Woot! Woot! I see pretty patterns in the smokescreen too!

And to think I sacrificed precious toenail-clipping time to type out this comment!

Please also see my most recent diary: “The Cherry-Pick Mitt Romney Movement.”

http://my.firedoglake.com/cassiodorus/2012/07/13/the-cherry-pick-mitt-romney-movement/

We know O can fight. Fighting to keep his gig is very rational (and ego boosting).

It’s what he chooses to fight for where we despair.

Yeah, “it’s about time” Democrats (and President Obama) learned to play hardball with Republicans. But when will they learn to play hardball with criminals on Wall Street and in the TBTF banks?

Who will you vote for in 2012?

The criminal elite Romney or the tool of the criminal elite Obama?

more election theater for the masses….

Obama has spent his entire time in the WH whoring for rich pricks like Romney.

This is why Citizens United was such a disaster — and why it needs to be repealed or neutralized somehow.

Ironically, it’s the Democrats who helped Republicans pass the laws that made it easier to ship jobs to Mexico, India and China. Remember NAFTA? President Clinton signed that law in 1993. Everybody agreed it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Today, Democrats and Republicans claim they never supported it. LOL!

Just played the ad — and you’re right, it is brutal. Nothing but one body blow after another.

Mittens wants Bain and Bermuda to go away. Not gonna happen.

The 2012 U.S. elections are being bought by foreign money.

Everyone who wins on November 6th 2012 will be illegitimate.

Jim Hightower didn’t think it was so hot. His motto was “NAFTA – we don’t hafta!”

It would be amusing to read that someone in DC pretends they don’t support NAFTA anymore. Meanwhile, and in secret…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-robertson/trans-pacific-partnership_b_1476261.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-chamber-hopeful-trans-pacific-trade-pact-ready-in-2013-but-not-this-year-as-planned/2012/07/13/gJQAsAtRiW_story.html

The Koch brothers are foreign money?

We don’t know what are buying the elections. These tax-exempt “advocacy” groups don’t have to disclose who their donors are.

Do you really thing the Chinese and the Saudis and the Russians aren’t buying themselves Senators and Congressmen?

Greatest bargain on earth.

Romney will still kick Obama’s ass in November. I’ll be happy to see Obama lose, but disgusted to see Romney win. This country is on a downward trajectory.

Can’t repeal a SCOTUS decision.

We need a new justice or two to replace some rogues there, then another case similar enough to take down C-United. I have Schumer on the short list, how does that sound?

Exactly.

And what will Obama do about outsourcing and off-shore tax havens? Where’s his ad about that?

The public face of business doesn’t play hard ball with their employers.

Simply put-Scary

We know what he did with the CEO of UBS that was under investigation by the IRS: went golfing on Maratha’s Vineyard.

The outcome worked out quite well for UBS and the criminal rich.

“Now watch this drive.” Oops, that was Bush.

In a comment on Naked Capitalism (reproduced below) we can see that the PTB have the situation well in hand. The fact that illegality in the financial sector is not only allowed but comes with a codified get-out-of-jail-free card for both bankers and institutions (at least in the UK) should tell us all we need to know.

“And on the day [in July 1992] of the quashing of [certain bankers'] sentences, a friend of mine was phoned by a contact of his in the SFO, Serious Fraud Office, and the contact in the Serious Fraud Office basically said, ‘the message has come down from on high: there will never again be a prosecution of a high-level banker or a mainstream City institution.’ So it would appear from that moment on, there was a kind of new agenda had been set, whereby people in the City and bankers in particular were given carte blanche to do as they chose. This could include, you know, false accounting, this could include defrauding their clients. It could include money laundering. And it seems a dangerous precedent was set at that moment.

“But the situation, if anything, got worse under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when, in 2000, they passed an act, called the Financial Services Markets Act of 2000, which basically included a clause which said that the competitiveness of the City was more important than the rule of law. It said that regulators must consider the international mobility of financial businesses before taking enforcement action, and they must avoid damaging the UK’s competitiveness.”

To review: the UK’s 1992-forward policy of not prosecuting any financial crimes, however outrageous or damaging, was codified by statute in 2000.

And with that, we have the absolute guarantee of total collapse.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/will-the-libor-scandal-lead-to-prosecutions-some-hidden-history-and-current-prospects.html

Obama likes Citizens United. Why do you think he’d appoint anyone who’d repeal it?

His first priority in picking Supreme Court justices will be someone who will defend the Constitutionality of targeted assassinations.

Maybe it got lost together with his ‘pro-union walking shoes’ ad???

