The HyperTexts

Romney: War on Moms is a "Gift"

During a closed-door fundraiser in Florida, Ann Romney told the audience that Hilary Rosen's remark that she had never worked was a boon to her and her husband's political campaign: "It was my early birthday present for someone to be critical of me as a mother, and that was really a defining moment, and I loved it." Bishop Willard Mitt Romney, a high official of the cult-like Mormon church, obviously agreed because while speaking after his wife, he called the ensuing "war on moms" a "gift."

I find it hard to understand why a man running for president of the United States, and his potential first lady, would consider a war on mothers to be a "gift." But that was not Rosen's intention. Rather, she had criticized the Mormonator for turning to his wife for advice on women's economic concerns, when she had never entered the job market and has long lived a life of incredible luxury because Willard Billhard is one of the world's wealthiest men. Most American mothers these days have to work for pay and be their children's primary caregivers. While Rosen's choice of words may have been unfortunate, her point seems valid. Especially when Ann Romney has made statements such as: "My horse has more style and more class in its hoof than they [presumably less affluent people] do in their whole deal!"

Like her husband, Ann Romney comes across as a rich boor ... so perhaps Hilary Rosen was more right than she was wrong.

Golden Showers, or a Reign of Terror?

In a tight presidential race, it’s dangerous to alienate American women, since they outnumber men and thus represent the majority of voters. But Mitt Romney has real difficulty talking about women without sticking his oversized foot in his overactive mouth. Now he’s in a real bind over his "binders full of women" blunder. "Binder" rhymes with "bind her" ... did Medieval Mitt's irrepressible alpha male id inject its two cents' worth into the current debate about women's rights? Romney's disdainful, insensitive bullying of first an elderly male moderator, then a female moderator, certainly makes him look suspect on the equality front.
 
During their second debate, President Obama challenged Romney directly on the issue of equal pay for equal work, bringing up the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Act, which was the first piece of legislation he signed as president, but which Romney and the Romulans (oops, Republicans) opposed.
 
Romney attempted to dodge the pay equality issue by claiming that as governor of Massachusetts he proactively requested the resumes of women qualified to join his cabinet. But Romney "didn’t go out looking for those binders" according to Carol Hardy-Fanta, the former co-chairwoman of the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project (MassGAP). Rather, MassGAP initiated and spearheaded the process before Romney’s election and provided an unsolicited roster of qualified female candidates when he won. In an interview with National Review, Kerry Healey, Romney’s former lieutenant governor, confirmed that the binders in question came from MassGAP.
 
Fact checkers were also quick to point out that Romney never made a woman a partner during his entire tenure as CEO of Bain Capital, the ultimate rich boys’ club. So it seems Romney was blissfully unaware of the existence of a single qualified executive-level female until MassGap finally opened his eyes.
 
According to The Huffington Post, one of Romney’s senior advisers, Ed Gillespie, confirmed that if Romney had been president in 2009, he would not have signed the Lilly Ledbetter bill into law. "Is that leadership?" asked Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, pointing out that if Romney was president, "We wouldn't have equal pay. I think that's the point. He doesn't lift a finger to do anything for women."
 
Romney is on record as saying that it’s not his job to worry about the 47% of Americans who don’t make enough money to pay federal income taxes. He also seems to have few concerns about the 52% of Americans who face rampant pay discrimination in the job market. Does he, perhaps, come off as an elitist male chauvinist oinker because that’s what he is?
 
Lilly Ledbetter herself hit the nail squarely on the head in her comments reported by the Wall Street Journal: "I think women have gotten the message loud and clear from the other side — how they don’t believe in equal pay for equal work and they don’t believe that we women have the right to say what we should do with our bodies."
 
Ledbetter also pointed out that before Roe vs. Wade, many American women bled to death from hemorrhages caused by illegal back alley abortions. While Romney tries to give the impression of being "empathetic " by deigning to allow abortions in cases of rape, incest and a woman’s life being imperiled, where does this leave most teenagers and working mothers who have accidents? They will be faced with either risking their lives and health to bear babies they don’t want and can’t afford, or resorting to expensive butchers or cheap wire hangers. Does any man have the right to send American girls and women back to the Stone Age? Should patriarchal men’s beliefs about invisible gods and soul-infused macroscopic cells trump women’s rights over their own bodies? Why not keep religion a personal, rather than a political, matter?
 
