School of Evolutionary Astrology

visit the School of Evolutionary Astrology  web site

BIRTH CHART FOR MIT ROMNEY: AN ARCHETYPAL STUDY IN DUPLICITY

Started by Rad, Jan 15, 2012, 10:29 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Rad

Soup kitchen operator blasts Ryan photo op: "˜He did nothing'

By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, October 15, 2012 18:47 EDT

The operator of a soup kitchen in northwestern Ohio blasted the Romney campaign on Monday after vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his family were photographed cleaning dishes on the premises.

Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society in Youngstown, told the Washington Post that the Romney campaign did not ask for permission before entering the soup kitchen. He said he worried his faith-based apolitical organization could lose funding if it appeared the charity favored one of the political candidates.

"It's strictly in our bylaws not to do it," Antal explained. "They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors."

"The photo-op they did wasn't even accurate," he added. "He did nothing. He just came in here to get his picture taken at the dining hall."

During Ryan's appearance at the soup kitchen on October 13, he briefly talked with volunteers before donning an apron and cleaning some large metal pots. Antal noted that the dishes were not dirty. The soup kitchen had already closed down for the day.

Rad


October 17, 2012 07:00 AM

'I Kinda Liked Mitt Romney, Until I Lost My Job'

By scarce

United Steelworkers put out this tv ad yesterday which captures some of the heartbreak and devastation that shipping jobs overseas causes in small town America. A longer, more detailed version of this ad can be seen here, Romney's Bain Selling Out American Workers to China.

    Mary Jo Kerr is a young mom of three. She's one of hundreds of workers whose jobs at an auto sensor plan in Freeport, Ill., are being shipped to China because of Mitt Romney's Bain Capital. Before you vote, please watch and share her story.

Click to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BCH89gJmZSg

Last night Mary Jo told her story and that of Sensata to Ed Shultz.

Click to watch:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30012522#49424713

Steve

     The Republican presidential candidate dispatched his five adult sons onto a late night television show where they jokingly told stories of their father's pranks in an effort to humanise the former businessman who critics accuse of being boring.

    But the light-hearted anecdotes carried an uncomfortable echo of earlier allegations that Mr Romney had been a bully while at prep school and has a long history of uncaring behaviour.

    Matt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor's second son, told how his father would present his children with a stick of butter, telling them "it's so rotten you have to smell it". When they leaned down he would gleefully shove their faces into the plate.

    Mr Romney apparently repeated the trick recently with one of his grandsons, pushing the shocked child's head into a platter of whipped cream.

    During the rare joint appearance by all five sons on Conan O'Brien's talk show, Josh Romney told how he once ambushed his father in a darkened basement as Mr Romney groped for the light switch.

    The startled private equity boss responded by tackling him to the ground and wrestling him on the floor.

    "He does like pranks but he doesn't like to get pranked. We've learned that the hard way," Josh said.

Steve

Job Creation Isn't The Same As Vulture Capitalism

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/10/job-creation-isnt-same-as-vulture.html

I doubt that former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman wrote the headline, but the Newsweek article he penned is titled Mitt Romney: The Great Deformer. And if Stockman didn't write the headline, he sure wrote all the reasoning behind it. Last we touched bases with Mr. Stockman was in March when he appeared with Bill Moyers to announce that we've learned no lessons about the dangers of crony capitalism. As every Republican running for office continues to pledge undying fealty to Ronald Reagan, they are willfully forgetting the uncomfortable lesson Reagan found out when he tried the trickle down economics being pushed again today by Paul Ryan and the rest of the GOP hierarchy-- charlatans and flimflam men whose electoral careers are being underwritten by the banksters, the oil companies, the Military Industrial Complex and the insurance companies. When Stockman talks about the financialization of the economy-- and how that produces nothing of value at all-- he sounds almost like David Korten, the economist who most represents the ideas behind the Occupy/99% Movement.

