Barack Obame elected 44th President of United States

Congrats Obama!
 

Paul Wolfowitz on Benghazi: U.S. did almost everything possible to protect our people

In a blog post posted in American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think-tank), Paul Wolfowitz a Republican and a former deputy defense secretary wrote that US did almost everything possible to protect our people once the attacks had started. Contrast this with what Romney and his campaign have been saying about U.S response and it looks to me that they did not dig deeper and kept attacking Obama to score political points.

Excerpts from his blog

The Consulate was overrun in a matter of minutes, before any help was possible.

 

A team that appears to have been CIA personnel deployed quickly (and bravely) from the Annex to the Consulate and rescued everyone they found alive there. (It’s not clear whether Ambassador Stevens had already been taken by Libyans to the hospital or whether they simply failed to find him.)

 

A mainly CIA response force deployed quickly from Tripoli to reinforce the Annex and facilitate its successful evacuation.

 

Decision makers in Washington appear to have been leaning forward, as they should have been. The military’s most capable rescue force, based on the East Coast, was deployed immediately (something that is very rarely done), but – given the distances involved – arrived at Sigonella only after the crisis was over.

 

Also, the European command (EUCOM) deployed its number one counter terrorism force, which was training in central Europe, as quickly as possible, but it arrived in Sigonella after the evacuation of the Annex was complete.

 

Other special forces deployed to Sigonella but arrived on the 12th after it was too late to make a difference in Benghazi.

 

There was no AC-130 gunship in the region.

 

The only drone available in Libya was an unarmed surveillance drone which was quickly moved from Darna to Benghazi, but the field of view of these drones is limited and, in any case, this one was not armed.

 

The only other assets immediately available were F-16 fighter jets based at Aviano, Italy. These aircraft might have reached Benghazi while the fight at the Annex was still going on, but they would have had difficulty pinpointing hostile mortar positions or distinguishing between friendly and hostile militias in the midst of a confused firefight in a densely populated residential area where there would have been a high likelihood of civilian casualties. While two more Americans were tragically killed by a mortar strike on the Annex, it’s not clear that deploying F-16’s would have prevented that. In any case, the decision not to do so was made by the tactical commander, General Ham, as it should have been

Read Bloomberg's take here
 

The Private Service Sector Has Now Recovered All The Jobs It Lost During The Recession

Full Story: http://www.businessinsider.com/private-service-sector-employment-has-completely-recovered-its-recession-losses-2012-11

Do we need anything more to say that our current President has done a phenominal job?

Conservatives Are Seeing the Beginning of the End for Romney

Full Story: http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2012/Pres/Maps/Nov04.html#item-7
Excerpts:

One of the more popular conservative blogs is redstate.com. It is getting roughly the same traffic as this site (about a quarter of a million hits a day). The founder and chief cook and bottle washer, Erick Erickson, is way to the right of Rick Perry. During the run-up to the primaries he was wildly against Romney. On Nov. 8, 2011, he wrote an editorialthat is definitely worth reading if you are interested in knowing what conservatives were thinking a year ago. In part, he wrote:

"Mitt Romney, on the other hand, is a man devoid of any principles other than getting himself elected. As much as the American public does not like Barack Obama, they loath a man so fueled with ambition that he will say or do anything to get himself elected. Mitt Romney is that man.

I've been reading the 200 pages of single spaced opposition research from the John McCain campaign on Mitt Romney. There is no issue I can find on which Mitt Romney has not taken both sides. He is neither liberal nor conservative. He is simply unprincipled."

Liar Liar Pants On Fire

The dishonesty is reaching new heights in Romney's campaign. I thought Republicans are for smaller and efficient government. Apparently not. It seems any idea is a good idea if it comes from Republicans and not so when a Democrat proproses it!

Here is what Obama actually said

“We should have one Secretary of Business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like giving loans to SBA or helping companies with exports,” Mr. Obama said in an interview that aired Monday on MSNBC. “There should be a one-stop shop.”
 

