ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS THAT HE WAS "OUTSPENT" (!) IN SOUTH CAROLINA

I keep tellin' ya folks, there is NO lie that Willard will not tell. NONE. Why did he lose in South Carolina 10 days ago? This is his astonishing falsehood:

"You know, in South Carolina we were vastly outspent with negative ads attacking me and we stood back and spoke [lied] about President Obama and suffered the consequence of that," Romney told reporters outside his Tampa campaign headquarters. "Plus also I think some good debates from Speaker Gingrich. we came to Florida and Speaker Gingrich didn't have two good debates, I did." 

Independent analyses show that Romney's campaign and associated super PAC spent nearly double what Gingrich's forces did in the state. Romney's spokeswomen did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the former Massachusetts governor's statement.

Amazing arrogance! Willard not only lies, he lies about things that can be easily checked. Unreal. Next, he'll be claiming that he waged a positive campaign in Florida. By the way, an analysis of Willard's thousands and thousands of ads in the Sunshine State shows that NINETY-NINE PER CENT of them were NEGATIVE. This will be Mittens' tactic if he faces Obama: throw a continuous stream of dishonest filth at him, and try to gain the White House through sheer gutter level lies. 

We have been warned.

DEBUNKING ROMNEY THE LIAR'S "JOB CREATOR" LIES

The New York Times did a brief fact-checking article, right here, about Willard's dubious claims concerning his "job creating" abilities from his days at Bain Vulture Capital. You see, Willard has regularly given different figures about this--10,000, or 100,000, or (more recently) 120,000. The Times sets the record straight:

Mr. Romney arrives at the 100,000 jobs number by combining the current employment figures of three main companies that Bain Capital invested in – Staples, Sports Authority, and Domino’s Pizza. (He sometimes also includes a fourth company, Steel Dynamics). However, that number only addresses a small group of companies that Mr. Romney was successful in starting or turning around, and does not take into account the less successful companies that Bain Capital invested in, some of which went bankrupt or were forced to layoff workers. It is also worth noting that Bain Capital was not a major investor in any of the four companies that Mr. Romney cites. [Emphasis added]

In fact, in the case of Romney's biggest boast, the success of Staples office supplies, Bain wasn't even a major player. Bain only provided TEN PER CENT of the start-up money for Staples. 

In fact, this is how Willard used to describe his role: 

[During the 1994 Senate campaign Romney] emphasized that he always used the word "helped" and didn’t take full credit for the jobs. "That’s why I’m always very careful to use the words ‘help create,' " he acknowledged. "Bain Capital, or Mitt Romney, ‘helped create’ over 10,000 jobs. I don’t take credit for the jobs at Staples. I helped create the jobs at Staples."

But now Willard is the Glorious Job Creator, the Man Who Will Slay the Recession, our deliverer from joblessness--even though the private sector has added more net jobs under Obama since June 2009 than Bush achieved in eight years. Romney's main claim to office is his business "expertise"--as if being a CEO is somehow comparable to being president. In my opinion, Willard has grossly inflated his so-called "expertise".

He does it by lying about his record.

WHY YES, ROMNEY DOES LIE CONSTANTLY. NO, HE HAS NO "CHARACTER"

Jonathan Chait has the goods right here:

These are just a couple of examples plucked from the last day of campaigning. There is an endless supply, large and small. Romney’s whole line of attack against Obama rests upon facts that are verifiably false. His main foreign policy indictment is a lie that Obama went around the world apologizing for the United States – this is the basis for his slogan that he "believes in America," as well as the title of his campaign book, No Apology. His domestic indictment of Obama rests upon his ludicrous claims that Obama "has no jobs plan" and his repeated, specific assertion that Obama wants to create full equality of outcome. 

Even by the standards of politicians, Romney seems unusually prone to dishonesty. Again, you can ascribe this to circumstance rather than character. I see him as a patrician pol, like George H.W. Bush, who believes deeply in public service but regards elections as a cynical process of pandering to rubes. I think you can plausibly make other interpretations, and you can separate Romney the man or even Romney the president from Romney the candidate. But I don’t see how you can paint Romney the candidate as in any way scrupulous about the truth in any form.

I have to disagree with the idea that Romney "believes deeply in public service". I believe Romney believes deeply in the success and advancement of Mitt Romney, period. I am almost 60. I've been following politics since I was 12. I have NEVER seen a more shameless, brazen liar than Mitt Romney, and I remember Richard Nixon. Character? What "character", exactly, does a man like Romney possess? I can't find any at all. To lie as consistently and incessantly as Romney does is a mark, as I have said, of sheer sociopathy. Romney sees other humans as a means to an end. He is for Mitt Romney only. To trust a man of such BONE DEEP dishonesty is impossible. To put such a man in power would be unthinkable.

