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Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images
Mitt Romney holds a rally at Defiance High School in Defiance, Ohio, on Thursday.
DEFIANCE, Ohio – Under the bright lights of a high school football field here in Northwest Ohio, Mitt Romney's opposition to the 2009 auto bailout reared its head again as a campaign issue that could help decide the result of this critical swing state.
Sen. Rob Portman, introducing Romney, brought up the bailout, telling a crowd of more than 10,000 supporters that "we need to talk about this tonight" in an effort to clear up what he said were dishonest attacks by the president at the last debate.
"First, it was President Obama who actually took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy. That’s a fact," Portman said. "Second, Mitt Romney did propose government help. He proposed government guarantees for loans. He proposed the government backing up the warranties, and folks, all the independent fact checkers who have looked at this agree: President Obama was wrong."
While on the trail today, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused President Obama's campaign of not having a plan, and ignored questions about Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's controversial remarks on rape. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.
Romney did not mention the bailout explicitly, but did voice his support for the U.S. auto industry, saying he would stand up to China on trade issues that affect auto companies and mentioning reports today that automaker Jeep was considering moving its operations entirely overseas.
"I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers of this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America. I'm going to fight to make sure trade is fair, and if it’s fair, America will win," Romney said.
Democrats quickly seized on any mention of the auto industry to reinforce Obama's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, looking to capitalize on an issue they believe is particularly resonant among voters in this corner of Ohio.
"While Barack Obama bet on the American worker and saved the American auto industry and more than one million jobs, Mitt Romney would have just ‘let Detroit go bankrupt.’ Voters in Ohio won’t forget how—at a make or break moment for one of America’s key industries—Mitt Romney would have turned his back and watched GM and Chrysler go under," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement.
The Obama campaign also forwarded reporters a statement from a Chrysler spokesperson claiming there were never plans to move assembly lines to China.
“Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation,” Gualberto Ranieri, a spokesman for Chrysler said in the statement posted on the automakers' blog.
Reuters, Getty Images
In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.
Coincidentally, after the Thursday night rally, a group of Detroit newspapers announced they would be endorsing President Obama, shredding Romney for his position in opposition to the bailout.
"It is an unforgivable and unconscionable [sic] position by a man with the audacity to claim himself a son of Detroit. Romney may have grown up here, but he left long ago," the editorial on MLive.com read in part.
All this serves to highlight how the auto bailout legacy continues to be a political minefield for Romney here in the industrial Midwest.
On Friday, Romney will return to safer ground in Iowa where he is scheduled to deliver a speech on the economy, debt and deficits, which could serve as a summation of his views on the election's most important issue as the campaign moves into its final full week.
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If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
It's the Obama/UAW deal that should haunt the hard working at Ohio Automotive suppliers. Detroit has and will squeeze you because anything UAW is off the table, costs have to come down to compete globally and Auto venders will get it more, and with less lube. The UAW and Federal government have ownership for crying out loud. A private sector, market solution as Romney commented on would of been very beneficial to the Auto venders in Ohio and across the country.
Evidently you missed the part where unions made MASSIVE concessions in order that GM might survive and they could retain their jobs. It's sad that so many ignorant people (this includes you) blame the unions for all the world's ills when in fact it was unions who helped create the American middle class as well as the 40 hour work week, weekends off, sick leave, safe working conditions and much more. If you've never read Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" I suggest you educate yourself to the atrocious conditions American workers labored under less than a century ago. But you won't, you prefer ignorance.
You'll notice that the South which has zero history of worker's rights and unions pays it's workers dramatically less and that those states are rife with poverty. Hardly a coincidence, I might add.
Save the Union history semantics, I'm from WI had that BS coming in all orifices for quite some time. UAW concessions saved their own ass, I agree, they(UAW) should of been allowed to fail.
Intrepid,
Too bad they had to make the concessions. That is what happens whey you run a company into the ground in large part based on greediness of the UAW. Those are the facts. Sorry man.
If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
This is the only part of the entire "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" op-ed you need to read.
Romney's argument is that the auto industry should've filed bankruptcy before the government helped. Obama helped then had them restructure through bankruptcy.