Stockman, a former congressman from Michigan, talked with Moyers about the problems inherent in a Congress financed by special interests. He advocates banning corporate contributions entirely-- and putting a $100 cap on individual contributions. A different kind of Republican than the kind we're hearing about these days, huh? He was very candid with Moyers about how money dominates politics, distorting free markets and endangering democracy: "As a result we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism." He shared details on how the courtship of politics and high finance have turned our economy into a private club that rewards the super-rich and corporations, leaving average Americans wondering how it could happen and who's really in charge. "We now have an entitled class of Wall Street financiers and of corporate CEOs who believe the government is there to do"¦ whatever it takes in order to keep the game going and their stock price moving upward," Stockman told Moyers.

So when I saw the "Great Deformer" article he had done for Newsweek I was eager to read it. And he didn't disappoint me. "Bain Capital," he wrote, "is a product of the Great Deformation. It has garnered fabulous winnings through leveraged speculation in financial markets that have been perverted and deformed by decades of money printing and Wall Street coddling by the Fed. So Bain's billions of profits were not rewards for capitalist creation; they were mainly windfalls collected from gambling in markets that were rigged to rise." They use a model of antisocial predation that Romney set up and Romney boasts that his experience at Bain is what qualifies him to be president. He claims to have been an incredibly successful "businessman" and that that someone will make him a great president.

    Except Mitt Romney was not a businessman; he was a master financial speculator who bought, sold, flipped, and stripped businesses. He did not build enterprises the old-fashioned way-- out of inspiration, perspiration, and a long slog in the free market fostering a new product, service, or process of production. Instead, he spent his 15 years raising debt in prodigious amounts on Wall Street so that Bain could purchase the pots and pans and castoffs of corporate America, leverage them to the hilt, gussy them up as reborn "roll-ups," and then deliver them back to Wall Street for resale-- the faster the better.

    That is the modus operandi of the leveraged-buyout business, and in an honest free-market economy, there wouldn't be much scope for it because it creates little of economic value. But we have a rigged system-a regime of crony capitalism-- where the tax code heavily favors debt and capital gains, and the central bank purposefully enables rampant speculation by propping up the price of financial assets and battering down the cost of leveraged finance.

    So the vast outpouring of LBOs in recent decades has been the consequence of bad policy, not the product of capitalist enterprise. I know this from 17 years of experience doing leveraged buyouts at one of the pioneering private-equity houses, Blackstone, and then my own firm. I know the pitfalls of private equity. The whole business was about maximizing debt, extracting cash, cutting head counts, skimping on capital spending, outsourcing production, and dressing up the deal for the earliest, highest-profit exit possible. Occasionally, we did invest in genuine growth companies, but without cheap debt and deep tax subsidies, most deals would not make economic sense.

    In truth, LBOs are capitalism's natural undertakers-- vulture investors who feed on failing businesses. Due to bad policy, however, they have now become monsters of the financial midway that strip-mine cash from healthy businesses and recycle it mostly to the top 1 percent.

    The waxing and waning of the artificially swollen LBO business has been perfectly correlated with the bubbles and busts emanating from the Fed-- so timing is the heart of the business. In that respect, Romney's tenure says it all: it was almost exactly coterminous with the first great Greenspan bubble, which crested at the turn of the century and ended in the thundering stock-market crash of 2000-02. The credentials that Romney proffers as evidence of his business acumen, in fact, mainly show that he hung around the basket during the greatest bull market in recorded history.

    Needless to say, having a trader's facility for knowing when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em has virtually nothing to do with rectifying the massive fiscal hemorrhage and debt-burdened private economy that are the real issues before the American electorate. Indeed, the next president's overriding task is restoring national solvency-- an undertaking that will involve immense societywide pain, sacrifice, and denial and that will therefore require "fairness" as a defining principle. And that's why heralding Romney's record at Bain is so completely perverse. The record is actually all about the utter unfairness of windfall riches obtained under our anti-free market regime of bubble finance.

Stockman goes on, in great depth, to prove that Bain's record of self-proclaimed greatness is about "a dangerous form of leveraged gambling that has been enabled by the failed central banking and taxing policies of the state. That it should be offered as evidence that Mitt Romney is a deeply experienced capitalist entrepreneur and job creator is surely a testament to the financial deformations of our times." And that anyone is buying it-- other than the Republican base-- is an even worse testament to the health of our democracy.


