New Romney lie: Scare Ohioans by falsely claiming Chrysler may move all Jeep production to China

 By Jed Lewison/Daily Kos

This is really despicable:

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney told a rally in northern Ohio on Thursday night that Chrysler was considering moving production of its Jeep vehicles to China, apparently reacting to incorrect reports circulating online. "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," Romney said at a rally in Defiance, Ohio, home to a General Motors powertrain plant. "I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it's fair America will win."
Romney was apparently responding to reports Thursday on right-leaning blogs that misinterpreted a recent Bloomberg News story earlier this week that said Chrysler, owned by Italian automaker Fiat SpA, is thinking of building Jeeps in China for sale in the Chinese market.

Only Mitt Romney could take a story about how Chrysler is expanding into the Chinese market ... and turn it into a story about how if he doesn't get elected, Chrysler might send all of its Jeep production there. Apparently, Romney saw some headlines on some right-wing blogs and went with it, but as Greg Sargent points out all the facts to debunk Romney's assertion are in the original article that he claimed as his source. But Romney didn't simply get his facts wrong. As Jonathan Cohn points out, Chrysler is actually expanding Jeep production right here in the United States.

About 1,100 new Chrysler employees will begin working next week on a third crew at Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit as sales of Jeep Grand Cherokees continue to rise.

So not only did Romney spread a false claim that Chrysler was looking to move all of its Jeep production to China, he overlooked the fact that Chrysler is actually expanding Jeep production right here in the United States. Obviously, Mitt Romney is desperate to win over Ohio voters who are wary of supporting him because he opposed the auto bailout, but it really is disturbing that this sort of dishonesty is the way he'd go about doing it. It's not just simple Romnesia: it's inventing an entirely new reality, completely untethered from the truth, in order to support his personal political ambitions. Romney isn't spinning—he's lying. It's one thing for a candidate to present a set of facts in the most politically advantageous way possible, but it's quite another to just make stuff up completely.
I know there's a risk of sounding holier-than-thou because in campaigns there's always going to be some exaggerations or stretching of the truth, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. But that's not what Romney does. He lies. When he speaks, he doesn't care about the accuracy of what he says—he only cares about whether his words help him achieve his personal goals. That is the essence of dishonesty and it's a fundamental character flaw.
Perhaps that willingness to lie served him well as CEO of Bain, but it's an appalling trait for a presidential candidate, let alone—God forbid—a president.

The First Debate: Mitt Romney's Five Biggest Lies

By TIM DICKINSON/Rolling Stones

Mitt Romney turned in a polished performance in last night's presidential debate – and revealed himself to be an accomplished and unapologetic liar. In an evening where he sought to slice and dice the president with statistics, Romney baldly misrepresented his own policy prescriptions, made up numbers to fit his attacks and buried clear contrasts with the president under a heaping pile of horseshit.

Here are mendacious Mitt's five most outrageous statements:

1. "I don't have a $5 trillion tax cut." Romney flatly lied about the cost of his proposal to cut income-tax rates across the board by another 20 percent (undercutting even the low rates of the Bush tax cuts). Independent economists at the Tax Policy Center have shown that the price tag for those cuts is $360 billion in the first year, a cost that extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.

2. "I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans." Romney has claimed that he will pay for his tax cuts by closing a variety of loopholes and deductions. The factual problem? Romney hasn't named a single loophole he's willing to close; worse, there's no way to offset $5 trillion in tax cuts even if you get rid of the entire universe of deductions for the wealthy that Romney has not put off the table (like the carried interest loophole or the 15 percent capital gains rate.) The Tax Policy Center report concludes that Romney's proposal would create a "net tax cut for high-income tax payers and a net tax increase for lower- and or middle-income taxpayers." Moreover, some of Romney's tax cuts are micro-targeted at American dynasties, particularly his proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which would reduce his own sons' tax burden by tens of millions of dollars.

3. "We've got 23 million people out of work or [who have] stopped looking for work in this country." Romney is lying for effect. The nation's crisis of joblessness is bad, but not 23 million bad. The official figure is 12.5 million unemployed. An additional 2.6 million Americans have stopped looking for jobs. How does Romney gin up his eye-popping 23 million figure? He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being "out of work."

4. Obamacare "puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have." Romney is reviving Sarah Palin's old death panels lie here. Obamacare does establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board to help constrain the growth of Medicare spending. The body has no authority to dictate the practices of the private insurance marketplace. And the law also makes explicit that this body is banned from rationing care or limiting medical benefits to seniors.

5. "Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan." In the biggest whopper of the night, Romney suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions. This is just not true. Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn't afford the premiums, you would be shit out of luck. Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny you coverage, as even Romney's top adviser conceded after the debate was over.