And that friends, is the truth.

ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES AGAIN AND AGAIN ABOUT OBAMA AND ROCKET ATTACKS ON ISRAEL

When you're an unprincipled, amoral, sociopath like Willard, you lie constantly to get your way. One of Willard's most egregious lies has to do with President Obama's supposed "failure" to condemn Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. Daniel Larison has the story here:


During the last debate, Romney repeated one of his standard criticisms of Obama on Israel and Palestine: 


This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip. 


This is one of Romney’s favorites. He has been using a variant of this line for years. The problem for Romney is that it was never really true, and Obama has mentioned rocket attacks from Gaza in every address to the U.N. that he has given. [Emphasis added.]


If we go back to Obama’s first address to the U.N., which is what Romney has been referring to for more than two years, we will find a reference to rocket attacks on Israel: 


We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It’s not paid by politicians. It’s paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocket will take her life in the middle of the night. 


If we want to be very technical and generous to Romney, we could say that it’s true that Obama did not mention the number of rocket attacks, but that’s not the point. Romney wants people to think that Obama simply ignores these attacks all together, and that is not true. 


The 2010 U.N. address contained the most explicit references: 


And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance — it’s injustice. And make no mistake: The courage of a man like President Abbas, who stands up for his people in front of the world under very difficult circumstances, is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children.


Face it, folks. Willard Mitt Romney is a pathological liar who will say ANYTHING to advance his cause. His lying accusation against Obama on the subject of rocket attacks is yet another example of his gutter-level campaign style. We must work TIRELESSLY to expose Willard for what he is--an out and out lying fraud.

ROMNEY THE LIAR (ACCURATELY) SAVAGED IN NEW AD

By none other than the Bloated Amphibian, AKA Newt Gingrich. Every claim in the ad is irrefutably true, BTW. 'Tis a thing of beauty.

 

ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS HE PAYS A 50%(!) TAX RATE

Man, Willard really does think people are stupid, doesn't he? Now he's claiming that because he donates a lot to charity (even though the bulk of his giving is to his own Mormon Church, and not charitable institutions) that this constitutes "giving back to the community" comparable to being taxed at 40% (even though his 15% rate and 15% in charitable and church giving equals 30%). In addition, he says much of his compensation was originally taxed at the corporate rate of 35%, so it's just as if he were paying HALF of his income in taxes.

Except that he's lying.

...he's saying that thanks to the nominal corporate tax rate of 35 percent, he's actually paying 50 percent in taxes when you add in his 15 percent. Now, if he really believed that he was paying 50 percent in taxes, he wouldn't have said he gives back 40 percent to the community—he'd have said he gives back 75 percent. But he doesn't really believe what he's saying ... because it is patently absurd. 

Paul Krugman has an excellent dismantling of the case Romney is trying to make regarding corporate taxes. First, because most of Romney's capital gains income comes by way of carried interest, it was never previously taxed at 35 percent. Second, almost no companies actually pay the nominal corporate tax rate. Third, even if it were fair to say that the income had previously been taxed at 35 percent rate, conservatives have long argued that corporate taxes come at the expense of worker's wages. Now, suddenly, they are saying it comes at the expensive of investors? Talk about double-counting!

Willard, I think you're lying to us.

Again.

ROMNEY THE LIAR FALSELY CLAIMS OBAMA INCREASED THE CORPORATE TAX RATE

Is there ANYTHING Willard WON'T lie about? Now this shameless, incorrigible liar is claiming that President Obama raised the corporate income tax rate.

Uh, except he didn't:  

The only problem with Mitt Romney's fact check of President Barack Obama after his State of the Union address was that the Republican presidential candidate used "facts" that weren't true.

Romney accused Obama of raising corporate tax rates during his presidency, something that Obama has not actually done, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo first noted. Romney also claimed that Obama had lifted some of his ideas from Republicans -- including lowering taxes on corporations.

"Well, in some respects, I have to compliment the president on adopting a whole series of ideas that I've been speaking about for the last several years," Romney told NBC after the Tuesday night speech, according to UPI. "If you want to get the economy going, lower corporate tax rates -- of course, he's raised them." 

But experts say that Obama has advocated for lowering the top marginal corporate tax rate, if anything. Since 1993, it has held steady at 35 percent. In 2010, the U.S. had the second-highest top marginal corporate tax rate of any member nation of the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (after Japan), according to the group.

Again, the news report is saying that Romney is "wrong", as if he's made some kind of honest mistake. He wasn't "wrong".

HE WAS LYING.