Steve

Soup Kitchen In Paul Ryan Photo-Op Faces Donor Backlash

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of Rep. Paul Ryan's embarrassing soup kitchen photo-op last week, the organization that runs the facility tells The Huffington Post that donors have begun pulling their money out of the Youngstown, Ohio charity.

Ryan may have suffered a few late-night jokes, but the fallout for the soup kitchen appears to be far more bruising. Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, confirmed that donors have begun an exodus in protest over Ryan's embarrassment. The monetary losses have been big. "It appears to be a substantial amount," Antal said. "You can rest assured there has been a substantial backlash."

Antal says he can't give an actual dollar amount. "I can't say how much [in] donations we lost," he said. "Donations are a private matter with our organization."

Antal's charity represents the kind of organization that conservative Republicans might champion. But that was before the Ryan incident went viral a few days ago. According to The Washington Post, Antal said that the moment should never have happened. He told the newspaper that the photo-op was not authorized and that the campaign had "ramrodded their way" inside.

Ryan supporters have now targeted Antal and his soup kitchen, Antal said, including making hundreds of angry phone calls. Some members of Antal's volunteer staff have had to endure the barrage as well, he said. "The sad part is a lot of [the callers] want to hide behind anonymity," he said, adding that if someone leaves their name and number he has tried to return their call. In addition to phone calls, people have posted a few choice words on the charity's Facebook wall, including statements like "I hope you lose your tax [sic] emempt status," Anyone who is thinking about donations to you should think twice" and "Shame on you Brian Antal!"

On the phone with HuffPost, Antal seemed worn out by all the vitriol. "Honesty, I really don't need any more attention," he said. "I really just want this to go away."

Antal said doesn't understand why donors would take out their frustration over the incident on those who can't afford to pay for their own meals. "I'm a volunteer,' he said. "I receive zero compensation. Withholding donations is only going to hurt the over 100,000 we serve annually."

To make a donation to the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, money can be sent to P.O. Box 224, Youngstown, Ohio 44501.

Rad


Ann Romney Thinks a Mormon Mission is the Same as Serving in the Military

By: Sarah Jones October 18th, 2012

Now we know why Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wouldn't go on the "high risk" The View today. The Mitt Romney dubbed "sharp-tongued" Whoopi Goldberg asked a question that was super hard as part of the show's "Red, White and View" series. Goldberg asked the wife of the man who keeps suggesting that we need to go to another war and he wouldn't bring the troops home from Afghanistan if the reason Mitt Romney never served in the military was due to their religion.

Whoopi Goldberg: What I read about your husband, what I read, and maybe you can correct this, is that the reason that he didn't serve in Vietnam was because it was against the religion.

Ann Romney: He was serving his mission. (Explaining that none of her sons have served in the military) My five sons have also served (on) missions. We find different ways of serving"¦ I sent them away boys and they came back men.

Whoopi Goldberg: So when you're facing these mothers whose children have not come back, how will you explain to them that your sons haven't gone?

Ann Romney: I think it's the hardest thing that a president will probably do.

Ann Romney continued by claiming that Mitt "went to every funeral" when he was governor, which seems to be stretching the odds, especially since he was out of the state for 400 plus days in the last two years of his only term, but accuracy is not a Romney trait. This is the man who forgot to mention the troops in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and who later said you don't go through a laundry list when giving a speech, you talk about the things that are important.

So there you have it from Mrs. Romney's mouth - Mitt Romney's four draft deferements should not be construed as serving in the military being against the Mormon religion. Fox News is outraged, claiming that Whoopi attacked Romney's religion. However, Romney's deferements were qualified as "minister of religion or divinity student", thus bringing his religion into his deferements. Mormon deferements were also a source of scrutiny as the Vietnam War escalated.

As with all things Mitt, this story has taken more twists and turns than any regular dodging of the draft would. Mitt Romney once claimed to the Boston Globe, "It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam, but nor did I take any actions to remove myself from the pool of young men who were eligible for the draft." This was not true. Governor Romney had asked for and received four deferements, after he protested in favor of the war as a college organizer.

At another time*, Romney denied that he sought to avoid the draft and claimed that he had wanted to serve, saying, "I was supportive of my country. I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there, and in some ways it was frustrating not to feel like I was there as part of the troops that were fighting in Vietnam."