At Last Night’s Debate: Romney Told 27 Myths In 38 Minutes

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Pundits from both sides of the aisle have lauded Mitt Romney’s strong debate performance, praising his preparedness and ability to challenge President Obama’s policies and accomplishments. But Romney only accomplished this goal by repeatedly misleading viewers. He spoke for 38 minutes of the 90 minute debate and told at least 27 myths:

1) “[G]et us energy independent, North American energy independent. That creates about 4 million jobs”. Romney’s plan for “energy independence” actually relies heavily on a study that assumes the U.S. continues with fuel efficiency standards set by the Obama administration. For instance, he uses Citigroup research based off the assumption that “‘the United States will continue with strict fuel economy standards that will lower its oil demand.” Since he promises to undo the Obama administration’s new fuel efficiency standards, he would cut oil consumption savings of 2 million barrels per day by 2025.

2) “I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut. I don’t have a tax cut of a scale that you’re talking about.” A Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney’s proposal for a 20 percent across-the-board tax cut in all federal income tax rates, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, eliminating the estate tax and other tax reductions, would reduce federal revenue $480 billion in 2015. This amounts to $5 trillion over the decade.

3) “My view is that we ought to provide tax relief to people in the middle class. But I’m not going to reduce the share of taxes paid by high-income people.” If Romney hopes to provide tax relief to the middle class, then his $5 trillion tax cut would add to the deficit. There are not enough deductions in the tax code that primarily benefit rich people to make his math work.

4) “My — my number-one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. I want to underline that: no tax cut that adds to the deficit.” As the Tax Policy Center concluded, Romney’s plan can’t both exempt middle class families from tax cuts and remain revenue neutral. “He’s promised all these things and he can’t do them all. In order for him to cover the cost of his tax cut without adding to the deficit, he’d have to find a way to raise taxes on middle income people or people making less than $200,000 a year,” the Center found.

5) “I will not under any circumstances raise taxes on middle-income families. I will lower taxes on middle-income families. Now, you cite a study. There are six other studies that looked at the study you describe and say it’s completely wrong.” The studies Romney cites actuallyfurther prove that Romney would, in fact, have to raise taxes on the middle class if he were to keep his promise not to lose revenue with his tax rate reduction.

6) “I saw a study that came out today that said you’re going to raise taxes by $3,000 to $4,000 on middle-income families.” Romney is pointing to this study from the American Enterprise Institute. It actually found that rather than raise taxes to pay down the debt, the Obama administration’s policies — those contained directly in his budget — would reduce the share of taxes that go toward servicing the debt by $1,289.89 per taxpayer in the $100,000 to $200,000 range.

7) “And the reason is because small business pays that individual rate; 54 percent of America’s workers work in businesses that are taxed not at the corporate tax rate, but at the individual tax rate….97 percent of the businesses are not — not taxed at the 35 percent tax rate, they’re taxed at a lower rate. But those businesses that are in the last 3 percent of businesses happen to employ half — half of all the people who work in small business.” Far less than half of the people affected by the expiration of the upper income tax cuts get any of their income at all from a small businesses. And those people could very well be receiving speaking fees or book royalties, which qualify as “small business income” but don’t have a direct impact on job creation. It’s actually hard to find a small business who think that they will be hurt if the marginal tax rate on income earned above $250,000 per year is increased.

8) “Mr. President, all of the increase in natural gas and oil has happened on private land, not on government land. On government land, your administration has cut the number of permits and licenses in half.” Oil production from federal lands is higher, not lower: Production from federal lands is up slightly in 2011 when compared to 2007. And the oil and gas industry is sitting on 7,000 approved permits to drill, that it hasn’t begun exploring or developing.

9) “The president’s put it in place as much public debt — almost as much debt held by the public as all prior presidents combined.” This is not even close to being true. When Obama took office, the national debt stood at $10.626 trillion. Now the national debt is over $16 trillion. That $5.374 trillion increase is nowhere near as much debt as all the other presidents combined.

10) “That’s why the National Federation of Independent Businesses said your plan will kill 700,000 jobs. I don’t want to kill jobs in this environment.” That study, produced by a right-wing advocacy organization, doesn’t analyze what Obama has actually proposed.

11) “What we do have right now is a setting where I’d like to bring money from overseas back to this country.” Romney’s plan to shift the country to a territorial tax system would allow corporations to do business and make profits overseas without ever being taxed on it in the United States. This encourages American companies to invest abroad and could cost the country up to 800,000 jobs.

