••••• Did we just witness a flip-flop by Republican Josh Mandel?????? In a March news article at the Youngstown Vindicator, Josh Mandel said he had opposed the auto recovery plan (aka auto bailout), even though 850,000 Ohio jobs are related to the auto industry. Now, Mandel has a different story.
News-Herald: ....Mandel said he didn’t have a position on the federal auto bailout because he was a state representative at the time.
“I can tell you moving forward, one of the most significant planks of our platform is putting in place a better environment for restoring manufacturing jobs here in Ohio,” Mandel said. “An important part of that platform is the auto industry.”
What???? Mandel cares about the American auto industry now??????? OMG!!!!
By the way, I encourage you to read Mandel's Jobs Plan to find out how he embraces businesses, instead of people.
*****
* Mitt Romney says he supports veterans, but his support is given only in words. When Romney (see ChicagoTribune) called Paul Ryan's budget "marvelous," he didn't mention what the Paul Ryan budget did to veterans.TalkingPointsMemo:
On a conference call Thursday, the Obama campaign will announce the
launch of Veterans and Military Families for Obama, building on work the
campaign has been doing to engage the military vote this election
cycle. But the messaging doens’t stop there. The campaign will also
attack Mitt Romney, arguing that his policies – like his support for the
Ryan Budget – would hurt veterans.
From the press release:
Our country can’t go backwards, but that’s exactly what Mitt Romney promises America’s veterans. The Romney-Ryan budget includes deep domestic spending cuts that – if applied across the board – would cut veterans’ spending by $11 billion a year. Additionally, he said he would consider eliminating the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which would put thousands of Veterans on the streets by eliminating critical funding and support for programs aimed at helping homeless Veterans. In fact, Romney suggested privatizing veterans benefits and giving veterans vouchers for health care – an idea that outside experts said would leave veterans unable to receive essential care and that the Veterans of Foreign Wars immediately came out in opposition to.
As TPM has reported,
the Obama campaign has been reaching out to veterans and members of the
military and their families, a vote that is increasingly important now
that states like Virginia and North Carolina are in play.......
Jon Stoltz, Iraq war vet, and the founder of Votevets.org, noted this about what the Paul Ryan budget does in a piece at the Huffington Post:
....we read that the GOP doesn't even talk about veterans in their budget.
But, without saying the word "veteran," the budget tells us a lot
about what they think about veterans. The budget calls for across the
board spending freezes and cuts. If enacted, the Ryan GOP budget would
cut $11 billion from veterans spending, or 13 percent from what President Obama proposes in his own plan.
It's unconscionable that they'd do this at a time when so many Iraq
veterans have just come home and rely on veterans care. Over 45,000 US
troops were wounded
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more will come who will rely on VA
services, on top of veterans of other wars and eras who depend on the
VA. But, this shortsightedness isn't new.....
....Yet, here we are. A budget from the GOP that short changes veterans,
horribly. And where does that money go? Not to reducing the debt. The
debt as a share of GDP would actually increase
under the Ryan plan. The money doesn't go towards anything, really.
But it does go towards some people. As in $3 trillion in tax giveaways to the richest Americans and corporations. People like Mitt Romney, who already pays a tax rate lower than most of our troops.....
The Paul Ryan budget is "marvelous" for people like Romney, but for our veterans, not so much.
