DOWNLOADS: (225)

PLAYS: (2546)

Embed

MSNBC analyst and former Obama advisor David Axelrod may not have been too happy with Rachel Maddow for her response to President Obama putting Social Security cuts on the table with his budget proposal, but she was exactly right here. The White House seems to want a fight with the left, because if what they were really worried was solvency of the system, they'd put raising the income cap on the table.

After Axelrod did a terrible job of attempting to explain why the administration actually believes this is somehow a good idea and claiming that what they're worried about is preserving the programs and economic growth, Maddow responded.

MADDOW: I believe you that he believes in his budget, but I think that if what he really believes in is Social Security benefit cuts, he's going to feel the ground beneath his feet give way. And I think this is the start that ends badly on the Democratic party (crosstalk).

After Axelrod tried to pretend that progressives “want to do nothing” and just leave the programs exactly as they are now, Maddow shot back.

MADDOW: Nobody's saying do nothing. That's not fair. Nobody's saying do... nobody's saying do nothing. First of all, Social Security isn't the problem with the deficit. Second of all, there is a way to fix it that has nothing to do with starving old people now or in the immediate future.

You have people pay more. And then your system is solved. If you wanted to approach it toward just solvency, that would be one of the things that's on the table. For the Democrats to not put that on the table and say it's all about solvency and not the politics, I just don't buy it.

He walked back some of his previous comments and brought up Medicare and Medicaid solvency, rather than just sticking to the issue of Social Security. He could have defended other portions of the budget such as spending on education and research and development. But after admitting that he's aware that the Republicans are already attacking the Social Security cuts, Axelrod said let's see what their position is in the coming weeks and months -- when they attempt to defend their “indefensible” budget.

Maddow was again correct in her response when she told him that their position in the upcoming weeks and months was going to be exactly where they are now. I'd say you can take that one to the bank. Good for her for calling the administration out for how cynical the politics of this move has been.

DOWNLOADS: (196)

PLAYS: (1990)

Embed

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist says that President Barack Obama did not win re-election because of his promise to raise taxes on the wealthy, but it was because attack ads made voters thing that Mitt Romney was a "poopy-head."

During a Monday interview on CBS, Norquist suggested that Republicans had a mandate not to raise taxes, even it meant going off the so-called "fiscal cliff."

"The House of Representatives was elected, committed to keeping taxes low," the Americans for Tax Reform president explained. "The president was elected on the basis that he was not Romney and that Romney was a poopy-head and you should vote against Romney. And he won by two points. But he didn't make the case that we should have higher taxes and higher spending, he kind of sounded like the opposite."

"Well, I'm not sure that's what the president called Mitt Romney," CBS host Norah O'Donnell pointed out. "The debate that was had -- and I listened very closely to it -- he said very clearly throughout the debate that the wealthiest Americans should pay more. And he won eight of the nine battleground states. And Republicans failed to reclaim the White House or the Senate. What about the exit polls that show a broad support on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans? Are you wrong?"

"Again, you saw those ads that suggested Romney gave people cancer in Ohio for months and months unanswered," Norquist insisted. "You can trash an individual and get them to vote against him. Again where we have an election, there are 30 Republican governors, okay? And they're running campaigns against raising taxes and in favor of, frankly, phasing out the income tax in North Carolina and Kansas and Oklahoma."

O'Donnell pointed out that even House Speaker John Boehner had said that Republicans were willing to accept new revenue as part of a compromise.

"In 2011, Obama said the world would end and we should pass around smelling salts because he wanted to raise the debt ceiling," Norquist opined. "We got a debt ceiling agreement. It was a great compromise. We cut spending. We didn't raise taxes. We didn't cut spending as much as the Republicans wanted. The [Paul] Ryan plan would have reduced Obama's overspending by $6 trillion, we only got two and a half trillion in restraint."

"That's a compromise, it's not as much as the Republicans wanted. The Republicans have already compromised."