In 2007, Mitt Romney said that his sons are not fighting for the country because "one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected."

Mitt Romney spent the Vietnam War driving about the French countryside and his sons won't be serving in the wars he wants to start/continue because they are serving him, which is the same thing as serving our country according to Mitt Romney. Ann Romney thinks that sending her sons off to serve "their mission" is the same thing as sending your sons and daughters off to Iraq or Afghanistan. She sent them away as boys and they came back as men.

The Romneys are war mongers with other people's children while claiming that their own have served by serving their "mission" and helping Mitt Romney get elected. Military service is not a necessity for a CIC, but being a four time draft-dodger and refusing to send your own children to war is a far distance from simply not having served.

Mitt Romney was overheard dissing the ladies of The View in the secret tape recording, saying, "The View" is "high-risk because, of the five women on it, only one is conservative, and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative." Ann Romney claimed today that what he had really said was ""He said "˜sharp and young'". So, Mrs. Romney is suggesting that her husband said he would not go on The View because The View is "high-risk because, of the five women on it, only one is conservative, and four are sharp and young and not conservative."

Ah, yes, that makes sense. It's all better now.

In case you were wondering if this was still hard, yes, it is. Ann Romney lamented how hard all of this is for her and her kids, "This was a very hard thing for me to decide to go forward again"¦for the family to have to go through this. The children have a hard time with it. I have a hard time with it." It is so hard for them, but you wouldn't understand. Your husband/wife/kids are off in Afghanistan. What do you know about hard?

Update: Mitt Romney did not attend "every funeral", "Gov. Mitt Romney, who has pledged to return home for important occasions and prided himself on attending the funerals of Massachusetts servicemen killed overseas, skipped the funeral of an Malden Marine on Friday to campaign in South Carolina and Michigan." (Boston Globe, 10/13/2006)

Update II: Mormons may and do serve in the military. Whoopi confused the reason for Romney's deferements with a church doctrine.

Rad


Female Romney Adviser Calls Equal Pay a Left Wing Agenda

By: Sarah Jones October 18th, 2012

Thursday on Andrea Mitchell Reports, Romney senior adviser Delegate Barbara Comstock (and transvaginal ultrasound supporter) called equal pay a "left wing agenda", dissed Lilly Ledbetter as being "partisan" and claimed that "real women"¦ Appreciate male and female bosses who accommodate their schedules and time."

All you not real women, holla.

TRANSCRIPT:

MITCHELL: I'm just saying that's not what he said that night.

COMSTOCK: Yeah, but I can tell you, having watched - when you watch how women reacted to that in real time, which Lilly Ledbetter and these other women, who are trying - I mean, they have a left wing agenda that they're trying to make an issue of a statement that women didn't respond that way, and that I understand there may be partisans who respond that way but real women out there in the working world appreciate male and female bosses who accommodate their schedules and time.

END TRANSCRIPT

So, all women who want equal pay are part of a left wing agenda perpetrated by partisans like Lilly Ledbetter. Real women are appreciative of being let off early so they can cook dinner. This is the Republicans great offering to replace equal pay. Freedom, ladies.

Let's review. Comstock, who voted for mandated transvaginal ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion in Virginia is calling other women who want equal pay partisans furthering a left-wing agenda. She, however, is not furthering a crazy right wing agenda, using the "small" government to force an unnecessary and costly medical procedure upon women. Oh, no. It's those radical lefties like Lilly Ledbetter and you other women who want equal pay.

I'm losing faith in the Republicans' ability to do simple math. Equal pay for women = more money for middle class families and the poor with which to pay for things like mortgages and food. How is this a partisan agenda? Is shelter now a partisan agenda? Is work itself now partisan, left wing agenda?

Lilly Ledbetter issued the following statement after the second presidential debate, "If Romney was truly concerned about women in this economy, he'd take a stand against paycheck discrimination. Instead, he has remained silent and refused to speak out for equal pay for women and their families. Simply put, Romney doesn't get it."

Romney has been all over the map on the Lilly Ledbetter Act; for it, against it, won't say. The usual clown show. The fact that he wouldn't answer the question should tell you all you need to know. When Mitt Romney launches into personal anecdotes about giving women time off to make dinner for their families, be afraid. Be very afraid. The personal anecdotes always come when Romney does not want to tell you his policies.

