President Obama to Visit Colorado Wildfires – Find Out How to Help

By Liz Raftery

Friday June 29, 2012 11:55 AM EDT

Waldo Canyon fire, west of Colorado Springs; inset, President Barack Obama

Landov (2)

President Obama has declared a state of disaster in Colorado, where wildfires have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

The Waldo Canyon Fire, on the outskirts of Colorado Springs, is also responsible for the death of at least one person. A body was found inside a charred house late Thursday and another person from the same house is missing, according to CNN.com.

President Obama's declaration means that federal funding will be available for the state and local governments, as well as eligible nonprofit organizations.

The president plans to travel to Colorado Springs Friday afternoon to personally assess the damage, according to reports.

"I really appreciate the president coming here ... if nothing more than just to reassure us that this a focus at a national level, that there are people all over this country who are concerned for our citizens and those who have lost their homes," Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach told CNN.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates it could be mid-July before the Waldo Canyon Fire and the High Park Fire, which has been burning since June 9, are fully under control, according to CNN.

An investigation is underway to determine whether the fires were caused by arson.

To help with relief and recovery in the Colorado Wildfire Region

The following organizations are assisting in the area, according to the Associated Press. Please click on the group's name to go directly to its website.

American Red Cross Colorado
Red Cross workers are staffing shelters in several locations and helping connect evacuated residents with a range of basic needs, including shelter, food, hygiene supplies, recovery information, health and emotional support. Please designate your gift to "disaster relief."

The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army's Emergency Disaster Services (EDS) teams are actively providing relief to evacuees from both the Waldo Canyon Fire and the High Park Fire with additional volunteers and resources on standby should they be needed. Please designate your gift to "disaster relief."

Larimer Humane Society
Larimer Humane Society is coordinating the rescue of all animals in the High Park fire zone, providing owner-requested food and water to animals not evacuated (as permitted by Fire and Sheriff authorities), reuniting owners with lost animals, and providing temporary shelter for evacuated animals.

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post / Polaris

The Path to Prosperity Budget: Your Country. Your Future. Your Choice.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan details what the choice of two futures means: a path to debt and decline or a stronger, more prosperous path of less debt, lower taxes, and greater opportunity for generations to come.

Path to Prosperity 2013

Path to Prosperity Fy 2012

You can look at both budgets by Paul Ryan and the Republicans in the House of Representatives

click on pic once they open in new tabs and they will enlarge

CUT, CAP, AND BALANCE: A Fiscal Year 2013 Budget
H.Con.Res. 113

RSC Chairman Jim Jordan, RSC Budget & Spending Taskforce Chairman Scott Garrett, and the entire RSC Budget and Spending Taskforce have introduced “Cut, Cap, and Balance: A Fiscal Year 2013 Budget” (H.Con.Res. 113).

The RSC’s FY 2013 budget proposal balances the budget in 5 years.

Rsc Budget Cut Cap and Balance--long Doc--final

Specifically, it…

• Cuts discretionary spending to $931 billion (slightly below the 2008 levels approved by Nancy Pelosi), and freezes it until the budget balances in 2017. Defense spending is the same as the House Budget Committee proposal. Non-defense shrinks from $377 billion in FY 2013 to $329 billion in FY 2022.
• Protects defense from sequestration by switching the scheduled cuts to non-defense discretionary this year and going forward.
• Creates a simpler, flatter, and fairer tax code as proposed in the RSC’s Jobs Through Growth Act.
• Extends federal funding for Medicaid & CHIP at current FY 2012 levels and gives states the tools they need to design and improve their own programs, as proposed in the RSC’s State Health Flexibility Act.
• Budgets responsibly for federal welfare programs by returning spending for these programs to pre-recession levels once unemployment drops to 6.5%, as proposed in the RSC’s Welfare Reform Act.

The budget also proposes reforms to strengthen Social Security and Medicare over the long-term while making no changes for people currently age 55 and older.

Specifically, this proposal…

• Transitions Medicare to a solvent premium-support system, as proposed by the House Budget Committee. This plan provides Medicare enrollees a greater menu of choices including staying with the current system, harnessing the power of competition among private insurance plans and improving the quality of care.
• Gradually realigns the Social Security eligibility age with Americans’ increasing longevity. The threshold for eligibility would increase by 2 months per year, beginning with people born in 1958 and after.

Additional Documents:
The Budget (above), Two-Page Summary, Budget Presentation, Legislative Text



What They're Saying:
Reps. Garrett and Jordan Op-ed: Conservatives' Budget Will Stop Borrowing from Our Children
The Hill: Conservatives Unveil Budget Plan Cutting $7.5T Over Next Decade
Roll Call: Conservatives Add Own Budget to the Mix
The Daily Caller: House Republican Study Committee: We can balance budget in 5 years
Newsmax: Rep. Jim Jordan: Obama Budget 'Immoral, Unfair'
Dan Mitchell from The Cato Institute: New Budget from Republican Study Committee Reduces Burden of Government to Where It Was When Bill Clinton Left Office
Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government: Freshman Mulvaney’s Attempt to Bring Fiscal Sanity to DC
Patrick Louis Knudsen from The Heritage Foundation: The RSC Budget: A Preliminary Look
Mike Brownfield from The Heritage Foundation: Another Vision to Solve the Budget Crisis
Veronique de Rugy at National Review Online: The RSC Budget
Jim Antle at The American Spectator: Ryan's Right Flank
Daniel Horowitz at RedState: RSC Budget: Cut, Cap, and Balance is Back – And Here to Stay
Ed Morrissey at HotAir: House conservatives to unveil alternate budget
Bridget Johnson at PJ Media: Conservative Caucus: We Can Balance Budget in Five Years
Susan A. Carleson at Townhall: A Budget America Can't Live Without