In exit polls released on Tuesday, six in ten voters said they supported raising taxes. Almost half wanted to see tax hikes specifically on those making more than $250,000 a year.

“On this particular issue, it wasn’t close,” Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod told CBS News on Sunday.

“You need new revenues, and every objective person who has looked at this agrees on that, so the question is where is that revenue going to come from?” he pointed out. “The president believes it is more equitable to get that from the wealthiest Americans who have done very well and frankly don’t need those tax cuts and who benefited disproportionately from the tax cuts in the last decade. Most Americans agree with that.”

DOWNLOADS: (89)

PLAYS: (261)

Embed

Fox News host Megyn Kelly on Monday invited Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who shouted "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during his 2009 speech to Congress about health care, to comment on whether it was appropriate to call Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney a liar.

Kelly pointed out that several Democrats -- like senior Obama adviser David Axelrod and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter -- had accused Romney of being dishonest about his health care plan and tax cuts for the wealthy during the first presidential debate.

"Do you think they are applying a different standard to Gov. Romney than that they demanded of you?" the Fox News host asked Wilson.

"Absolutely, Megan," the congressman replied. "What I did, it was a spontaneous town-hall moment."

"Do they have a defense to this 'liar, liar, liar' theme because they are not doing it on the floor of the U.S. House?" Kelly wondered.

"Indeed on the House floor, it was inappropriate," Wilson admitted. "But, truly, I think it's inexcusable for the highest levels [of the Obama campaign], [David] Plouffe, Axelrod -- the statements that are being made, and this is being thought out. It's not spontaneous and it's just not true."

Kelly also wanted to know if Wilson had faced a backlash after calling Obama a liar and if the president's campaign could expect the same.

"I received over a half a million letters from people across the United States -- supportive -- and then, in the last election, my percentage of victory went from 7 percent to 10 percent and that's why I don't even have an opponent today, because the American people and the people of the 2nd District of South Carolina know I'm a gentlemen," the tea party-backed congressman explained.

"I think its very important to apologize for a town-hall moment, but these people are being very contrived. And I think it's going to backfire on them because the American people know better, they know the truth now."

DOWNLOADS: (67)

PLAYS: (245)

Embed

Who needs Fox when we've got the talking heads over at CBS doing their best to keep up with them. Here's what the viewers were treated to just after Bob Schieffer's pearl clutching over whether David Axelrod was willing to use the word lie (gasp!) when talking about Mitt Romney -- CBS News Covers For Romney Campaign's Tax Doublespeak:

CBS chief political correspondent John Dickerson disputed President Obama's description of Mitt Romney's tax plan as a "$5 trillion tax cut" because one of Romney's advisers suggested he would reduce the size of his proposed tax cuts if he could not pay for them. But Dickerson is ignoring the fact that Romney running mate Paul Ryan suggested last week that Romney would not reduce the size of his tax cuts because lowering taxes is his highest priority.

During a panel discussion on the presidential debate on Face The Nation, Dickerson said that it was unfair to accuse Romney of being dishonest about his tax plan. Dickerson explained that a top Romney economic adviser "said we have two goals here. One is deficit reduction, the other is reducing marginal rates. If those come in conflict our primary goal is deficit reduction and the marginal rates might not go down as much."

That stands in direct contrast to remarks by Paul Ryan, who was asked specifically if Mitt Romney would "scale back on the 20 percent tax cut for the wealthy" if the cuts could not be paid for and replied "No, no.".

Dickerson also did his best to play the "both sides" are equally terrible false equivalency game by attempting to equate Romney's constant lying on the campaign trail about anything and everything he's done to President Obama for not keeping a campaign pledge to cut the budget in half and not closing Gitmo. As Axelrod rightfully pointed out, the comparison is utterly ridiculous, considering he was at the mercy of Congress on accomplishing both.

Whether Axelrod is right about the lies catching up, who knows, but it seems CBS is more than willing to do their part to help Romney out and gloss over them.

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (143)

PLAYS: (1005)

Embed

Fox News co-host Steve Doocy on Monday attempted spin Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's "ideologue" label as an advantage to Mitt Romney's campaign.