Ledbetter’s remarks about being "shortchanged " (the absolutely perfect word) by Romney, made at the Democratic National Convention are also germane: "Maybe 23 cents [per hour] doesn’t sound like a lot to someone with a Swiss bank account, Cayman Island investments, and an IRA worth tens of millions of dollars. But Governor Romney, when we lose 23 cents every hour every day, every month, it cannot just be measured in dollars." The energized, appreciative audience rose to its feet as she concluded with: "What began as my own, is now our fight for the fundamental American values that make our country great." She was, of course, talking about Americans believing in fair play and a level playing field for everyone.

But as President Obama just pointed out during the second debate, Romney has a one-point economic plan: let the richest Americans acquire even more of the nation’s wealth and hope that a drop here and there trickles down to burdened masses, in the political equivalent of a golden shower, with most of the pissers being rich, entitled men and most of the pissees being discriminated-against women. 

Ledbetter’s speech garnered one of the highest tweets-per-minute ratios during the recent conventions. Romney’s infamous phrase quickly became the third most-searched-for term on Google. So it seems that many American women are paying close attention, and my educated guess is that they are not at all amused by Bishop  Romney’s blatant alpha male chauvinism.

The Stepford Wife

What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage. — Ann Romney

Since the US has not yet officially banned marriages of human beings to cyborgs, this may well be true. On the other hand, in what sort of "real marriage" does the bride tell her parents that they're not welcome to attend her wedding ceremony because the Mormon Church forbids non-Mormon from entering its Salt Lake City temple? Or, when her father refuses to convert to Mormonism, has him baptized into the faith after his death? Or claims that she never argues with her husband, the autocratic and intimidating Bishop Romney? Or says that he never raises his voice to her (perhaps because she's so wonderfully submissive?) Or who describes their love like this in an anniversary video: "I think Mitt now will say that I dug it in really, really deep, and he’s never been able to escape the grasp that I got ahold of him."

Creepy Romney

Joe Conason reported in The National Memo that Mitt Romney routinely impersonated police officers by donning a cop uniform that was apparently a gift from his father. One of Romney’s friends, Robin Madden, claims he "told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler." Madden’s wife added, "We thought it was all pretty weird. We all thought, 'Wow, that’s pretty creepy.'" According to Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman in their article "The Real Romney," other sources said that Romney schemed with friends to prank two girls. Romney "put a siren on top of his car and chased two of his friends who were driving around with their dates." Romney pulled them over and "discovered" beer in the truck. Romney and his friends then got into Romney’s car and left the girls behind.

Bishop Romney

Willard Mitt Romney is a High Priest of the Mormon Church, and once served as a Bishop over a diocese (called a "stake"). While I would not normally be concerned about a presidential candidate's religious beliefs, I would if he was a brainwashed Moonie, for obvious reasons. I think we should all be concerned about the High Priest of a bizarre cult running for president. Here are just a few of the many strange teachings of the Mormon church:

• God the Father is a polygamist who lives on the planet Kolob, where he has sex with his harem of wives.
• God the Father had physical sex with Mary.
• Jesus was and is a polygamist.
• Mormon men will become Gods.
• Mormon wives can only enter heaven if their husbands consent; in heaven they will remain eternally pregnant, bearing innumerable spirit children.
• Human beings are not saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but by participating in the secret sacraments of the Mormon temple.
• Because salvation depends on temple sacraments, Mormon priests can sentence people to hell, by excommunicating them.
• This, of course, gives the Mormon church and its priests tremendous power over church members.

There are many credible reports of the Mormon church using that power to brainwash and control its members. And it turns out that Bishop Romney has been accused of using ruthless, cold-blooded and high-handed tactics himself, especially against women (which is not surprising in a cult whose most famous—or infamous—teaching is polygamy). For instance, Peggy Hayes, who once babysat Romney's children, said that when she was single and expecting, he showed up at her house one day, demanding that she surrender her baby to the church, via adoption. When she indignantly refused, Romney "somewhat casually" threatened her with excommunication, which was, in effect, to threaten her with hell. It seems Bishop Romney had appointed himself a God, here on earth, with the power to save women or condemn them to hell. Today, Peggy Hayes says, "My son was a gift to me" and "I'm so glad that I didn't listen to Mitt's advice." She thinks Romney is unfit to be president because "He follows the doctrines [of the Mormon church] so closely that he can't waver from it much."