Letter of Support:
Council for Citizens Against Government Waste: Letter of Support
American Family Business Institute: Letter of Support
FreedomWorks: Letter of Support
Let Freedom Ring: Letter of Support
National Taxpayers Union: Letter of Support
Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee: Letter of Support
Americans for Limited Government: Letter of Support
Americans for Tax Reform: Letter of Support
Americans for Prosperity: Letter of Support
The Carleson Center for Public Policy: Letter of Support
The Club for Growth: Letter of Support
Coalitions for America: Letter of Support
60 Plus Association: Letter of Support
Tea Party Express: Letter of Support
National Tax-Limitation Committee: Letter of Support
Tradition, Family & Property: Letter of Support
Freedom Action: Letter of Support
Council for America: Letter of Support
Americans for Sovereignty: Letter of Support
Capitol Hill Prayer Alert: Letter of Support
Christian Coalition of America: Letter of Support
Republican National Policy Committee: Letter of Support
The Mommy Lobby: Letter of Support
ANCIR: Letter of Support
Less Government: Letter of Support
The Heartland Institute: Letter of Support
Liberty Counsel: Letter of Support
Liberty Counsel Action: Letter of Support
Liberty Center for Law and Policy: Letter of Support
Maryland Center-Right Coalition: Letter of Support
American Council for Immigration Reform: Letter of Support
Family PAC Federal: Letter of Support
Patriotic Veterans: Letter of Support

Ex-GOP spokesman denies calling for 'armed rebellion' after health-care ruling

4:58 PM, June 28, 2012

Matt Davis / Free Press file photo

By Paul Egan

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

 LANSING – A former spokesman for the Michigan Republican Party today denied that he called for “armed rebellion” in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the health care reform law.

But Matt Davis apologized for sending an errant e-mail that contained what he called “unedited work product.”

“Mea culpa,” said Davis, an attorney who last year was a spokesman for the state GOP. He also was a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections under former Gov. John Engler and worked as a Free Press reporter in the 1990s.

“I should have read it more carefully. I would take out the part about armed rebellion.”

The e-mail read, in part:

“If government can mandate that I pay for something I don't want, then what is beyond its power? If the Supreme Court's decision Thursday paves the way for unprecedented intrusion into personal decisions, then has the Republic all but ceased to exist? If so, then is armed rebellion today justified?

“God willing, this oppression will be lifted and America free again before the first shot is fired.”

Davis said he wanted to provoke discussion about at what point the American Republic dies.

Davis said Henry Payne, editor of the conservative opinion Web site The Michigan View, had sent an e-mail to his contributors seeking comment about the Supreme Court’s decision declaring the Affordable Care Act constitutional. Davis said he typed his comments and accidentally hit “reply all.”

A story about his e-mail, which Davis described as inaccurate, soon appeared on Michigan Capitol Confidential, a Web site operated by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Davis’ column was later posted on The Michigan View without any reference to an armed rebellion.

Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, issued a news release late this afternoon calling on state Republican leaders to repudiate Davis’s comments.


“There is no place for this violent rhetoric in policy or in politics,” Brewer said. “Urging citizens to take violent action simply because you do not agree with policy is alarming, irresponsible and reprehensible.”

Can This Photograph of a Himalayan Glacier Persuade People That Climate Change Is Happening?

By Conor Friedersdorf

Jun 28 2012, 2:28 AM ET 

The same view, photographed 88 years apart, affords a striking contrast -- and a much diminished glacier.

David Breashears/Royal Geographic Society

Before the famed English mountaineer George Mallory died on Mount Everest, he was asked why he wanted to climb it, and his response, perhaps apocryphal, would become the three most famous words in mountaineering: "Because it's there." Something like that impulse had gripped Mallory years prior, when he joined the British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Team in its mission to explore the Himalayas and map a route to the summit now widely known as The Top of the World. Standing in Tibet in 1921, Mallory photographed the north face of the mountain that would claim his life three years later, no doubt marveling at its grandeur. He could scarcely imagine how another mountaineer would use his photograph almost nine decades hence.

That mountaineer is David Breashears, who told his story Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Undaunted by the scores who've died scaling Mt. Everest across the decades, Breashears summited there five times in three decades. He got to know the sherpas that help climbers ascend its slopes. They spoke of changes -- about less snow around the mountain, and more heat.

But he didn't grasp how fast things were changing until 2007.

Notes from the Aspen Ideas Festival -- See full coverage

Trekking in Tibet that year, he took out a reproduction of the old George Mallory photograph. "It showed the ice-encrusted north face of Everest and, below it, the great river of ice known as the Main Rongbuk Glacier, flowing in a sweeping, S-shaped curve down a broad, stony valley," he wrote in a magazine article about his efforts. "Eighty-six years after Mallory took that photograph, I sat in the exact spot where he had snapped his iconic picture. Pulling out his photo, I was stunned by the changes that had swept over this region. The wide river of ice had retreated more than half a mile, leaving a field of separated ice pinnacles melting into the rocky ground. In the distance, the ice streams on Everest's flank also had shrunk, exposing more of the mountain's dark face."

The juxtaposition struck him so powerfully that he's been trying to reproduce the same experience ever since. As it turns out, a lot of early mountaineers photographed Mt. Everest, it being there and all. They took other photographs in the Himalayas too. What they captured on film are now the "before" images that The Glacier Research Imaging Project juxtaposes with "after" photos of the same spot today. Breashears helped found the project, and held forth Wednesday about the sophisticated "after" images it is producing (the one above is the Kyetrak glacier in the Cho Oyu region).