ROMNEY THE LIAR BENEFITS FROM A TAX CODE HIS OWN COMPANY RIGGED

Willard, who pays less than 14% in federal income taxes on his huge income, always shrugs off questions about this rate by saying, in effect, "Hey, I can't do anything about it. That's how the law is written." But what Mittens DOESN'T tell you is that in 2007 there was a proposal before the Senate to eliminate this obscene tax break for the ultra-wealthy. The effort was killed by a lobbying group that was started by, among others, BAIN CAPITAL, the Vulture Capital group that pays Willard millions of dollars EVERY FREAKING YEAR. Jon Stewart has the story:

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So Willard gets a HUGE tax break because Willard's old company killed the effort to repeal the tax break. "But hey, folks, what can I do? I'm just following the law."

Yeah. The law that you helped rig in your own favor.

And you're so helpless to do anything about it? That's a pathetic lie.

ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS HIM IS ATTACKING THE "FREE ENTERPRISE" SYSTEM

Yes, how DARE you filthy little non-entities out there question His Royal Highness Mittens the First. Why, the NERVE of you people, asking how Willard made his millions destroying other people's livelihoods, looting their pensions, and crushing their pathetic little peasant dreams! And now we find that Willard paid 13.9% on his lavish income last year. The story is right here:


Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011.

Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Romney's tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments. 

Under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, compared with a top tax rate of 35 percent for wage earners.

Oh, and Mittens used to stash money in a Swiss bank account, in addition to the money he has stashed in the Cayman Islands. (He closed the Swiss account when he was warned it would be an "embarrassment".) His lawyers claim he's not doing all this to avoid taxes, oh heavens, no. He just wants his money to be well-traveled and to see the world.

Yes, he gives to charity, but the bulk of his giving is to support his own church. (Nothing wrong with that, but it's not the same as a charity now, is it?) And he can afford it with his LOW tax rate. Why, it would be unpatriotic to suggest that rich thugs like Willard have gamed the system in such a way as to benefit themselves. Why, if I questioned that, I'd be attacking FREE ENTERPRISE (TM)! I'd be undermining America as One Nation Under God. (Willard has actually claimed this.) 

I'd be acting like some kind of upstart peasant.

You know--the kind of person that Willard looks down on.

ROMNEY THE LIAR LAUGHABLY, PATHETICALLY CLAIMS TO BE "REGULAR GUY"

Willard is by turns laughable, appalling, infuriating, and disgusting, but one thing he ain't is ordinary. He's been trying to sell this "I'm just like you" shtick for a long time, but no one is really buying it. Here are some of his pathetic lies along these lines:

IN IOWA:

Dressed in jeans, shirt sleeves rolled up, Mitt Romney reminisced before a noontime crowd about the long car trips his family took when he was a boy. "My dad made Ramblers, so we had one," the Republican presidential hopeful said.

In fact, Romney's father didn't just make cars. He was chairman and president of American Motors, the company that made Ramblers, and a highly successful businessman before he entered politics. It's a detail the son omitted as he sought to establish a bond with Iowans he hopes will support him in next week's presidential caucuses.

LAST YEAR:

"I think it's a real problem when you have half of Americans -- almost half of Americans that are not paying income tax," the candidate told a group of supporters at a town hall event in Florida. "My own view with regards to tax policy is that we ought to provide help to the people that have been hurt most by the Obama economy, and that's the middle class." "It's not those at the low end and it's certainly not for those at the very high end. It's for the great middle-class, the 80 to 90 percent of us in this country." [Emphasis added]

(BTW, notice that Willard thinks it's a problem that those deadbeat slugs in the lower classes aren't paying enough income tax. MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T MAKE ENOUGH MONEY, WILLARD, YOU INSUFFERABLE  ASS.)

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE:

After coming under attack over his business career and his assertion that he is not a career politician, Mitt Romney aggressively defended his work as a venture capitalist and told voters here Sunday that he personally has worried about being laid off. 

“I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re gonna get fired,” Romney volunteered during a mid-day rally of several hundred inside an ornate opera house here. “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”

Romney’s campaign could not immediately provide any examples of a time when the candidate feared losing his job.

When, Willard? When were you oh so worried about losing your job? What a CROCK. 

Romney will no doubt be sweating bullets this week when his tax returns indicate that he pays a lower rate on his millions of $$ than most middle class people. Willard wants you to believe he's just a regular guy. 

Right. A regular guy who still gets $13 million a year from Bain (Vulture) Capital.

Schmuck. 

