Forward (VIDEO)

The video outlines the challenges America faced as President Obama took office at the height of the worst recession in almost a century and details the progress that has been made reclaiming the security of the middle class and building an economy that’s meant to last, where hard work pays and responsibility is rewarded.

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Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem

The Washington Post

By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Friday, April 27, 8:46 AM

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

MORE HERE

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Obama: GOP On Women’s Health Like ‘Being In A Time Machine’

President Obama speaks at the Washington Convention Center in Washington. (Jewel Samad / AFP/Getty Images / April 27, 2012)

Chicago Tribune

By Michael A. Memoli

5:09 p.m. CDT, April 27, 2012

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Friday castigated the Republican Party for what he said were dated views onwomen’s healthissues, saying the recent debate over contraceptives was “like being in a time machine.”

Speaking at a women’s conference organized by his campaign, Obama called the issue “illuminating.”

“Republicans in Congress were going so far as to say an employer should be able to have a say in the healthcare decisions of its female employees,” Obama said. “I’m always puzzled by this — this is a party that says it prides itself on being rabidly anti-regulation. These are folks who claim to believe in freedom from government interference and meddling. But it doesn’t seem to bother them when it comes to a woman’s health.”

Obama also pointed to the efforts in state legislatures to place new restrictions on abortion, singling out Virginia’s attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, to require an invasive ultrasound before a woman could have the procedure. He paraphrased the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, who said a woman who didn’t like the procedure could “close your eyes.”

“It’s appalling. It’s offensive. It’s out of touch,” he said. “Women across America aren’t closing their eyes. As long as I’m president, I won’t either. The days of male politicians controlling the healthcare decisions of our wives and our mothers and our daughters and our sisters — that needs to come to an end.”

Polling has shown a significant gender gap in the presidential race, with Obama opening a healthy lead among women while Mitt Romney is favored by male voters.

MORE HERE

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Mitt Romney Versus Reality: Global Edition

Published on Apr 26, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom

Are you in? https://my.barackobama.com/globalttvid
Mitt Romney continues to distort reality in this global edition of “Mitt Romney versus Reality”

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Romney’s “Vision” Blind to Economic History

PERRspectives

April 25, 2012

On Tuesday night, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney threw down the gauntlet. Declaring the election is “still about the economy – and we’re not stupid,” Romney warned that “President Obama and I have very different visions.” After claiming that “government is at the center of his vision,” the Republican offered the Romney Vision:

“I have a very different vision for America, and of our future. It is an America driven by freedom, where free people, pursuing happiness in their own unique ways, create free enterprises that employ more and more Americans. Because there are so many enterprises that are succeeding, the competition for hard-working, educated and skilled employees is intense, and so wages and salaries rise. I see an America with a growing middle class, with rising standards of living.”

Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, it has been Democrats in the White House who have delivered the shared prosperity he describes. After all, as the historical record shows, from economic growth and job creation to stock market performance and just about every other indicator of the health of the U.S. capitalism, the modern U.S. economy has almost always done better under Democratic presidents. Despite GOP mythology to the contrary, America generally gained more jobs and grew faster when taxes were higher (even much higher) and income inequality lower. And while the U.S. recovery from the Bush recession remains painfully slow, most economists – including the nonpartisan CBO and some of John McCain’s own 2008 advisers – believe President Obama saved the American free-enterprise system from the abyss.

(Click a link below for the details on each.)

MORE HERE

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Mitt Romney Versus Reality: Student Loans Edition (VIDEO)

Published on Apr 25, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom

Are you in? https://my.barackobama.com/studentloantt5vid

Romney’s budget plan cuts Pell Grants and locks in higher student loan rates. His advice for students?
“The best thing I can do for you is tell you to shop around.”
Reality:
College would be more expensive under Mitt Romney

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Mitt Romney’s Fantasy World

The American Prospect

Jamelle Bouie

April 25, 2012

In his victory speech last night, the former Massachusetts governor offered a startlingly dishonest take on the last three and a half years of the Obama presidency.

In a sane world, Mitt Romney would be laughed out of politics for the speech he gave celebrating his final wins (Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York) in the Republican nomination contest. The centerpiece of the address was a riff on the classic formulation, “Are you better of now than you were four years ago?”

