The Obama re-election campaign has attacked Mitt Romney’s oft-touted business record, thereby adding to the growing chorus of seemingly anti-business rhetoric aimed at the former Massachusetts governor. President Obama’s re-election campaign sent out a memo on Friday accusing Mitt Romney of “destroying companies and good-paying jobs in order to reap huge profits,” according to Jamie Dupree of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . These are some excerpts from the memo: … Romney’s objective in business was never job creation. …Romney closed over a thousand plants, stores and offices, and cut employee wages, benefits and pensions. He laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries. And he and his partners made hundreds of millions of dollars while taking companies to bankruptcy. Although some of the businesses in which he took a stake undoubtedly added jobs, neither Romney’s campaign nor any independent fact checker has supported his claim of producing a net increase of 100,000 American jobs – or even anything close to it. … Armed with the facts, the American people will determine whether Mitt Romney’s track record shows he believes our prosperity will come from an economy where the wealthy and powerful can rig the game at the expense of working Americans, or every American who works hard and acts responsibly will have a fair shot at success. Voters can judge for themselves whether his vision for the future is based on outsourcing and bubble economies that enrich speculators and corporate raiders, or an economy built to last in which the productivity of our workers is rewarded. … Our economic crisis and endemic income inequality were caused in large part by a few who put profits over people. Taking advantage of an uneven playing field, where there was one rulebook for those at the top and another for everyone else, Mitt Romney and his friends made money hand over fist while working families lost their grip on the middle-class lifestyle they earned. The memo’s authors quickly switch from condemning Romney to praising President Barack Obama for creating jobs and growing the economy: “ … [he] has taken formidable, decisive steps to protect free enterprise , investors and consumers – and why he’s fighting for an economy that’s built to last… ” “ …the President championed Wall Street reform that requires more rigorous disclosure and tightens oversight of the kind of speculation that caused the market meltdown… ” The memo also claims the president rescued the U.S. auto industry, revived manufacturing, and freed businesses from “burdensome regulations.” However, it’s not the boasts about President Obama’s economic “successes” that have some critics scratching their heads. It’s the decision to attack Mitt Romney via private equity. Considering the fact that President Obama has “both taken donations from the industry and appointed a number of private equity veterans to his administration,” as Alexander Burns of Politico writes, this line of attack seems very odd. Here is a sampling of some of the “private equity veterans” President Obama has surrounded himself with (via Politico ): Jack Lew : The new White House chief of staff was previously a managing director at Citi Alternative Investments Nancy-Ann DeParle : A deputy chief of staff who helped lead the president’s health care reform effort was also a managing director at CCMP Capital Jeffrey Goldstein : The recently-departed undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance was also a managing director at Hellman & Friedman before he joined the administration. He’s returning to the private equity firm now that he has resigned Steve Rattner : A former auto czar who came out of the world of private equity before briefly working with the administration Mark Gallogly : Works for Centerbridge Partners, and is formerly of the Blackstone Group. He was on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board Richard Parsons : Former Time Warner executive on the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. He is also linked to Providence Equity Partners Inc Walter Jones : Currently the U.S. executive director of the African Development Bank, he was also a senior private equity executive with Gravitas Capital Advisors And these are just a few examples. This list doesn’t even mention the other “private equity veterans” currently employed by the President’s Management Advisory Board, the Board for International Food and Agriculture Development, the National Infrastructure Advisory Council and the Advisory Committee of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. “If President Obama plans to campaign against Mitt Romney and the alleged evils of private equity, then he will need to start by purging the ranks of his own administration,” a private equity insider told Politico . Final Thought : Seeing as how they’ve decided to target him specifically, as opposed to any of the other GOP candidates, it seems the Obama re-election campaign is confident Mitt Romney will win the GOP nomination. Read the full memo here.