So the big bold plan of Romney's was the exact same as what Obama did...but in reverse. And of course, it wouldn't work, nobody was going to accept a deal from any of these car makers without guarantees. So the government offering guarantees after the fact wouldn't accomplish a thing.
The Bush Years! Bush run up $14Trillion on America's credit card. United States Armed Forces $11 Trillion. U.S Armed Forces are bad asses for the 21st country.
The Congressional paycheck total each year cost tax payers $1.2 Trillion.
From the terror attacks of 9/11/2001 to 6/29/2008 the cost of WAR at U.S. $3.7 Trillion from tax payers and it's not done. If you total the cost of war for the last 30 years, it's around $100 trillion of taxpayer's money!
The 2011 budget about $18.5 billion for NASA.
NASA's Mars rover Cost $2.4 billion.
NASA's Mars Curiosity rover that originally it was to cost $1.6 billion and was scheduled to launch in fall, they chose to wait, even though that added hundreds of millions of dollars to the price tag, bringing it to $2.5 billion. Tax payer's money to see if life was on Mars!
Federal welfare programs $745.84 billion in fiscal year 2011
U.S. aid budget of about $35 billion to overseas help each year.
Between the federal and America federal public school elementary each year is around only $500 billion. We have the taxpayers money for war, but not for Schools.
FBI & CIA Budget each year? This we need to help keep America safe! $????????????????
Amazing how uninformed people can be. Read this, THEN try and post your nonsense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/delusions-about-the-detroit-bailout.html
Interesting but just another story about Romney’s bad judgment.
Mormon missionary Mitt Romney and Ryan and the men of the Republican Party. GO F YOURSELF! So you know, Rape in the United States today. stop this madness! By fixing the man like a dog. That would make him think before doing the crime. You do the crime, you pay for that crime. Woman are not a thing! They are a real person.
World English Dictionary RAPE:
1. forcing of somebody into sex: the crime of using force somebody to have sexual intercourse with somebody
2. instance of rape: an instance of the crime of rape
Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, 72 of every 100,000 females in the United States were raped last year. 6.7 million pregnancies in the United States every year. Other research has found that about 80,000 American female children are sexually abused or raped each year. From the age 1 years old and up. It has been estimated that one in six American women has been or will be raped during her life.
When a viable sperm penetrates a viable egg inside a woman's reproductive tract, the result is a fertilized egg that can then implant in the uterus. That fact of life is consistent regardless of how that sperm and egg met up, including whether or not the sperm was ejaculated during rape.
That may be news to Rep. Todd Akin from Missouri who told a local television station, in explaining his stance that abortion should not be allowed even in the case of rape: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
"Physiologically, if the sperm is in the vagina, a pregnancy can occur, regardless of the circumstances of how that sperm got there," said Dr. Melisa Holmes, an ob-gyn and founder of Girlology, an organization that promotes healthy sexuality and communication in families.
And though the anti-abortion Republican says he "misspoke," Holmes says that Akin's remark also suggests that some rapes are not "legitimate," and this continues a harmful misconception about violence against women.
"A rape is a rape, and a woman has the same physical and emotional consequences whether she's raped by a stranger in a dark alley or someone she's known for five years," Holmes told LiveScience. "That's one of those misperceptions that gets perpetuated and unfortunately affects women in a bad way — 'Were you really raped, or were you at fault for part of it?'"
Perhaps Akin is correct in thinking it's not the easiest of tasks to get pregnant; that's why men don't ejaculate just one sperm and instead release nearly 100 million sperm. (Men who have fewer than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen may have difficulty conceiving, according to a WebMD article.) That's because few sperm survive the grueling journey from the vagina to the fallopian tubes where they can meet up with an egg. Even for those that make it, only the healthiest will penetrate, and fertilize, the egg. [11 Odd Facts About the Pregnant Body]
Still, of the 6.7 million pregnancies in the United States every year, about half are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The chance of getting pregnant from one event of unprotected sexual intercourse is 5 percent on average, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
And according to research by Holmes and her colleagues published in 1996 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, that same rate applies to rape victims, though it's tricky to compare these different populations.
