WINNING: The 10 Best Achievements Of Obama’s Presidency So Far

Via: MoveOn.org
Posted on March 29, 2012 by Angie

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Obama Campaign Seeks Romney Tax Returns

WSJ

• POLITICS
• Updated March 29, 2012, 9:42 p.m. ET

BY MARK MAREMONT

President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign called on Republican front-runner Mitt Romney to release his tax returns dating back to the 1980s, to see if they contain information about an uncommon investment arrangement at his former private-equity firm that may have helped swell his individual retirement account.

The request follows a page-one article in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that recounted how employees at the firm, Bain Capital, …

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George Galloway wins Bradford West byelection

Respect candidate takes seat from Labour with 10,140 majority, claiming ‘the most sensational victory in British political history’

Patrick Wintour, political editor | The Guardian | Friday 30 March 2012

 

George Galloway, right, is greeted by a supporter as he arrives to hear the results of the Bradford West byelection. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA

George Galloway, the leading figure in Respect, has grabbed a remarkable victory in the Bradford West byelection, claiming that “By the grace of God, we have won the most sensational victory in British political history”.

It appeared that the seat’s Muslim community had decamped from Labour en masse to Galloway’s call for an immediate British troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and a fightback against the job crisis.

On a turnout of 50.78%, Labour’s shellshocked candidate Imran Hussein was crushed by a 36.59% swing from Labour to Respect that saw Galloway take the seat with a majority of 10,140.

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Mitt Romney Thinks Closing Michigan Factories Is “Humorous”

By Eclectablog on March 28, 2012in Michigan, Mitt Romney

Oh, now THAT is funny. Not.

Mitt “I’m-a-Michigander-through-and-though” Romney barely got his foot out of his mouth before he stuck the other one back in today. This time it was to have a good belly laugh at the expense of — wait for it — Michigan.

Speaking to a group of Wisconsinites from Texas, he related a “humorous” story about his dad, former President of American Motors and Michigan Governor George Romney sending jobs out of Michigan and to Wisconsin:

“One of most humorous I think relates to my father. You may remember my father, George Romney, was president of an automobile company called American Motors …  They had a factory in Michigan, and they had a factory in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and another one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” said Romney. “And as the president of the company he decided to close the factory in Michigan and move all the production to Wisconsin.

Now later he decided to run for governor of Michigan and so you can imagine that having closed the factory and moved all the production to Wisconsin was a very sensitive issue to him, for his campaign.”Romney said he recalled a parade in which the school band marching with his father’s campaign only knew the Wisconsin fight song, not the Michigan song.

“So every time they would start playing ‘On, Wisconsin, On, Wisconsin,’ my dad’s political people would jump up and down and try to get them to stop, because they didn’t want people in Michigan to be reminded that my dad had moved production to Wisconsin,” said Romney, laughing.

Oh, hardy har har har. Nothing like closing down Michigan factories to make you LOL and LMAO, eh? Seriously, that is some funny shit.

Not.

Maybe his dad thought the trees were a better height in Wisconsin. Derp.

SOURCE

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Bain Gave Staff Way to Swell IRAs by Investing in Deals

WSJ

Updated March 28, 2012, 10:09 p.m. ET

By MARK MAREMONT

Just after Philippe Wells took a job in 1998 at Bain Capital, then run by Mitt Romney, he recalls hearing an unusual boast from a partner. The man’s individual retirement account had jumped tenfold in five years.

Mr. Wells soon learned how this was possible. Bain, like many other private-equity firms, allowed employees to co-invest in its takeover deals. This posed a risk they could lose their whole investment, as they sometimes did. But because of the firm’s success during the Romney era, employees ended up able to share in returns for Bain investors that averaged 50% to 80% annually.

Bain added a couple of unusual twists that made co-investing even more rewarding. It allowed employees to co-invest via tax-deferred retirement accounts, and to do so by buying a special share class that cost little but yielded much larger gains than other shares when deals proved successful, according to former employees and internal Bain documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

In one particularly successful deal, Bain increased the equity value of a company it had acquired by 36-fold in 20 months. But some Bain employees saw a 583-fold increase over the same period on IRA money they invested in the special share class of that company. Being in an IRA, the gain could then be rolled over, without initially subtracting taxes, into fresh Bain deals, for years of compounding.

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Romney Wants Insurance Companies To Be Able To Deny Coverage (VIDEO)

3/28/12

Last night on the Jay Leno show, Mitt Romney said he wants insurance companies to be able to deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/mitt-romney-part-2-32712/1393112

Before the Affordable Care Act:
Insurance companies could deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, from asthma to cancer.

Today:
Insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children under 19 with pre-existing conditions, and adults with pre-existing conditions who haven’t found affordable insurance can now get coverage through the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Program.

