Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney held a rally in Lakeland, Florida, on Friday morning, just hours after his much-anticipated acceptance speech at his party’s national convention. Romney must still be tired from last night’s big hurrah. In his stump speech on Friday, he mistakenly referred to the United States as a “company.” With his running…
How Romney’s Economic Plan Would Gut Infrastructure Investments (Like Levees)
As Romney tours the storm damage, it’s worth notingthat government-funded levees prevented far greater damage from occurring in New Orleans, seven years after the city was battered (and the levees failed) during Hurricane Katrina: Isaac’s whistling winds lashed this city and the storm dumped nearly a foot of rain on its desolate streets, but the system…
Massachusetts’ Clean Economy Sees Massive Growth, Now Hosts 71,000 Jobs In Cleantech
Government investment and support for clean, renewable energy development is paying off handsomely in Massachusetts, where the clean energy economy grew 11.2% between July 2011 and July 2012. The state’s fast-growing clean energy sector now employs 71,523 people at 4,995 clean energy businesses across the state, according to a Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) report released Aug….
In Sharp Contrast To GOP, Dems To Highlight Health Care
News outlets are looking ahead to the Democratic convention, which begins Tuesday in North Carolina, and how the parties are prepping for post-convention politicking around health care. Politico: Dems Say They’ll Talk Health Care In Charlotte President Barack Obama’s health care reform law will take center stage at the Democratic National Convention next week, David Axelrod, Obama’s…
How The Media Soft-Plays Paul Ryan’s Lies: ‘Factual Shortcuts,’ ‘Perceived Inaccuracies,’ ‘Questionable Claims’
Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) speech to the Republican National Convention last night was chock-full of bald-faced lies. For example, Ryan blamed the Obama for S&P’s downgrade of our credit rating (despite the fact that S&P blamed GOP policies) and blasted Obama for failing to heed the Bowles-Simpson debt commission (which Ryan torpedoed). Yet political reporters…
REPORT: Seniors Will Pay $60,000 More For Medicare Under Romney/Ryan Plan
The Romney/Ryan proposal to transform Medicare’s guaranteed benefit into a “premium support” structure for future retirees could increase costs by almost $60,000 for seniors reaching the age of 65 in 2023, a new report from the Center for American Progress finds. Current seniors would also have to pay more for preventive, hospital, and physician services…
Never Mind Super PACs: How Big Business Is Buying the Election
US law still bans foreign corporations from participating directly in elections. But after Citizens United, trade associations like API—whose influential members include foreign corporations—are free to spend as they wish, unburdened by disclosure requirements. And these groups have taken full advantage of their new freedoms. While other campaign committees, from labor unions to Super PACs, face…
Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech
Laying out the first plans for his party’s presidential ticket, GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan took some factual shortcuts Wednesday night when he attacked President Barack Obama’s policies on Medicare, the economic stimulus and the budget deficit. Sen. Rob Portman, a former U.S. trade representative, glossed over his own problems when critiquing Obama‘s trade dealings with China. A day earlier,…
Mitt Romney and Ann: the students “struggling” so much that they had to sell stock.
Mitt Romney is going around saying that he made all his money himself, aside from a loan from his dad to buy his first house. Journalists who buy that have short memories. I was living in Massachusetts when Romney first ran for the Senate, and remembered this interview with Ann Romney in the Boston Globe…
Romney-Ryan Medicare Plan Would Cost 29-Year-Olds $331,200: Report
If Romney becomes president and repeals the Affordable Care Act as promised, then retirement would cost $11,100 more for the average 65-year-old and $18,600 more for the average 55-year-old because of higher Medicare premiums and drug costs, according to a report from Harvard economist David Cutler, an Obamacare architect, and the Center for American Progress….
5 Ways the Obama Administration Revived the Auto Industry by Reducing Oil Use
In addition to the successful bridge loans there are five other major Obama administration policies that helped the auto industry and the nation by creating jobs, reducing oil use, saving families money, and cutting pollution: Fuel-economy and carbon-pollution standards for 2012 to 2016 model cars sparked job growth in automobile manufacturing and increased automobile sales….
CHARTS: US Overseas Arms Sales More Than Tripled in 2011
In 2011, the United States experienced its biggest year ever in weapons exports: According to an annual study by the Congressional Research Service [PDF] released earlier this week, the US overseas weapons sales jumped to $66.3 billion last year (77.7 percent of the $85.3 billion global market in 2011), from $21.4 billion in deals in 2010….
Renewable Electricity Nearly Doubles Under Obama: ‘I Think They’re The Future. They’re Worth Fighting For’
Non-hydro renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled since President Obama took office, reaching 5.75 percent of net electricity, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration. In 2008, before Obama entered the White House, non-hydro resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass represented just over 3 percent of generation. Today, they total nearly 6 percent….
Republican Platform Calls Medicaid a ‘Black Hole.’
Talking about dismantling health care for the poor might seem to clash with balloons and funny hats, but this is a Republican convention, so it fits right in with the celebratory mood. Many in the parade of governors scheduled to speak tonight have long complained about how much they are forced to spend to keep…
GOP team is wrong prescription for patients
One major concern for me and every American is the future of our nation’s health care system. The quality of that system affects us all, and we need details about the candidates’ approach to health care, not high-level talking points. I write this as a lifelong Republican and registered nurse. The foremost priority for me…
Murray Energy Miners Allege They Had To Give Up Pay To Attend ‘Mandatory’ Romney Rally
Earlier this month, Mitt Romney was welcomed for a campaign event at the Century Mine in Beallsville, Ohio, by hundreds of coal workers and their families. Now many of the mine’s workers are saying they were forced to give up a day-worth of pay to attend the event, and they feared they might be fired…
The Networked Energy Web: How The Convergence Of IT And Energy Can Remake The U.S. For The Better
The American electric grid is the largest machine on earth, and has heroically served its purpose for many years: to deliver affordable, reliable energy with nearly universal access. One way of understanding the electrical system is as a “one-to-many” and fundamentally linear system. The electricity grid was built around large, centralized generation from power plants,…
How the Gun Industry Got Rich Stoking Fear About Obama
According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation—a trade association for the country’s gun and ammunition manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retailers as well as its shooting ranges—the American firearms industry employed more than 98,000 people last year and generated an overall economic impact of $31.8 billion. The industry’s employment rate is up 31 percent since 2008….
The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era
The leading economic forecasters all believe that at its peak the stimulus added about 2-4% to GDP, the difference between contraction and growth, and saved or created about 2.5 million jobs. (“Saved or created” has become a punchline—Obama joked after his annual Thanksgiving pardon that he had just saved or created four turkeys—but it simply…
2012 or Never for GOP’s White Base
A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney’s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a Ron Brownstein story outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt…