The Real Mitt Romney

[DanaC]

Yehbut, being militarily active and needing an aircraft carrier aren't the same thing.

I was a little surprised they needed one. Not because I think they don't have any military engagements going on, just that I didn't think they went far enough afield to need carriers.

[Ibby]

For a coastal nation, with as much coastline and as many islands as Thailand, and military concerns across the southern pacific... hell, if they can find the budget for it, i can imagine it'd be totally useful and great to have.

[DanaC]

Yeah. Once I started thinking about it, it did make sense :p

[Ibby]

it's just down to cost priorities. If the Thais think they'd rather have a carrier than... however many smaller boats, or airfields, or whatever, that they could buy/maintain for the same price, I'm SURE they'd put it to good use.

Hell, I bet Mongolia would buy an aircraft carrier if they figured out how to afford it. Why WOULDN'T you want a carrier if you could afford it?

[tw]

Is Adak still posting Tea Party propaganda about a smallest US military since 1887?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Adak

Not quite. The idea is that a ship in the Gulf of Persia, can't help with a Naval issue in the Mediterranean Sea, and one in the Mediterranean Sea, can't help with a problem in the Sea of Japan, etc. Yet Obama believes it's OK to have fewer ships.

You can't rescue an oil tanker under attack, but firing long range ship to ship missiles at small boats nearby the tanker, from the Gulf of Persia. See what I mean?

Think about real life issues where the Navy has had to intervene in the last 10 years. How many times could a simple firing of a longer range missile from an advanced Cruiser, have been the solution to the problem? Almost never.

In the foreign policy debate, Romney argued that the decline in the number of ships in the US Navy, resulted in a weakening of our Naval military strength.

Obama then stated in a condescending tone, that we had these ships called Aircraft Carriers, and planes land on them, and the ships today were much more capable than ships in the past, so we have more strength, with fewer ships.

There was more; that's just an off the cuff highlight of that exchange in the debate. You can hear the debate in zillions of places on the net.

What's wrong with Youtube?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tecohezcA78

I watched the whole debate. What you say Obama said never happened. Your smear is baseless. Obama did not say that a ship in the Pacific can help a ship in the Atlantic as you said:

Originally Posted by Adak

Despite some more capable ships we have now, we can't have a ship or fleet in the Pacific, help with a problem in the Atlantic or Mediterranean, despite the assurances of Obama. It's crazy that he would use that as a defense, in the foreign policy debate.

You did say that, Obama didn't say that; your statement is merely a smear, a figment of your frightened imagination.

A decline in naval military strength? A decline relative to what? You can not possibly be suggesting it is a decline relative to the naval military strength of our navy in 1916, can you? Romney set those parameters--Obama answered in kind. You must know how important it is to keep units of measure consistent when comparing two quantities. It's not a matter of one person's facts versus another person's facts, it's just the difference between logical statements to address the issues and using non-sequiturs to make up some noise as the run up to your conclusion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I think one of our carriers could take out the entire "Great White Fleet" handily.

[BigV]

regarding secret money

Originally Posted by Adak

Both candidates have secret money behind them. You know those "Obama mobile phones" that are going out to Obama supporters?

Those were financed by Carlos Slim - who's the worlds richest man, and not even an American.

So no, Romney's money sources don't bother me any more than Obama's.

To be honest, these big $$$ men, REALLY like having some association with those in the White House. Even if it's just to visit and share a drink, maybe a dinner, and a chat with the President - they LOVE it. It gives them a great deal of pleasure.

But the President has constraints. He can't cater to their needs too much, even if he wanted to, because he's such a major figure that everything he does is watched and reported (nowadays).

Yes, both do have secret money in their campaign. That is troubling. Both have foreign money supporting them, also troubling and illegal to boot. But the relative amounts are not balanced, much, much more untraceable money is being devoted to Romney's campaign. They're both wrong, but Romney's got a huge lead on this score.

Cite.

Most of the foreign-connected PACs put their money on Republicans. They sent $7.5 million to Republicans and $5.3 million to Democrats. This diverges sharply with a recent Gallup International poll, which found that the world favors Obama by 81 percent.

The local subsidiary of Singapore’s largest container shipping company, Neptune Orient, gave $6,000 to Democrats and $29,000 to Republicans. An exception is Japan’s Sony Entertainment, which gave $98,000 to Democrats and $72,000 to Republicans.

Few of the foreign-connected, corporate PACs made direct donations to Mitt Romney (Obama does not accept PAC money). However, another potential route for corporations to influence elections is to encourage their US employees and their relatives to do so. Credit Suisse, the financial giant, gave zero to Romney through its US corporate PAC. But the company’s employees and relatives gave $554,000 to Romney through hundreds of small donations. Credit Suisse employees gave $38,500 to Obama, according to data analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Cite.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Trilby

It's classicman, isn't it?
I'll betcha.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

My vote too...

lol. nope. I've no aliases. If I have something to say I'll say it to you myself. Have I EVER deviated from that? Have I ever not told you what I thought?

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

I don't think Adak=Classicman. Classic doesn't put together so much undefensible bullshit.

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

Totally different...I don't think it's c-man either. Plus, c-man is way busy these days.

Thanks Spexx & IM.
You're right, I haven't been around much.

[BigV]

The real Mitt Romney, wait, the political noise about the real Mitt Romney trumpets his "bipartisan effectiveness". He crows about his ability to get things done in MA as a Republican Governor of a state with a legislature with a Democratic majority. Ok, but... the facts indicate that in four years as Governor, Romney issued 800 vetoes. How is this working across the aisle? As you know, when the executive vetoes a bill, it is returned to the legislature to be upheld or overridden. Interestingly, over 700 of those vetoes were overturned.

