White House photo
This line, from Mitt Romney's foreign policy speech this morning, just amazes me.
"I will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of our strategy, both in the Middle East and across the world. The president has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years. I will reverse that failure."
When pressed on this lie on the past, the Romney campaign has said the trade agreements under Obama were largely negotiated before the president took office. That's not a bad defense and there's a way to word the attack carefully so that it's at least technically accurate, albeit misleading.
But today, Romney, reading a prepared text from a teleprompter, didn't bother with the pretense. He said President Obama "has not signed one new free trade agreement," despite the fact that's blatantly, demonstrably untrue.
In reality, Obama has signed three trade agreements -- with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea -- despite the wishes of some of his own allies. This happened less than a year ago, so it's not as if the Republican candidate (or those who write his speeches for him) can claim to have forgotten. There were even pictures of the agreements' signing, one of which I've included above.
It appears, then, that Romney isn't just telling a lie; he's telling a lazy lie that's easy to refute. The Republican just doesn't seem to care whether he gets caught or not -- he's "not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers" -- in effect thumbing his nose at those who care about reality.
And in all likelihood, Romney will pay no price for this blatant dishonesty, which is why he tells these falsehoods in the first place.
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""I will champion free trade and restore it as a critical element of our strategy"
And then I will end this War of Secession, free the slaves, and bring back the "good five cent cigar!"
Have I mentioned a chicken in every pot, of am I saving that for the next debate?
Let's be clear. Obama like Bill and Hillary, champion free trade. I, like Naomi Klein believe that neoliberal economic theory is filled with empty promises. There is a world where trade is good for the 99% of the world's population, but it is a world where trade policy benefits consumers, not global corporate interests.
One of the appeals to progressives of the Nafta free trade agreement was that by allowing wealth to spread freely across north american borders, the income inequality between the anglo and hispanic nations would subside. As affluence in Mexico grew, there would be less incentive to violate US immigration laws in order to establish better opportunities for one's family and their descendants.
Why has this not occurred? Is it because there is something superior about anglo culture? Or does it have something to to with the permissive attitude towards allowing the very wealthy to monopolize the nation's GDP, denying the ability of a middle class to grow, and thereby prevent a consumer economy to grow? The aristocracy may be more vestigial in America, but Romney very clearly articulated its perspective in his 47% video. In a little reported fact, Bain Capital was started with money from aristocratic families associated with death squads in latin america (Mojo, LAtimes).
Income inequality fuels the reactionary attitudes of the TParty towards their declining affluence, scapegoating progressives, minorities and hispanics. It fuels opposition in the true Left towards trade liberalization.
Income inequality must be met head on. Corporations must no longer play by rules that encourage them to kill the consumer economy. There must be requirements for the minimum allocation of company revenues to payroll.
One of the main pathways to the short term success of small businesses is NOT to create jobs, because employees represent a significant drag on profits. In the long term, not creating jobs means there are less consumers with money in their pocket who can come through their doors to buy their better products. While every businessman recognizes the Henry Ford principle of putting money into the hands of workers, everyone recognizes that if they do so they will be at a competitive disadvantage.
Note that business people recognize the value of rules that benefit their activities (eg: meat inspection) so long as all their competitors are also required to play on the same field.
That's why minimum payroll requirements is a bold new approach to income inequality that truly progressive leaders must champion. Otherwise, the 40 year death spiral of the middle class will only accelerate, under pressure not just by the fungibility of global labor pushing down incomes in the US, but due to the relentless progress of technology making human labor increasingly unnecessary for profit generation.
just face it your boy is a liar. he starts the week with a good one, btw since he made his position clear during the first debate, it will be much easier for the President to pick him apart during the other two. when you set a trap for an idiot like Twit Robme he jumps in with both feet.
"My boy?" I hope you did not mean me, but if you did, let's be clear. While it is very true I am vehemently opposed to the neoliberal policies of Obama and the Clintons, this kind of criticism from folks like myself and Klein come from the Left, not the Right. We on the true Left are pointing out what should be patently obviously- that Obama is extremely reluctant to support vigorous economic policies that are sufficient to reverse income inequality. If you dispute this, consider why the Obama white house strongly opposes Sherrod Brown's legislation that would break up too big to fail banks. I refer to the Brown-Kaufmann amendment which only got 33 votes in the Senate, and whose reintroduction as Brown's Safe Banks Act is opposed forcefully not just by Obama but by Wall Street Dems like Schumer.