He acknowledges that two data points captured many years apart do not tell us anything conclusive. But having observed the Himalayas over many years, and after studying them intensely in recent years, he is alarmed at the loss of ice. "The loss of these frozen reservoirs of water will have a huge impact, as the glaciers provide seasonal flows to nearly every major river system in Asia. From the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra in South Asia, to the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in China, hundreds of millions of people are partially dependent on this vast arc of high-altitude glaciers for water," he recently wrote. "As the glaciers recede and release stored water, flows will temporarily increase. But once these ice reservoirs are spent, the water supply for an overpopulated continent will be threatened, and the impacts on water resources and food security could be dire."

It's a warning with echoes elsewhere. As Carolyn Kormann put it in a 2009 feature on the retreat of Andean glaciers:

Bolivia's famed Chacaltaya glacier has lost 80 percent of its surface area since 1982, and Peruvian glaciers have lost more than one-fifth of their mass in the past 35 years, reducing by 12 percent the water flow to the country's coastal region, home to 60 percent of Peru's population. And if warming trends continue, the study concluded, many of the Andes' tropical glaciers will disappear within 20 years, not only threatening the water supplies of 77 million people in the region, but also reducing hydropower production, which accounts for roughly half of the electricity generated in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador... So far this melting has brought temporary increases in stream flow and contributed to massive Amazonian floods that forced several hundred thousand people from their homes last year.

But within the next decade, scientists predict that this torrent of melt-water will turn into a trickle as glaciers shrink, meaning that the age-old source of water during the dry season will steadily dwindle. Some highland farmers near La Paz already report decreased water supplies.

In his Wednesday talk, Breashears predicted that the images he's producing will have a huge impact on the next generation and its attitudes toward climate change. "The data doesn't resonate. There is no imagery that corresponds to what we see in the charts," he said. But detailed, high resolution imagery of faraway glaciers and the ways that they're losing ice over time?

He believes they'll prove uniquely persuasive.

 Glacial Mass

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker  
(Scott Olson, Getty Images / June 28, 2012)

Wisconsin plan for Illinois?

Reforms in Land of Lincoln could help provide certainty to private-sector job creators

   By

 Scott Walker

June 29, 2012

All too often political leaders have been afraid to tell the truth about the costs associated with pension, health care and other entitlement obligations. It is time for politicians to own up to these fiscal challenges.

As is the case in Illinois, the truth is often sobering. I know the feeling. When I became governor in Wisconsin, the state faced a $3.6 billion deficit, was hemorrhaging jobs and had high unemployment.

While I'm not an expert on the fiscal challenges facing Illinois, based on media reports I've read and stories I've heard from visiting your state, there are major budgetary issues that need to be resolved. Illinois faces a fiscal and economic crisis.

In times of crisis, citizens should demand leadership. In the weeks leading up to the Wisconsin recall election, a supporter and friend told me: "If you hadn't gone as far as you did, you might have avoided this recall election." I responded, "We also wouldn't have fixed our problem. I'm not planning on it, but I'm not afraid to lose."

The actions we took in balancing the state's budget and implementing collective bargaining reforms were solely aimed at ensuring that my two sons and other kids would inherit a state better off than the one I had. Burying the next generation under a mountain of crippling debt was never a realistic option.

Economic growth and job creation are largely dependent on certainty, which government can provide by delivering stable services, predictable regulations and a favorable tax climate.

I visited Illinois last week, not to poach businesses but to encourage employers who have a global presence to consider future expansion in Wisconsin. The future of Wisconsin's economy is tied to the Midwest region — specifically the Chicago and northern Illinois areas, which is why I hope Illinois leaders can make long-term structural changes that will provide certainty to private-sector job creators.

The reforms we enacted in Wisconsin balanced our budget and improved the economic environment for job creators. We did all of that without overall tax increases, massive public employee layoffs or cuts to those who are truly in need of help, such as individuals who rely on Medicaid.

Since I took office, more than 41,000 jobs have been added in Wisconsin. Today, Wisconsin's unemployment rate is below 7 percent — it hasn't been that low since 2008. We are getting people back to work. Even better, employers are ready to add more jobs. Two years ago, a survey of Wisconsin employers showed that just 10 percent thought the state was headed in the right direction. Today the survey shows that 94 percent believe Wisconsin is headed in the right direction and a solid majority plan to add jobs.

Similarly, CEOs from around the country used to have a negative view about doing business in our state. Before I took office, Wisconsin routinely ranked in the bottom 10 of states to do business in. Last month, Wisconsin broke into the top 20. What we did in Wisconsin was common sense. Like many small businesses and households, we had challenges, and we set out to fix them.
Now is the time for leaders in Illinois and across the nation to take on these tough choices. The next generation is counting on us.

Scott Walker is the governor of Wisconsin.

The Political Contrast

Published: June 14, 2012 266 Comments

President Obama sometimes forgets that an important speech does not have to be endless. On Thursday, appearing before supporters at a Cleveland community college, he spent 53 minutes on the stark contrast between his goals and the failed Bush-era policies that Mitt Romney is trying to resurrect. It’s hard to imagine that the speech, overgrown as it was with policy details, won the hearts of many independent voters yearning for a clear understanding of how much is at stake in November

• Read All Comments (266) »

That doesn’t mean that the principal point Mr. Obama made on Thursday isn’t worth considerable repetition: There is no meaningful difference between the trickle-down economics of George W. Bush, rejected by the country in 2008, and the plans supported by Mr. Romney and his Republican allies in Congress. All the elements are there, from the slavish devotion to tax cuts for the rich, to a contempt for government regulation, to savage cutbacks in programs for those at the bottom. 

“If you want to give the policies of the last decade another try, then you should vote for Mr. Romney,” he said. “You should take them at their word, and they will take America down this path. And Mr. Romney is qualified to deliver on that plan.” 