ROMNEY THE LIAR POUNDED BY GINGRICH THE SCUMBAG IN SC

BTW, I understand that Willard simply spouted the same tired anti-Obama lies in his concession speech. If Florida eludes Willard's grasp, he might be in real trouble, but it's too early to say. One thing is for sure: Mittens will basically keep lying his a*s off every time he opens his mouth. I will be on the job, keeping track of his pathetic falsehoods.

Over and out.

ROMNEY THE LIAR LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH ABOUT OBAMA AND DEFENSE

Steve Benen continues his remarkable crusade against Mitt Romney's constant stream of astonishing lies. One that particularly caught my attention today was Willard's bullsh*t lie about the defense budget. Mittens the Sociopath insists that Obama is going to cut "$1 trillion" from the defense budget. The New York Times applies the smackdown here: 


Mr. Romney was wrong in stating that Mr. Obama wants to cut $1 trillion from military spending. The administration is committed to reductions of less than half that amount over 10 years — about $450 billion, or roughly 8 percent of the Pentagon budget over a decade. 

Moreover, Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats support the level of cuts that Mr. Obama seeks. The cuts were mandated as part of the bipartisan deficit-reduction agreement with Mr. Obama in August. That bipartisan deal does include another round of cuts in January 2013 that would be automatic, half in domestic programs and half in the military, and it would bring total military reductions to about $1 trillion over 10 years. But the administration opposes that outcome for the Pentagon. Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Leon Panetta, has said reductions on that scale would be ruinous. Mr. Obama has proposed alternative deficit-reduction measures to avoid the threatened automatic cuts, but Republicans oppose his plan because it calls for additional revenues from higher taxes on the wealthy [Emphasis added] as well as spending reductions in entitlement benefit programs like Medicare, farm subsidies and federal pension programs.

By the way, the Times was too generous to say that Willard was "wrong". Willard knows EXACTLY what he's doing. He wasn't wrong--

HE WAS LYING.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER! JosephMiller41  Get the latest news on Willard's lies immediately!

ROMNEY'S STUMP SPEECH: WALL-TO-WALL LIES

Andrew Romano has the story here about the incredible string of pathetic lies being mouthed by Willard the Sociopath. Excerpt:

In Romney’s world, Barack Obama isn’t a president whose policies have failed, which is an argument that a reasonable person could reasonably make. Instead, he is the living embodiment, and source, of all that is wrong with everything, everywhere, a kind of omnipotent malefactor hellbent on destroying the U.S.A. The argument is so comically exaggerated in both scale and scope that Romney is forced to exaggerate—or just make stuff up—in order sustain it.

Some examples. According to the Romney stump-speech version of reality, Obama “believes that Europe had it right” and wants to “transform America” into a “European social welfare state” where “the government’s job is to take from some and give to others”—even though, under Obama, tax rates have fallen to their lowest level since the Truman administration and government jobs have declined at a record rate.

Romney Reality also holds that Obama “is a president who’s comfortable with trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see” and “hasn’t put out a plan to balance the budget or to cut back on what we’re spending”—even though in April 2011 Obama delivered a speech at George Washington University arguing that “we have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt” and has unveiled a pair of plans that would reduce the deficit by between $3.6 trillion and $4 trillion over the next 10 to 12 years.

Furthermore, according to Romney Reality, Obama “thinks the best way to get health-care costs down is to have the federal government take it over” and run it like “Amtrak and the post office”—even though the president quickly abandoned the “public option” so beloved by liberals and chose instead to pass a plan that in no way mirrors “a European approach in which the government owns the hospitals and the doctors are public employees,” as Politifact has noted, but instead “relies largely on the free market to “set up ‘exchanges’ where private insurers will compete to provide coverage to people who don't have it.” 

Finally, in Romney Reality, Obama “is a president who seems to think that the right course for American foreign policy is appeasement,” even though it’s difficult to discern which of Obama overseas exploits—killing Osama bin Laden and much of the rest of the Al Qaeda leadership; following the Bush timetable for withdrawal in Iraq; surging in Afghanistan; helping to depose Muammar Qaddafi—even remotely resembles the Nazi-enabling behavior of Neville Chamberlain.

Romney's attacks are simply useful bullsh*t that he spews in order to suck up to the hate-filled Neanderthals that make up the farthest ranks of the Radical Right. He probably doesn't believe them himself. But he'll lie in order to get what he wants because, as I have said, Romney views other people as objects, to be used or discarded as necessary. Even a lot of right-wing voters sense what a fraud, what a con artist, what a phony he really is. Willard reminds me of one of those Hollywood sets that used to be used back in the day. You know, impressive to look at--and barren and empty on the inside.

IS ROMNEY THE LIAR LYING ABOUT HIS "INVESTMENTS" IN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS?