Mitt's Magical Undies

As a High Priest of the Mormon Church, Bishop Romney must wear magical undergarments with special occult symbols that, according to Mormon dogma, protect him from lust, supernatural entities (demons) and various other dangers. Kay Burningham, a lawyer who left Mormonism, explains: "It’s very cultish in its behavior and what it demands of its people. It doesn’t allow free thought and it makes them perform these legalistic, symbolic, very strange behaviors, and tells them that those are required of God for their salvation." When Kay married a Mormon she was given magical underwear on her wedding day. She recalls that on the morning after her wedding night, "I awoke drenched in sweat, and found symbolic markings over the magic undergarments I was wearing." Bizarre occult signs covered her breasts and naval: "They resembled pagan signs, Masonic markings and had nothing whatsoever to do with God or religion." She was required to wear these church-endorsed undergarments every day, beneath her outer clothing.

Park Romney

Park Romney is a former Mormon high priest. He is also Mitt Romney’s second cousin and bears a striking resemblance to his famous relative. He calls Mormonism "an insidious contemporary fraud" and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints "an American cult." Bishop Romney, he claims, would be conflicted in office because "obedience to the leadership of the Mormon Church is part of the covenant of the temple ordinances to which Mitt Romney is absolutely a party."

Mitt Romney was a Mormon missionary to France in the 1960s, studied at the almost-exclusively Mormon Brigham Young University, and rose to become a Bishop and a Stake President (diocesan leader). He led Sunday services, ran Bible classes for children, and presided over a 4,000-strong congregation in Boston for five years in the 1980s. Like all Mormons, he is expected to give 10% of his annual income to the Church and not drink tea, coffee or alcohol. Committed Mormons wear magical underpants, and Romney is believed to follow this tenet of his faith too.

Park Romney questions founder Joseph Smith's prophecies: for example, his alleged "translation" of an Egyptian scroll, part of the Mormon book of Abraham, which Egyptologists say is a fraud. Mormons believe Smith found golden scripture plates buried by an angel, but according to Park Romney, "There's compelling evidence that the Mormon Church leaders knowingly and willfully misrepresent the historical truth of their origins and of the Church for the purpose of deceiving their members into a state of mind that renders them exploitable." According to Park Romney the Mormon leadership are "masters of mendacity" who brainwash their followers in order to take their money and control their lives. If he's right, Mitt Romney is either hopelessly gullible, or one of the cynical manipulators. In either case, he is not fit to be president.

A Concerned Mother Explains Why Mitt Romney Cannot Be Trusted

"My two-year-old daughter, Zoe, was born with half a heart. For her, that is and will forever be a 'pre-existing condition'—she required two open heart surgeries already, and she'll need one more within the next year. At the [first] debate, Mitt Romney told you, me, and everyone else in America that repealing Obamacare would be his first priority as president, including the part of Obamacare that says insurance companies will no longer be able to deny coverage or charge more based on pre-existing conditions. He said his repeal plan will take care of people with pre-existing conditions, but then his top campaign aide 'clarified' after the debate that all he means is he would go back to the inadequate system that existed before Obamacare, which allowed insurance companies to deny coverage and resulted in bankruptcies and broken families. In other words, despite what he said in the debate, his campaign says he has no intention to do anything to help people like my daughter, Zoe, if she ever loses coverage. I don't say this stuff because I'm a political junkie. I'm not. I pay attention to this because I have to ... The stakes couldn't be higher in this election."—Stacey Lihn

China Finds Comfort in Mitt Romney's Serial Flip-Flopping

China’s Xinhua news service recently called Mitt Romney "foolish" and hypocritical, declaring: "It is rather ironic that a considerable portion of this China-battering politician’s wealth was actually obtained by doing business with Chinese companies before he entered politics." According to The New Yorker, China had previously "been pleased by his association with Bain Capital, which had been energetic in trying to assist Chinese companies buy American technology firms." But then Romney switched from being an outsourcer of American technology and jobs to China, to being a critic of China. This bewildered China: "Is Romney only capable of saying slogans?" the Global Times asked. But China found hope and comfort in the fact that Romney is a serial flip-flopper who often says what he doesn't really mean: "Is Romney’s toughness toward China just a scam? Western media believed it a temporary tactic by Romney to win the presidential election. His soft stance is only a matter of time."

"How is it China’s been so successful in taking away our jobs?" Mitt Romney asked recently. "Well, let me tell you how: by cheating." But in his former "soft stance" it was Romney who, through Bain Capital and its affiliates, invested millions of dollars in Chinese companies like Asimco Technologies and notorious sweatshops like Global Tech Appliances, even as they acquired American technology and jobs with Romney's and Bain's assistance. According to The New York Times, Romney's financial disclosures reveal investments in at least seven Chinese companies. So his words and actions fail to mesh. A confidential prospectus for one of the Bain funds, obtained by The New York Times, promotes China as a good investment for the very reasons that Romney says concern him: "Strong fundamentals" like manufacturing wages 85 percent lower than what Americans earn, vast foreign exchange reserves and the likelihood that China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy.