Schumer on the short list for the Supreme Court to take down Citizen United?

Is that a Saturday morning joke?

Kabuki show for the masses. No thanks.

The PTB have picked who they want to “win,” and that’s who’ll win. Ads like this are run so that the friends & whores & courtesans of the 1% can make some money.

If this ad “tells the truth” about Rmoney & Bain, then where’s the ad that “tells the truth” about Obama & WallSt/Bankers??

It’s made for the masses so they can hope for change from the leader they get behind.

Ha ha ha ha ha. The joke’s on us.

Join the Cherry-Pick Mitt Romney movement for total liberation!

Wouldn’t you rather have Joe Lieberman, Rahm Emanuel, or Bibi Netanyahu?
I know none of them would represent Wall Street as well as Schumer, but they’d be just as effective in pimping for Israel.

I can’t wait to see Schumer fall someday just like Jamie Dimon is going to fall.

There’s a lot of truth in the words, the first shall be last.

It was bipartisan support under Clinton that laid the groundwork for our current economic disaster, as well. Now Obama travels the NAFTA path by pushing for even more FTAs to gut what is remaining of our manufacturing capacity. He’s a very effective puppet for the PTB and his rewards will be on par with Clinton’s.

I hope you’re young enough to see that happen, if it ever does come to pass. It’s almost like “Waiting for Godot”, or the fall of Bloomberg.

Black Swans happen all the time. Of course it helps to grab a paint brush and get to work.

It’s called the Trans-Pacific Partnership and of course it’s going to be unveiled in 2013 after the Kabuki theater is finished.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-chamber-hopeful-trans-pacific-trade-pact-ready-in-2013-but-not-this-year-as-planned/2012/07/13/gJQAsAtRiW_story.html

I think the elites have thought out the high cost of oil in shipping from China very well and have their plan ready to go to solve it.

They are in the process of colonizing us right here on our own soil. That is the next phase of the global economy.

And the Trans-Pacific Partnership is the perfect way to enact this new phase we the people will call serfdom. It is barreling down upon us and 99% of the people in this country have no idea it is coming.

Attack ads like these are a glaring indication that O doesn’t have a record worth touting. Of course, Romney serves the same oligarchs so the next three months will bring us even more intolerable BS flooding the media. Only a confirmed masochist could take any pleasure from this craptastic campaigning.

Thanks. The name of this disaster-in-waiting keeps slipping my mind. I did remember the acronym was TPP, except it’s so shitty it just brings to mind Toilet Paper. Hasn’t he already successfully pimped for other FTAs smaller in scope prior to this one?

Yes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Colombia_Free_Trade_Agreement

Colombia, the US’ favorite launching-pad for war on Venezuela.

It’s interesting that while that was being enacted in the UK, Clinton was signing into law the Financial Services Modernization Act and the Commodities Futures Modernization Act. It’s almost as if there was a coordinated attack on the 99% in both nations. Must just be a “coincidence”.

I guess it’s an effective ad. Maybe it distracts from the fact that Obama is going full speed ahead with TPP and free trade with the likes of Columbia.

Not just Venezuela, but probably Ecuador, Bolivia and any other Latin American nation that rejects the US’ influence. Still haven’t heard the US response to Colombia’s legalization of 25 grams of marijuana and 1 gram of cocaine for personal use. Is there any chance that Colombia may attempt to throw off the US/CIA yoke and become a sovereign nation?

From my diary:

http://my.firedoglake.com/cassiodorus/2012/07/13/the-cherry-pick-mitt-romney-movement/

Everyone on the “left” wants to be fooled by a cool, self-aware, irony-drenched con artist, and not some rich chump who changes his positions every half hour or so. America’s “left” want to be classy rubes, and not just cheap dates.

It’s only effective if you can still tolerate the sight and sound of O.
Please lose the “u” when you refer to the nation in Latin America, as it is Colombia.

I should probably spend more time at your diary. Some of the willful ignorance and slavish devotion to O that appears on the front page of FDL turns my stomach, hurts my head, and impairs my health and harmony. Thanks.

A lot depends upon the comprador elites in those nations. Do the rich business owners of Ecuador and Bolivia feel they can co-opt Correa and Morales sufficiently, or will they call in air strikes? The comprador elites of Venezuela have already tried a coup d’etat, and for two days it succeeded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt

It’s a great ad, taxes and jobs.

Wish POTUS would rescind trade agreements with Korea, Panama, and Columbia, then pull support for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Local Dem candidates can run versions of this.

More importantly, it’s a springboard to buy Union, buy U.S. buy local.

Thanks for that.