Willard, who wants very much to be president despite his complete lack of qualifications, has been, for years, stashing money in the Cayman Islands--a notorious haven for tax cheats of all kinds. Willard's toads, also known as his staff, have been saying that this is no big deal since Mittens pays the same tax rate there as in the U.S. (If that's the case, then why go to the trouble of keeping money there at all? I don't buy it.) But a specialist in tax law tells us the truth: 

Washington tax lawyer Jack Blum told ABC News that offshore accounts and investment funds allow super-rich investors to 'avoid a whole series of small traps in the tax code that ordinary people would face if they paid tax on an onshore basis.' 


Experts estimates offshore banking costs the US Treasury $100 billion a year in lost tax revenue. 


 'His personal finances are a poster child of what's wrong with the American tax system,' Mr Blum said.

And how much does Willard keep in the Caymans? Try THIRTY-THREE MILLION BUCKS. Hmmm. Maybe that's why Willard is hiding his tax returns, even though his own FATHER was the person who pioneered the practice of opening up income tax returns for inspection. George Romney made TWELVE YEARS worth of returns available when he was running for President back in the 60s. Willard is reluctant to open up even one year's worth. Oh, and Willard's former company, predator-vulture Bain Capital, which still pays Willard millions of $$ per year, keeps ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT secret accounts there.

Romney the Sociopath claims he gets no tax benefits "investing" in the Caymans. 

Right. And pigs with wings, singing "Louie Louie",  are flying over my house this very minute

ROMNEY THE LIAR LYING ABOUT THE "SAVINGS" INVOLVED IN REPEALING HEALTH CARE LAW

In its pathological, demented hatred of doing anything that might benefit the "unworthy" among us, or make the "guvmint" more powerful or (God forbid!) actually help the poor, the screeching Radical Right has demanded that what they call "Obamacare" be repealed NOW NOW NOW! (They're either too stupid or too uninformed to realize that a lot of the people who stand to benefit from the ACA are people just like themselves.) Naturally, Willard, seeking to suck up to these wretched cretins, has promised to repeal this hugely beneficial law as soon as he can. He claims that doing so will save money because the ACA will "increase the deficit by $95 billion."

There's just one thing: THAT'S AN UTTER, OUT-AND-OUT LIE.

Let me refer you to this little item here:

...according to the CBO analysis, a full repeal of the bill would reduce the deficit by $16 billion in 2016, much less than the number Romney cited. 

 And then there’s the broader picture: When the CBO looked at the first 10 years of repeal, from 2012 to 2021, it found that repeal added $210 billion to the deficit. So the deficit would actually be lower if the law is not repealed.

Just a stupid mistake by Mittens? Willard's not stupid. He's as phony as a $3 bill, but he's not stupid. When he says "repealing Obamacare will lower the deficit", he's not making a stupid mistake.

HE'S LYING.

ROMNEY THE LIAR IS LYING CONSTANTLY ABOUT OBAMA'S TRADE POLICY

Willard, who is psychologically incapable of opening his mouth without uttering a disgusting lie, lies regularly about Obama's trade policy. To wit:

During the Jan. 7, 2012, Republican presidential debate in Manchester, N.H., former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took a shot at President Barack Obama’s trade policies.

"We have to open up markets for our goods," Romney said. "We haven't done that under this president. European nations and China over the last three years have opened up 44 different trade relationships with various nations in the world. This president has opened up none."

We won’t check the claim about European and Chinese trade deals here, but we will look at whether Romney is correct about Obama’s record on trade agreements.

After lengthy negotiations, Obama signed trade agreements with three separate nations on Oct. 21, 2011 -- South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. 

These were not trivial deals. The one with South Korea, in particular, was "the largest trade deal since 1994," when the U.S. approved the North American Free Trade Agreement, Bloomberg News reported at the time, citing administration data. The South Korea deal was poised to increase U.S. export access "for everything from cars to farm goods," Bloomberg wrote.

Willard repeated this DAMNED LIE again, tonight in South Carolina. It is a blazing falsehood. But Willard the Sociopath couldn't care less. He only cares about his own goals. He doesn't care how many lies he has to tell to achieve them.

ROMNEY THE LIAR MERCILESSLY RAKED OVER THE COALS

By none other than Ron Paul, no less. I don't support Paul, but DAY-UM was this good:

ROMNEY THE LIAR AGAIN TELLS AN UNBELIEVABLY FLAGRANT LIE

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Willard claimed that Europe has more poverty than the United States--which is a lie--and this supposed poverty is caused by European welfare programs. Journalist David Corn asked him about this statement. Now, I'm pretty jaded and cynical, but this literally made me gasp and laugh in surprise. I mean really, just READ this:

So what's the basis for Romney's claim that European social welfare programs generate poverty? As is often the case, he was not taking questions from reporters at this stop. But at the end of his speech, I pushed through the throng waiting to shake his hand or grab a photo with him, and waited on the rope line for the former corporate executive to come by. When Romney neared, I asked, "Do you have time for one question?"


