Asked about the Occupy protestors, Mitt told CBS in Charlotte, NC that “a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand…why we have banks and what banks do.”
I think what the Occupy people, and the American people, don’t understand is why the banks are still doing the same crap that caused the meltdown — like J. P. Morgan’s $2 billion loss in credit default swaps.
From a fun read, “WTF, GOP?” by Monka Bauerlen and Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones:
“You coulda been a contender! Economy in the tank. Congress successfully gridlocked. Consider: Base energized, Yes-We-Can shock troops disaffected, major donors to the president’s campaign picketing his speeches. True, with Occupy on the rise, it did become (cue Jon Stewart falsetto) awkward that your leading candidate was an unapologetic poster child for the 0.0025 percent. Still, all you had to do was set Clinton ’92 ‘It’s the Economy, Stupid’ messaging on autoplay and coast to November. Instead, a way on ladyparts?
“Sure, it’s been entertaining. Schadenfreude, as the German saying goes, is the best freude. But liberals take note: Not only is a robust dialogue crucial for an intellectually engaged democracy, it also happens to be required to Get. Anything. Done. Even if the Republican brand suffers long-term damage (and the jury’s still out), conservatives will make up north of 40 percent of the vote, most importantly in the US Senate.
“Surely we are not alone in worrying that the Grand Old Party is losing touch with reality — obsessing on issues entirely divorced from both 21st-century mores and the pressing economic challenges of the day. But excepting Bush speechwriter David Frum’s cri de coeur in New York magazine (rewarded with RINO opprobrium from his colleagues), name-brand Republican thinkers steer clear of a frank diagnosis. They might bemoan a weak field of candidates — George Will has basically written off the White House and tried to rally the troops around holding the House — but no one dares take on the twin planks of Loonyville: Grover Norquist’s no-taxes-never-ever pledge and Roger Ailes’ facts-be-damned spin on the ‘news.’
“The realpolitik leaders on the right made a bet that they could ride the latest populist wave as they’ve ridden others, using the momentum to pull the rest of the country rightward. But they got greedy. The current cohort’s overreach threatens to blow 30 years of careful strategizing, from the school-boards-on-up long march to power to Karl Rove’s microtargeting breakthroughs.” Italics in original, emphasis added.
Speaking about Mitt and his Bain Capital: “I will suggest they’re just vultures. They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick. And then they swoop in, they eat the carcass, they leave with that and they leave the skeleton.”
Was that someone addressing an Occupy rally? No, that was Rick Perry campaigning in South Carolina! Getting hard to tell the Republicans from the Dems!
Someone should do posters/ads/t-shirts/ mugs, etc. with Mitt’s head on the body of a vulture.
In an interesting and pretty amazing twist, it looks as if the GOP primary campaign in super-conservative South Carolina is going to sound more like an Occupy rally, with Mitt Romney’s opponents attacking him for his ruthlessness and greed in running Bain capital, which made him very rich and made a lot of Americans unemployed.
From Politico*:
“While conservatives look unlikely to unite around one alternative to Romney, the campaigns themselves are uniting around the theme that the former head of Bain Capital looted companies, tossed people out of jobs and is now exaggerating his success at the venture capital firm.
“In the context of this moment in America politics, in which frustration with the privileged is boiling hot, the attack, from Republicans on one side and the Obama campaign on the other, will test Romney. If he ends up looking more like an oppportunist who profited for the few than like a man who created jobs for the many, it’s hard to imagine his poll numbers won’t drop.”
*”The Bain Bomb,” by Reid J. Epstein and Jim VandeHei
In his quest to gain votes from Democrats like Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana for his American Jobs Act that isn’t going to pass anyway, President Obama has deleted the provision that would end tax breaks for oil companies.
Occupy the oil companies!
Embattled Farmers 