I try to track events in Latin America and was already aware of the CIA backed coup attempt in Venezuela. A similar attempt was made against Correa by a portion of the police force that may have been sponsored by the US Ambassador, leading to her ouster from Ecuador. The recent uprising in Bolivia was probably US/corporate instigated as well. Morales nationalized the mining operation and saved himself and the democracy. The coups in Paraguay and Honduras recently were successful in reinstating US/oligarch influence however.

Why would this POTUS rescind those FTAs or pull support for the TPP, when these were implemented by his puppeteers and he profits from them? You are aware that he is a member of and serves the 1%.

Poke around the internet and you’ll find a list of 150 or so US interventions in Latin American and Caribbean countries. Obama policy has been no change at all–par for the poor people corpses (the fact that they’re almost always people of color? Mere coincidence.) It’s once liberals start paying attention to what happens outside the US, to foreign policy, that we might get some change in this country. In the meantime, gay rights fights, etc. remain the only issues we base our outrage in.

I’m not holding my breath in.re. the “liberals” actually becoming aware, when the majority of the “information” they’re bombarded with is US propaganda. Even those who objected to the Iraq invasion had no problem with the Libya fiasco, the possible Syria invasion, the demonizing of Iran, O’s kill list droning, etc., etc., etc.

Whenever I hear another ridiculous false equivalency argument stating or implying that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans, I want scream! There is no Democratic equivalency for the incompetence, immorality, insanity, extremism and personal mercenary agenda of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Rick Scott, Rick Perry, Rick Snyder, Jan Brewer, Paul LePage, Jon Kasich, Scott Walker, Tom Corbett, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, the Koch brothers, Dick Armey, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, Joel Osteen, Tim Ryan, Eric Cantor, Peter King, Darrell Issa, Steve King, Virginia Foxx, Jean Schmidt, Joe Walsh, Allen West and on, and on and on. The GOP is simply rotten on the surface and to the core.

Working on some campaign slogans for my boy Romney. Which one do you like best?

1. The man you don’t know.

2. Anything for a buck.

3. The man you don’t know,and anything for a buck.

Everyone here knows the Republicans suck. In that sense you are preaching to the choir here.

The problem, first and foremost, is in those who crow about anti-Romney propaganda as if it were the best things since sliced bread. Nobody who plans to vote for Romney really cares about Romney — Romney is really a well-heeled protest vote against Obama, against Obama for all of the wrong reasons as well as some of the right ones. There are right reasons to be against Obama, if you would so much as care to admit to them. There are right reasons to be against Republicans and Democrats and the whole system, in fact.

The secondary problem is people like you, who seem to think that if you defeat your straw man enough times the critics of Democratic Party neoliberalism will go away. Nobody here is arguing any “false equivalency.” What we’re arguing is that a President Romney will be about as bad as more of President Obama because people like you will actively oppose President Romney while doing nothing about all that which is bad about President Obama.

Romney
Believe in America
But stash your stolen money overseas

Romney
Believe in America
But hide your stolen loot offshore

It’s a list of evil fucks and criminals to be sure.

Too bad Obama is one of them.

Should we be impressed because you keep a list of names? Of course there’s an equivalency, anyone looking at what }residents sign into law will verify that. Obama is the WORST Democratic President ever & one of the worst of ALL our Presidents. That any Democrat would be pleased with the latest attack ad on Romney is telling about the problem voters face. Isn’t it curious we have no one to complain about Obama’s pushing the new trans-pacific trade act?
This election is a travesty. The Republicans actually stand to lose if Romney’s elected because no Republican could dream of enacting laws to cut back SS and medicare while continuing to increase corporate and military power. The only rational act left to voters is to vote to oust EVERY Incumbent, both parties, seeking reelection this Fall!

It’s too late for that to work (vote to oust EVERY Incumbent).

We needed a strong coordinated message from people on both sides in this country to do that for the primaries. But it is nearly impossible to get that going as primaries are spread out across 9 months in this country and both sides still think their side is somehow for them.

Once the elections come people won’t vote against their “tribes”. They just won’t.

What are your impressions of the Democrats in the Senate who went along with the cuts to the food stamp program in the latest Farm Bill? Faced with an opportunity to restore the $4.5 billion cut to SNAP via amendment, the Senate refused to approve it by a margin of 33-66, with bipartisan support on both sides. There are 66 Senators of both parties who would rather see children, the elderly, and the disabled go hungry, so that our corporate welfare system can prop up crop insurers with additional profit. The only lesson that I can take from this latest display is that at least two-thirds of the Senate (including Democrats) is outright spiteful towards our most vulnerable Americans.