Amid the folks pushing baseballs and photos at him for his signature, Romney looked up and paused to hear my query.


"Do you believe," I asked, "that there is more poverty in Europe than the United States?"


Is that before or after government payments, he responded. 


You can define it any way you want, I said. "Well, I'll have to think about that," he said, and started to shuffle away.


But, I said (quickly), you just stated that European-style welfare creates poverty.


"No, I didn't," Romney replied. "I said, look at Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union."


He hadn't said anything about those countries. He hadn't mentioned them once in his speech. [Emphasis added]


No, I insisted, you said European-style welfare leads to poverty. That's precisely what you said.


No, Romney repeated, I was talking about Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. 


It was hard to know how to respond to this utterly false denial. (Later on, I thought of an appropriate reply: "I'll bet you $10,000.")

Unbelievable. UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE. Willard LIED  right to David Corn's face about something Willard had just said and that David Corn had just heard him say in the VERY ROOM where he had just said it. I don't know whether that was coming from Willard's sociopathy or his arrogance or simply his compulsive, knee-jerk dishonesty, but...I mean, I'm almost speechless about this. Does he think that little of other people that he thinks he can just tell them unadulterated horse manure and get away with it?

And there are people who actually want this lying BUM to be president?!?

WHY DOES ROMNEY LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING? THAT'S WHAT SOCIOPATHS DO

I came across a definition of the term sociopathy here and I was struck by how well so many of its particulars fit Willard: 

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used.

They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

 Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt

Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person.

Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

My God, that's Mittens to a T. Remember, this is a guy who destroyed businesses, left their workers high and dry, looted their pension funds, wiped out medical benefits, and in at least one case made the government pick up the tab for the lost pensions! And Willard doesn't give a DAMN about any of the suffering and loss he has inflicted. (You can read about Willard's looting of a South Carolina mill here; you can read about how Willard looted a company in Kansas City and stuck the rest of us with a pension bill here.) 


Gary Weiss in Salon had a tremendous article on Willard's sociopathy, right here. Excerpts:

The Wall Street Journal examined 77 Bain deals during Romney’s tenure and found that “22% either filed for bankruptcy reorganization or closed their doors by the end of the eighth year after Bain first invested, sometimes with substantial job losses. An additional 8% ran into so much trouble that all of the money Bain invested was lost.”

Among the companies acquired and plundered by Bain that eventually went bankrupt were Stage Stores, American Pad & Paper, GS Industries and Details. The job slaughter at American Pad became a campaign issue when Romney ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994. Bain and its partners, including Romney, made a fortune on each of these companies. There were other Bain companies that did nicely — Romney likes to point to Staples — but it’s ludicrous to give Bain credit for Staples prospering after it recovered from its assault on the company. That’s like thanking a virus for not turning into pneumonia.

Romney sees absolutely nothing wrong in the trail of destruction that he left behind him, and in his victory speech Tuesday night he criticized his Republican opponents—hypocrites though they definitely were, but accurate hypocrites—for putting “free enterprise on trial.” That’s typical. A sociopath is a person who “lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.” Listening to Romney Tuesday night, I was reminded of another scene from “The Godfather,” Michael Corleone’s line from “Godfather II“: “Senator, we are all part of the same hypocrisy.” It’s hard to see Bain Capital’s Romney as being any less sociopathic than the Harlem numbers banker who, while breaking the law, at least gives employment to large numbers of indigent people. The buyout business is perfectly legal, even celebrated by free-market types as an example of the kind of capitalistic enterprise that built this nation and created jobs.

 We know he lies about EVERYTHING. We know he has flip-flopped on EVERYTHING. We know he will do or say ANYTHING to win. Folks, you need to spread these facts around. The Republicans are about to nominate a soulless, dangerous sociopath for the highest office in the world. We need to warn the country in no uncertain terms: Romney the Liar is the kind of person who casually wrecked other people's lives, made a fortune doing it, and now says that anyone who challenges him on this hates the free enterprise system. He's not just a danger to workers--he's a threat to America itself.