In 2014:
This program serves as a bridge until 2014, when insurance companies won’t be able to turn anyone down or charge more due to a pre-existing condition.

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Romney’s Well-Rehearsed Case Against Obama and the Russians

Time Swampland

By Michael Crowley | @CrowleyTIME | March 27, 2012

For months now, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has overwhelmingly focused on the economy.  But as he geared up his candidacy a couple of years ago, Romney opened with an argument heavy on foreign policy. In March 2010, for instance, he published No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, a campaign stage-setter largely based on the idea that Barack Obama was allowing America to slip into decline while bowing and caving to global rivals like China, Russia and Iran. It wasn’t until the recovery sputtered and Obama scored a string of foreign policy successes that Romney adopted a monomaniacal focus on the jobs picture.

But some Republicans remain convinced that they can score points against Obama on foreign policy. And now, in the wake of Obama’s open-mic comment to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he can show “more flexibility” on missile defense and other issues after the November election, Romney seems to be reviving his earlier line of attack. Romney pounced on the comment Monday, calling it “an alarming and troubling development” that suggests Obama is “not telling us what he’s intending to do” on various key foreign policy matters. Later in the day he delivered a surprisingly harsh assessment of Russia as “without question our number one geopolitical foe,” a perhaps defensible position when you consider questions like U.N. Security Council vetoes, but still a tough one to square with his past remarks about Iran. (For example: “Right now, the greatest danger that America faces and the world faces is a nuclear Iran.”)

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2012/03/27/romneys-well-rehearsed-case-against-obama-and-the-russians/#ixzz1qMQxp4UM

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Mitt Romney: Russia Is ‘Our Number One Geopolitical Foe’

The Huffington Post | By Luke Johnson
Posted: 03/26/2012  5:21 pm Updated: 03/26/2012  6:16 pm

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia “without question our number one geopolitical foe” Monday on CNN.

Romney’s comments came in the context of President Barack Obama’s “hot mic” moment with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev Monday after a meeting in Seoul. Obama was heard telling Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” on missile defense after the presidential election.

“This is without question our number one geopolitical foe, they fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed,” Romney said.

Wolf Blitzer asked if he thought Russia was a bigger foe than Iran, China or North Korea.

“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation which lines up with the world’s worst actors,” said Romney. “Of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.”

“But when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them; when [Syrian President Bashir al-] Assad for instance is murdering his own people we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up with the world’s worst actors, it’s always Russia, typically with China alongside,” he continued. “And so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council … and is of course is a massive nuclear power, Russia is the geopolitical foe.”

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Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Launches $650,000 False Ad Campaign On Gas Prices (VIDEO)

Think Progress

By Josh Israel  on Mar 23, 2012 at 4:00 pm

This week, Crossroads GPS announced a $650,000 nationwide television adcampaign called “Deflect.”  The 30-second spot falsely blames Obama administration actions for the rise in gasoline prices since 2009.

Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC. Karl Rove has been linked to both groups.

The spot begins by noting gas prices “then and now” — going up from the unusually low prices of January 2009 to the higher prices of today.  A narrator asks what has made the difference.

The narrator then claims the reasons for higher gas prices are:

– “President Obama’s administration restricted oil production in the Gulf”

– Limited development of American oil shale

– Obama personally lobbied to kill a pipeline bringing oil from Canada

VIDEO AND MORE HERE

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Romney Energy Adviser: Cheap Oil ‘A Disaster’

Politico 44

By GLENN THRUSH|

3/23/12 9:39 AM EDT

Mitt Romney has been slamming President Obama over the spike in gas prices, and will (presumably) deliver a Keystone-themed blistering attack on the administration this morning at a Louisiana oil and gas exploration company, QEP Resources.

Romney has been touting his understanding of the industry on the trail, but his ties to Big Oil – and a handful of wealthy investors who have made cash on the rise in oil prices — could come back to bite him. And it will certainly, I am told, be a big part of the Obama team’s counterattack, hitting Romney on his connections with rich guys they consider to be gas-spike profiteers.

I reached out to a Democratic source, who passed along a list of potential problems. Two jumped out. The first was none other Romney’s top energy adviser, Harold Hamm, who promised to provide “a stark alternative to President Obama’s goal of driving prices higher” in a statement published in the Tulsa World around the time of his appointment.

But in 2008, when gas was hitting $4/a gallon, Forbes put the self-made billionaire on its list of “petro princes” whose “fortunes… are driven higher every time you feel pain at the pump.”

A year later, however, when the global recession pushed per-barrel prices down about 70 percent, Hamm was touting a different line, and urged state and federal authorities to blame Canada, and probe whether Canadian producers were glutting the market – which was good for consumers but poison for his business.

MORE HERE

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