Remember Solyndra?

Do you remember Solyndra?  This is the solar panel manufacturer that went bankrupt after receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in government money.  The Obama administration was blamed for the program.  Loosing and wasting your tax dollars on left wing liberal projects that were supposed to help lower our carbon foot print.  So, was it really as bad as you remember?

This is a short post in reply to a FB post where I'm talking about how peoples views are often distorted by misreporting and out right lying by not only Fox News but most media outlets.  To often people latch on to this stuff and don't let go.  I still hear people make comments about Solyndra and frankly most people have no real clue what happened or even what "Solyndra" was.  They just use it as a "buzz word".  When people bag Obama there are a few "go to" terms.  Solyndra! Benghazi! Obama Death Panels!

The reality is most often very different from the shit that is in people's heads.  Yes "shit".  It is a very apt word to describe the "information" it is largely all the stuff that wasn't useful and probably just out right fake.  Much like what you flush down the toilet every day from your previous days meals.

Did you know that the program that gave Solyndra money was supposed to loose hundreds of millions of dollars.  $780 million dollars has been lost by 4 companies including Solyndra.  The Department of energy factored into the loan program these types of losses.  The whole program was supposed to loose money over all.  The costs was deemed acceptable because of the innovation it was expected to spur.  So Solyndra lost about 528 million dollars.  Three other companies folding lost the program another 150 million dollars.

Before I go on let me talk a bit about the DOE's renewable-energy loan program.  Normally we would hope that private equity providers, like Mitt Romney has made so much money off of, would be the source of funding for programs like this but people like Mitt Romney don't like these "risky" investments do they.  He doesn't actually like investments full stop when you talk about building up companies.  He's more for going in, transferring debt then dumping or dismantling the companies.  So the government had to step in.  The government has been doing this type of stuff for a long time.  Obama's administration isn't the first and it certainly won't be the last to issue loans like these.  Hell the banks get loans like these all the time from the government and they loose hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.

Anyway what is the state of the renewable-energy loan program that was budgeted to actually loose money.  Well turns out that the program is going to make any were between 5 and 6 billion dollars.   Not bad aye.  Have you heard Fox News or any other news organization talk about that?  Did they explain that the program was supposed to loose money but ended up being a bit of a cash cow?  Probably not.  Doesn't work well with the view that the vocal right wing want to push that Obama wants to destroy America.

Do you earn less then $200,000 a year? Sorry Mitt says you aren't making enough to be middle class!

Then you aren't even "middle class" according to Mitt Romney. Don't feel sad because 95% of American house holds don't make enough to be labeled as "middle class" according to Romney.

In a flash of honesty and for the first time Romney is putting some numbers to his economic plan.  He states that he considers the middle class to be 200k-250k per year.  We already know he wants big tax breaks for those that earn 250k+.  He want to keep middle income earners tax burden "low" and well he won't talk about poor people except to say "not concerned about the very poor" despite the fact that his economic policy would require most of the safety nets low income earners depend on to go away.

This is the world Mitt Romney lives in.   In an America where 83% of house holds earn under $100,000 a year.  Where 72% of house holds earn under $75,000 and still over 54% of house holds earn under $50,000 a year, Mitt Romney will look after the 1.37% of Americans that qualify as "middle class" by his definition by keeping their tax burden as low as he can.  He's got one interesting thing going for him.  There are less households that earn $200,000-$250,000 a year then there are that earn over $250,000.

Wait oh sorry...I've used figures from 2005.  The latest census data has that number of Mitt Romney's "middle class" has drop by over 15%.

Again the GOP show they don't understand basic maths.  Do you really want a Mitt Romney as President when he thinks that:

1. 97% of American households are defined as "poor"
2.  "not concerned about the very poor"
3. Plans to increase the tax rate paid by the "poor" by about $1,600/year.

Watch Romney and Obama both describe who they think is "middle class"

My cousin say " If you live in California 250k is middle class and Obama is an idiot. He is a socialist and should move to Europe."

Lets look at the mean household income of California.  Seems people can be ignorant of what it is like in their own state.

Where will the GOP stop when it comes to lieing? Will they ever stop?