Romney's transition from business executive where he issued orders and could expect and enforce compliance to government executive where the office holder needs to cooperate with the other branches of government was clearly unsuccessful.

Romney was unhappy with his relationship with the legislature and MA was unhappy with him. His poll numbers for unfavorability were 69%. This was likely a major contributing factor to his absence from the state for most of the last year of his term as governor. Plotting his course to the Presidency, no doubt.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by BigV

The real Mitt Romney, wait, the political noise about the real Mitt Romney trumpets his "bipartisan effectiveness". He crows about his ability to get things done in MA as a Republican Governor of a state with a legislature with a Democratic majority. Ok, but... the facts indicate that in four years as Governor, Romney issued 800 vetoes. How is this working across the aisle? As you know, when the executive vetoes a bill, it is returned to the legislature to be upheld or overridden. Interestingly, over 700 of those vetoes were overturned.

Romney's transition from business executive where he issued orders and could expect and enforce compliance to government executive where the office holder needs to cooperate with the other branches of government was clearly unsuccessful.

Romney was unhappy with his relationship with the legislature and MA was unhappy with him. His poll numbers for unfavorability were 69%. This was likely a major contributing factor to his absence from the state for most of the last year of his term as governor. Plotting his course to the Presidency, no doubt.

@DanaC: good discussion on UK's carrier loss. Yes, UK is down to zero carriers, atm. One is being built, but won't be in service for a couple more years. Yes, I do mean REAL carriers.

The chart on Carriers is out of date.

I didn't say that Obama said a ship in the Pacific could handle a problem in the Atlantic or the Med. What I was trying to say, is that following Obama's logic, a ship in one place, would have to be able to handle a problem, that was in another place entirely. Ships can project their power, but the world is a big place, and our Navy has a lot of allies to defend, and lots of problems.

Just last week, we had the Miramar Air Show in San Diego. This week a bunch of the fighters that were at Miramar, have been transferred to a "Mid East country". These are Marine airmen, and they work on Navy carriers. My point is, these guys, and our carriers, are kept busy, working.

It's always disappointing when a good conservative governor is elected, but the legislature for the state is solidly liberal. MA has paid handsomely for being liberal. They see that now, but it's hard to take back a gov't service, after the people have become used to having it.
Now they have to pay for that misstep.

Romney can work with liberals, but no conservative can work with a liberal legislature which is strongly polarized and vote straight liberal on every vote, regardless of it's worth. We've seen that all too often at the federal level, haven't we? Hopefully, we'll get a good block of conservatives in the House and Senate, and we can get ourselves back on track.

The hot air is all out of the liberal's balloon, and all we'd get from another four years of Obama and the liberals, is the last "pffffff", as the balloon sputtered out. He has no PLAN, and no PROGRAM to ignite any spark of change. Same O Same O.

The weird thing is, even though his plans haven't worked, and he has nothing new to offer us, some people still support him. Obama doesn't even CLAIM he has anything new!

Weird.

You know insanity is doing the same thing that didn't work before, over and over, and expecting a different outcome, right?

Yeah.

That's what I don't understand. Obama's policies are NOT working, so why keep supporting them, and him?

It's weird. Just weird.

[BigV]

That's what I don't understand. Obama's policies are NOT working, so why keep supporting them, and him?

It's weird. Just weird.

What is not weird, just typical of ideologues everywhere, is your inability or unwillingness to see the real success of Obama's policies, and the wisdom of continuing to support them. The problem is *not* his policies, the problem, in this case, is your misrepresentation and/or misunderstanding of them.

***

regarding the sphere of influence of a given ship, OF COURSE a ship can project power effectively in many places the actual ship isn't in. I suppose we could have a rational argument about the radius of such a sphere, but no rational person would ever suggest that a ship in the Pacific could exert influence in the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. That is what you said Obama used as an excuse. You cling to that. Obama's logic, no person's logic would ever suggest that, you raise it only as a strawman about how dumb Obama is. Your persistence on this point only shows how dumb this point is, and those who believe it.

***

Romney's no aisle crosser. Romney's used to giving orders, fine as the big boss man, but it doesn't work that way at all as the President. I've no confidence that his business experience will have any significant positive effect on our nation. He won't even have his most-favored tool as Governor, the line-item veto. He'll have to work with the whole Congress, something he his record shows he is unable to do consistently or significantly.

[infinite monkey]

You know insanity is doing the same thing that didn't work before, over and over, and expecting a different outcome, right?

You mean like reading your posts?

Anyway, that statement doesn't make sense, even in its cliched overuse, in this case. How many times have we voted in Obama?
Over and over and over?



p.s. IT's =IT IS. ITS = ownership

[Ibby]

the real mitt romney: Disaster Relief is immoral.

KING: What else, Governor Romney? You’ve been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Missouri. I’ve been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it’s the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut—we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…

KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot—we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all. [emphasis added]

yup. You're reading that right. Disaster relief is immoral because deficits.

Helping Americans devastated by storms, or earthquakes, or fires, who have had their whole lives, their houses, their things, their livelihoods washed away or blown away or burnt to ashes or whatever, get a leg up and start the long, slow process of recovery, is immoral because deficits.

That there's some plain-and-simple ayn-rand-ron-paul insanity. Then again, no surprise, from the party in favor of letting sick folks just die.

[piercehawkeye45]

You took that WAAAY out of context...

He is saying the states should take care of it. Not that we shouldn't have disaster relief altogether.