Month: July 2012
Majority of American Jews Back Obama
68%
Of Jewish Americans support President Obama for re-eelction, while 25% support Mitt Romney, according to a new Gallup poll.
Gibbs Muses That the ‘World Is Not Ready for Mitt Romney’
Mitt Romney wondered aloud whether London was ready for the Olympics, and I think it’s clear that voters in this country wonder aloud whether Mitt Romney is ready for the world, and I think the world is not yet ready for Mitt Romney.
— Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, in an interview with ABC News, adding, “I thought it was embarrassing for our country.”
Mitt Might Be a Wimp
The episode highlights what’s really wrong with Romney. He’s kind of lame, and he’s really … annoying. He keeps saying these … things, these incredibly off-key things. Then he apologizes immediately — with all the sincerity of a hostage. Or maybe he doesn’t: sometimes he whines about the subsequent attacks on him. But the one thing he never does? Man up, double down, take his lumps.
— From a A Newsweek cover story that says Mitt Romney’s trip to London — where he “managed to alienate just about every living Briton” — suggests he might just be too insecure to be president.
A Recession of Republicans’ Making
4.4%
Projected growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, if Congress avoids another debt ceiling fiasco when they debate extending the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 after the November elections. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), who made the estimates, also projects 2 million new jobs next year if Congress acts responsibly. If not, the CBO says the economy will go back in recession.
‘Dark Money’ Dominating Election Spending
$172 million
Amount of “dark money” politically involved groups that do not disclose their donors have spent, through July 26, on campaigns that include television, radio and Internet advertising, according to Huffington Post. Total spending by these groups is likely far greater, since they are required to report only a fraction of their spending to the FEC. Politically involved independent groups that publicly disclose their donors, including super PACs, have spent $174 million so far this election cycle.
Busted: Charles Krauthammer Is 100% Wrong about When the Churchill Bust Was Loaned to the Bush White House – It Was in July 2001, Not after 9/11
Pres. Obama recently remarked that politics can sometimes seem small. A prime example of this smallness is the controversy Republicans have been stoking for three-plus years now over the disposition of a bust of Winston Churchill that was loaned to the Bush White House in 2001. The latest stoke came yesterday from the right-wing Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, in an article titled, “Busted: Mr. Pfeiffer and the White House blog“:
BBC Documentary on Romney’s Religion: ‘The Mormon Candidate’
This BBC documentary, “The Mormon Candidate,” was released in March of this year. Here’s Buzzfeed’s take:
Salt Lake City Winter Olympics: Hey Mitt, You Didn’t Build That
We’ve been stupefied at the public relations disaster that has been Mitt Romney’s European vacation.
Especially amazing is that the candidate would want to draw attention to his role in the 2002 Winter Olympics, particularly in light of his effort to disavow the impact of infrastructure and public works in American business success (and if you don’t think it makes a difference, just ask a Somalian).
Romney used his role as CEO of the 2002 games, held in Mormon world headquarters, aka Salt Lake City, Utah, to jump-start his successful bid for governor of Massachusetts. But as this article in the Washington Examiner notes, the event wasn’t exactly a one-man show.
Romney: “No matter how well we did cutting costs and raising revenue, we couldn’t have games without the support of the federal government’
In Romney’s book “Turnaround: Crisis, Leadership and the Olympic Games,” Romney describes in a chapter entitled “Funds from the Feds” how he lobbied Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for funding, saying he “would need hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal support from a long list of departments.”
“No matter how well we did cutting costs and raising revenue, we couldn’t have games without the support of the federal government,” Romney wrote.