12) “I would like to take the Medicaid dollars that go to states and say to a state, you’re going to get what you got last year, plus inflation, plus 1 percent, and then you’re going to manage your care for your poor in the way you think best.” Sending federal Medicaid funding to the states in the form of a block grant woud significantly reduce federal spending for Medicaid because the grant would not keep up with projected health care costs. A CBO estimate of a very similar proposal from Paul Ryan found that federal spending would be “35 percent lower in 2022 and 49 percent lower in 2030 than current projected federal spending” and as a result “states would face significant challenges in achieving sufficient cost savings through efficiencies to mitigate the loss of federal funding.” “To maintain current service levels in the Medicaid program, states would probably need to consider additional changes, such as reducing their spending on other programs or raising additional revenues,” the CBO found.

13) “I want to take that $716 billion you’ve cut and put it back into Medicare…. But the idea of cutting $716 billion from Medicare to be able to balance the additional cost of Obamacare is, in my opinion, a mistake. There’s that number again. Romney is claiming that Obamacare siphons off $716 billion from Medicare, to the detriment of beneficiaries. In actuality, that money is saved primarily through reducing over-payments to insurance companies under Medicare Advantage, not payments to beneficiaries. Paul Ryan’s budget plan keeps those same cuts, but directs them toward tax cuts for the rich and deficit reduction.

14) “What I support is no change for current retirees and near-retirees to Medicare.” Here is how Romney’s Medicare plan will affect current seniors: 1) by repealing Obamacare, the 16 million seniors receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and are saving $3.9 billion on prescription drugs will see a cost increase, 2) “premium support” will increase premiums for existing beneficiaries as private insurers lure healthier seniors out of the traditional Medicare program, 3) Romney/Ryan would also lower Medicaid spending significantly beginning next year, shifting federal spending to states and beneficiaries, and increasing costs for the 9 million Medicare recipients who are dependent on Medicaid.

15) “Number two is for people coming along that are young, what I do to make sure that we can keep Medicare in place for them is to allow them either to choose the current Medicare program or a private plan. Their choice. They get to choose — and they’ll have at least two plans that will be entirely at no cost to them.” The Medicare program changes for everyone, even people who choose to remain in the traditional fee-for-service. Rather than relying on a guaranteed benefit, all beneficiaries will receive a premium support credit of $7,500 on average in 2023 to purchase coverage in traditional Medicare or private insurance. But that amount will only grow at a rate of GDP plus 1.5 percentage points and will not keep up with health care costs. So while the federal government will spend less on the program, seniors will pay more in premiums.

16) “And, by the way the idea came not even from Paul Ryan or — or Senator Wyden, who’s the co-author of the bill with — with Paul Ryan in the Senate, but also it came from Bill — Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.” Romney has rejected the Ryan/Wyden approach — which does not cap the growth of the “premium support” subsidy. Bill Clinton and his commission also voted down these changes to the Medicare program.

17) “Well, I would repeal and replace it. We’re not going to get rid of all regulation. You have to have regulation. And there are some parts of Dodd-Frank that make all the sense in the world.”Romney has previously called for full repeal of Dodd-Frank, a law whose specific purpose is to regulate banks. MF Global’s use of customer funds to pay for its own trading losses is just one bit of proof that the financial industry isn’t responsible enough to protect consumers without regulation.

18) “But I wouldn’t designate five banks as too big to fail and give them a blank check. That’s one of the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank… We need to get rid of that provision because it’s killing regional and small banks. They’re getting hurt.” The law merely says that the biggest, systemically risky banks need to abide by more stringent regulations. If those banks fail, they will be unwound by a new process in the Dodd-Frank law that protects taxpayers from having to pony up for a bailout.

19) “And, unfortunately, when — when — when you look at Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has said it will cost $2,500 a year more than traditional insurance. So it’s adding to cost.” Obamacare will actually provide millions of families with tax credits to make health care more affordable.

20) “[I]t puts in place an unelected board that’s going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have. I don’t like that idea.” The Board, or IPAB is tasked with making binding recommendations to Congress for lowering health care spending, should Medicare costs exceed a target growth rate. Congress can accept the savings proposal or implement its own ideas through a super majority. The panel’s plan will modify payments to providers but it cannot “include any recommendation to ration health care, raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary premiums…increase Medicare beneficiary cost-sharing (including deductibles, coinsurance, and co- payments), or otherwise restrict benefits or modify eligibility criteria” (Section 3403 of the ACA). Relying on health care experts rather than politicians to control health care costs has previously attracted bipartisan support and even Ryan himself proposed two IPAB-like structures in a 2009 health plan.

