One Thing Mitt Romney and Republicans Need to Learn; Morality is a Value

One Thing Mitt Romney and Republicans Need to Learn; Morality is a Value

The Washington Post has a blockbuster, must-read story today detailing how Mitt Romney and Bain Capital were “pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States” to countries like India, China, and elsewhere.

ThinkProgress’ Pat Garofalo gets to the heart of it:

    Bain “invested in a series of firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low-wage countries like China and India.”

    In one example, Bain was the largest shareholder in a company called Modus Media, which “specialized in helping companies outsource their manufacturing“:

        Modus Media told the SEC it was performing outsource packaging and hardware assembly for IBM, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Computer Corp. The filing disclosed that Modus had operations on four continents, including Asian facilities in Singapore, Taiwan, China and South Korea, and European facilities in Ireland and France, and a center in Australia.[...]

        According to a news release issued by Modus Media in 1997, its expansion of outsourcing services took place in close consultation with Bain. Terry Leahy, Modus’s chairman and chief executive, was quoted in the release as saying he would be “working closely with Bain on strategic expansion.”.

    Other companies that Bain invested in sent jobs all over the world, including to Ireland and Mexico, while Romney has tried to claim that Bain was all about creating jobs and turning around American companies that otherwise would have gone under.

    As one of Romney’s former partners put it,”I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation…The primary goal of private equity is to create wealth for your investors.” And that’s what Bain did, even if it meant helping companies move operations to the same country Romney now blasts for stealing American jobs.

While the Romney campaign declined to comment for the article, they offered a laughable response today: outsourcing is different than offshoring. In other words, they didn’t dispute one iota of the substance of the story, but instead wanted to split hairs over semantics.

WHY IT MATTERS: While it’s troubling that Mitt Romney amassed a quarter-billion dollar fortune by bankrupting companies, laying off workers, and sending jobs overseas, where his policies would take America is of even greater concern.

Not only did Romney personally profit from the outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs, he has signed a pledge to a Washington lobbyist to protect tax breaks for companies who ship American jobs overseas. Mitt Romney also wants to encourage companies to dodge taxes by simply getting rid of taxes on foreign profits altogether. And he has also eagerly embraced the House Republican budget plan that also protects tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and also abolishes corporate taxes on foreign profits — many of which are “foreign” only because of accounting tricks and other gimmicks.

By contrast, President Obama wants to end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and instead use the money to reward companies who bring jobs back to America. The president also wants to make sure that companies pay their fair share by instituting a global minimum tax to make sure they don’t use tricks and gimmicks to avoid paying what they owe.
Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed

A Romney campaign co-chair said that Romney would “rescind” the president’s new immigration policy if he’s elected.

The Montana Republican Party bankrolled an ad attacking the Republican budget because it hurts Medicare.

Why the revelations about Romney’s career as an outsourcer really matter.

Romney has been good at reaping profits for the millionaire elite who invested with Bain. If that is the end all of what constitutes values and love of country, than Mitt is your man. If making a living is a value than Mitt is working against you - and that means most Americans. he even sheltered some of his money is an offshore bank account when taxes in the USA are at their lowest since the 1950s. That is hardly the way a true patriot acts. 

New video shows Scott Brown(R-MA) spoke of meeting with ‘kings and queens’ five times. Brown denies he has said he has meet with kings and queens even though the video is clear. Perhaps brown would be better off and certainly the American people would be better off if this he retired to a sanitarium.

This is what happens when you give a moronic Anti-American lunatic a cable show, Bill O'Reilly Tries To Grasp Complex Argument From Melissa Harris-Perry, Fails

There Are Many Big Conservative Lies. That Republicans Are For Small Government is One of Them

There Are Many Big Conservative Lies. That Republicans Are For Small Government is One of Them

What do you suppose a country that is only willing to pay (top dollar) for a far flung military empire, domestic policing, prisons and border security look like? If the Republicans get their we\'re way, it looks like we\'re going to find out:

    The House passed a defense budget Friday that exceeds the deal cut by Congress and President Barack Obama last summer, and that would have to be paid for with cash taken from poverty programs, health care and the federal workforce.

    The National Defense Authorization Act permits $642 billion in defense spending next year. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, citing more than 30 changes to the budget it was seeking.

    But the measure also adds $8 billion more than called for in the Budget Control Act that Congress agreed to last summer in exchange for raising the nation\'s debt limit.

    "We increase the spending for defense due to the priorities that we feel are most important and the constitutional requirement we have to provide for the common defense," Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said. "But we will cut in other areas of the budget so that we comply fully with the deficit reduction act."

    Those other areas were spelled out in the broader budget plan passed last week. Written by House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), it would cut more than $80 billion in federal retirement benefits, nearly $50 billion from Medicaid programs and more than $36 billion from programs to feed the poor.

