{"id":8423,"date":"2012-07-20T11:27:25","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T18:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=8423"},"modified":"2012-07-20T11:27:26","modified_gmt":"2012-07-20T18:27:26","slug":"etching-a-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/20\/etching-a-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"Etching a Scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">When the right started boiling over with charges of crony capitalism, regarding a little known auto brand, the Fisker, I ignored it.&#160; I have no problem covering Democratic Party scandals, but this one did not smell right, and I was confident that, as more information about the issue came out, the real facts would have little resemblance, if any, to Republican claims.&#160; Poor Willard!&#160; He etched a scandal and got caught!<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: left; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"20Fisker\" border=\"0\" alt=\"20Fisker\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/20Fisker.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"220\" \/>\u201cI am ashamed to say that <strong>we\u2019re seeing our president hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors<\/strong>, when he gave money, $500 million in loans to a company called Fisker that makes high-end electric cars, and they make the cars now in Finland. That is wrong and it\u2019s got to stop. That kind of crony capitalism does not create jobs and it does not create jobs here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mitt Romney, Irwin, Pa., July 17<\/p>\n<p>Hoping to turn attention away from questions about his departure from Bain Capital a decade ago, <strong>Mitt Romney has sought to focus attention on what he calls President Barack Obama\u2019s \u201ccrony capitalism.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Fisker Automotive case keeps coming up, and Romney has now raised the stakes by asserting a connection between the loan and campaign contributors. (Fisker has developed a luxury plug-in electric sedan called the Karma that retails for $108,000, currently manufactured in Finland. It hopes to develop a $50,000 sedan , the Atlantic, that would be manufactured in Delaware.)\u2026 [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bendbulletin.com\/article\/20120719\/NEWS0107\/207190345\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bend Bulletin<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Picture Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/inhabitat.com\/leonardo-dicaprio-spotted-driving-his-new-fisker-karma-luxury-ev\/\" target=\"_blank\">Inhabitat<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Watch Willard lie:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"480\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mXOzH9jYI3I\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">In fact, the Washington Post gave him four Pinocchios. (It should have been four GWs.)<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: right; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"20romney-pinocchio\" border=\"0\" alt=\"20romney-pinocchio\" align=\"right\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/20romney-pinocchio.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"207\" \/>&#8230;Romney said the president gave money to \u201cthe businesses of campaign contributors.\u201d Doerr is an important partner at Kleiner, and he has been an advocate for green energy, but it is a stretch to say it is his \u201cbusiness.\u201d In fact, Ray Lane, <strong>who contributes mostly to Republicans<\/strong>, is an important Kleiner partner on this deal. Moreover, the money was raised before Obama became president. <\/p>\n<p>Romney said Obama gave \u201c$500 million in loans to a company called Fisker\u201d \u2014 but <strong>it was a loan originally submitted under the Bush administration for a Bush administration program<\/strong>. He also said \u201cthey make cars now in Finland\u201d \u2014 technically true, but in a way that suggests the taxpayer money went for that purpose, rather than for jobs and work in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Romney makes the leap that because of the \u201ccrony capitalism\u201d \u2014 not proven \u2014 no jobs will be created. The company says jobs have been created, though the venture is still highly uncertain.<\/p>\n<p>Romney\u2019s phrasing has too many weasel words. An ordinary listener would believe that Obama paid off a contributor to build cars in Finland with U.S. taxpayer money, with no hope of U.S. jobs being created. That does not appear to be the case, at least as Romney has framed it. <\/p>\n<p><strong>We usually give some credit for a semblance to the truth, but the net effect of Romney\u2019s words is too much<\/strong>. [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/fact-checker\/post\/4-pinocchios-for-mitt-romneys-unproven-claim-of-crony-capitalism\/2012\/07\/17\/gJQAYuYPsW_blog.html\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Picture Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.democraticunderground.com\/1002893468\" target=\"_blank\">Democratic Underground<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Rachel Maddow went into detail exposing Willard&#8217;s lie, and explained how it reflects the state of his campaign.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><object width=\"592\" height=\"346\" id=\"msnbc6bac63\" classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\" target=\"_blank\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=10,0,0,0\"><param name=\"movie\" target=\"_blank\" value=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" \/><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"launch=48252224^0^952953&amp;width=592&amp;height=346\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><embed name=\"msnbc6bac63\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" width=\"592\" height=\"346\" FlashVars=\"launch=48252224^0^952953&amp;width=592&amp;height=346\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" wmode=\"transparent\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\"><\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; margin-top: 5px; width: 592px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; background: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; color: #999; font-size: 11px\">Visit NBCNews.com for <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\" target=\"_blank\">breaking news<\/a>, <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\" target=\"_blank\">world news<\/a>, and <a style=\"border-bottom: #999 1px dotted; height: 13px; color: #5799db !important; font-weight: normal !important; text-decoration: none !important\" href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\" target=\"_blank\">news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Now you know. Just like their now thoroughly debunked Fast and Furious scandal, Willard and the Republican Party are lying to manufacture another scandal. There is a reason Republicans use this tactic. They invent scandals, because they can find no real scandals they can use to distract attention from their own very real scandals. Their haste and sloppiness in crafting this one reflects their level of desperation as well as their incompetence.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the right started boiling over with charges of crony capitalism, regarding a little known auto brand, the Fisker, I ignored it.&#160; I have no problem covering Democratic Party scandals, but this one did not smell right, and I was confident that, as more information about the issue came out, the real facts would have <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/07\/20\/etching-a-scandal\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}