"Rape-related pregnancy occurs with significant frequency," the study researchers wrote in their journal article. "It is a cause of many unwanted pregnancies, and is closely linked with family and domestic violence."
In the study, Holmes and her colleagues, followed more than 4,000 American adults over a three-year period. Nationally, they found rape-related pregnancy rate was 5 percent among women of reproductive age, 12 to 45, meaning about 32,000 pregnancies result from rape each year, they concluded. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy that they looked at closely, 32 percent of women maintained the pregnancy and kept the infant, 50 percent underwent an abortion, nearly 6 percent placed the baby up for adoption and nearly 12 percent had a miscarriage.
At the end of the day, Holmes said of Akin's comments, "It's just simple lack of education into the human body," adding that "the reproductive system is going to respond in the same way whether it's rape, or you're madly in love with someone. It's tubes and pipes and sperm and eggs, and there's nothing that will stop that process."
Read more: #ixzz2AMwNajzc
OBAMA 4 WOMENS RIGHTS
GetReal: I´m sorry to burst your bubble, but Dr. Akin said that rape does not result in pregnancy and I believe him, he is a doctor after all.
And still more important, even in the unlikely event of pregnancy by rape, that is exactly what God intended. You CANNOT go against God´s wishes, he is a crafty fellow.
I hope I have enlightened you.
Somebody should explain to these people that God is very customer service friendly. If he gives somebody a gift that they don't want or need, he is happy to take it back.
After Polygamy was Outlawed in the United States, the Romney Family put America behind them and moved to Mexico where they could continue to practice Polygamy.
If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
1. Romney never said he would allow GM to be shut down. He DID say he would have preferred a managed bankruptcy instead of a bailout. If you study the economics of what actually took place, Obama and his ilk DID take GM through a bankruptcy. The only difference was that Obama used taxpayer dollars to do so, while Romney's plan would have used private investors to fund the reorganization, instead of making the US Government the largest owner of severely devalued GM stock.
2. GM is NOT, in spite of the spin the Dems are putting on it, a hale and hearty company. If anything, it is on life support. Very shortly, further infusions of taxpayer dollars are going to be needed once again, as GM is heading right back to the same place it was before the bailout.
3. GM still hasn't learned how to build cars that the public needs or wants. Reuters news agency has reported that GM loses $49,000 on every Chevy Volt sold, and, Motor Trend Magazine has just reported that the newly redesigned 2013 Chevy Malibu has gone from being one of its most recommended family cars, to dead last in a comparison test with five other brands, and will no longer be recommended, because it does not fulfill the requirements of a family car. These are facts - look them up yourself!
4. A great deal of GM's rosy picture recently has been due to the fact that the government made massive purchases of GM cars & trucks, again at taxpayer expense.
5. Ford was able to restructure itself and get back on a stable footing, without one dollar of taxpayer money. That's what Romney wanted GM to do.
6. OMG=Obama Must Go!
7. Remember in November!
After Polygamy was Outlawed in the United States, the Romney Family put America behind them and moved to Mexico where they could continue to practice Polygamy.
If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
REDWOOD, you are parsing words here. Willard made it very clear that HE WOULD NOT SUPPORT FEDERAL MONEY BEING USED TO SUSTAIN GM. Since there was NO ONE in the private sector at that time to cough up that kind of money it would have meant not only the closure of GM but all their subcontractors which woudl then have brought Ford down in addition. I have heard many financial experts speak to this issue and they all made it clear that without federal intervention, GM would go bankrupt and then be sold off in bits and pieces. Now Romney wants to take credit for it's success saying "I'm glad the president finally took my advice and interveined. I take a lot of the credit for the success of the bailout". And who ever said Mittens was a flip flopper??? LMFAO
You're wrong. This is the end of Romney's op-ed. He was all for using public funds to save the auto industry, he just want the bankruptcy first.
What we know for a fact is that they never would've survived restructuring without the cash.
So you're wrong that Romney didn't want to spend public money and you're wrong if you agree the auto industry (or the country) would be fine without the bailout.
"But many auto industry experts....and former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, a Republican, say there was no private-sector financing available in 2009 and the bailout was the only way to keep the companies alive.