21) “Right now, the CBO says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year. And likewise, a study by McKinsey and Company of American businesses said 30 percent of them are anticipating dropping people from coverage.” The Affordable Care Act would actually expand health care coverage to 30 million Americans, despite Romney fear mongering. According to CBO director Douglas Elmendorf, 3 million or less people would leave employer-sponsored health insurance coverage as a result of the law.

22) “I like the way we did it [health care] in Massachusetts…What were some differences? We didn’t raise taxes.” Romney raised fees, but he can claim that he didn’t increase taxes because the federal government funded almost half of his reforms.

23) “It’s why Republicans said, do not do this, and the Republicans had — had the plan. They put a plan out. They put out a plan, a bipartisan plan. It was swept aside.” The Affordable Care Act incorporates many Republican ideas including the individual mandate, state-based health care exchanges, high-risk insurance pools, and modified provisions that allow insurers to sell policies in multiple states. Republicans never offered a united bipartisan alternative.

24) “Preexisting conditions are covered under my plan.” Only people who are continuously insured would not be discriminated against because they suffer from pre-existing conditions. This protection would not be extended to people who are currently uninsured.

25) “In one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world. Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives.” The $90 billion was given out over several years and included loans, loan guarantees and grants through the American Recovery Act. $23 billion of the $90 billion “went toward “clean coal,” energy-efficiency upgrades, updating the electricity grid and environmental clean-up, largely for old nuclear weapons sites.”

26) “I think about half of [the green firms Obama invested in], of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.” As of late last year, only “three out of the 26 recipients of 1705 loan guarantees have filed for bankruptcy, with losses estimated at just over $600 million.”

27) “If the president’s reelected you’ll see dramatic cuts to our military.” Romney is referring to the sequester, which his running mate Paul Ryan supported. Obama opposes the military cuts and has asked Congress to formulate a balanced approach that would avoid the trigger.

UPDATE

Romney has now admitted that number 26 was not true.

Romney’s Latest Myth: Obama Wants To Force Workers Into Unions!

By Adam Peck/Think Progress

During a Sunday evening conference call with a group of Iowans, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney warned voters that President Obama wants to force everyone into organized unions. Twice during the 30 minute phone call, Romney raised the spectre of President Obama and Democrats reintroducing the Employee Free Choice Act, which was last introduced in 2009.

EFCA would have introduced “card check” votes in the workplace, making it easier for employees to decide whether or not to unionize. If 50 percent of workers sign a statement of support of organizing, that union would be granted bargaining power with the employer. The bill would strip employers of their ability to force their workers into a full union organizing election if they don’t like the results of a signature campaign.

As it stands, employers can legally force their workers to attend anti-union meetings and one-on-one “discussions” with their superiors ahead of any vote on unionization, an intimidation tactic that succeeds in derailing many unionization efforts. Stricter penalties for failure to negotiate a contract with a new union and for discriminating against any worker who supports a union would have also been included.

Even though EFCA never made it past the House in 2009, that didn’t stop Romney from ringing the alarm:

Romney brought up card check twice, unprompted, when answering Iowans’ questions about other topics. Early in the call, Romney mentioned it when describing his five-point plan for creating jobs.

“We’ve got to champion small business,” he said. “Small business is getting crushed under the president’s program with higher and higher regulation on small business, with higher taxes on small business, and by forcing people to join unions that don’t want to. That’s something known as card check. I think that’s a bad idea.”

But EFCA does not force anyone to do anything. It simply gives workers the ability to more easily organize themselves into a union if a majority of them choose to do so. One study found that “employers threatened to close plants in 57 percent of [union] campaigns and threatened to cut wages and benefits in 47 percent,” while firing pro-union workers 34 percent of the time.

Unions have simply become Republican politicians’ new favorite straw man, with the GOP invoking them to attack everything from teachers’, police officers’ and firefighters’ compensation to the rebounding auto industry.

Romney’s new anti-union rhetoric comes days after a new analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund which shows that unionization has a positive impact on economic mobility, creating more opportunities for Americans to work their way out of the 47 percent and move into a higher income bracket than their parents.

Romney Political Director Laughs Off Question About Falsity Of Campaign’s Welfare Ads

By Travis Waldron/Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has run multiple false advertisements accusing the Obama administration of “gutting” the 1996 welfare reform law through a waiver program that will give states more latitude in applying the law’s work requirements. The ads, debunked by many news outlets, are blatantly false — the waivers do not “gut” the law, and work requirements remain in place. Romney himself supported an even more expansive waiver program while he was governor of Massachusetts.