I\'ve always thought of the Military Industrial Complex as welfare for white guys. This would back up that claim:

    Among other unasked for changes, the bill keeps aging aircraft and ships the military wants to phase out, keeps the Army and Marines at larger force levels and orders construction of missile defenses.

They don\'t want it, they don\'t need it, but the Republican donors want the profits and their conservative base voters want the very well paying, extremely high benefits jobs.

They like to say they hate Big Government, but that\'s a lie. They love it. It\'s just that they want to funnel the money to their own constituencies --- and they want to build a police state that will keep everyone else in line in case they decide to do something about it.
It is true that many Democrats back all those programs too. But I think they do have more pressure coming from constituents to spend money on domestic items as well, so they\'re forced to at least pay them lip service and offer token support. It\'s not much, but it\'s where we are these days in terms of choices.

Conservative Republicans give their word and it turns out is was a lie. Kind of reminds me about all those WMD Iraq never had. Or the promise that the Bush tax cuts would pay for themselves by stimulating the economy and create jobs. Anyone seen those jobs? Conservatives are like the crazy uncle everyone ignores on holidays, yet the media and everyone else takes conservatives seriously. Since when did real Americans pay attention to venal crazy people.

Mitt’s favorite new dodge - Romney and the GOP insist the economy is more important than social issues. Why can't we address both?

Top Republican Group: Minority Births Are ‘Not A Good Thing’ Because They ‘Don’t Share American Values’

UPDATED: Will Fox News Correct Its False Report On Elizabeth Warren's Book?.Scott Brown(R-MA) and his friends are telling some desperate lies and peddling extreme distortions. For such a manly man he sure is acting like a sacred little wuss.

Rupert Murdoch's Fox 'News' Uses Misleading Numbers To Attack Obama Economic Progress

Rupert Murdoch's Fox 'News' Uses Misleading Numbers To Attack Obama Economic Progress

But Fox Misleads On All Four Attacks
CLAIM: "The Debt Was $10 Trillion, Now It's $15.6 Trillion."
WHY IT'S MISLEADING: The Debt And Deficit Increase Under Obama Is Largely Due To Bush-Era Policies (see chart above)

Ezra Klein: Bush Policies Responsible For Vast Majority Of Debt Increase Under Obama Administration. In a January 31 Washington Post column, Ezra Klein estimated that Obama's policies are responsible for $983 billion of the nearly $5 trillion increase in public debt over the course of his administration, while the remainder of the debt increase is attributable to Bush-era policies. From The Washington Post:

    [I]f you're a deficit-obsessed voter, the clock doesn't answer the key question: How much has Obama added to the debt, anyway?

    There are two answers: more than $4 trillion, or about $983 billion. The first answer is simple and wrong. The second answer is more complicated but a lot closer to being right.

    When Obama took office, the national debt was about $10.5 trillion. Today, it's about $15.2 trillion. Simple subtraction gets you the answer preferred by most of Obama's opponents: $4.7 trillion.

    But ask yourself: Which of Obama's policies added $4.7 trillion to the debt? The stimulus? That was just a bit more than $800 billion. TARP? That passed under George W. Bush, and most of it has been repaid.

    There is a way to tally the effects Obama has had on the deficit. Look at every piece of legislation he has signed into law. Every time Congress passes a bill, either the Congressional Budget Office or the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the effect it will have on the budget over the next 10 years. And then they continue to estimate changes to those bills. If you know how to read their numbers, you can come up with an estimate that zeros in on the laws Obama has had a hand in.


CLAIM: "The Jobless Rate Is Now Up To 8.2 [Percent]" But "Was 7.8 [Percent]" When Obama Took Over
WHY IT'S MISLEADING: After Continuing The Upward Trend From The Bush Administration, Unemployment Has Dropped Under Obama

CBPP: "The Pace Of Monthly Job Losses Slowed Dramatically Soon After President Obama And Congress Enacted The Recovery Act." As CBPP noted in an April 27 report, the trend of job losses at the end of the Bush administration "slowed dramatically soon after President Obama and Congress enacted the Recovery Act in 2009." The report included a chart showing that unemployment continued its upward trend immediately after Obama took office, then began dropping.

When are conservatives going to take responsibility for the economic ditch they drove the USA into. Never. That is because conservatives would actually have to have some traditional American values that include integrity and responsibility. Conservatism is just a way to go through life without taking responsibility for any errors in judgement or malicious behavior. Conservatism is the ball and chain on American progress, keeping us from living up to our ideals.

Sen. Scott Brown  thinks everyone in Massachusetts is an dumb as he is, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) Brushes Off Charges Of Hypocrisy By Misrepresenting His Health Care Plan . Credit where due, brown has mastered the art of conservative doublespeak.