The GOP has been jumping on the Obama administration's foriegn policy.  Claiming them as a failure despite the fact.  They make completely baseless claims like
Liz Cheney "he’s abandoned some of our key allies, like Israel, Poland, Czechoslovakia"

First lets look at Israel.  This is what Defence Minister Ehud Barak said just over a month ago.

Ehud Barak "But I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing, in regard to our security, more than anything that I can remember in the past"

Kind of shows how much the GOP is prepared to lie and distort the truth.  Just because Obama and the Israel government admit there are differences of opinions on some matters doesn't mean that Obama has abandoned them.  Quite the opposite.  There is honesty there.

As far as abandoning Poland 48% of poles like the policy and only 31 don't with 21 undecided in one pole and another had a 56% approval rating with only 29% against the change.  But Slawomir Nowak, a senior advisor to the Polish Prime minister abck in 2009 said this "If this system becomes reality in the shape Washington is now suggesting, it would actually be better for us than the original missile shield programme...We were never really threatened by a long-range missile attack from Iran,"  The only ones that loose out here is the defence contractors that where slated to make tons of money for putting in a system that wasn't suited to the task.

The fact is the new plan cost less and is a better fit for the situation and risk.  Spending billions of dollars in a paranoid cold war mentality where we are worried about Russia starting a nuclear war is obsurd.

Finally lets get to the final country that Obama has "abandoned", Czechoslovakia.  First off Czechoslovakia hasn't been a country for almost 2 decades.   So do they mean the Czech Republic?  If so that is covered by the same system as Poland.

Note also that this "Missle sheild" isn't to defend these countries.  It is to "defend" the USA from Russia firing nuclear weapons at us.

The GOP constantly complains about Democrats spending to much but when you look at the facts it is very much the other way around.  The difference is that the Democrats spend more on the common person.  The republicans spend more on making the rich richer.

Lets look at the numbers

Reagan 1st term 8.7% Reagan 2nd term 4.9% Bush Snr 5.4% Clinton 1st term 3.2% Clinton 2nd term 3.9% Bush Jr 1st term 7.3% Bush Jr 2nd term 8.1% Obama 1.4%

Democrats clearly raise spending more then republicans.

How about creating private sector jobs? Democrats average 150,000 jobs a month over the last 50 years.  Republicans only 71,000.  That means under democratic administrations PRIVATE sector jobs increase twice as fast.  Yes unemployment is still above 8%, 8.1 to be exact. But when Bush Jr left office the unemployment rate was rising into double digits.

The raw numbers

Reagan   ~168,000 new jobs per month
Bush Snr  ~54,000 new jobs per month
Clinton  ~270,000 new jobs per month
Bush Jr   ~11,000 new jobs per month
it took a year to halt the collapse Bush Jr caused.  Since then
Obama    ~107,000 new jobs per month

Sure Reagan did better but he didn't have to deal with a shit economy handed to him by the previous president.

Like Clinton said at the DNC.  Its simple maths.  And the GOPs math doesn't add up.

Just once I'd like to see the GOP attack Obama using truth rather then the lies they come up with.

That sharp increase while in 2009 is a result of a number of things like 

H. R. 2638 - enacted by Bush

700 billion dollar bank bail out signed by bush 

5.8 percent cost of living increase before Obama got into raised social security payments and another 39 billion for medicare.

Obama did push through the stimulus bill to stop the rising unemployment rate and Bush's 2009 budget only covered defence spending for the full year.  Other government agencies where only funded through to March  meaning Obama's administration had to hustle to get funding for them. 

Here is an analysis by politifact.com

Pole shows 15% of 'Very Conservative' People think Romney is responsible for Bin Laden's Death

Now numbers can often be manipulated but this is from a pole performed by Public Policy Polling.  The pole is linked below for you to view.

When asked the question : Who is responsible for Osama Bin Laden's death? With the choices being : Barack Obama, Mitt Romney or Not sure.  15% of people that identified themselves as "Very Conservative" picked Mitt Romney.  A full 51% of that same demographic said "Not Sure" and 53% of people that self identify as "Somewhat Conservative" also said "Not Sure".  This means that well over half of people poled that identify as conservative don't know or won't admit to knowing that Barack Obama is more responsible for Bin Laden's death then Mitt Romney.