Obama is not progressive on these issues- his position is barely distinguishable to what was once a country clube GOp milquetoast, similarly unwilling to support vigorous measures to reverse climate change.
Of course Obama is clearly the best choice.
That does not mean his policies will do anything decisively positive to address economic inequality or climate change. It means they will not egregiously accelerate them as Romney's would.
That does not mean his policies will do anything decisively positive to address economic inequality or climate change. It means they will not egregiously accelerate them as Romney's would.
Hear, hear!
If one wants to point to a reason why immigration accelerated from Mexico beginning in the mid-90s, one need look no further than NAFTA. Under NAFTA, Mexico could no longer have tariffs on American agricultural products to protect their own agricultural sector. The result was a massive flooding of price-supported (illegally) American agricultural products in Mexico, wiping out hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers. They and their families still have to eat, so the result is family members coming to the US to work to support them.
In the 1980s, "illegal" immigration was the result of our wars in Central America, with people coming here to avoid getting killed by death squads operated by governments the US supported (and the Contras were nothing but death squads), or to avoid being collateral damage in the wars we were fighting.
Pretty much every problem in America is the result of some idiot war or idiot policy supported by the ruling class. And Obama, like all the other politicians, knows which side his bread is buttered on, which is why one never hears of any real solutions to the problem of undocumented immigration, which might mean lowering the astronomical profits of Archer-Daniels-Midland and perhaps abolishing American corporate agriculture and getting rid of "race to the bottom" so-called "free trade" agreements that only result in the continued enrichment of the rich at the cost of wiping out the rest of us and leaving us with our McJobs to be thankful for slave-labor clothes from China being sold at Wal-Mart at prices we can still afford after the 70% of middle class jobs that were lost were replaced by an equal number of poverty-level Wal-Mart McJobs .
Jeff, Obama welcomes criticism. In his Alinsky universe, the elected politician needs vigorous opposition in order to give him political cover for making compromises towards the Left which he otherwise be unable to make.
Romney and the Right are well aware of this effect and that is why the RushBo's and others of the lunatic right provide a vital service. Of course there is a crucial difference. Advocates of rational response to climate science or the economic statistics of income inequality are proceeding from fact, not conspiratorial fictions.
Yet true critics on the Left are rare. Somehow, everyone has bought into the most idiotic RushBo assertion about Obama : Not that he is a Kenyan, but that he is a progressive.
He isn't. His policies are centrist.
And there is an unoccupied and arid desert of opinion to the Left of Obama. Commentators like Maddow or Hayes hardly every go their for more than a brief and brisk walk.
Neoliberalism is a right wing ideology.
"Neoliberalism is a label for economic liberalizations, free trade and open markets. Neoliberalism supports the privatization of nationalized industries, deregulation, and enhancing the role of the private sector in modern society. It is commonly informed by neoclassical or Austrian economics. The term neoliberal today is often used as a general condemnation of economic liberalization policies and advocates.[1][2] Neoliberalism shares many concepts with mainstream schools of economic thought."
I happen to agree with you, but regardless which end of the ideological spectrum the theory emanates from, what matters from a policy perspective is what its real effects are on real economies.
As for the Wikipedia article you quote, the neutrality of the article is heavily disputed, as is often the case when the Hayek crowd get interested in pushing their POV. That said, the article does have a wealth of valuable citations from authoritative sources on the subject.