Mr. Romney, in fact, helped reinforce the president’s point with his own speech minutes before, in which he denounced virtually all forms of regulation, from ones cleaning the air to those preventing banks from engaging in the same destructive behavior that produced the Great Recession on Mr. Bush’s watch. If only the government would get out of the way, he suggested, and stop trying to cover those without health insurance, or keep the groundwater clean, then jobs would magically reappear. 

Of course, that didn’t happen when Mr. Bush tried it; painfully slow job growth was followed by a recession that shed nine million jobs. The proposals made by Mr. Obama in Cleveland are more likely to put people back to work: invest more money in education, job training and rebuilding infrastructure. Focus more on developing new energy sources than pulling globe-warming coal from the ground. Lower the deficit through higher taxes on the rich, which could lead to a pact to cut spending responsibly. 

The Republican recalcitrance on taxes has led to a Washington stalemate that the president referred to eight times in his speech, saying it can be broken only by the voters. But Mr. Obama’s re-election cannot, by itself, end the impasse. It is once his opponents’ free-market ideas are fully seen to be bankrupt that Congress will either change or begin acting in the country’s interest. Breaking the grip of these ideas truly is, as Mr. Obama said Thursday, “a make-or-break moment for America’s middle class.” 

And it is there that Mr. Obama still has not made his case. Mr. Romney’s entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites. The stimulus failed. (Three million employed people beg to differ.) The auto bailout was a mistake. (Another million jobs.) Spending is out of control. (Spending growth is actually lower than under all modern Republican presidents.) He says these kinds of things so often that millions of Americans believe them to be the truth. 

It is hard to challenge these lies with a well-reasoned-but-overlong speech — just as, in an odd juxtaposition, Mr. Obama failed to make his case for his Afghanistan policy in a speech in May that was both too short and too shallow. The president has less than five months to find a way to make a vital message sink in. 

Related News

• Obama Says Election Offers a Clear Choice on the Economy’s Long-Term Path(June 15, 2012)

• Romney Assails Obama for Favoring Words Over Action(June 14, 2012)

Related in Opinion

Paul Krugman: We Don't Need No Education (June 15, 2012)

• Taking Note: Painting Romney With the Bush Brush(June 14, 2012)

Romney’s pants on fire

By Eugene Robinson, Published: May 28

There are those who tell the truth. There are those who distort the truth. And then there’s Mitt Romney.

Every political campaign exaggerates and dissembles. This practice may not be admirable — it’s surely one reason so many Americans are disenchanted with politics — but it’s something we’ve all come to expect. Candidates claim the right to make any boast or accusation as long as there’s a kernel of veracity in there somewhere.

Even by this lax standard, Romney too often fails. Not to put too fine a point on it, he lies. Quite a bit.

“Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history,” Romney claims on his campaign Web site. This is utterly false. The truth is that spending has slowed markedly under Obama.

An analysis published last week by MarketWatch, a financial news Web site owned by Dow Jones & Co., compared the yearly growth of federal spending under presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. Citing figures from the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, MarketWatch concluded that “there has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”

Quite the contrary: Spending has increased at a yearly rate of only 1.4 percent during Obama’s tenure, even if you include some stimulus spending (in the 2009 fiscal year) that technically should be attributed to President George W. Bush. This is by far the smallest — I repeat, smallest — increase in spending of any recent president. (The Washington Post’s Fact Checker concluded the spending increase figure should have been 3.3 percent.)
In Bush’s first term, by contrast, federal spending increased at an annual rate of 7.3 percent; in his second term, the annual rise averaged 8.1 percent. Reagan comes next, in terms of profligacy, followed by George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and finally Obama, the thriftiest of them all.

The MarketWatch analysis was re-analyzed by the nonpartisan watchdogs at Politifact who found it “Mostly True” — adding the qualifier because some of the restraint in spending under Obama “was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans.” Duly noted, and if Romney wants to claim credit for the GOP, he’s free to do so. But he’s not free to say that “federal spending has accelerated” under Obama, because any way you look at it, that’s a lie.

Another example: Obama “went around the Middle East and apologized for America,” Romney said in March. “You know, instead of apologizing for America he should have stood up and said that as the president of the United States we all take credit for the greatness of this country.” That’s two lies for the price of one. Obama did not, in fact, go around the Middle East, or anywhere else, apologizing for America. And he did, on many occasions, trumpet American greatness and exceptionalism.

Romney offers few specifics, but the conservative Heritage Foundation published a list of “Barack Obama’s Top 10 Apologies” — not one of which is an apology at all.

One alleged instance is a speech Obama gave to the Turkish parliament in 2009, in which he said the United States “is still working through some of our own darker periods in our history . . . [and] still struggles with the legacies of slavery and segregation, the past treatment of Native Americans.” If the folks at Heritage and at the Romney campaign don’t know that this is a simple statement of fact, they really ought to get out more.

Romney does single out the following Obama statement from a 2009 interview: “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” Romney says this acknowledgment — that others might have as much national pride as we do — means Obama doesn’t really believe in American exceptionalism at all.

But in the same interview, Obama went on to say he was “enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world,” and to tout U.S. economic and military might as well as the nation’s “exceptional” democratic values. So he should be accused of chest-thumping, not groveling.

I could go on and on, from Romney’s laughable charge that Obama is guilty of “appeasement” (ask Osama bin Laden) to claims of his job-creating prowess at Bain Capital. He seems to believe voters are too dumb to discover what the facts really are — or too jaded to care.

On both counts, I disagree.

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXIII

By Steve Benen

 - 

Fri Jun 22, 2012 1:30 PM EDT

 Not everything Mitt Romney says is on the level.