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Obama Re-Election Campaign Accuses Romney of Being a ‘Corporate Raider’ and Exploiting the Middle Class
AT&T said Monday that it’s ending its $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile USA after facing overwhelming opposition from U.S. regulators and the Obama administration. Monday’s announcement came as little surprise after the Justice Department sued on Aug. 31 to block the merger. The deal looked further in jeopardy when the Federal Communications Commission’s chairman also came out against it. The Financial Times reports: The move – a rare upset for a deal of its size – represents a significant setback for AT&T under the management of Randall Stephenson, chief executive, who saw the purchase as a way to overcome a shortage of wireless spectrum facing AT&T because of the rapid growth in data-hungry smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone. If the deal had been completed, the second and fourth-largest US mobile network operators would have been combined to create a new US market leader with more than 130m subscribers and put 75 per cent of the industry in the hands of Verizon Wireless and AT&T. AT&T will now have to pay Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile USA’s parent company) $3 billion in cash as a breakup fee and give it about $1 billion worth of airwaves, known as spectrum, that AT&T doesn’t need for the continued rollout of its high-speed “4G” network. It will also enter into a roaming agreement with Deutsche Telekom so that AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s customers can use each other’s networks. “AT&T, which announced the deal in March originally, blamed its failure on ‘the actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice,’” writes Paul Taylor and Helen Thomas of the Financial Times. After AT&T killed the deal on Monday, the company is back to square one in trying to figure out how to meet the growing–and almost furious–demand for spectrum. Randall Stephenson, who took over as AT&T’s chief executive in 2007, was not happy that the company had to abandon the merger. “To meet the needs of our customers, we will continue to invest,” he said. “However, adding capacity to meet these needs will require policymakers to do two things. First, in the near term, they should allow the free markets to work so that additional spectrum is available to meet the immediate needs of the U.S. wireless industry, including expeditiously approving our acquisition of unused Qualcomm spectrum currently pending before the FCC. Second, policymakers should enact legislation to meet our nation’s longer-term spectrum needs [emphasis added],” he said, according to the Financial Times. Many people, however, believe that AT&T had overstated the spectrum crisis. First, there is the matter of the banks. Some analysts believe that this alone was a good reason for the Justice Department and the FCC to block the deal. See, involved in the merger deal were seven investment banks. These banks were set to pocket an estimated “$153 million in fees related to the transaction, with the bulk of M&A fees payable on the deal’s successful closing,” according to Thomson Reuters. Antitrust experts and other industry advisers have “questioned the wisdom of AT&T and Deutsche Telekom pursuing the combination, arguing that the pairing had long been deemed almost impossible to be cleared by government watchdogs.” Indeed, with much to gain from the merger, it might be easy to see why some analysts believe that individuals involved in the deal were overstating their case. Then there is the question of AT&T’s actual spectrum usage. “AT&T already has an ample supply of unused wireless spectrum that it plans to use to expand its network over the next several years,” the AP explains. “And much of T-Mobile’s spectrum is already in use, so the deal wouldn’t have resulted in fresh airwaves becoming available.” “Furthermore, AT&T has made great strides in addressing network congestion in such cities as New York and San Francisco not by tapping its unused spectrum, but by upgrading its cell-tower equipment,” the AP continues. Still, with the merger killed, AT&T’s best bet to acquire airwave space is through a possible spectrum auction–through the FCC. Or, if it doesn’t like that option, it can always buy spectrum from satellite cable operator Dish Network–which could require an FCC waiver. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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AT&T Abandons T-Mobile Merger Due to Opposition from the Obama Administration
What was supposed to be a great fall afternoon enjoying one of college football’s oldest rivalries has ended in tragedy. The Yale Daily News reports that shortly before 10:00 a.m. Saturday, three people tailgating the 128th Harvard-Yale game in New Haven were struck by a U-Haul truck driven by a Yale student, killing one tailgater and injurying the other two: “The incident took place at 9:49 a.m. One of the victims, a 30-year-old woman from Massachusetts unaffiliated with Harvard or Yale, was pronounced dead at 10:16 a.m. at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and another, a New Haven woman and student in the School of Management, is in serious but stable condition at Y-NHH, Hartman said. The third victim was taken to St. Raphael’s Hospital and treated for minor injuries.” The AP reports that the U-Haul truck was carrying beer kegs, and that the victims were struck after the truck suddenly, and unexplainably, accelerated. An onlooker to the crash posted a video on YouTube showing victims awaiting an amblance as police arrived on the scene: “We’re not getting a pulse,” said someone crouched near one victim. One tailgater who heard the crash behind him turned to see two people lying on the ground, and told AP: “‘The driver looked shocked. Absolutely shocked,’ Walker said. Police have not said whether alcohol was a factor. ‘He didn’t look intoxicated or anything like that,’ Walker added. ‘He had a dazed look like he had just hit someone.’” The driver is in police custody and the woman who was killed was pronounced dead at about 10:15 a.m. The Yale Daily News reports that the U-Haul was heading for the site of the Sigma Phi Epsilon tailgate, and crashed into a smaller U-Hail in addition to the three victims. Students at the scene told the Daily News that emergency responders gave one of the victims CPR for 10 minutes. At the start of halftime, the Yale Bowl stopped for a moment of silence for the victims. The announcer, Mark Ryba, delivered a statement from the University confirming that one victim had died and two were injured in the crash, according to the Daily News. “The Yale community is deeply saddened by the tragic vehicle accident that occurred at a Yale Bowl parking lot this morning,” the school said in statement. “Yale extends our sympathies and prayers to the family of the woman who was killed and hopes for the speedy recovery of the two women hurt,” the statement said. “Our thoughts are also with those who witnessed or were affected by this tragic accident.” As for the game itself, Harvard won 45-7 for its fifth straight victory over Yale. Police gave details of the tragedy to the New Haven Register: One ’90 Yale Alum at the scene told the Register that he was furious about regulations on tailgating partying and drinking. “This is the stupidest thing the school could do to turn off alumni,” said Ken T., adding that Yale is dependent on alumni for donations.