John , me and many others write and petition the obama team, and congressional members in respectful and constructive ways , it is up to us to hold dems accountable after all , but you can not say it is always welcome , the obama team has done a lot of whining about people speaking up , and many dems have a melt down at any sight of critical thinking at all , imlo , obamas debate failure was partially to blame for that exact point , I can cut him / them some slack tho , they live in a bubble , and it has to be the hardest job when taken seriously like he does
For whatever reason , a lot of DC dems think it is bad to talk and act like a REAL democrat , they all need to get over that pronto
You are more than correct. It is stunning the dislocation of word and deed regarding response to grassroots activism. Apparently, technocrats have decided that the Obama innovation of 2007 was that the political organization can demand every four years huge amounts of money via the internet. After people dutifully send in the money, their role is complete and there is only polite disinterest for the idea of using the internet to gain greater participation of voters in governance.
That is the last thing they want. After the elections, our job of check writing is over and our between election responsibility is to sit down and shut up, leaving the job of governance to the professionals.
The point I was trying to make was a magnification of Obama's "pressure from the outside" statements to Univision. I was saying Obama repeats the proposition- some call it a fairy tale- that the moderate politician tells the activist that he needs their help to protest vigorously in order to "make him do" the change he also would like to do but cannot due to political realities.
It is one thing for Obama to espouse that view, and another to hear Harry Belafonte or Cornel West call you out for naming neoliberal jerks like Larry Summers and Timothey Geithner to lead the "reform" of Wall Street. (Amy Goodman did an excellent interview on Belafonte's criticism of Obama here). It is not pleasant to be publicly dressed down by people you respect and admire. Besides expressing outrage at White House inaction against Wall street, activists have expressed misgivings about Obama's policies of mass deportation, continuation of the aggressive criminal institutionalization of inner city youth, expansion of imperial presidential power to kill wthin countries we are not at war with, while blocking Congressional efforts to exercise their constitutional responsibility for oversight.
So there's pushback, right? - The argument that modern Dems must not succumb to its predilection to self destruct- to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Say for example, we have an entirely different scene- one in which highly motivated and massive group of activists on economic an climate change policy had pressed for a Dem platform that there would be:
It would be difficult for the president to win re-election with such a platform, let alone have a chance of getting Pelosi control of the House again. The point being made is that protest risks undermining Dems, and that the stakes- especially in the Supreme Court are simply to great to protest with vigor proportionate to the dangers from the plutocracy and climate change.
Belafonte's comments are good. He rebuts this POV showing that the only thing being undermined is the hopes of the nation to see just action taken by their government on these issues of grave importance. The corresponding social goods which could be harvested from resolution of those challenges are being undermined by the absence of protest, and we are traitors if we do not raise our voices with sufficient force.
Of course, he will not pay a price for lying. All that is important is the horserace. The mainstream media could care less about how Romney might actually govern. Hell Romney must feel the same because he keeps lying.
Rush was on air today convincing his listeners that Obama is the one lying, and that Romney was 100% accurate and truthful at the debate. Obama had to wait 1 day before calling Romney out in his lies because then Romney couldn't refute him like he did during the debate. It is all Obama and the left-wing media that cover for him that are lying and Romney and the republicans are the last bastion of truth in this nation. "DO NOT DOUBT ME!" -Limbaugh
sad that our political discourse has devolved into wondering if being truthful and honest matters, or if say/do anything to get elected is all that matters...
Not to mention he belongs to a cult, er, I mean a "church" that sanctifies "Lyin' for the Lord," so he can lie guilt-free.
Limpdick and the rest of the wingnuts will be happy to let Willard lie his patootie off for the next month, since they know they own his balls should he win the election.
Why should Romney tell the truth? He's never held to account for it. He can brazenly lie in a debate and still be considered the 'winner.' Our Press and the Right Wing will reward him for his lying. He's got voters who don't care if he lies either so they enable this failure. When has he ever paid a political price for lying? Please don't kid yourself and 'hope' that in November the chickens will come to roost. By then, it'll be too late.
Romney knows and his done this once in a debate against the president and the Weird Obama didn't call him out--So he doesn't have any incentive to be honest.
I won't blame Mitt,he's a salesman* in a party that have had this strategy for decades.
*Salesman:This is what Business people with no integrity do and Romney has been this way through out his business career,This is HOW PRIVATE EQUITY WORKS.