The Romney campaign, undeterred by the obvious falsehoods, has both continued running the ads and released new ones. On Tuesday, when asked by an NPR reporter why the campaign continues to run the ads, Romney political director Rich Beeson laughed off their brazen lack of truth, stating that “reasonable people can have a disagreement” about whether the oft-debunked ads are false:

STEVE INSKEEP (NPR): “Doesn’t the change mean that the governors can choose or can apply to change the work requirement as opposed to being forced to remove it?”

BEESON: “Again, that still is a change.”

INSKEEP: “But it’s not, quote, ‘they just send you your check,’ which is what the ad says.”

BEESON: (laughs) “I think reasonable people can have a disagreement over this but he [Obama] has significantly changed what President Clinton put in in 1996.”

The Romney campaign’s apparent disagreement with the notion that facts are true (and still matter) was reinforced later in the day, when campaign pollster Neil Newhouse told BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Neither, judging by Romney’s repeated struggles with the truth, are they going to let their campaign be dictated by actual facts.

UPDATE

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent highlights Romney’s own words, from earlier this month, citing fact-checkers against an Obama advertisement and lamenting the days of past when false ads were pulled from the air:

“You know, in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad,” Romney said on the radio. “They were embarrassed. Today, they just blast ahead.You know, the various fact checkers look at some of these charges in the Obama ads and they say that they’re wrong, and inaccurate, and yet he just keeps on running them.”

Romney campaign continues distortion

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Breaking: Romney was 100% stakeholder in 11 Bain companies later than 1999

A Defeated Mitt Romney Retreats into His World of ObamaCare Lies

By: Sarah Jones/politicususa

Romney reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Healthcare Act by lying about ObamaCare and vowing to repeal it on day one.

Romney said that on his first day as President, “What the court did not do on the last day of session, I will do on my first day as president of the United States, that is to repeal Obamacare.” He added, “It was bad policy yesterday, it is bad policy today.” Romney then claimed ObamaCare raised taxes on the American people by 500 billion dollars and cuts Medicare by 500 billion dollars, both of which are inaccurate. Thefear-mongering continued, “Obamacare adds trillions to our deficit and national debt.”

Romney’s talking points have been debunked numerous times and found false. The CBO finds that the ACA is going to reduce the deficit, not add to it. Furthermore:

The key to this claim is the fact that the health care law does not take $500 billion out of the current Medicare budget. Rather, the bill attempts to slow the program’s future growth, curtailing just over $500 billion in future spending increases over the next 10 years.

Romney then used the bizarre and inaccurate claim that ObamaCare is “a job killer” that “puts the federal government between you and your doctor.”

Then we get to the part conservative Republicans were waiting to hear, “We must replace ObamaCare, and that is my mission. Help us defeat ObamaCare, help us defeat the liberal agenda.”

One wonders if “help us defeat the liberal agenda” is the best talking point to a general audience. But the point here is that Romney really wants to avoid the issue of ObamaCare, which puts him at odds with Congressional Republicans. He has shown his desire to avoid running against the individual mandate in the past, given his own history with implementing the personal responsibility clause while governor.

Yesterday, Mitt Romney signaled that he was planning on countering the U.S. Supreme Court’s upholding of ObamaCares by calling out Obama’s “moral failings”.

It makes sense that he didn’t do this today, as it would seem risky business for a man whose “pranks” include swinging a fire ax over his head after barging into a store in downtown Birmingham, Michigan, holding down a classmate to cut his hair, and strapping his dog to the top of the family car for a 12 hour car trip.

Romney said yesterday that Obamacare was a “bad policy” that diverted the president’s attention away from the more important issues like the economy.

“The president is in a tight spot because he hasn’t done what he said he’d do. He said he would turn the economy around. He said that was his No. 1 priority,” Romney declared.”His policies were not focused on creating jobs. They were focused on implementing his liberal agenda. There’s nothing wrong with people having an agenda, but when the country’s in crisis, you have a moral responsibility to focus on helping people come out of that crisis. So it’s not just bad policy, it was a moral failure to put forth a piece of legislation that wouldn’t help Americans get back to work and to focus the energy of the White House on Obamacare.”

That sort of cheap talking point might work with the base, but most regular Americans know someone who couldn’t get insurance during a costly medical crisis. Parts of ACA that are popular with Americans are that it protects them from being thrown off their insurance when they need it, allows young adults up to the age of 26, to stay on their parents healthcare, keeps emergency rooms from being the first line of defense, and implements affordable preventative care.

Health care is a huge part of our lives, including our economic lives. When it comes down to it, having our loved ones be able to actually get insurance with a preexisting condition can mean the difference between life and death, between poverty and stability.