For those who are watching the 2012 presidential race closely, Mitt Romney's penchant for falsehoods is hard to miss. Michael Cohen summarized the issue nicely this week in a piece for The Guardian:

Granted, presidential candidates are no strangers to disingenuous or overstated claims; it's pretty much endemic to the business. But Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious. Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.
Now, in general, those of us in the pundit class are really not supposed to accuse politicians of lying -- they mislead, they embellish, they mischaracterize, etc. Indeed, there is natural tendency for nominally objective reporters, in particular, to stay away from loaded terms such as lying. Which is precisely why Romney's repeated lies are so effective. In fact, lying is really the only appropriate word to use here, because, well, Romney lies a lot.

If there are any lingering doubts about the accuracy of this observation, consider the 23rd installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity. (I've been at this for several months now, and this week's list is the longest to date.)

1. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Romney claimed it's fiscally responsible to eliminate the entirety of the Affordable Care Act: "It saves $100 billion a year to get rid of it."
That's the opposite of the truth. According to the CBO and other nonpartisan budget estimates, killing the law would make the deficit go up, not down, and would cost, not save, the country hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years.

2. In the same interview, Romney said, "I think a lot of people forgetting is there is only one president in history that's cut Medicare by $500 billion and that is President Obama."
Romney says this a lot. He's not telling the truth.

3. Romney also said, "I see people holding up signs, 'Don't touch my Medicare.' It's like, hey, I'm not touching your Medicare."
Romney endorsed Paul Ryan's House Republican Budget plan, which ends the Medicare program and replaces it with a private voucher scheme.

4. In the same interview, Romney said President Obama has "never had the experience of working in the private sector."
Actually, that's not true. Obama worked at a private-sector law firm before entering public service.

5. Romney also told Hannity Obama went on "an apology tour" in his first year.
As Romney surely knows by now, he's lying.

6. Romney, trying to talk about foreign policy, said Syria is Iran's "route to the sea."
Iran doesn't share a border with Syria, and Iran already borders two bodies of water.

7. At a campaign event in Stratham, New Hampshire, Romney claimed, "Bill Clinton and so many other mainstream Democrats are revolting against the backward direction President Obama is taking his party and our country."
In reality, Bill Clinton supports the president's re-election and recently said a Romney presidency would be "calamitous for our country and the world."

8. At an event in Cornwall, Pennsylvania, shared an anecdote about a local optometrist who was forced to fill out a "33-page" change-of-address form -- several times -- at the post office.
There is no such change-of-address form.

9. At the same event, Romney said Obama is "taking away" scholarships and charter schools for "kids in Washington, D.C."
This has become a line in Romney's stump speech, but it isn't in any way true.

10. Romney also claimed, "This president has put together almost as much public debt as all the prior presidents combined."
That's a lie.

11. Romney went on to say, "It's immoral in my view for my generation to pass on to these kids the burden of our generation. I think it's wrong. It's got to stop. And if I'm president of the United States I will get us on track to have a balanced budget."
That's plainly false. Romney says his plan "can't be scored," but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller, and add trillions to the national debt.

12. At a campaign stop in Weatherly, Pennsylvania, Romney said the president's "trillion- dollar stimulus" failed to "create jobs."
That's the opposite of the truth.

13. At the same event, Romney said about Obama, "He was told that one small business was having a hard time dealing with Obamacare. He said he hadn't heard that."
That's not what happened. In fact, the small business wasn't having a hard time dealing with Obamacare, and was hurt by policies Romney wants to pursue.

14. Romney went on say, "I was in Las Vegas and met a woman who was worried. She has a business renting furniture to casinos and to conventioners that come to Las Vegas. And when the president said, don't bother coming to Las Vegas for your company meetings a few years ago, her business dove."
Obama actually said, in reference to Wall Street recklessness, "You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility." To blame the failure of some random business in Nevada on this is ridiculous.

15. Romney added, "If we stay on the road we're on, we're going to become like Europe.... I don't believe Europe works in Europe. I don't want it here."
The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.

16. In his "Face the Nation" interview, Romney said of Obama's new immigration policy, "If he really wanted to make a solution that dealt with these kids or with the illegal immigration in America, then this is something he would have taken up in his first three and a half years, not in his last few months."
That's remarkably misleading. Obama has pushed for the DREAM Act for years, and would have signed it into law in 2010 had it not been blocked by a Republican filibuster.

17. In the same interview, Romney said about health care, "I will continue to describe the plan that I would provide, which is, number one, to make sure that people don't have to worry about losing their insurance if they have a preexisting condition, and change jobs."
This is the kind of answer that's clearly intended to deceive. Under Romney's approach, millions of people with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage -- and occasionally his campaign even admits it.

18. Also on health care, Romney said the president "jammed through a bill" and "didn't really try and work for a Republican vote."
This is laughably untrue. Obama worked for months to find someone -- anyone -- in the Republican Party who would work with him in good faith, including delaying progress while the "Gang of Six" engaged in pointless talks.

19. Romney also said, "I'm not looking for a tax cut for the very wealthiest."
Either Romney hasn't read his own tax plan, or he's lying.

20. Appearing via video at the "Faith and Freedom Coalition" annual event, Romney applauded the far-right group's leader: "Ralph Reed has been a real champion in fighting for the fundamental values that have made America the nation that it is."
You've got to be kidding me.

21. In the same speech, Romney said, "When you put in place a bill like Obamacare, you attack the freedom of people to make a choice about their own insurance and what kind of coverage they want to have."
That's not true. Under the Affordable Care Act, consumers would choose from competing plans as part of a health care exchange. Romney knows this -- it was part of his own plan.

22. Romney went on to say, "[M]edian income in this nation has dropped by 10 percent over the last four years."
That only makes sense if we count Obama's first year in office, which relies on a standard Romney believes is fundamentally unfair.

23. He also argued, "Government at all levels is about 37 percent of the economy today -- 37 percent. And if Obamacare were allowed to stand, government would control about half of the economy of America."
That's demonstrably ridiculous.