THE HARSH FACT: ROMNEY LIES EVERY TIME HE OPENS HIS MOUTH

Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly is doing a fantastic job of chronicling Willard Mitt Romney's never-ending stream of sickening lies. Every Friday he collects them in one post, with full documentation explaining why each of Willard's statements is an expression of utter BS. Benen has established something beyond all doubt: Willard is one of the biggest liars in the history of American politics. All of us who are dedicated to the vision of seeing Mittens get his lying ass handed to him on Election Day need to start demanding something of the traditional media:

START CALLING ROMNEY ON HIS LIES. CALL THEM LIES IN PLAIN LANGUAGE. CALL ROMNEY A CHRONIC LIAR, BECAUSE THAT IS THE BARE TRUTH.

And make sure you read Steve Benen every Friday. 

ROMNEY THE LIAR PUSHING OBAMA "APPEASEMENT" LIE

One of Willard's many outrageously false accusations against President Obama is that Obama "appeases" our enemies. This is so utterly false as to border on lunacy. From Jake Tapper at ABC News, here, a list of Obama's successes in the war against our enemies:

There’s Osama bin Laden, of course, killed in May.


Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Anwar al-Awlaki as of today. 


Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan. 


In August, ‘Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed. 


In June, one of the group’s most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in Pakistan.


In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. 


In Somalia, Al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed. 


Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta. 


Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan. 


In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia. 


Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and ‘Abdallah Sa’id were killed. 


In February 2010, in Pakistan, Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.


In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin - accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings – was killed during a raid in Indonesia. 


In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed. 


In May, al Qaeda’s number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.


In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed. 


Remember when Rudy Giuliani warned that electing Barack Obama would mean that the U.S. played defense, not offense, against the terrorists? 


If this is defense, what does offense look like?

And of course Obama has enormously increased the number of drone strikes, and has in fact drawn criticism that he is using drones far too aggressively, if anything. Romney is simply repeating the same kind of lies that the hate-soaked Tea Party lunatics shout out constantly. Oh, and a note from  Fox "News", back in October:

When the first-term senator won the presidency, questions lingered about his readiness to handle national security matters.


Yet Obama has received wide praise for operations that have killed terrorist leaders, most notably Usama bin Laden in May, and Anwar al-Awlaki on Friday. Al-Awlaki, an American citizen targeted in the U.S. drone attack, was deemed by the administration as having a "significant operational role" in terrorist plots. They included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes, an airliner on Christmas 2009 and cargo planes last year.


Obama also can claim credit for aiding Libyan rebels in ousting Muammar Qaddafi, for supporting other democratic uprisings in the Arab world, for drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for negotiating a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. 


Oh, and one of the people who praised Obama for killing terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki said, according to the article above, that he "commended the president for his efforts to keep Americans safe and said al-Awlaki's death was a 'major victory' in the terrorism fight." 


That was said by Willard. You know, the guy who said Obama is "appeasing" our enemies.


But hey, that was three months back. Everyone knows Willard's statements have a much shorter expiration date than that.

ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE LAW

On Tuesday night in New Hampshire, during his ugly, lying, demagogic, smear-filled, slanderous victory speech, Willard again promised to repeal "Obamacare" (as radical right-wingers call the Affordable Care Act). Mittens has been traveling the country mouthing yet another of his incredible lies: that the ACA is aimed at a total, 100% takeover of everyone's healthcare. The folks at Politifact, with whom I have had my differences recently, were right on the money when they labeled this a "Pants on Fire" LIE:

According to the Census Bureau, the percentage of Americans without health insurance nationally was slightly under 17 percent in 2009, the year Obama began pushing for the bill. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the number was about the same in 2010, when the measure was signed into law. Other estimates have pegged the national number at about 15 percent.

Meanwhile, Romney said that Obama’s law "dealt with 100 percent of American people." That’s not exactly correct -- the law allows a few categories of people to opt out of the individual mandate, primarily those for whom it would be a financial hardship. But it’s not too far off.

However, if that’s the standard, then the two bills [the ACA and Romney's healthcare law in Massachusetts] are quite similar. The Massachusetts plan has affordability and religious exemptions for the individual mandate that echo those in the federal law, so both laws would affect something approaching 100 percent of the population, even if not exactly 100 percent.

Comparing 8 percent to 17 percent "would have been apples to apples," said Henry Aaron, a senior fellow with the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution.

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute and a critic of the federal health care law, agreed. To be consistent, he said, Obama’s plan only impacted 15 percent to 17 percent of the U.S population. 

"Romney appears to be suggesting that his bill only impacted the uninsured in Massachusetts. Not true, as I have written," Tanner said. "You can only get to those numbers by assuming that the only relevant part of either bill is the individual mandate and that only the currently uninsured are impacted by the mandate. Neither of those premises is true."

In other words, Willard is LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH.


I swear to God, this guy would lie to his own mother if he thought it would help his career out.