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U-Haul Carrying Kegs Hits Yale-Harvard Tailgaters and Kills Woman
Conservatives and Republican lawmakers are furious after the Obama administration announced its objection to adding President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. The objection was reportedly raised during a congressional hearing on Republican Congressman Bill Johnson’s bill – the “World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2011.” “It is unconscionable that the Obama administration would stand in the way of honoring our nation’s distinguished World War II veterans,” Johnson said. “President Roosevelt’s prayer gave solace, comfort and strength to our nation and our brave warriors as we fought against tyranny and oppression.” Roosevelt’s prayer asked God to give the allied troops courage and faith, saying: “With thy blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy.” Fox News adds that Robert Abbey, the director of the Bureau of Land Management, said any plaque or inscription bearing the prayer would “dilute” the “elegant” memorial’s core message and therefore “should not be altered.” Does Abbey mean to say that the memorial would no longer appear elegant if it contained a reference to “God?” It appears so: “It is not a judgment as to the merit of this new commemoration, simply that altering the Memorial in this way, as proposed in HR 2070, will necessarily dilute this elegant memorial’s central message and its ability to clearly convey that message to move, educate, and inspire its many visitors,” Abbey said in written testimony. Abbey explained to lawmakers that altering the memorial would be contrary to the Commemorative Works Act — a law that prohibits “encroachment by a new commemoration on a existing one.” It also respects the design of the “completed work of civic art without alteration or addition of new elements.” “For there to be objections to demonstrating a faith in God at critical points in our nation’s history – particularly D-Day – boggles my mind,” Johnson said. “I was very surprised they were going to object.” Meanwhile, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council said he is not surprised by the objections. “This is further evidence that the administration has created an environment that is hostile towards American history – but in particular towards Christianity,” Perkins told Fox News. “I hope America wakes up and realizes what this administration is doing to this country and how they want to radically and fundamentally change America.”
ContributorNetwork – Recently Robert Zubrin, the head of the Mars Society, published an op-ed in the Washington Times in which he accused the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget of plotting to terminate planetary science at NASA.
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Is Obama’s OMB Planning to Cancel NASA’s Planetary Exploration Program?
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Before 9/11, there was 10/12. The USS Cole bombing , eleven years ago today, should have taught us all that the jihadists’ war on the infidel West started a long, long time ago. The Navy will remember in Norfolk today. Have you forgotten? Too many have: Remember: The flame of Muslim outrage is eternal. Never forget: The American heroes who gave their lives. Electronics Technician 1st Class Richard Costelow Mess Management Specialist Lakina Francis Information Systems Technician Tim Guana Signalman Seaman Recruit Cherone Gunn Seaman James McDaniels Engineman 2nd Class Mark Nieto Electronics Warfare Technician 3rd Class Ronald Owens Seaman Recruit Lakiba Parker Engineman Fireman Joshua Parlett Fireman Apprentice Patrick Roy Electronics Warfare Technician Kevin Rux Petty Officer 3rd Class Ron Santiago Operations Special 2nd Class Timothy Sanders Fireman Gary Swenchonis Jr Ensign Andrew Triplett Seaman Apprentice Craig Wibberly Hull Maintenance Technician 3rd Class Kenneth Clodfelter. *** Flashback October 12, 2001… A forgotten day of infamy by Michelle Malkin Creators Syndicate 10/12/01 BEFORE 9-11, there was 10-12. On this dark day, one year ago, a bomb ripped through the U.S.S. Cole – and tore apart the lives of 17 American families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack. The Cole, a guided missile destroyer sent to enforce the United Nations embargo on Iraq, had been refueling at the Yemeni port of Aden when a pair of suicide bombers rammed their explosive-packed skiff into the American ship. A year later, the Cole crewmembers and their families have been largely forgotten. Despite former President Clinton’s swaggering promise to track down the attackers (“We will find out who was responsible and hold them accountable.”) not a single suspect has answered for the despicable murders on Oct. 12, 2000. Yemen – long a safe haven for terrorists — refuses to cooperate with our Federal Bureau of Investigation. Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind both the 10-12 and 9-11 attacks, continues to breathe free while American widows grieve. One of those young widows is Sharla Costelow. Her husband Richard, a chief petty officer on the Cole, died while lunching in the chief’s mess when the explosion hit. A communications technology whiz, he had been promoted at sea a month before the attack. In a paper he wrote during his Chief’s initiation process, Costelow reflected on his new responsibilities: “To instill excellence in today’s generation is a tough job. A Chief must be ready for the challenges that this job creates. I will be ready. I have to be. The future of the Navy depends on it. I will not sit back and take it easy. I will strive for excellence in all that I do.” Chief Costelow — 35, dedicated to the defense of his country, and devoted to his family — now lies buried in a field of fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetery. “There are still days when I get depressed, and angry, and can’t stop crying,” Mrs. Costelow told me in a phone interview earlier this week. The pain, she said, “didn’t end with the death of my husband. It’s part of our daily lives.” She preserves the memory of her husband and the Cole by maintaining a website and writing letters to Congress — which have been ignored. The great Christian author C.S. Lewis wrote: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Shame on those government officials who refuse to hear the Cole families’ pleas for answers – and accountability. “It’s been swept under the rug,” Mrs. Costelow noted. But she won’t be silenced. She supports the current action in Afghanistan against bin Laden, but she is upset that “so many people had to die because of these terrorists. I feel strongly that our government at the time of the Cole attack was totally negligent.” Mrs. Costelow wants to write a book about her experience, but in the meantime, her children (Dillon, 14, Brady, 6, and Ethan, 4) keep her going — along with her religious faith. On her website memorial to her husband, Mrs. Costelow posted an image of an eagle along with a scriptural passage that inspires her: “Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary (Isaiah 40: 31).” The most difficult thing to deal with, Mrs. Costelow said, is the irreplaceable loss suffered by her boys. “The love of their father, the look in his eyes, the feeling from his heart – they won’t ever have that again.” Her youngest son, Ethan, still has trouble sleeping sometimes because “he’s afraid the bad guys will come and get him like they got his dad.” Never forget Ethan Costelow’s fear. Never forget his father’s bravery and his mother’s grief. This is why we are at war with the evil forces of terrorism. This is why we must win.
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Remember the USS Cole: 11 years
Last week, I alerted you to the fight on the right over the massive omnibus spending bill. Well, it’s 1am Eastern time, and the House just passed the short-term FY 2012 spending bill by a vote of 219-203. 24 fiscal conservatives said no to the $24 billion spending hike. Per Chad Pergram at Fox News: Amash, Austria, Broun, DesJarlais, Duncan (SC), Flake, Franks, Gingery, Graves (GA), Huelskamp, Huizinga, Hultgren, Jordan, King (IA), Lummis, Mack, Mulvaney, McClintock, Pearce, Poe, Schweikert, Walsh, Westmoreland and Wilson (SC). 6 Democrats voted yes and sided with the GOP leadership: Altmire, Holden, Kissell, McCarthy (NY), Michaud and Welch. Boehner’s enticement to win back a few dozen Republicans who had previously revolted? Slicing off some federal funding for Solyndra-style subsidies: House Republicans just after 8 p.m. introduced a new modified continuing resolution, which includes $100 million in cuts to a Department of Energy program called the Innovative Technology Loan Guarantee Program. That program is the one that helped fund Solyndra, an energy company that went bankrupt and has led to Republican inquiries about how the program works. The modification is in the form of an amendment to the continuing resolution that failed in the House on Wednesday. On to the Senate … The 219-203 vote sets up a confrontation with the Senate, where Democratic leaders have vowed to block the measure in a dispute over federal disaster aid. …Reid said the Senate was ready to stay in session next week, potentially canceling its scheduled recess. The House bill would fund the government through Nov. 18. By pushing ahead with a tweaked version of his original bill, Boehner is hoping to jam the Senate with time running out. While the federal government has funding through Sept. 30, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will run out of money by Monday, officials in both parties have said. “I urge the Senate to quickly pass this bill so we can send it to the president and keep our focus on the American people’s top priority: jobs,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement after the vote. “This common-sense measure cuts spending for the second year in a row and protects our struggling economy from the uncertainty of a government shutdown.” The fight over a tiny sliver of the federal budget brought both parties back to the kind of brinksmanship they sought to avoid upon returning to Washington earlier this month. More than the $100 million cut for Solyndra, GOP lawmakers said it was the Democratic opposition that had drawn conservatives back to the leadership bill. They accused senior House Democrats of playing political games by withdrawing their support only after they saw the Republicans would have trouble passing the bill on their own. Country over politics, yadda yadda yadda.
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Breaking: House passes short-term continuing resolution in dead of night
Reports claim that infamous, ultra-liberal billionaire George Soros has ties to LightSquared, a company that finds itself in the middle of intense scrutiny. Soros, a champion of leftist values, has allegedly invested in LightSquared through a hedge fund numerous times. The Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney also reports that many of the non-profit organizations that the billionaire has funded have backed the telecom company in regulatory and policy disputes. While Carney claims that Soros’ impact is “constantly and grossly exaggerated by conservatives,” he does admits that Soros has influence (an undeniable fact that the Blaze has covered extensively). Carney goes on to explain the relationship that exist between the famed billionaire and America’s leftist movement and launches into the many ties that Soros purportedly has to LightSquared: First, Soros is reportedly an investor in LightSquared. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2010: “In 2009, while some investors were asking for withdrawals, others were lining up to put money into Harbinger. They included Soros Fund Management, which during the past year became a significant new investor, say people familiar with the matter.” Carney goes on to claim that organizations Soros funds have defended LightSquared in various disputes over the past two years. The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, in one example, filed a petition with the FCC backing the business plan that the company’s owners (Harbinger Capital Partners) put together. Then, the coalition purportedly met with an FCC commissioner to discuss this same subject. Four of the groups that are a part of the coalition received six-figure gifts from Soros’ Open Society Institute the year prior and all four — Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge — backed LightSquared in an associated regulatory matter six months later. While Soros may have no connection to the White House scandal surrounding the company, it is, as Carney notes, worth investigating. This is especially true as the Obama administration faces increased scrutiny over charges that Gen. William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, was pressured to change Congressional testimony to favor LightSquared’s new, 4G phone network. (Philip Falcone, who has exclusively donated to Democrats and Independents since Obama’s election, runs Harbinger). Below, watch Falcone deny any wrongdoing and said he’s donated to Republicans as well as Democrats and is actually a registered Republican: Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.com Watch the latest video at video.insider.foxnews.com To review: LightSquared’s plan to build the network has many in government, including Shelton, concerned. Apparently, the new technology is so powerful that it would severely impede the military’s high-precision GPS receiver systems (the satellite network that is relied upon by both the military and private industry). Newsy has more on the controversy surrounding the technology: Considering the debate surrounding this system, any White House pressure to change testimony would be potentially explosive. This is especially true considering the extensive ties to the company that people close to the administration are said to have. As the Huffington Post reports, Obama, himself, has financial interest in LightSquared: Obama…was an early investor and came to the presidency a firm believer in expanding broadband. He remains close to other early investors, like Gips and investment manager George W. Haywood, inviting some to luxe social events at the White House and more intimate gatherings like a night of poker and beer. On Tuesday , we reported that Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on CSPAN Tuesday that he plans to investigate government loan programs following revelations about Solyndra and the LightSquared controversy. More details on Soros and LightSquared are sure to follow. (h/t Washington Examiner )
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Does George Soros Have Financial Ties to LightSquared?
**Written by Doug Powers With the White House facing a possible criminal investigation over the Solyndra scandal , look for more and more current and former members of the Obama administration to go full blown Sgt. Schultz. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff when the Solyndra loan was finalized, sets the pace : Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says that he doesn’t recall the Obama administration’s loan to Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer that received more than $500 million in taxpayer loans and is now under investigation. Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, told local radio station WLS that he was not going to talk about the company. “I don’t actually remember that or know about it. So, what I’m dealing is with what I’m dealing with here today,” Emanuel told a reporter. More from the Daily Caller : E-mail communications from the White House obtained by the House Energy and Commerce Committee point to more involvement in the deal than perhaps Emanuel would care to remember. The vice president was scheduled to announce the closure of the Solyndra deal on Sept. 4, and several e-mails show pressure from the White House to approve the loan. In one e-mail, an assistant to Emanuel wrote on Aug. 31, 2009 to the Office of Management and Budget about the administration’s upcoming announcement on Solyndra and asked whether “there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side.” Predicted Emanuel response: “Wait… I had an assistant? ” **Written by Doug Powers Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Rahm Emanuel: Solyndra? Never Heard of It