Now this isn't a question of "Should more credit be given to SEAL team 6?" "What about the intelligence community?" etc.  Barack Obama has repeatedly given credit to everyone involved.  This is simply people in Ohio being asked, of the 2 candidates, who is responsible for Bin Laden's Death.  I mean this isn't even a tough question like "Who is more responsible for Obama-Care?" where you can say "Well it is modelled after Romney's health care plan!" or anything like this.  

Now across the board you'll get people in every ideology that will be just plain stupid and answer wrong.  You'll get people that are nervous and afraid to be wrong and say 'Not Sure'.  But when you look at the numbers based on Ideology it swamps that.  I think it is more that the conservatives there don't want to admit Obama was responsible and that is why the numbers are the way they are.  

Either way a majority of the conservatives poled in Ohio are either plain stupid or wilfully denying the truth.

Here is the full chart from the pole found here

What the GOP think about tax cuts for people that aren't rich.

Bill S 3412 Middle-class Tax Relief.

Not surprisingly the GOP stands firmly against tax cuts for people making less then $250,000/yr.  46 of 47 republican Senators voted against S3412 Middle-class tax relief.  The 1 republican that didn't vote no, Senator Mark Kirik, didn't actually vote.  It passed 51/48 with one abstaining.

Reason for this?  The republican's will not pass this bill, which benefits all American's by providing tax relief for the first $250,000.00 of income, because they want further tax cuts for people earning over $250,000.00/yr.

Do you find this right?  Should rich people get even more tax breaks then poor people?  Already our tax code allows the rich to pay significantly lower tax rates then low and middle income earners by providing many tax shields and incentives that are only accessible by the wealthy.  Tax breaks that Mitt Romney exploits to the fullest often moving income over seas to evade taxes here.

If you had an income of $100,000/yr do you think it would be nice if you could shield it from taxes by moving the income over seas?  Who would pay for our schools?  Who would pay for our roads?  Who would pay for our emergency services? Who would pay for our wars?

The GOP blame President Obama for the current rate of unemployment.  Saying "his [Obama] economic plan has failed".  Yet every time President Obama tries to implement any plan he is confronted with this partisan blockade.  Obama has made some hard compromises and brought spending increases to a low not seen since 1953.  Obama policies, many implemented by executive order because republican congressmen refuse to vote for any bill that might make make the President look good., stopped an unemployment rate that was rising into the double digits.

President Obama has said all along that the recovery is coming to slow.  That it isn't good enough.  That we still have a lot to do.  He's made hard compromises in hopes the republicans would also make similar compromises but at every opportunity republicans refuse.  Even to compromises they agreed to in the past.

They want to privatise education giving more support to rich families sending their children to private schools at the cost of low and middle income families, that can not afford high priced schools, to attend schools that get even less funding per student.  Choice is easy for those that can afford it.  I sent my son to a private school up until year 8.  That was my choice and that choice didn't rip funding away from public schools in the process.  How does the GOP expect a low income family that is struggling to put food on the table to be able to come up with more money to send their kids to a school that is properly funded?  A school which is probably further away then their local public school.  A school which may have many other hidden costs like uniforms and "building fees".  How do they expect struggling families to come up with thousands of dollars more a year for each one of their children when the GOP plan to take away safety nets like food stamps.  When the GOP plan to roll back the Affordable Health Care Act leaving the low income families with no affordable medical insurance and no guarantee that if they do keep their health insurance that the insurance company won't drop them as soon as someone in the family gets ill?

If you vote for the GOP this coming election be assured that the unemployment rate we saw at the end of the Bush administration will only be the start.  The GOP are great at saying democrats hate America but the GOP only like the rich and they'll lie to all the low and middle income Americans to get into power.

The phrase "I'm proud to be an American" will be a joke unless you are in the top 2%.

Who do you blame for the government spending to much? Democrats or Republicans?

Spending Increase Per Term

Obama's administration has the lowest increase of spending since President Eisenhower. That is over 50 years you have to go back.
How does Obama stack up to other presidents?