"He thinks we didn't try to borrow money from the banks?" Lutz told the Detroit Free Press in February. "The banks were even more broke than we were. Who had the money?"
Without financing during bankruptcy, GM and Chrysler would have had to go out of business, taking down many suppliers. That would have likely caused bankruptcies at the healthier automakers such Ford Motor, who would not have been able to get the parts they needed to build cars. That is why Ford went to Capitol Hill in late 2008 pushing for the rescue of its rivals."
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/06/autos/auto-bailout/index.html
Redwood, at the time, nobody, NOBODY in the private sector would have taken the chance to finance GM out of the mess they were in.
You just spout the same BS we have been hearing for the last twelve months from your hero. It´s easy to lie when you don´t fear the consequences, and those two clowns are the kings of spin, fabrication and lies.
Romney thought that GM should have borrowed money from it's parents.
To "quote" Obama's nasty CRUDE mouth!
B.S........He did NOT save the Auto Industry.......He saved the Auto Unions!!!!!
Oh really??? In your dreams sweetheart. Go tell that to the hundreds of thousands of auto workers as well as all the sub contractors who have jobs because of the bailout. Sorry if you hate unions, but they created the American middle class along with decent working conditions, fair pay, weekends off and many more benefits that people literally bled and died for. I do realize you'd prefer the entire nation be like the South with no tradition of workers rights which is why poverty is rampant in the South not to mention illiteracy, teen pregnancy and a whole host of issues directly related to their having no concept of workers rights. I guess when Americans are working like Chinese Coolies for 50 cents a day, folks like you and Willard will be happy.
PATTY, did the president reall say BULL@!$%#?????? Oh my word, I've never heard such language. LOL
Patty, your irrational hate for unions comes from...?
As Intrepid said, you would like workers to work for you for peanuts. Congrats, patriot.
When you enjoy having Saturday and Sunday off from work, thank a union.
Remember Mitt doesn't care about the 47%.
He intends on shrinking it. What a concept.
TO: Bootstraps who wrote:
You ought to get paid for making up lies for Romney, cause Romney never said anything like that and we know because we heard him with our own ears how Mitt Romney feels about 47% of the American People.
Obama/Biden 2012
Bootstraps, the only thing shrinking is Mitt´s brain, and his chances of being prez.
Lower tax rates=more employed and contributing= more 53 = less 47
increasing revenue while decreasing expenditures
Yes Bootstraps - we know that republicans think that lowering taxes will increase revenue. Can you explain why this didn't work when Bush did it? The only thing I have heard so for is that Bush didn't have the magic underwear.
Bush spent like a drunken sailor.
Romney turned his back on Detroit and the middle class and now it's time for America to turn its' back on Romney. I'm voting for Obama. He actually cares about the middle class and we owe it to him for saving millions of auto industry jobs.
Republicanism: The ideology that believes the best road to travel down is exactly the one that caused America's longest recession in history in the first place!
G.W. Bush took a Bill Clinton Democrat Surplus and with a couple of strokes of his pen in 2001 and 2003 proceeded to lop off a humongous slab of vitally needed tax from the richest people and corporations in America which then triggered the whole mess that followed!
Now they are doing it again, rushing madly around the country trying to convince people to repeat the same failed policies, policies that didn't work then and will never work in the future!
But this time folks, what they're proposing is a guarantee to make everything infinitely worse! Their "candidate" Mitt Romney, that King of the Cayman Island and Swiss Bank accounts, has arrived with nothing more than a rerun of that same Bush Plan!
People, the definition of insanity is to repeat exactly what has failed you previously. A vote for Romney can only guarantee that same Bush fiasco! It's a retread, folks!
Now that we've weathered the Bush Recession it's time to vote for sane, steady growth for all the people including the Middle Class, not just for what benefits that 1% at the top. Vote President Obama a second term, avoid "vouchers" while saving Public Education for your children, Social Security, and Medicade!
G O P - Translation: Greed Over People.