Taking aim at Obama’s “moral responsibility” to focus on jobs and alleged failure to do so is also risky business for Romney when it’s his own party that has obstructed every jobs bill Obama has tried to pass. The only bill they finally allowed through, after it was broken down into palatable bits, was the veterans job bill. They couldn’t afford to not pass it, though they made plenty of noise threatening to kill it.

Next week, the first rebate checks start going out. Insurance companies owe 1.1 billion dollars in rebate checks to individuals and companies. The checks will be going out to 12.8 million Americans. For a married couple with no kids, this will add up to about 300 dollars, or 151 dollars per person. It’s going to be tough for Romney to claim Obama doesn’t care about the people of this country.

What kind of country allows the poor and the needy to die because of corporate health insurance policies? What kind of country sits back while good, hard working people pay into an insurance policy for years, and then when they need it, they get cut off? What kind of party cheers the death of someone who doesn’t have health insurance?

If healthcare and jobs are centered on the notion of morality, what is Romney’s plan?

Well, for the most part he won’t tell us. What specifics we have learned about Romney’s plans for the economy we got the hard way – caught when he thought he wasn’t being recorded, pieced together and extracted from his sound bites. Romney’s plan is basically Bush II times two. Trickle down jobs and prosperity after we cut even more taxes for the rich and go to war with Iran.

Speaking of morality, how does one frame tax cuts to the rich at a time when they aren’t paying the same percentage as the average American, as moral? How will Romney frame no plan for the healthcare crisis against a plan that the Supreme Court just upheld as Constitutional?

Mitt Romney better hope he has a better plan to counter ObamaCare than “moral failings”. The stale “don’t tread on me” teabagger cries of 2009 and 2010 are not going to power him through to the finish line. Thankfully, when it comes to morality, most Americans agree that we have a moral responsibility to take care of our own people, especially when they are working hard to be productive members of society.

But what of the needy, what of the folks who are physically unable to provide for themselves?

What would Jesus do? Would he turn his back, or would he, as the Nuns on the Bus say, care for the least among us. If morality is the issue, compassion is going to be the keystone of that argument. And when Americans think of compassion, they don’t think of Mitt Romney, ensconced in his car elevator vacation home that comes with its own lobbyist.

Romney’s “plan” for healthcare is to let the states decide. He said Tuesday evening that if the court upheld ACA, Romney would be the One to overturn it. “We’re going to need a president — and I’m that one — that’s going to get rid of ‘Obamacare’. We’re going to stop it on Day One.”

A pause while we ponder how Romney, as President, would constitutionally stop a law on day one of his presidency. Checks and balances don’t seem to be a Republican thing these days.

The Congressional Republicans want to run against ObamaCares, with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus saying the Supreme Court’s decision on health care “sets the stakes for the November election.” John Boehner was going to give an immediate reaction but postponed his remarks to speak after Romney.

See, even as Congressional Republicans want to run against Obamacares, W. Mitt Romney secretly wants to run as far away from this issue as he can. After all, the “death to freedom” that is ObamaCares to conservatives was W. Mitt’s idea before it was Obama’s. As Massachusetts governor, W. Mitt Romney pushed through an insurance mandate that became the model for ObamaCares.

Back then, Romney lauded his pro personal responsibility plan, “With regards to the individual mandate, the individual responsibility program that I proposed, I was very pleased that the compromise between the two houses includes the personal responsibility mandate. That is essential for bringing the health care costs down for everyone and getting everyone the health insurance they need.”

Watch the old, pro-mandate Romney here:

Insurance mandates were, of course, a Republican idea before Obama embraced them. After Obama touched them, they became the anti-Christ and wildly unconstitutional, according to Republicans. Ironically, the individual mandate is a personal responsibility clause.

We can’t forget that just Tuesday night, W. Mitt Romney claimed that if the court overturned ObamaCare (said with sneer), Obama’s first term would be a failure. Romney said, “Then the first 3 1/2 years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people.”

Logic would dictate that since the court upheld it, Romney now sees Obama’s entire term as a huge success. Obamacare is already helping people. I should know, because I’m one of them.

Media Fail To Fact Check Romney's Solyndra Speech

From Media Matters:

Mitt Romney's remarks at Solyndra were full of falsehoods that went unchecked by many major media outlets. The media also largely failed to point out that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney invested in several companies that subsequently went bankrupt or defaulted on state loans.