During a series of interviews on Sunday, Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod blasted Ryan's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system while skewing tax cuts to the wealthy, calling Wisconsin Republican a "right-wing ideologue" over and over and over again.

"They're trying to define Ryan before Mitt Romney even gets a chance to introduce Paul Ryan," Fox News host Eric Bolling noted on Monday.

"What's a matter with being an ideologue?" Doocy wondered. "I mean, an ideologue means you stand for something. And these guys clearly stand for something."

In fact, Merriam-Webster defines ideologue as "an impractical idealist" or "an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology."

And on Sunday, President Barack Obama warned that it was blind partisanship from people like Ryan which was holding the country back.

"What's holding us back is a brand of Washington politics that says we are not going to compromise no matter what," Obama said during a rally in Chicago. "It's gridlock and stalemates and dysfunction, and it's an idea propagated by the other side that somehow we're going to grow this economy from the top down and that if people at the top are doing really, really well, then everyone else is automatically going to benefit."

The president explained: "My opponent and Congressman Ryan and their allies in Congress, they all believe that if we just get rid of more regulations on big corporations and we give more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, it will lead to jobs and prosperity for everybody else."

"They have tried to sell us this trickle-down fairy dust before, and guess what? It didn't work."

DOWNLOADS: (113)

PLAYS: (361)

Embed

As Dave Johnson at Campaign for America's Future noted last week, even though Mitt Romney's been running nothing but one dishonest campaign ad after another since announcing his recent run for president, the media has finally found a campaign ad they can "cluck tongues at" and it's not a Romney ad:

After a series of blatantly dishonest Mitt Romney campaign ads have been saturating the airwaves -- one even editing audio to make it sound as if the President said something that he never said --our media elites have finally found an ad to click their tongues at. A pro-Obama ad from super PAC Priorities USA Action features Joe Soptic explaining what happened to his wife after the Bain Capital laid him off, taking away their health insurance. The ad has not even been run on TV [...]

Note, this is not an Obama campaign ad. It is illegal for a campaign to coordinate or even communicate or coordinate with these outside groups.

The Romney campaign responded with an ad saying that this ad came from the Obama campaign itself -- yet another in a series of lies from the Romney campaign. [...]

Again, this was not an Obama campaign ad, and has never been aired on TV. Contrast the elite media reaction to this ad with their reaction to the dishonest ads that the Romney campaign has been running on TV, using doctored audio, claiming Obama is "gutting welfare reform," accusing Obama of "war on religion," accusing Obama of corruption, etc. The media elites say this ad, showing what happens to families when they are laid off and lose their health insurance, "crossed a line." Not calling a sitting President a "Marxist" ot the lie about "death panels" or "palling around with terrorists" or doctored audio in an ad from a presidential candidate -- but explaining the tragedy of being laid off and losing health insurance is what "crosses a line."

Case in point, this Sunday's Meet the Press and David Gregory doing his best to add to the list at Dave's post. I was glad to see some push back from Axelrod though.

DAVID GREGORY: Those of us who cover these campaigns understand that even though there's a big choice here it's not as if some of the personal destruction back and forth is going to go away. And we've seen a lot of that this week. And Governor Romney has taken particular aim at an ad that's being run by the president's own Super PAC run by a former press aide to the campaign and in the White House. And this is a campaign about Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain, even though the story that's highlighted in the Super PAC ad happened after Mitt Romney left. Let me play a portion of this and also show you how Mitt Romney's responding to it. Watch.

(VIDEO NOT TRANSCRIBED)

DAVID GREGORY: Disrespecting the office of the presidency is the charge from Mitt Romney about ads like that with the implication that somehow Bain and Mitt Romney was responsible for that woman's death. How do you respond to that?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, I certainly don't think that would be a fair implication. That isn't stated in the ad. It's not a fair implication. But what is true is that Governor Romney and his partners loaded that company with debt, walked away with millions of dollars and left the workers there bereft, without the healthcare they were promised, without the pensions and other benefits that they were promised. And that is emblematic of the kind of--

DAVID GREGORY: You don't think that ad-- (OVERTALK)

DAVID AXELROD: --of work that he did. That is important.