This is a far cry from hopey changey. Geez, look whose become the cynical, lying, hypocrit now trying to cover his own ass.

Sorry jodo, but when you have billionaires spending a bunch of money to get you out of office, there is nothing wrong with using the truth to fight hard.

Really though, I must say reading some of the comments on this board is a real drag. I understand where some of you are coming from, really I do. But all I see are folks whining and moaning without any solutions. Some of you seem to enjoy being in a constant state of offense.

The GOP is simply rotten on the surface and to the core.

No argument from me, but so’re the putative “Democrats,” and their so-called “leader,” Obama. If you aren’t aware that Obama’s part of the Bush Crime Syndicate, then you haven’t been paying close enough attention.

The entire system is corrupt through and through.

This ad is, as I stated previously, just Kabuki Show for the masses to fool them into thinking that there’s a difference between voting for Rmoney or Dmoney. There’s not. And besides, the 1% have already determined who will “win” this election. My bet is that it’s their hired hand, Obama. Time will tell if I’m correct or not, but if you think your vote “counts”… well, guess again.

“I think it’s good to use strong language with Republicans. Democrats too often show up to a knife fight with a PEZ dispenser.”

– Karl Frisch, Democratic Strategist on The War Room/Current TV, discussing whether or not it’s a good idea to use the “f-word” (felony) in regards to Romney’s apparent SEC filing discrepencies.

There are plenty of solutions — most of them can be found in your standard-issue Occupy general assembly. A preliminary solution would be to not join the Cherry-Pick Mitt Romney Movement:

http://my.firedoglake.com/cassiodorus/2012/07/13/the-cherry-pick-mitt-romney-movement/

A more substantial, more advanced solution would be to actually create a movement, and to run candidates, against neoliberalism and against what Naomi Klein called the “Shock Doctrine.” But that would involve a commitment to more than just Kabuki theater.

Exactly.

This ad is so phony. I can think of no policy of Obama’s that does not approve of or facilitate the offshoring of jobs and/or the financial shenanigans of Mitt Romney.

I mean, is there any disagreement at all on those issues between those two?

This “brutal” ad would have been a lot more effective if Obama hadn’t appointed Jeff Immelt, the King of Outsourcing, as his Jobs Czar you know.

I would tend to classify this one as more mildly ironic than “brutal”.

Despair? Speak for yourself. We need to beat the Republicans like a big bass drum, and then, and only then, we can put pressure on Democrats, who have shown that they will at least sometimes listen. The Republicans never have, and never will.

Yeah, history has already recorded how you all put sooo much pressure on those ruling Dems, which is why we got global warming policy, a public option, some bankster prosecutions and an end to Cheney’s war on the world when the Dems were in power in all three branches in 2009 and 2010. No, wait…

it’s a good ad, but I wouldn’t call it brutal.

Some solutions:
Stop over consuming, stop watching the TV, stop borrowing money from the owning class, stop giving them money to gamble with, stop listening to and obeying them, stop looking to leaders for answers and power, and so many other DIY possibilities that each of us have the power to practice on a daily basis.

As I’ve said here a number of times, Republicans are actually astonishingly responsive to their base. It’s the Democrats that never, ever bend to the wishes of their base or their larger coalition. American liberals have gotten absolutely nothing from Obama and this Senate. About the best that can be said is that nothing as damaging as NAFTA was signed in the last 3 plus years.

Yeah, the work involved in making yourself more ethical is ennobling. It’s hard work and it influences others.

So this is what modern Democrats consider brutal?

Good grief. This ad is neither brutal nor interesting. And probably ineffective.

Another Democratic fail.

Still selling “hope” I see.
Fuck you, Obama.

I’m not sure its ennobling, but it is effective and within everyone’s ability. The owning class needs the cooperation of the citizenry. If we don’t like what they are up to, we need to stop cooperating, stop buying what they are selling. And unless we are part of those able to donate the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars presidents and members of Congress need to get their jobs, then voting is at best a delusional waste of time.

This ad is so 2008.

This one should have chosen the same screen name except with an “n” in front of the “osage” because that would have been more accurate. It seems that there is an increased presence of megaphones for Obama since the official start of the campaign season, or maybe it’s just bleeding over from TBogg’s disciples. Are they willfully ignorant or just slavishly devoted to the Democrat side of the unitary duopoly?

Why would anyone with intelligence watch another partisan propaganda outlet like CurrentTV, especially a show with Granholm, that amounts to the Democratic version of Fox Lite? She couldn’t be objective if her life depended on it.

Jill Stein, Green Party.