Media Perpetuate Falsehoods From Romney Speech

MEDIA FAIL TO NOTE THAT THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING IN SOLYNDRA LOAN

Media Uncritically Forward Romney's Claim That Obama Gave Loans To "Friends." The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News uncritically repeated Romney's claim that Solyndra is an example of "crony capitalism" and Obama "giving [taxpayer money] freely to his friends."[Los Angeles Times, 5/31/12] [Wall Street Journal, 5/31/12] [CNN, Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien, 6/1/12, via Nexis] [CNN, John King USA, 5/31/12, via Nexis] [CNN, The Situation Room, 5/31/12, via Nexis] [Fox News, Special Report, 5/31/12, via Nexis] [FoxNews.com, 6/1/12]

But After Long Investigation, There Is No Evidence Of Wrongdoing. Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green reported:

A White House source passed along some information that gives a sense of just how much time, money, and effort has been spent pursuing this investigation: House Republicans have sent 32 congressional letters, compelled 187,000 pages of administration documents, 72,000 pages of documents from Solyndra investors, 9 committee staff briefings, 5 committee hearings, and a sworn committee interview with the Obama bundler who raised money from people involved in the company. Much (but not all) of the committee's $7 million budget has been devoted to funding this inquisition. And it's turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. [Bloomberg Businessweek, 2/17/12]

Solyndra Investors And Lobbyists Included Republican Supporters. As the Huffington Postreported, one of Solyndra's lobbyists was Bill Weld, a "semi-prominent supporter of Mitt Romney." And Solyndra's second largest investor was Madrone Captial Partners, which is linked to the Walton family, who are major Republican donors. [Huffington Post, 5/31/12] [Media Matters, 9/19/11]

MEDIA FORWARD ROMNEY'S MISREPRESENTATION OF INSPECTOR GENERAL'S COMMENTS

Media Uncritically Repeat Claim That Inspector General "Concluded That The Administration Had Steered Money To Friends And Family." MSNBC.com, ABCNews.com, and FoxNews.com uncritically repeated Romney's claim that "an independent inspector general looked at this investment and concluded that the administration had steered money to friends and family, to campaign contributors." [MSNBC.com, 5/31/12] [FoxNews.com, 5/31/12] [ABCNews.com, 5/31/12]

Inspector General Did Not "Conclud[e]" Any Such Thing. As TIME's Michael Grunwald noted, the Inspector General's comment was actually about an open investigation, and the Inspector General "hasn't confirmed" that any contracts were "steered to friends and family":

It was a line near the end of Romney's ad that caught my attention: "The Inspector General said contracts were steered to 'friends and family.'" That sounded like news. I've spent two years in stimulus-world, and I had no idea an inspector general had said that. I asked the Romney campaign for documentation, and it produced a Newsweek article asserting that Energy Department inspector general Gregory Friedman "has testified that contracts have been steered to 'friends and family.'"

Except that Newsweek article was an excerpt from the book "Throw Them All Out," written by Peter Schweizer, a right-winger who has served as an adviser to Sarah Palin's PAC, edited one of Andrew Breitbart's websites, and written a slew of books portraying liberals as pond scum. Not exactly a disinterested source. And it turns out that the inspector general never testified that stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. He said his office was investigating whether stimulus contracts were steered to friends and family. So far, it hasn't confirmed that any were. [TIME, 5/31/12]

CNN's Anderson Cooper: Romney Camp's Charge Is "Not Factually Correct." Anderson Cooper made a similar point in an interview with Newt Gingrich:

ANDERSON COOPER: I want to ask you about a charge in the latest Romney ad in talking about the stimulus. The ad says, and I'm quoting, the inspector general said contracts were steered to friends and family, talking about in the Solyndra deal.

That is not factually correct, though. He actually said his office was investigating whether contracts had been steered to friends and family, and so far there haven't been any confirmed cases at all. And independent investigators have only found evidence that one-one- thousandth of a percent point of stimulus money has been lost to fraud.

Darrell Issa himself has pointed out -- I just want to make sure I have the quote right -- he said: "Is there criminal activity? Perhaps not. Is there political influence and connections? Perhaps not." [CNN, Anderson Cooper 360, 5/31/12, via Nexis]

Rachel Maddow: "I'm Surprised This Is Not A Bigger Story." Rachel Maddow called Romney's charge a "lie," and asked why it is "not a bigger story":

An inspector general did not look into the investment in Solyndra and conclude that the administration had steered money to friends and family. That did not happen. That is a lie.

Michael Greenwald writes at "Time" magazine and he`s been writing a book about the stimulus. He wrote about this turn in the Mitt Romney campaign today. But it hasn`t really been picked up anywhere else. I`m surprised this is not a bigger story.

[...]