24. At the same event, Romney said that Obama "insists" that "Israel return to the '67 borders -- indefensible borders."
He's lying.

25. At a campaign event in Brunswick, Ohio, Romney claimed that Obama said "if you let him borrow all that money, he'd keep unemployment below 8 percent."
As Romney surely knows by now, that's simply not true.

26. At the same event, Romney said under Obamacare, we'll get "a healthcare system run by the government."
There is no universe in which this is true.

27. At a campaign event in Janesville, Wisconsin, Romney argued, "[T]he path we're on, spending $1 trillion more every year than we take in, is leading us to Greece."
That's painfully untrue.

28. At a campaign event in Holland, Michigan, Romney claimed that, as a result of the Dodd-Frank reforms, "small banks and community banks are finding it harder and harder to make loans to small businesses."
According to community banks, this is false. These banks have actually gotten stronger after Dodd-Frank, and the president of Independent Community Bankers Of America recently said, "I am sick of Wall Street using community banks as their shills to scare community bankers into stampeding Congress into undoing provisions of law that finally attempt to deal with too big to fail and Wall Street overreach."

29. In a speech to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials yesterday, Romney argued that President Obama "has not completed a single new trade agreement with Latin America."
Romney does realize that Panama is part of Latin America, right?

30. Romney went on to argue, "Unfortunately, despite his promises, President Obama has failed to address immigration reform."
Actually, Obama has addressed it quite a bit, taking executive action where the law allows, and pushing Congress to pursue comprehensive reform based on a bipartisan plan he presented last year.

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXIV

By Steve Benen

 - 

Fri Jun 29, 2012 2:07 PM EDT

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that came out this week included an interesting, open-ended question: "What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Mitt Romney as president?" Poll respondents weren't offered any choices; they could offer any response they wanted.

The results weren't especially surprising -- the most common answer noted Romney being very wealthy. There were also plenty of folks who mentioned Romney's conservatism, his Mormon faith, his controversial positions on women's rights, Romney has had it up to here with people 

asking him to be more honest with voters.etc.

Down towards the bottom of the list, however, was one that jumped out me: "Dishonest." For at least some respondents -- not a lot, but some -- the first thing that came to mind when thinking about Romney was the candidate's willingness to say things that aren't true.

It's good to know I'm not the only one who's noticed. In fact, the public response should probably be far more common given how quickly the Republican's record of falsehoods is growing. Consider, for example, the 24th installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Following the Supreme Court's ruling on Arizona's anti-immigrant law, Romney said "we are still waiting" for President Obama "to present an immigration plan."
No, actually, we're not. Obama endorsed a comprehensive reform plan years ago, and presented his own detailed plan more than a year ago.

2. At a campaign event in Salem, Virginia, Romney said Obama had "all the support he needed" in Congress to pass immigration legislation during his first two years in office.
That's plainly false. There were Democratic majorities in both chambers, but not enough to overcome Republican filibusters.

3. At the same event, Romney said Obama "did not deal with immigration" policy.
Sure he did. Obama introduced a comprehensive immigration reform proposal; he increased deportations; he strengthened border security; and he used his prosecutorial discretion to implement the goals of the DREAM Act. Romney may not approve of these policies, but he should deny their existence.

4. Romney also argued that Obama "promised" to keep unemployment "below 8 percent" through the Recovery Act.
As Romney surely knows by now, that's simply not true.

5. Romney went on to accuse Obama of "raising taxes on small businesses."
In reality, Obama cut taxes on small business, many times, and Romney should probably understand that "cutting taxes" is the opposite of "raising taxes."

6. Romney said an "avalanche of new regulations" under Obama is standing in the way of "good jobs."
Actually, Obama approved fewer regulations in his first three years in office than Bush did in his first three years.

7. Romney also said Obama "says no to developing our oil resources."
Oil production is up under Obama.

8. Romney added, "Guess how many [trade] agreements this president has negotiated? Zero. No new agreements to open up markets for American goods."
Panama, Colombia, and South Korea know better.

9. Romney went on to say Obama "has put together almost as much public debt as all the prior president's combined."
That's a lie.

10. Romney vowed, "I will get us to on track to a balanced budget."
There's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Romney says his plan "can't be scored," but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller, and add trillions to the national debt.

11. Romney shared an odd anecdote: "I was with a woman in Las Vegas, she has a business. She rents furniture to casinos and to conventioneers that come to Las Vegas... When the president said not to bother coming to Las Vegas to go to a company meeting, her business collapsed."

Obama actually said, in reference to Wall Street recklessness, "You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility." To blame the failure of some random business in Nevada on this is ridiculous.

12. Romney added, "The president's put on us on path to Europe. Europe doesn't work in Europe. It'll never work here."
The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.

13. At a campaign event in Sterling, Virginia, Romney said under the Affordable Care Act, "government bureaucrats get between us and our doctors."
In reality, this does not resemble the law in any way. (Perhaps Romney is thinking of Bob "Ultrasound" McDonnell?)

14. At the same event, Romney said, "The president cut $500 billion out of Medicare."
Romney says this a lot. He's not telling the truth.

15. In the same speech, Romney said under Obama, "wages have dropped by 10 percent."
That only makes sense if we count Obama's first year in office, which relies on a standard Romney believes is fundamentally unfair.

16. Romney also argued that Obama's "cap-and-trade proposal ... scared away jobs."
First, cap-and-trade was a Republican idea. Second, it didn't pass, so it couldn't have affected the job market.

17. In response to the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Romney argued, "Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt."
That's demonstrably ridiculous. The health care law, according the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and every independent analysis, cuts the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming decade.

18. In the same remarks, Romney said, "Obamacare also means that for up to 20 million Americans, they will lose the insurance they currently have, the insurance that they like and they want to keep."
Jamelle Bouie took a look at this and concluded, "Romney is simply lying."