He needs to be kept REAL far away from the presidency.

ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT HIS SUPPORT FOR GAY RIGHTS, NOW PANDERS TO ANTI-GAY FANATICS

Andrew Sullivan has done yeoman's work in pointing out the disgusting lies of the vile Mittens Romney. Today, he brings our attention to Willard's 180 degree reversal on the issue of gay rights--and his pathetic lies about it. He links to an article here about a former Romney staffer discussing Willard's support for gay rights in 2002. Excerpt:

A former intern to Mitt Romney publicly stated on Monday that as a candidate for governor in 2002, the Massachusetts Republican did authorize and disseminate fliers championing equal rights for gay citizens...[Josh] Barro, who served as an intern on Romney's gubernatorial campaign, explained that on Pride weekend in 2002, the campaign sent about a half-dozen interns to a "post-parade festival on Boston Common" to hand out flyers proclaiming that "all citizens deserve equal rights, regardless of their sexual preference."

 "The thing was organized by a full-time staffer," Barro added.

[Eric] Ferhnstrom, who served as communications director on that same campaign, told The Huffington Post on Sunday that the Romney's election team had not been involved in producing or handing out the flyers and that the former Massachusetts governor shouldn't be held accountable for them.

 "I don't know where those pink flyers came from. I was the communications director on the 2002 campaign. I don't know who distributed them ... I never saw them and I was the communications director," Ferhnstrom said...

The conflicting accounts renew questions as to just how much an evolution Romney has had on the topic of gay rights. Ferhnstrom insisted on Sunday that there had been "no evolution," that Romney has always been opposed to gay marriage and civil unions, while he is inclined to extend some legal benefits to gay couples. [Emphasis added] But on Monday, Buzzfeed also turned up an old 1994 newspaper cover, featuring then Senate-candidate Romney claiming that he would "be better than Ted [Kennedy] for gay rights."

Willard proclaimed himself a champion of gay rights. "I'll be better than TED KENNEDY", he said. 

Oh, and here's a copy of the flyer from 2002.

Romney used to bill himself as a fervent supporter of equal rights for ALL Americans. Now this lying weasel is claiming that he was NEVER about all of that, that he's always been on the side of the people who see our gay children, our gay friends, our gay siblings, and our gay co-workers, as second-class citizens. He's groveling and pandering to the kind of people who want to put gays in prison. And why?

Because he'll go down any low road he has to in order to win. And he can do this without breaking a sweat. 

That's just how sociopaths are.

ROMNEY THE LIAR IN FULL LYING SOCIOPATH MODE IN NH VICTORY SPEECH

Man, you have to hand it to Mittens. He was in full, out-and-out total pathological lying mode tonight. He again accused President Obama of "apologizing for America". THIS IS A LIE. (See here.) He laid the whole economic crisis at Obama's feet. HE ACTUALLY BLAMED THE POLITICAL GRIDLOCK IN WASHINGTON ON OBAMA!! This after the Tea Party House Republicans have blocked every measure Obama has proposed to revive America's economy. He made the election seem like a contest between Godly Mitt and Satanic Obama. It was too much for me to even watch all of. Of this, I am sure: Romney is a lying, demagogic conman, as dangerous and unprincipled a human being as we have seen run for office in the last 50 years. He spews out ultra-right wing vomit as readily as Palin, but with a better vocabulary. There was one good thing about listening to him: it made me ten times more determined to keep reporting on his infuriating lies.


And by God, I'm going to.

ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS THAT OBAMA'S OBJECTIVE IS A SOCIETY OF "EQUAL OUTCOMES"

Folks, whenever you think Mittens has sunk to the bottom in his campaign of lies and slanders against President Obama, he digs a hole and goes deeper. This is one of those times. Read the words of Mendacious Mitt for yourself:

Just a couple of weeks ago in Kansas, President Obama lectured us about Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of government. But he failed to mention the important difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Barack Obama. Roosevelt believed that government should level the playing field to create equal opportunities. President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes.

In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing—the government.

Folks, let me say this is as clearly as humanly possible:

PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS NEVER CALLED FOR A SOCIETY BASED ON "EQUAL OUTCOMES". NOT ONCE. NOT EVER. NEVER.

Romney the Liar's accusation is so UTTERLY false that Jonathan Chait was moved to make this statement:

"This is nuts, Glenn Beck–level insane."

Yes it is, nuts, folks. Complete out-and-out lunacy. But make no mistake. Willard isn't saying this because he's crazy. He's saying it to suck up to the hate-filled nutjobs that make up the hardest core of the Republican Party. No, Willard isn't crazy.

He's just a damned liar.