Consolidating departments would increase efficiency, reduce cost and also reduce bureaucratic red tape. Apparently not so since the idea comes from a democrat. Instead of understanding the context and the reason, Romney campaign is now running ads saying he wants to add additional bureacracy!!!! How is that? It looks like Chamber of Commerce is in favor of this idea!!!

 As for Paul Ryan mocking the president for not having appointed the commerce secretary, we do have one. Here is how Washington Times put it

John Bryson resigned his post as Commerce Secretary in June after he crashed into two cars on the same day, which he attributed to a seizure. Rebecca Blank is serving as acting Commerce Secretary until the president nominates a replacement.

Republicans wanted the President to go through the whole nine yards in the last few months of his first term just to be potentially replaced my another one? Also, imagine the grid lock and potical theater that this would have caused

Romney Admits His Decisions Are Based On Mormon Teachings

I absolutely have no problems with him being a mormon. However I am pretty sick of hearing him say that it would dictate his public policies though majority of this great nation do not believe or practice his faith. Public policy should be dictated by sound reasoning, judgement, inclusive and backed by data. However he made it extremely clear that he is pro-life and anti-choice.

 

Lastly, it is very refreshing to see Presidential candidate go off the script and portray the true self.

A collection of cartoons about the former Massachusetts governor

WP: Toles draws Mitt Romney

Dishonest Mitt: Jeep in China

Gov. Romney's Jeep gaffe is the last straw. If I had any respect for him or had any thoughts of voting his way, it ain't going to happen! I have not seen anyone so dishonest in my life, period. Why am I so upset about that? Because even after his reading of bloomberg article was proved to be completely false, he continues to build upon the lie. Here is what Chrysler's official blog responded to his claim

"It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats."
 

Here is the Ad in question

This article lists the press coverage where everyone is calling it a lie and Romney campaign appears to be silent about it.

 

If you still have any doubt about who is right, read Mitt Romney's op-ed "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt"

Can Romney make North America Energy-Independent?

The last eight presidents have gone on television and promised to move America towards an energy-independent future. So how much do you believe when Mitt says he could?

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

If our goal is to reduce the gas price that people pay, as one redditor put it, that is simply not achievable. Here is why

People seem to think that life would be wonderful if we got off of foreign oil and the United States was energy independent. They think somehow this would mean the oil companies would suddenly let us pay $1 a gallon and we wouldn't have to worry about energy anymore if this happened even if all we did was trade foreign oil for domestic oil.

NPR did an interesting story the other day about how Canada is considered energy independent but they still end up paying about the same as the United States for gas. This is mainly because oil prices are determined by trading on international markets and since the private companies who get the oil out of Canada can get away with selling it off to whoever in the world will pay them the most.

I think this shows that the United States would still be paying $4+ for gas (even if there was an endless supply here) if there were countries around the world that were still willing to pay that price to private multinational oil companies who are selling it. You would probably only see a major change if the government controlled the prices or the supply of the oil and could demand that domestic consumers be allowed to pay a certain amount at the pump.

Mitt Romney’s 5 Point Plan is the Same Plan as McCain in ’08 and Bush in ’04

Full Story: http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-romneys-5-point-plan-plan-mccain-08-bush-04.html

I guess republicans don't have anything new to offer beyond the tried, tested and proven to not work as great as it was promised!

Was Obama Administration's Renewable energy bet a bad investment?

Romney ticket loves to talk about how current administration squandered the tax payer money by financing renewable energy projects and how half of them went bankrupt. You didn't expect Romney campaign to the completely factual right? As expected, it appears only 8% of the companies funded by DoE went bankrupt. However it is better than Mr.Romeny's record on investing where is failure rate is 22%. So who picked winners better? Talk about government being the problem!