Even in this nuts day in American politics, don`t you think the candidate telling a big, blatant lie in the middle of the news cycle deserves a little follow up? [MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, 5/31/12, via Nexis]

MEDIA REPEAT ROMNEY'S "ROBOTS" DISTORTION

Media Uncritically Forward Claim That Solyndra Had Opulent "Disney" "Robots." TheWashington Post, Wall Street Journal, ABCNews.com, and Fox News repeated Romney's depiction of Solyndra as a "symbol of gross waste" because "the robots inside actually provide Disney music tunes." [Washington Post, 5/31/12] [Wall Street Journal, 5/31/12] [ABCNews.com, 5/31/12] [Fox News,On The Record, 5/31/12, via Nexis]

In Fact, Solyndra Used A Common Technology To Transport Materials. As PolitiFact reported, the "robots" Romney referred to were "automated guided vehicles" designed to transport materials -- a common technology used since the 1950's to reduce labor costs. Music was played to alert workers that the vehicles were nearby for safety reasons. [Media Matters, 11/29/11]

As Governor, Romney Made Failed Investments

Biotech Firm Shut Down After Receiving A Massachusetts-Backed Loan. Reuters reported in an article titled "As governor, Romney picked winners and losers of his own":

A $2.5 million state loan helped lure Rhode Island biotech firm Spherics Inc across the state line to Massachusetts in 2005. Romney's economic development secretary, Ranch Kimball, touted the move as "a tangible result of the combined and coordinated efforts of the public and private sectors to highlight the benefits of locating in Massachusetts."

The company shut down three years later, laying off all of its employees and defaulting on $1.5 million of the loan, according to MassDevelopment, the state development authority. [Reuters, 5/31/12]

Solar Firm Received $2.5 Million From Massachusetts, Later Went Bankrupt. The Washington Post's Greg Sargent reported that while Evergreen Solar was highlighted in an anti-Obama attack ad, it actually received assistance from the state of Massachusetts during Romney's tenure:

[T]hree weeks into Governor Mitt Romney's term, Evergreen Solar received $2.5 million from the Romney administration for a "major expansion and to cover operating losses as it tried to become profitable," according to a February article in Politico. The investment was part of a broader program in which the Romney administration gave millions in subsidies to multiple other companies, Politico reported.

Evergreen ultimately filed for bankruptcy last year, making this case very similar to Solyndra. [The Washington Post, 5/31/12]

• Evergreen Received No Federal Money. The New York Times reported in January 2011 that "Evergreen has received no federal money." [Media Matters, 8/18/11]

Romney Was Previously A Proponent Of Government Investment In Clean Energy. TheHuffington Post reported:

Romney's "2008 energy policy platform called for a 'dramatic increase' in 'federal spending on research, development, and demonstration projects that hold promise for diversifying our energy supply.' Among those projects were 'bringing clean energy technology to market through commercialization of large-scale renewables.' [Huffington Post, 5/31/12]

But Media Overlook Romney's Failed Investments

Major Outlets Largely Failed To Mention Romney's Failed Investments As Governor. Less than a quarter of print and television coverage of Romney's remarks at Solyndra mentioned his failed investments in Massachusetts. Fox News and all six major print outlets did not mention them at all.

METHODOLOGY: Results are based on a search of Nexis, Factiva and internal archives from 5/31/12 through the morning of 6/1/12 for "Solyndra." The search included six major print outlets (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times) and the major cable (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News) and broadcast (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks.

Stimulus facts get in the way of a good story

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ROMNEY LIES: Claims John Kerry Released 2 Years Of Tax Returns But Kerry Actually Released 20

By Judd Legum/Think Progress

In a CNBC interview with Larry Kudlow to air later tonight, Mitt Romney defends his decision to release only two years of tax returns — both filed after he decided to run for President — by claiming that 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry also released two years. From an advanced transcript:

KUDLOW: Why not release your tax returns? Why not go back 10 years?

Gov. ROMNEY: Well, we’ve had people run for president before, and they’ve released two years. John Kerry released two years of taxes.. I’ve released one already, put the estimate out for the next year. We’ll have two years of taxes..

In fact, John Kerry released not two years of returns, but 20. From an April 14, 2004 article by Byron York:

In addition to his 2003 returns, Kerry also released federal tax returns from the years 1999 to 2002 yesterday. There has been some dispute about returns for those years. Kerry has claimed that he had already released the returns — in January of this year, he said, “I released all my tax returns for 20 years. I have never not released my tax returns throughout my political career.” But aside from releasing details from his 2002 taxes — which showed a total income of $144,091 — it is not clear that Kerry has ever made public his returns from 1999 or 2000 or 2001 before now.

Thus far, Mitt Romney has only released one year of returns. Romney’s father, George Romney, released 12 years of returns, stating “one year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”