlier opinions on Detroit and letting it go bankrupt — New data released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed that Michigan, the home of the American auto-industry, had the sixth highest rate of growth in the nation in 2011. […] For comparison’s sake, the Michigan economy shrank by 9 percent in 2009. Now the state boasts the sixth highest rate of growth in the nation. An unprecedented turnaround that occurred in just two years. — Bob Cesca

Some Republicans are now willing to increase taxes, as Democrats have been pushing for all along (but only to preserve military spending) – In March, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) pointed out that a “vote to extend the Bush tax cuts in their entirety would, in essence, be the vote to lock in sequestration” by cutting down on revenue to offset government debt. The Times report today pointed out that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is unlikely to allow sequestration to be averted without a debt reduction package that includes increased government revenue. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) was more blunt speaking to the Times, noting that the Republicans that supported last August’s Budget Control Act — 28 in the Senate and 174 in the House — were given the choice of automatically-triggered military spending cuts or tax increases. Van Hollen said: The consistent pattern here is they have chosen to defend special interest tax breaks over defense spending. They made that choice. – Think Progress

Tax cuts for the wealthy, austerity for the rest of us: pension cuts – “In both San Diego and San Jose, voters appeared to overwhelmingly approve ballot initiatives designed to help balance ailing municipal budgets by cutting retirement benefits for city workers,” the New York Times reports. Wall Street Journal: “Since the recession, dozens of state legislatures and city councils throughout the U.S. have scaled back benefits and jobs in an attempt to plug large budget holes. But unlike most efforts to rein in pension costs, the San Jose measure targets current workers and retirees rather than focusing only on workers that have yet to be hired.” – Political Wire  

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer charges GOP with Obstructionism – “It’s not ‘our way or the highway,’ it’s ‘our way or no highway.’ No jobs. No progress. No consensus. No agreement,” Hoyer said. “So what the Republican hardliners are doing, are saying, [is], ‘We won’t agree in conference, we won’t come to agreement, we won’t help create jobs in America … unless we get our way.’” — Roll Call News

[I]t seems Wisconsin Democrats have managed one significant, if largely symbolic, victory for the night by apparently reclaiming control of the Wisconsin state senate. There were four state senate recalls tonight. Dems needed one to flip control of the state’s upper house. Three of those the Republicans won handily. But they appear to have won the 21st district. […] 16 of the 33 seats are again up for election in 5 months. – TPM

Scott Walker steps right up into the pocket of those who got him there — Make no mistake. A star was born last night. You will now see Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, everywhere in the energetic precincts of the revived American right. He will be on the covers of their startlingly advertising-free little magazines. He will be the darling of every wingnut blogger in the extended monkeyhouse; poo will be flung high and far in celebration of him. He will have a high-profile speaking role in Tampa this August, and it is very likely that there are people in Iowa who already are booking house parties for the late autumn of 2015 in his honor. He will be a bigger presence on Fox News than are Brit Hume’s jowls or Shep Smith’s gradually swelling public rage. I will tell you what: Willard Romney better be damned glad that he’s already clinched the nomination, and that Walker didn’t win this recall a year ago. And, because they are a timid flock of ruminants, the rest of the elite political press corps will wander, sheeplike, in his general direction, grazing amid the unmitigated manure of his victory speech here last night. Oh, Lord, are we going to be hearing about what a “turning point” in Walker’s career that speech was. – Charles P. Pierce