Is it easier to make ends meet? Is it easier to sell your home or buy a new one? Have you saved what you needed for retirement? Are you making more in your job? Do you have a better chance to get a better job? Do you pay less at the pump?

What’s frustrating about this is the fact that it ignores the last four years of political history in an attempt to put Barack Obama at the center of the country’s economic troubles.

But that’s ridiculous. Here’s what we know about the last four years. In 2008, the economy fell into a deep recession. The proximate cause was the collapse of the global financial system, but the process itself was long in the making; George W. Bush was a terrible steward of the economy, and his policies—along with those of congressional Republicans—yielded a decade of slow growth and sluggish job creation. Along with an out-of-control financial sector, the end result of all of this was the worst recession in more than seven decades.
MORE HERE

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Has Mitt Romney met Mitt Romney?

The Maddow Blog

By Steve Benen

–

Wed Apr 25, 2012 8:00 AM EDT

As expected, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney cruised to easy wins in five GOP primaries yesterday — his remaining competitors aren’t really trying — and he capped the night with a big speech in New Hampshire, where he rolled out a new campaign message: “A Better America Begins Tonight.”

If you missed it, we featured the entirety of the former governor’s speech on last night’s show.

The remarks were well received by most pundits — delivery and clever turns of phrase tend to earn plaudits, because honesty and policy coherence no longer matter — but watching the speech, I kept asking myself, “Has Mitt Romney met Mitt Romney?”

The presumptive GOP nominee went through a litany of predictable falsehoods, including the ridiculous lie that President Obama “apologized for America,” but just as important was the disconnect between Romney’s rhetoric and Romney’s stated agenda.

Romney reached out, for example, to “the mom and dad who never thought they’d be on food stamps,” without acknowledging that he supports slashing funding for food stamps. He spoke repeatedly about “unfairness” in the economy, without mentioning he supports some millionaires and billionaires paying a lower tax rate than most of the middle class. He talked about rising debt without noting that he has no way of paying for the massive tax breaks he’s sworn to pass. He said he’d rescue “grandparents” without acknowledging that he intends to turn Medicare into a voucher program, push partial privatization of Social Security, and bring back the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole.”

MORE HERE

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Russell Pearce: I ‘Absolutely’ Believe Romney Called SB 1070 A ‘Model’ (VIDEO)

Huffington Post

By- Elise Foley

Posted: 04/24/2012 12:57 pm Updated: 04/24/2012 3:50 pm

WASHINGTON — Former Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce, a Republican behind the state’s contested immigration law, SB 1070, said on Tuesday he “absolutely” believed Mitt Romney had endorsed the law as a model for the country.

“The folks that he’s said [are] his advisers on this, I have worked with for years and have great confidence and trust in them,” Pearce told reporters after a Senate subcommittee hearing on the immigration law. “I know Romney is a compassionate man, most of us, I’d like to think, are. But I think he also understands the crisis and the damage to this republic and the need to enforce our law.”

VIDEO AND MORE HERE

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Romney’s Insult To Women On Equal Pay

Will Mitt Romney support equal pay for women? Lilly Ledbetter says his silence on the issue is disconcerting.

CNN Opinion

By Lilly Ledbetter, Special to CNN

updated 7:35 AM EDT, Tue April 24, 2012

Editor’s note: Lilly Ledbetter is the co-author of “Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond” (Crown Archetype). She has campaigned and raised funds for President Barack Obama.

(CNN) — It took more than 20 years to get an answer for the injustices I suffered as an unfairly paid worker, so I know what it’s like to wait. But the six seconds of silence from Mitt Romney’s campaign recently seemed like forever.

Romney’s advisers held a conference call inviting reporters to ask questions. One was simple and straightforward: “Does Gov. Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Act?”

In other words, when a woman is paid less than a man for doing the same work, does the presumptive Republican nominee support her right to fight for the equal pay she’s guaranteed under the law? That’s exactly what the bill that bears my name ensures — it simply gives workers a fair shot to make their case in court.

It’s not a hypothetical question. Women get paid just 77 cents for every dollar a man gets. That means a woman would have had to work from January 1, 2011, until this Tuesday to match what men earned in 2011 alone.

MORE HERE

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