And of course, his running mate voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act. That wasn't a partisan act on his behalf at all; he just doesn't believe that women should be able to fight back if they are not being paid the same as a man for the same job.

Rad


Ann Romney Jokes Mitt Was So Hurt by Her Dating Other Boys it Put Him in the Hospital

By: Sarah JonesOctober 18th, 2012

Things that are humorous to Ann Romney: Mitt ending up in the hospital was joke worthy.

Mrs. Romney joked on The View today that Mitt ended up in the hospital in France because she was back in America dating other boys. Mitt Romney was in a very bad car accident in France, in which a passenger (the Mormon mission president's wife) was killed. Perhaps he was in the hospital twice in France, one time for the car accident and another for the mental anguish of Ann dating other boys.

This was a ha-ha moment today on The View:

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: That is exceptional, and a bunch of grandkids as Barbara mentioned. There was one point though, did you guys almost break up?

Ann Romney: Well, not according to Mitt. We were separated for a very long time. We dated in high school and then he went to Standford for a year and then he went on a mission for two and a half years. I didn't see him really for like three and a half years and during that time I was, of course, dating other people and having fun, and sort of forgetting about Mitt a little bit too much. I think that really kind of hurt him, a lot. I think it did actually put him in the hospital when he was in France.

Audience laughs.

You tell me- what's the funny part: Is it funny that her dating other boys and forgetting about Mitt put a presidential candidate in the hospital?

Or is it funny that he was in the hospital as the result of a tragic car accident that killed the Mormon mission president's wife, "who had been seated in the front between her husband and Romney." Which one is funny? And if Mitt only went to the hospital the one time, how was that about Ann dating other boys?

I just don't get it. If your husband had been driving when another car swerved over and killed the wife of a good friend in front of her husband, would you be making jokes about this car accident - ever? If your future husband had to go to the hospital because he was so hurt by you dating other men, is this funny?

Perhaps I lack the Romney humor. Team Romney claims Tagg Romney was also "joking" yesterday when he said that he wanted to take a swing at the President of the United States.

We were also treated to more of Ann Romney's claims of being the "Mittstablizer". Mrs. Romney said, "I walk into a room and I'm happy then Mitt dumps everything on me and I have to calm him down and stabilize him." Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Romney can seem to help themselves from self-aggrandizing when they tell a story. If it weren't for Ann, Mitt would be a nervous wreck. Isn't she great?

Tagg Romney unwittingly contributed to the growing narrative that Mitt Romney is a basket case of nerves when he said on a radio show that his father was terrified before the debate last Tuesday.

I believe we saw The Mittstabilizer in action after Tuesday night's debate when Ann Romney rushed the stage and practically pulled Mitt out of the limelight before he could figure out that yes, indeed, he had blown it.

In one appearance on The View, Ann Romney managed to sell her husband as so emotionally dependent upon her that he ended up in the hospital when she forgot about him and now he needs her to "stabilize" him.

Ann Romney is not helping things, no matter what Barbara Walters thinks (she praised Ann as being a great surrogate). Why would Mitt end up in the hospital over her dating other people? Is he that unstable - did he have a breakdown or was she making a joke about him being in the hospital for the injuries he suffered from the car accident, in which his passenger's wife was killed? Neither is exactly a win.

Or was she just making a joke about Mitt Romney ending up in the hospital over a broken heart? Ha ha, I put my future spouse in the hospital because I just forgot about him. Ha ha. So funny. He needs me so much he ended up in the hospital after I cruelly forgot about him - hahaha, vote for Mitt!

Mrs. Romney might be as all-important as she believes, as she has done what no one else could - made me feel a bit sorry for her husband.

The View's Red, White and View series was too high risk for the Republican Presidential candidate, so he sent his wife in to deal with the "sharp-tongued" women. Mrs. Romney also told Americans that her sons had served their country by serving their Mormon missions instead of the military.

Ann Romney always manages to make Mitt Romney sound emotionally unstable, needy and dependent. It wasn't too long ago that she warned Americans about her concerns for his mental health should he be elected - God help us all.

Another well executed plan by team Romney.