Regan's 1st term    - 8.7%
Regan's 2nd term    - 4.9%
Bush Snr            - 5.4%
Clinton's 1st term  - 3.2%
Clinton's 2nd term  - 3.9%
Bush Jr's 1st term  - 7.3%
Bush Jr's 2nd term  - 8.1%
Obama 1st term      - 1.4%

Do you really trust that The GOP will make the cuts needed?  Oh they'll make cuts.
They'll make cuts that will cost seniors $6,500 more a year in out of pocket expendatures do to allowing insurers to refuse coverage which increases the strain on Medicare forcing out many seniors from even recieving benefits.
They'll shift medicare onto the states that isn't designed to keep up with actual health care costs.
They'll repeal the Affordable Care Act and let the insurance companies go back to business as usual where they can deny you coverage when ever they want which would effect tens of millions of Americans not to meantion the more than 30,000,000 Americans who would loose their coverage right away.
They'll slash education.  Ryan and Romney won't tell you where exactly they'll make the cuts within education but the reduction is there...they just don't want to be pin down to so they can claim make claims like "Pell grants don't have to change". But the truth of the matter is that cuts would have to be made some where.
They'll slash programs for the very poor and disadvantage.  Programs like food stamps.  Programs that help poor children get the nutrician they need.

They'll also make the rich get richer.  3 Trillion dollars in tax cuts that will benifit only the top 2%.  Mitt Romney would end up paying less then 1% in taxes under the Romney-Ryan plan.  Ironically 1% might be more then Romney has paid in some years in the last decade.  But until he releases his tax returns we'll not know.

Romney continues to lie!

Romney claims that President Obama plans to take $716 billion dollars in benefits from Medicare and that he, Mitt Romney, would leave Medicare as is.
So what is the truth?  The $716 billion dollars isn't taken from benifits unless you consider things like duplicate payments to insurance companies "benifits".  So let get this clear the $716 billion dollars is from cost savings like slowing the inflation of medical costs, eliminating waste, fraud, abuse and stopping over payments to private insurance companies under the Medicare Advantage program.

Romney wants that $716 billion dollars to stay when in the end the only people they benifit is people, including corporations, defrauding the system.

Romney claims that President Obama is cutting the work requirement for welfare.  This is out right false and even after being shown it Romney and his campaign answer is to continue the lie with as much advertisement as possible.

Romney wants to put in over 5 trillion dollars to tax cuts for the rich.  Those tax cuts have to be paid for and they will be.  They will be paid by low and middle income earners paying higher payroll taxes. By teachers, fire fighters, policemen loosing their jobs.  By students paying higher costs for university.  By Seniors paying an average of $6,500 a year more, out of their own pocket, for medical care because Romney wants to go to a voucher system.

Note that the lies are not only being spread by ads endorced by Mitt Romney but by Mitt Romney when he stands on the podium when he gives speeches.  This isn't an add produced by someone else, not endorced by President Obama and run only once.

Back in 1949 Adlai Stevenson said this
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”
and it is more true today then ever.  The GOP thinks it is hateful for the democrats to point out their lies.  What do you think?  Mitt Romney's ads and speeches show they they either don't understand how Medicare works or are wilfully making shit up or even worse...both!

I can't believe the $#I~ that come out of Mitt Romney's mouth

We all know Romney has a problem with connecting with the average American.  His awkward lines like

• Talking to the members of the chambers of commerce - I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. - Jan 2012
• Trying to pander to middle Americans - I'm not concerned about the very poor. - Jan 2012
• Trying to pander to a group of unemployed in florida -I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed. -  June 2011
• When asked about tying his dog to the roof of his car and not stopping to let the dog go to the toilet -PETA is not happy that my dog likes fresh air. -   2007
• Trying to show how he's an average guy that likes motor sport - I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners. - Feb 27, 2012
• Talking to some supporters from a local bakery - I'm not sure about these cookies. They don't look like you made them. No, no. They came from the local 7/11 bakery, or whatever. - April 17, 2012
• Talking to supporters in Michigan - I love this state. The trees are just the right height. -  Feb 2012
• At a speech in Harrisburg - he [Obama] spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps, or maybe just not enough time actually working in the real world - April 2012 

note: that Romney was at Harvard longer and got 2 degrees while he was there, Obama paid his way through Harvard like most American's using student loans and worked as a community organiser for an organisation with a annual budget of $400,000 a year for 13 staff and the projects they ran.  