19. He added he intends to "make sure that those people who have pre-existing conditions know that they will be able to be insured and they will not lose their insurance."
At a minimum, that's wildly misleading. Under Romney's approach, millions of people with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage -- and occasionally his campaign even admits it.

20. Romney went on to say, "Obamacare does not ... help lower the cost of health care."
Sure it does. It's already cutting costs, and it hasn't been fully implemented yet.

21. And in a campaign statement last night, Romney claimed, "With Obamacare fully installed, government will reach fully half of the economy."
There is no version reality in which this is true.

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXII

By Steve Benen

 - 

Fri Jun 15, 2012 1:59 PM EDT

A New York Times editorial this morning noted, almost in passing, that Mitt Romney's "entire campaign rests on a foundation of short, utterly false sound bites." That's true, but the fact that such observations have become commonplace is itself rather jarring.
It's equally jarring to appreciate why Romney does this. As Kevin Drum explained this week, the Republican presidential hopeful tells falsehoods because he knows he can get away with it.

Politicians have increasingly discovered over the past couple of decades that even on a national stage you can lie pretty blatantly and pay no price, since the mainstream media, trapped in its culture of objectivity, won't really call you on it, limiting themselves to fact checking pieces ... buried on an inside page. And because virtually nobody except political junkies ever see this stuff, it doesn't hurt their campaigns at all.

I agree, and yet, I feel compelled to make an effort anyway, hoping that accountability still plays some role in the American political discourse. With that in mind, consider the 22nd installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Trying to clean up his own mess, Romney told Fox News, "[T]eachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn't pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen."
That's simply not true.

2. In Iowa, Romney blamed Obama for the fact that "the median income in America has dropped by 10 percent over the last four years."
That only makes sense if we count Obama's first year in office, which relies on a standard Romney believes is fundamentally unfair.

3. In the same Iowa speech, Romney claimed about the president, "[H]is answer for economic vitality by the way, was of course pushing aside the private sector."
There is no universe in which this is even remotely accurate.

4. Romney added that Obama has failed to "reduce the deficit."
Actually, Obama reduced the deficit in his first year in office by over $100 billion. What's more, the deficit is projected to shrink again this year.

5. Romney also claimed, "Congress was his with a super majority for two years."
That's demonstrably false. In Obama's first two years, Democrats did not have a supermajority for 20 out of 24 months.

6. Romney argued in the same speech, "If I'm the president of the United States, we're going to stop this out-of-control spending."
If reality has any meaning at all, there is no out-of-control spending.

7. Romney added, "[If I'm the president of the United States, we're going to stop this] prairie fire of debt."
That's plainly false. Romney says his plan "can't be scored," but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller, and add trillions to the national debt.

8. Romney released a video this week, claiming that President Obama "touted the fact that government employment had fallen on his watch."
Romney took Obama's quote wildly out of context as part of another attempt at deception.

9. Romney claimed in a separate ad that during his one term as governor, he "had the best jobs record in a decade."
There's clear evidence to the contrary.

10. At a campaign stop in Florida, commenting on Nemschoff Chairs moving from Iowa to Wisconsin, Romney said of Obama, "He said he didn't understand that Obamacare was hurting small business. He doesn't understand that Obamacare impacts small business."
None of this is even remotely true.

11. In the same speech, Romney said of the Affordable Care Act, "It's simply unaffordable."
Actually, that's backwards. If Romney kills the law, according to CBO estimates, he'll add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt in the coming years.

12. Romney also said in Florida, "When they saw the president campaign four years ago, he didn't mention to them that he was planning on cutting Medicare by $500 billion to pay for his health care plan, but that's what he did."
Romney has said this countless times, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not true.

13. In the same speech, Romney said, "In the last three and a half years China and the European nations have put together some 44 different trade agreements, opening up markets for them around the world. Guess how many trade agreements this president has negotiated over the last three and a half years? Zip. Zero."
Panama, Colombia, and South Korea know better.

14. Romney also argued in Orlando, "This president is leading us to become Europe, and Europe doesn't work in Europe."
The irony is, Europe is trying to grow through austerity, just as Romney intends to do here. He's lying in a self-refuting sort of way.

15. In remarks to the Business Roundtable, Romney claimed, "The stimulus that he put in place upon coming into office was not primarily directed at re-igniting the private sector, but was instead associated with trying to protect the governmental sector."
That's the exact opposite of reality.

16. In the same speech, Romney complained, "The rate of regulatory increase has jumped three-fold from that of his predecessor."
Actually, Obama approved fewer regulations in his first three years in office than Bush did in his first three years.

17. On energy policy, Romney said Obama "has made it almost impossible to mine coal and to use coal."
In reality, coal production is up, not down.

18. On financial regulatory reform, Romney argued, "The impact is seeing, first, by community banks, for instance, that find it harder for them to keep up with the regulations and therefore less likely for them to make loans to small and emerging businesses."
According to community banks, this is plainly untrue. These banks have actually gotten stronger after Dodd-Frank, and the president of Independent Community Bankers Of America recently said, "I am sick of Wall Street using community banks as their shills to scarecommunity bankers into stampeding Congress into undoing provisions of law that finally attempt to deal with too big to fail and Wall Street overreach."

19. In Cincinnati yesterday, Romney said, "The president said that if we let him borrow $787 billion for a stimulus, he'd keep unemployment below 8 percent nationally."
Romney says this just about every day. It's not true.

20. In the same speech, Romney argued, "That stimulus didn't work. That stimulus didn't put more private-sector people to work."
The stimulus did work and it did put more private-sector people to work.

21. Also in Ohio, Romney added, "This president has put together -- he has put together almost as much public debt as all the prior presidents combined."
Um, no.