I watched the speech, I managed without getting sick. Whether he likes it or not his lieing is going to catch up with him. This year will definately be one for the History books. Headlines: 2012...the year we almost elected our first robotic candidate as President. They almost pulled it off but, there were huge malfunctions to his program. The Corporate Scientists just were unable to captivate any level of enthusiam for the robot . You cannot be truly proud of your successes, if you want more at all costs. This man is a walking nightmare, just in time for Halloween.
From an article written on ThinkProgress there was a post from one of the readers and myself and others said we were going to repost:
Snow White, Superman and Pinocchio are walking along. They see a sign: "Contest for World's Most Beautiful Woman." Snow White goes in, later comes out smiling, wearing a crown. They walk along and see another sign: "Contest for World's Strongest Man." Superman goes in, later comes out smiling, wearing the belt. They walk along and see a sign: "Contest for World's Greatest Liar." Pinocchio goes in, later comes out with his head down crying.
"Who the hell is Mitt Romney?" Pinocchio sobs.
"not signed one new free trade agreement."
I think the slipperyness here is in the word "new." He's saying they aren't "new" agreements because they were being negotiated 4 years ago.
Either that, or it is the fact that three is not equal to one. So there!
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It seems to me that for the next couple of debates, the prep has less to do with sounding like Mitt, as it does with finding iron-clad unambiguous ways of saying what Mitt's plans are. "20% tax cut" instead of $5B, etc.
Well, technically Romney was not wrong. He claimed that Obama has not signed one new trade agreement in four years. Obama signed three. Also, Obama hasn't been in office for four years, so technically, he's right there, too. Technically speaking, of course.
It's the Shapeshifter vs. the Jedi Warrior.
Explaining Romney's lies takes an army of a clean-up brigade.
He's a flim flam man, picking the pockets of American brains.
People need to wake up and realize who carries the heart of America.
While Romney was busy pretending about foreign policy, Obama was dedicating a monument to a man who fought for the rights of the unrepresented.
He robbed American companies, he's getting ready to rob the nation. Of truth. Of upward mobility. Of whatever he can put his hands on.
Obama and Biden need to fight back hard and smart.
Why waste sound reasoning on unreasonable (and mentally unsound) people? Mitt knows his fan base well.
Steve, he would still use the same defense. He's not saying Obama didn't sign any trade agreements...just that he didn't sign any "new" trade agreements. In the Romney mind, these were old trade agreements that Obama inherited. Now, the fact is Obama didn't have to sign them just because he inherited them, doesn't matter. Also, if it takes that long to negotiate a trade agreement, how do we know Obama isn't working on another one at this point?
Since the trade deals were largely negotiated prior to Obama taking office and he doesn't get credit for those. Shouldn't he also not be credited with all the job losses that President Bush and the losses under his 1st year as President?
Romney looks like a whirling dervish.
This is not a lazy lie; it is just a plain outright lie. And Romney will continue to lie his way to election day because the media will not call him out on these lies. If the MSM started calling these statements lies, Romney would stop telling them. He needs undecided voters and if the MSM starts reporting the statements as lies, the coverage would bring even more attention to the lies.
The clarity of the distinction was made forcefully by Axelrod on face the Nation. John Dickerson paraphrased the administration's complaint that Romney's claims are "unrealistic".
Axelrod said no. It is not a case of them being unrealistic, they are impossible. (transcript) Regarding the 20% tax cut to the wealthy, even if Romney eliminated every single deduction, this would result in trillions in additions to the deficit.
This links removes the language that suggests that the question is something upon which honest people can disagree. It links the GOP to denialism of you name it: science/ evolution/ labor statistics / climate change / birtherism.
What was comical for Romney to attempt to switch the tables by condescendingly comparing the President to his sons who are entitled to their opinions but not their facts.
As Clinton would have retorted...
Such quips are long on theater, but it cuts to the heart of the matter on Romney's attempts to mold the electorate's perception of reality.
The larger problem now, is not the fact that Romney flat out lies with such low regard to honesty, but that so many are willing to believe him no matter what. This is by far the scariest part this election cycle, the low threshold for truth that exists in the public realm.
Well, he's white and he "looks Presidential," and he'll restore Whitey's House to Whitey when we "get to be America again."