DAVID GREGORY: It doesn't cross the line--

DAVID AXELROD: But let me ask you--

DAVID GREGORY: --in the debate?

DAVID AXELROD: --ask you something, David. How does Mitt Romney, in the very week that he's running an ad that he approves. At the end he says, "I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message." Millions and millions and millions of dollars accusing the president of removing the work requirement from welfare, which every single person who's looked at it, every expert, every news organization, every fact checker has said is patently false.

And he is lecturing people on the quality of campaigns? He ought to be ashamed of himself. He ought to tell his own campaign in the commercials that he controls, "Take that off. It's not true. It's not fair." When he does that, maybe he'll have some standing to lecture other people on the quality of the campaign.

DAVID GREGORY: We're in a new gear in this campaign, clearly. David Axelrod, thank you very much.

DAVID AXELROD: All right, thank you.

DOWNLOADS: (81)

PLAYS: (239)

Embed

Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod on Sunday warned that the budget plan authored by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), was a "prescription for economic catastrophe."

During an interview on NBC, host David Gregory predicted that Romney and his VP pick would claim that President Barack Obama was trying "scare seniors" by claiming Ryan's budget would end Medicare as it exists today, turning it into a voucher system.

"There's no doubt, David, that we've got to do more [to make Medicare solvent]," Axelrod explained. "But the question is are you going to do it in a way that preserves the program and the basic integrity of the program and the access to care that seniors need, or are you going to turn it into a voucher program with ever-decreasing value of the vouchers relative to health care costs and throw seniors onto the tender mercies of the private insurance market?"

The senior adviser said he agreed with an assertion made by former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, that Ryan's budget was "right-wing social engineering."

"In terms of debt, I heard Congressman Ryan talking about debt -- as you pointed out, this was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts," Axelrod charged. "And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy."

He added: "We have more to do, not just to deal with unemployment, but to rebuild the middle class in this country. And the way to do it is not to give trillions of dollars in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, raise taxes on the middle class and cut things like college loans, research and technology, infrastructure, energy. This is prescription for economic catastrophe."

Speaking to ABC's George Stephanopolous on Sunday, Axelrod went even farther, claiming that Romney and Ryan "do not believe" in Medicare.

"He’s the guy who’s the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens. He’s someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest," Axelrod said.

DOWNLOADS: (203)

PLAYS: (664)

Embed

As Mitt Romney's campaign was trying to distance itself from his running mate's proposed budget on Sunday, senior adviser Ed Gillespie admitted that the candidate "would have signed" Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial plan.

After the Republican presidential hopeful on Saturday announced that he had selected Ryan as the vice presidential nominee, CNN obtained a campaign memo that sought to distinguish Romney's policies from Ryan's budget proposal.

"Gov. Romney applauds Paul Ryan for going in the right direction with his budget, and as president he will be putting together his own plan for cutting the deficit and putting the budget on a path to balance," the memo said.

In a briefing to reporters on Sunday, campaign spokesman Kevin Madden tried to prevent the race from turning into a referendum on Ryan.

"Gov. Romney is at the top of the ticket," Madden insisted. "And Governor Romney's vision for the country is something that Congressman Ryan supports."

But in a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Gillespie was forced to admit that Romney supported Ryan's budget and would have signed it into law.

"Well, as Governor Romney has made clear, if the Romney -- sorry, if the Ryan budget had come to his desk as president, he would have signed it, of course," Gillespie told CNN's Candy Crowley. "And one of the reasons that he chose Congressman Ryan is his willingness to put forward innovative solutions in the budget."

Meanwhile, Democrats like Obama campaign senior adviser David Axelrod were calling the Ryan budget a "prescription for economic catastrophe" because it would turn Medicare into a voucher system while giving tax breaks to wealthy Americans.