22. Romney went on to say, "I met a woman from Las Vegas who has a business renting furniture to casinos and to conventioneers that come to Las Vegas. When President Obama said no need to go to Las Vegas for company meetings, don't spend money there, her business collapsed."

Obama actually said, in reference to Wall Street recklessness, "You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can't get corporate jets. You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime. There's got to be some accountability and some responsibility." The success or failure of some random business in Nevada is not the president's fault.

Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXI

By Steve Benen

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Fri Jun 8, 2012 2:17 PM EDT

Campaigning in St. Louis yesterday, Mitt Romney, reading from his teleprompter, told supporters he would never be a "president of doubt and deception."
You could almost hear irony weeping. After all, as Kevin Drum explained, "I expect political candidates to bend the truth a fair amount.... But Romney's willingness to flat-out lie is singular."
Or as Rachel explained just last night, "Mr. Romney gets caught saying things that are factually wrong, and the thing that is different about him is that he does not mind; he doesn't fix it; he doesn't even try to worm out of it. He doesn't appear to feel any shame about it at all -- and he's happy to keep telling the lie once he knows it is a lie."
As has become painfully clear, Romney's reliance on "deception" has practically become an addiction. To help appreciate the scope of the dishonesty, consider the 21st installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity.

1. Campaigning in Texas, Romney argued, "[W]ith America in crisis, with 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work, [President Obama] hasn't put forth a plan to get us working again. Now I know we're getting close to an election so he'll come out with one soon, but three and a half years later, we're waiting."
No, actually we're not.

2. Referencing Noam Scheiber's book, "The Escape Artists," told a remarkable tale about Obama and his aides, saying, "[T]here was discussion about the fact that Obamacare would slow down the economic recovery in this country." He added that the administration "knew" the health care reform package would hurt the economy, "but they concluded that we would all forget how long the recovery took once it had happened, so they decided to go ahead."
Given the relevant details, Romney is "just making stuff up" with this deceptive tale.

3. Romney added that he's concerned about the millions of Americans "on food stamps, most of whom never expected that would be their course."
This, at a minimum, is misleading, given that Romney enthusiastically endorsed a budget plan that slashes food stamps.

4. In the same speech, Romney said the Affordable Care Act includes a "job-killing mandate."
The individual mandate in the law does not undermine job creation, and more importantly, Romney championed the same mandate policy for years.

5. In the same speech, Romney rhetorically asked, "Did the trillion-dollar deficits make it more likely for people to invest in America?"
First, the drivers behind the deficits are Bush-era policies, so blaming Obama for them is dishonest. Second, the deficits have not adversely affected investors' willingness to invest in America.

6. Romney also argued that Obama isn't really for an "all the above" energy policy: "All of the above means that you like oil and gas and coal and nuclear and renewables. And yet he has made it harder and harder to take advantage of some of those."
Actually, that's the opposite of the truth. Obama has expanded renewables and expanded nuclear plants. Also, coal production is up; we have more natural gas than we know what to do with; and oil production is up. Obama's support for "all of the above" continues.

7. Romney said Obama has blamed "the ATM machines" for the slow recovery.
As his lies go, this one's just dumb.

8. Romney also said of the president, "His idea is to make America more like Europe."
As it turns out, that's backwards. Europe is trying (and failing) to grow through austerity measures, which is what Romney, not Obama, intends to do here.

9. Romney went on to argue, "If [Obama's] president, you're going to see more trillion-dollar deficits. And they're going to put us on a path to becoming like Greece."
In reality, Obama is already on track to reduce the deficit below a trillion in his second term, and comparing our path to Greece has no basis in reality.

10. Romney also said, "If I'm president, I'm going to put America on a track to get a balanced budget. It's immoral and wrong for us to pass on these obligation to our kids."
That's plainly false. Romney says his plan "can't be scored," but independent budget analysts have found his agenda would make the deficit bigger, not smaller, and add trillions to the national debt.

11. In a campaign ad, Romney claims, in reference to the federal loan guarantee Solyndra received, "The inspector general said contracts were steered to friends and family."
That's as clear a lie as the campaign has told all year.

12. In St. Louis, Romney claimed the Recovery Act "left us with record unemployment."
Actually, millions of Americans owe their jobs to the Recovery Act, and the unemployment rate isn't at a "record" high -- it's lower now than when Obama took office, and it didn't get as high as it did in Reagan's first term.

13. He also argued, "Over the last three and a half years, record numbers of Americans have lost their jobs or simply disappeared from the work force."
The only way in which that makes any sense is if you use standards the Romney campaign rejects.

15. Romney went on to say, "For a family watching their house being sold at foreclosure ... the results are just as devastating."
Romney has no intention of intervening to stop foreclosures.

16. Romney also argued, "Today, government at all levels consumes 37 percent of the total economy or G.D.P. If Obamacare is allowed to stand, government will reach half of the American economy."
There is no version of reality in which this is true.

17. Romney promised, "[F]or every government-spending proposal, I will ask the following question: 'Is this program so important that it is worth borrowing more money from China to pay for it?'"
The implication here is that U.S. debt is financed by the Chinese. This isn't true -- China only holds about 8% of the nation's debt.

18. Describing President Obama's economic vision, Romney said, "There is nothing fair about a government that favors political connections over honest competition."
This is a serious allegation of corruption, which Romney has backed up with literally no facts of evidence at all.

19. The Romney campaign claimed in a press release, "Under President Obama, the nation has lost 552,000 jobs."
Again, according to the Romney campaign's own standards, the Romney campaign isn't being honest.

20. And finally, the Romney campaign argued this week that the taxpayer investment in Konarka Technologies during Romney's tenure as governor "was approved by the prior administration. The governor made it clear that his philosophy was that government should not be in the business of venture investing."

That's a nice attempt at spin, but it's not even close to being true.