Watch it for yourself as Jon Stewart tears Romney apart

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Moderate Romney Wouldn’t Make It Past Inauguration Day

Full Story: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/moderate-romney-wouldn-t-make-it-past-inauguration-day.html

Jonathan Alter writes

You have to hand it to Mitt Romney and his team. Starting in the first debate, he pivoted almost effortlessly to the center, which is where elections are won. If he beats President Barack Obama, it will be because he Etch-A-Sketched his earlier positions and convinced enough people that he would be a moderate president.

Unfortunately, he has little chance of governing that way. We don’t know which Romney will show up on a given day, but we sure know which Republican Party would be in charge in Washington every minute. The Republicans have become the most extreme major political party in generations. They are tolerating Romney’s heresies this month only to gain power.

Romney would spend $2 trilllion that the military hasn't asked for

PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter says that is true. Kiss deficit/debt reduction a good bye Gov. Romney.

Top U.S. CEOs urge increase in tax revenue

Full Story: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/top-us-ceos-urge-increase-in-tax-revenue-wsj-2012-10-25

It is time for Gov. Romney to pretend that he has never heard this :-) Across the board tax cut to 20% isn't going to help us dig out of the debt/deficit. Romney's plan doesn't add up and is mathematically not possible in my opinion. Increasing the tax revenue while simultaneously cutting spending is the way to go. Can't wait to hear Romney's spin's if at all he would entertain/respond to this...

Romney wants 8-10 years to Balance budget but expected Obama to do it in 4!

Full Story: http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/10/romney-says-hell-balance-the-budget-in-eight-to-ten-years-slams-obama-for-not-doing-it-in-four.html

Basically Gov. Romney is saying that he won't be able to balance budget even if he served 2 terms as President! Looks like we can only ask him after he has left the office. Great strategy.

Want a Better Economy? History Says Vote Democrat!

Full Story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2012/10/10/want-a-better-economy-history-says-vote-democrat/

Some highlights

Personal disposable income has grown nearly 6 times more under Democratic presidents

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown 7 times more under Democratic presidents

Corporate profits have grown over 16% more per year under Democratic presidents (they actually declined under Republicans by an average of 4.53%/year)

Average annual compound return on the stock market has been 18 times greater under Democratic presidents (If you invested $100k for 40 years of Republican administrations you had $126k at the end, if you invested $100k for 40 years of Democrat administrations you had $3.9M at the end)

Republican presidents added 2.5 times more to the national debt than Democratic presidents

The two times the economy steered into the ditch (Great Depression and Great Recession) were during Republican, laissez faire administrations

Romney Caught Encouraging Business Owners to Tell Employees How to Vote

Full Story: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/10/romney-bosses-should-tell-employees-how-to-vote.html

Watch it yourself!!! The relevant comment starts around 26 minutes

 

Mitt’s “binders full of women” Lie

Full Story: http://www.salon.com/2012/10/17/mitts_binders_full_of_women_not_even_true/

Here is what Governer Romney said during second presidential debate

According to Boston Globe

But that story turns out to be not quite true, according to veteran Boston Phoenix journalist David Bernstein. As Bernstein pointed out last night, what actually happened is that a bipartisan coalition of women’s groups came together to compile lists of eligible female candidates for office before the 2002 gubernatorial election had even occurred. Romney says he “went to a number of women’s groups” and asked them for the binders, but the opposite is true — they went to him. Bernstein also notes that many of the senior-level women Romney hired were given control of departments and agencies that were not a priority for the governor, while there were almost zero women working on the budget or businesses development, areas that Romney cared more about.
 

WSJ Reports

“[The women's group not Romney] took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our Cabinet,” Romney said in the town hall. “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.”
 

 

Mitt Romney's Tax Plan - Details Finally Coming to Light

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

Please take time to read and leave a comment.
 

1929-2011: Real Stock Mkt gain = 300% under Democrat presidents; 0% under Republican presidents

Full Story from none other than Economist: GOP Smacked