"This was a guy who rubber stamped every aspect of the Bush economic policy, including not paying for two wars, a Medicare prescription plan, two big tax cuts,” Axelrod told ABC's David Gregory on Sunday. “And now he wants trillions of dollars of more budget-busting tax cuts skewed to the wealthy.”

"He’s the guy who’s the architect of a plan to end Medicare as we know it and turn it into a voucher program and ship thousands of dollars of costs onto senior citizens," the senior Obama adviser added on ABC's This Week. "He’s someone who was the architect of a Social Security privatization scheme that was so out there that even George Bush called it irresponsible, and he believes that we should ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest."

(h/t: Think Progress)

DOWNLOADS: (260)

PLAYS: (4155)

Embed

Top Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod on Sunday called out Fox News host Chris Wallace after he repeated a claim made by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney that President Barack Obama was trying to block military voters in Ohio.

In a statement last week, Romney accused Obama of launching a lawsuit to strip military voters of early voting rights in Ohio -- a claim that both USA Today and the Obama campaign have said is false.

"Your campaign is suing the state of Ohio for giving members of the military extra time to vote early, to the Monday before the election while other voters are going to have only until Friday," Wallace told Axelrod on Sunday. "You don't think that members of the military who are serving this country deserve special consideration to vote?"

"I absolutely do and the way you stated it and the way, frankly, Gov. Romney has stated it is completely false and misleading," Axelrod shot back. "What that lawsuit calls for is not to deprive the military of the right to vote on the final weekend of the campaign -- of course they should have that right. What that suit is about is whether the rest of Ohio should have the same right."

"And I think it's shameful that Gov. Romney would hide behind our servicemen and women to try and win a lawsuit to try and deprive other Ohioans of their right to vote," he added.

Ohio's Republican-controlled legislature last year enacted new voting restrictions that prevented most voters from casting early ballots after the Friday before the election. Members of the military, however, had their rights preserved, giving them until Monday to vote.

DOWNLOADS: (110)

PLAYS: (478)

Embed

It seems Mitt Romney has himself a bit of a problem with the small business owner featured in one of his latest campaign ads that I wrote about here: Lawrence O'Donnell Hits Team Romney for Latest Hack Job. It appears the star of that ad received a whole lot of government money to help out his small business, directly contradicting the message the Romney campaign was trying to get across in the ad he was featured in.

Star of Romney ‘My Hands Didn’t Build This’ Ad Received Millions in Government Loans and Contracts:

In a new TV ad, Romney features an offended New Hampshire businessman, saying, “My father’s hands didn’t build this company? My hands didn’t build this company? My son’s hands aren’t building this company?”

The New Hampshire Union Leader’s John DiStato today reports that in 1999 the business in question, Gilchrist Metal, “received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds issued by the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority ‘to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment’…” In addition, in 2011, Gilchrist Metal “received two U.S. Navy sub-contracts totaling about $83,000 and a smaller, $5,600 Coast Guard contract in 2008…”

The businessman, Jack Gilchrist, also acknowledged that in the 1980s the company received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan totaling “somewhere south of” $500,000, and matching funds from the federally-funded New England Trade Adjustment Assistance Center.

“I’m not going to turn a blind eye because the money came from the government,” Gilchrest said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting some of my tax money back. I’m not stupid, I’m not going to say ‘no.’ Shame on me if I didn’t use what’s available.”

I'd say you got some of your tax money back and then some pal. And shame on you for making a dishonest ad for Mitt Romney when you knew full well you don't even agree with the basic premise of the ad, which you admitted on Neil Cavuto's show that O'Donnell went after in the link at the top of this post.

And for more on Mitt Romney's troubles for the week which O'Donnell reported on as well, here's more on the latest on whether we're going to get a full accounting from his time at the Olympics. It appears the answer is no. They were shredding or burning documents to make sure the public would never see them.

Mitt Romney Olympic Archive Still Off-Limits:

Continue reading »