/snark
If only it were true that Obama hadn't signed any "free" trade agreements. These are simply bad deals for the non 1%-ers. Period.
I might agree except for the fact that some businesses that had been outsourced are returning. I would have to know a lot more about Obama's deals and the agreements that lead up to them before making such a conclusion.
God help me, I just hate Mitts guts. He is a liar, a cheat, a bully, a big jerk and he is fooling a pretty large percentage of the population that he has what it takes to solve our nations problems. His solution? Wing it...let Congress handle it...give it over to his Pony Pal Paulie. He wants to allow TORTURE for heaven's sake. HELLO...what is the nation thinking?
I am truly disgusted!! From Obama's first campaign w/all the hateful racist posters and words to the out right lies being spewed out by the right! Lets not forget the idiots that are ok with dog fighting, that want to make invasive internal ultrasounds a prerequisite for an abortion or the birth control that would prevent a woman from having to make that choice! If a child tells a lie and there are no repercussions, what happens? The lies continue, get bigger, become more harmful and........!! Sound familiar?
Once a pathological liar start's telling lies, it's impossible for them to stop.They even begin to believe what they're saying is true.That in a nutshell is what the problem with Romney is.That is what make's him so dangerous,should he (god forbid) win the election.
Mitt is a professional liar. He has amassed a fortune by lying people into handing him money that he uses to con others out of their businesses and turn a profit on them.
He's a religious liar. The Mormon Church promotes "Lyin' for the Lord." It's OK for a Mormon to do this, in fact it's almost required.
Romney: a pathological liar measured in mythological proportions.
How can Mitt take the oath of office without committing perjury?
Who will bring charges against him? (They might as well burn the bible or whatever they use for his swearing in if he wins.he won't win though)
What are the Xtians going to do when he takes the Oath with his hand on the Book of Mormon instead of the bible?
Right about at the same time, we should be able to hear a bomb start ticking. Take cover, she's gonna blow! Some churchbells after that would be nice like in England where they ring them 10 times in succession, unfortunately that's when someone famous goes up to heaven.Camera slowly pans away..and seated in the pew is no other than Eleanore Rigby, choking on a piece of bread. Please, let President Obama win so the afternoon nightmares can dissipate.
"The Republican just doesn't seem to care whether he gets caught or not -- he's "not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers" -- in effect thumbing his nose at those who care about reality."
I recall several posts on other sites which claimed that Jim Leher would call Romney out on any lies; any sentient human being knows that the MSM stopped calling out any politicians for lies back before the elections of 1968; we should all have known that MSM and the non-MSM value their access to politicians so much that they resort to "he said, she said" and false equivalencies reporting," which has been the norm since 1968.
Mitt Romney is a pathological liar and has goofed time and time again attracting the wrath of Spain, England and some foreign countries.I wonder how he is gonna relate to the outside world as commander in Chief.How can he claim that Barack Obama has no signed any trade agreements in 4yrs.We are getting tired of his lies.
Good Businessweek article in plain English about why Romney (and Condi) are wrong/lying about Obama & trade agreements: Condi Rice Is Wrong About Free Trade
Steve Benen: When will Rachel call out her network, especially Andrea Mitchell and GE/Comcast, for forwarding the lies without out challenge or refutation? I have asked this for months and there is no specif response. Maybe the progressive bloggers on this site will carry the cause back to TRMS and demand her response. Otherwise, we are just blowing smoke into the wind and choking on our own smoke.
No price to pay indeed as the media will never call Romney out on his lies because the media won't let their coverage be dictated by substance or facts
I think this is just part of their plan to muddy the water -- do enough 'lies' that could be cleared up with the use of the proper language (like, has not negotiated vs. has not signed) so that people begin to get the idea that lots of other 'lies' are just facts stated in a cloudy fashion (such as I've seen the Romney team do in defending the no tax cuts for the wealthy issue statement in the debate).
Well, to be fair, it's true that Obama "has not signed one free trade agreement." He's signed three. Three is not the same as one.
Apparently, Romney believes that a good president should sign one, and only one, trade agreement per term. Any more than that is just showboating. Or something.