So what would Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan do for the poor and the working class if they were elected? Let's recap:
This is a short post. Sometimes it's better to lay out the facts simply and starkly, because Romney's priorities really are pretty stark: He wants to cut taxes on the rich and cut spending on the poor. That's Romney's real poverty plan
"Romney may have grown up here, but he left long ago,"
Truer words have never been spoken. How can a man say he is going to be "hard" on china when he readilly ships jobs over there AND invests in businesses that are still doing it. Besides helping create one of it's pioneers.
"Activists and workers have called on Romney to use his influence with Bain to halt the offshoring."
You think he will do ANYTHING? No. This man is a fraud.
You know this how? No financial firm would lend money to GM before they filed Chapter 11. But once UAW is out of the game, and GM is in bancrupcy, government guaraneed loans would have been a good investment.
"But many auto industry experts....and former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, a Republican, say there was no private-sector financing available in 2009 and the bailout was the only way to keep the companies alive.
"He thinks we didn't try to borrow money from the banks?" Lutz told the Detroit Free Press in February. "The banks were even more broke than we were. Who had the money?"
Without financing during bankruptcy, GM and Chrysler would have had to go out of business, taking down many suppliers. That would have likely caused bankruptcies at the healthier automakers such Ford Motor, who would not have been able to get the parts they needed to build cars. That is why Ford went to Capitol Hill in late 2008 pushing for the rescue of its rivals."
http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/06/autos/auto-bailout/index.html
It's common knowledge that there was no private money available but this is all the right wing has. Credit markets were frozen.
Give us the truth Garrett Haake and NBC. You should be demanding the truth from
this administration! Why was the country misled? Why did the Seals have to
"disobey" orders and go to save the people at the consulate? Why was air power
not brought in? And most of all... All of this information was available, yet
the "No credible information telling us it wasn't the video" is being accepted
by NBC? Shame. Obama lied, patriots died, and NBC complied.
Who is the genius who keeps cutting and pasting the same tired message? Drink another one, buddy!!!
History of the Romney Family, a proud tradition.
After Polygamy was Outlawed in the United States, the Romney Family put America behind them and moved to Mexico where they could continue to practice Polygamy.
If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
LMAO Romney is overtaking Obama in Oh,, and NBC is still in masterbating mode for Obama
OBAMA_____________VS___________________AMERICA
RCP Ohio Average
Obama +2.1
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/oh/ohio_romney_vs_obama-1860.html
Ad Likens Obama Vote To Losing Your Virginity
Campaign urges to 'do it with a guy' who 'cares whether you get health insurance and... birth control'
Whats this? vote democrat..get herpes?
History of the Romney Family, a proud tradition.
After Polygamy was Outlawed in the United States, the Romney Family put America behind them and moved to Mexico where they could continue to practice Polygamy.
If you want to learn about Mitt Romney s roots in Mexico click on the following link.
It tells of how his Grandfather moved to Mexico to continue Polygamy because it was outlawed in America and it also tells of the Mexican Romney family and their fight with Mexican Drug Lords. Pretty interesting;
http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-mexican-mormon-war-part-1
SOURCES WHO WERE ON THE GROUND in Benghazi during the attack on the US consulate tell Fox News that CIA operatives twice asked for permission to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and his staff, and twice were told to 'stand down' — while a later request for military backup was denied.
No wonder Obama is nothing but a coward, Fox news will expose him for his lying
OBAMA_____________VS________________AMERICA
airmanc5; Can you show the EVIDENCE of this "claim" or are you just making it up? Just as SOOoo many claims from the WACKO right turn out to be? To try to win on LIES and CONFUSION is One Foolish Idea!
If CIA operatives were told to stand down, it wasn't by Obama. Someone in the field made a tactical decision, not the White House.
I happen to truth Condie Rice. I don't think she'll shill for Obama (since she's campaigning for Romney) and she was talking to Greta VanStruten so it wasn't the lame stream media...
…When there is a fog of war like this, there are a lot of competing stories coming in, there’s a lot of competing information coming in and it takes a little while to know precisely what has happened. …There are protocols in place. I have no reason to believe that they weren’t followed. But it is not very easy in circumstances like this to know precisely what’s going on as it’s unfolding.
Off the record, I'm going to tax the middle class..Obama
airhead; Just ANOTHER made up post. Certainly One Foolish Idea!
IF he said it, where are the "quotation" marks?