Now Mitt Romney comes out with this. No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate!

Well who cares.  Obama was born in Hawaii.  Has legitimate short and long form birth certificate authenticated by officials in the state of Hawaii.  Just because nut bag conspiracy idiots within the GOP keep lying and claiming that Obama isn't a real citizen of the United States of American, even when shown the evidence to the contrary.  One would hope that Mitt Romney would try to distance himself from those nut jobs.  But instead he's kept those nut jobs close.  Accepting untold amounts of money from them and now he's jump squarely in bed with them spouting the same shit as they do.  

The hypocrisy here is amazing.  No one has asked Mitt for his birth certificate but will he release his tax returns for the last 10 years?  Nope!  Mind you this is a tradition his father started back in 1968.   The only 2 years of tax returns he did release showed that he paid taxes at rate of less then 15%.  That he used banks in the Cayman islands and Switzerland to shield income from taxes to not only the USA but other countries like Italy.  Don't get me wrong.  To date nothing he's done appears to be illegal.  He's just manipulated the system which is geared to making it easy for rich people to pay very little in taxes.

The official tax policy that the republicans want to push through is even worse.  Mitt Romney would end up paying less then 1% in taxes.  The GOP wants to push through 5 trillion dollars...that is $5,000,000,000,000.00 in tax cuts that are exclusively for the top 2% of American's.  The GOP currently won't extend tax cuts that would benefit all Americans until they get further tax cuts to those Americans that earn over $250,000.00 a year.  Get this straight.  ALL Americans would benefit by the tax cuts Obama wants to push through because it covers all income up to $250,000.00.  But this isn't good enough for the GOP.  They want more tax breaks that only benefit people that earn more then $250,000.00 a year.  

Where do you think the GOP's tax cuts for the top 2% would come from?  Who's going to pay for it?  This is something they don't like you to know.  It comes from killing Medicare.  Independent economists predict that Medicare collapse within 4 years if Romney was elected and implemented his tax plan.  Taxes to low and middle income Americans would got up.  Finally services like police, fire and education would be cut back so that the rich can get richer.

What the President really says from his own mouth.

Are you for all of America or just top 2%?

Congress has gone on  recess with the Senate not voting on the tax cut bill because republicans refuse to act on it unless the richest 2%, not only get the tax cut everyone gets for the first $250,000.00 of income but, get further cuts on any income above $250,000.00.

The republicans are the party who is putting forward a presidential candidate who refuses to release more then 2 years of his tax returns, in contradiction to the standard that his own father set back in 1968 and which every other candidate since then has followed.

Do you want a president that knows what it is like to be an average American who finally paid off his university bills just over a decade ago or do you want a president that has never known what it is like to struggle and for the last 2 years still paid a lower effective tax rate then you have and may not even have paid taxes at all, for some years, in the last decade?

Do you want a president that is for helping 98% of American's in need or do you want a president that is for helping 2% of American's and hoping that 2% lets some of that aid trickle down to the rest of us even though we've seen that policy fail miserably already.

Do you think a small business is a Mom & Pop shop, that hires a few local people to staff the store, needs some help with their taxes or do you think 2 Brothers that are hedge fund managers, making millions of dollars a year working on Wall street that employs 1 or 2 secretaries, needs help from the government more?

Do you think the government should help keep further education beyond high school affordable for all Americans or do you think that only the rich should get the chance for a proper education?

Do you think the government should aid low income earners get health insurance is the right thing to do or do you think it is "free stuff" and more important to keep the tax laws that let a multi-millionaire's wife have the government flip the bill for their horse to the tune of over $70,000 in just one year?

Do you believe that Americans deserve to know who is paying to get a candidate into the highest office of the nation or do you believe it is ok for millionaires and billionaires to secretly bank roll a candidate and produce false advertisements with out any accountability?

Do you believe that women have a right to proper preventative health care or do you think that an employer should be able to stop a woman from getting that health care?

Do you want a president that has been open about his economic plan or do you want a president that basically says that he'll implement tax cuts but never tells you how the country will pay for those tax cuts?

You decide. You can vote for someone that supports the average American or you can side with the party that acts like a rich spoiled little brat that isn't happy unless they can push their way through a line just because they are rich and think they are better then every body else.

Are you part of the 2% that thinks that 98% of people just shit out of luck?  Are you part of the 98% that wants to screw over the rest of the 98% in the vain hope that you will some day be part of the 2%?   Or are you that part of America, regardless of your income, that believes America was built on the ideal that all Americans deserve a country in which they can succeed!

You should know who the major supporters of your candidate are!

One of the biggest problems with a super pac is that it allows millions upon millions of dollars to be funnelled into the political process, which is bad enough on it's own, without a requirement of identifying where that money comes from.  This means a candidate can have "supporters" that have a HUGE amount of financial influence on the candidate and the American public will have no idea what type of people are influencing a candidates position.

It doesn't matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice, anti-gay or a LGBT supporter, pro-big business or pro-middle America, a corporation or a real life flesh and blood person.  If a candidate has supporters donating millions upon millions of dollars to a candidate or a super pac supporting that candidate then you have a right to know about that support because you would have to have a hole in the head the size of a base ball to think that those people don't have a unbelievably large amount of influence over the candidate's political stance.  If you are against gay marriage I'm sure you'd want to know if your "family values candidate" received large amounts of money from prominent gay activists.  If you say to yourself "No, I don't need to know about that because it won't influence my candidates position!" then please immediately proceed to a mirror and check your forehead for that hole right now.

Obama has led the way.  Picking what I would call the lesser of 2 evils which is accepting fund from super pac but requiring them to reveal their major donors.  In effect the super pac becomes less of a super pac and more of a normal political fund raising tool.  Obama gets funding to compete with the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by the top 1% for the GOP candidates and still the American people get to see what type of "company" the candidate, running for the top political position of the USA, keeps.

It amazes me that right wing media like Fox News will use Obama accepting super pac donations as a negative position but have no problem with all of the GOP candidates using funds from super pacs.  It is just one more, in a long line of, tools that apparently the GOP candidates are allowed to use freely but if Obama uses them then it is some how Un-American.

I'm always torn because I want both parties to put forth a candidate that, at the end of the day, I could accept as president.  This time I'm really torn because, while I like some of the things that done under Mitt Romney's term as governor of MA, his stance on corporations and capital gains disgusts me along with his seeming disconnect from the average American.  He seems to be a stereo typical politician that will say anything, no matter how stupid, and isn't afraid to repeat said stupid comments.  How he can pander to the people of Michigan about how he loves American cars while he still defends his "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" stance is beyond me.

What is even more disturbing to me is how one of Mitt's major supporters is so actively, and successfully, killing people freedom of speech via use of a almost bottomless pit of money used to threaten people with legal action over legitimate free speech issues.

It disturbs me that many American's, and honestly many people's around the world, don't really know what "Freedom of Speech" actually means.  It doesn't mean that I can say something about my neighbour like "Joe bloggs likes to perform sexual acts with goats!" when there is no evidence to that fact.  But if you are a public figure the bar is a bit lower.  Not to say I can say things like "Richard Gere likes to use gerbils for personal pleasure".  But if a person makes a public stance against the LGBT community by putting up billboards all over the state it is not defamation to point out that that person is against LGBT rights.

Read a short article here on Frank VanderSloot  or a very good long article here and see how he repeatedly uses very questionable tactics to suppress other peoples 1st Amendment rights and understand that Mitt Romney is VERY close to this man.  I'm not part of the "liberal media". I'll let someone be a bigot if they are one but if you put yourself out there and become a public figure then try to suppress my 1st amendment rights to point out to the world your bigoted views that you've already made known in the public domain then you can take your billions of dollars and see if it gives you pleasure to use in a way that some people say Richard Gere uses gerbils.

Contact your politicians and let them know you support the Disclose Act and over turn the "Citizens United" which should have been named "Corporations United".  Corporations might be considered people but they don't have the rights of a full Citizen yet....tho I'd argue they have stronger rights then real people like you and me.