Global Tech has been accused of violating patents, and for outsourcing Amercian jobs through its involvement with American manufacturers like Sunbeam. Sunbeam was run by Albert J. Dunlap, nicknamed "Chainsaw Al" for destroying so many American jobs. Sunbeam announced at least 6,400 layoffs in 1998, putting it among the top 10 in the country. And yet Romney invested millions of dollars in Global Tech, owning more than ten percent of its stock at one point.

Romney described touring Chinese factories during a Feb. 11, 1998 panel discussion at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston. During that discussion—which also featured Andrew Cuomo, who was then-secretary of Housing and Urban Development and is now governor of New York—Romney said, "I just came back from a trip to China, and I went to a factory of 5,000 workers making bread makers and mixers and so forth. And 5,000 Chinese, all graduated from high school, 18 to 24 years old, were working, working, working, as hard as they could, at rates of roughly 50 cents an hour ... they wouldn’t even look up as we walked by."

It seems Romney never asked himself why the workers didn't look up, or why he saw Chinese factories surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers (as he revealed in another discussion at a Boca Raton fundraiser), or why the workers were all so young. (and therefore vulnerable to exploitation). No, it seems all that Romney saw was an opportunity to make even more money ...

The American Taliban

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have designated themselves "America's Comeback Team" but they seem more like the Taliban to me, with their chauvinistic attitudes towards women and non-heterosexuals, and their autocratic alpha male machismo. They both have advocated prayer in schools. Romney has endorsed "religious ornamentation and celebration" in the public square. They sealed their political nuptials by running down to the podium from a battleship, laughing and waving, even though neither of them ever served in the US military. Paul Ryan looks and dresses like a Cold War spook. Mitt Romney blinks ten thousand times per second, has the most artificial smile I have ever seen, and seems to have absolutely no regard for the truth, or any empathy for ordinary Americans. Do we really want Ayatollah Romney and Imam Ryan to preside over the erstwhile Land of the Free?

Fire Big Bird, Outsource Sesame Street to China!

During his first presidential debate with President Barack Obama, the extraterrestrial android known here on earth as Willard Mitt Romney came up with a truly unique solution: fire Big Bird and outsource Sesame Street, along with the rest of PBS, most probably to China.



(Speaking of China, why did Mitt Romney invest millions of dollars in a Chinese sweat shop where thousands of young girls worked as virtual slaves, in terrible conditions, surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers? You and I would have reported the girls' plight to the proper authorities and the American public. Mitt Romney saw an opportunity to make lots of money and became a financial partner of the slave drivers.)

President Obama pointed out Romney's absurdity: "When he was asked what he'd actually do to cut the deficit and reduce spending, he said he'd eliminate funding for public television. That was his answer. I mean thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. It's about time! We didn't know that Big Bird was driving the federal deficit. But that's what we heard last night. How about that? Elmo, too?"

PBS quickly issued a statement noting that the federal outlay for public broadcasting was "one one-hundredth of one percent" of the nation’s budget.

The internet community was not nearly as polite, producing images of Big Bird giving Romney the bird, creating a "Big Bird for President" Facebook page, and plotting a Million Muppet March on Washington.



Romney's suggested sacking of Big Bird set the internet a-twitter, creating a spike of 350,000 tweets (roughly 17,000 per minute). Supporters of the popular Sesame Street character rushed to Twitter to create accounts such as @SadBigBird and @FiredBigBird, with messages like: "Mitt Romney favors Wall Street over Sesame Street." By the following morning, Romney's remark had emerged as an Internet meme: a cultural event reinterpreted in commentary and parody online. One image depicted Big Bird seated on the front stoop, next to two children, holding a sign declaring: "Will work for food."

The debate was the most tweeted-about political event in U.S. history. Users posted 10.3 million tweets about the 90-minute debate, eclipsing the 9.5 million tweets generated about the multi-day Democratic National Convention early last month. The Republican National Convention produced less than half as many tweets: 4 million, according to Twitter. Romney's dissing and dismissing of Big Bird didn't spark the largest reaction, however. That came when Romney started to suggest a debate topic, saying, "Let's talk about —" and moderator Jim Lehrer quipped, "Let’s not." That phrase generated 158,690 tweets per minute, and was my favorite moment of the debate.

Romney was so rude to Lehrer that Jimmy Fallon, playing Romney in a skit about the debate, told the actor playing Lehrer to "Shut the f*** up!"

Romney looked uneasy firing Big Bird, according to body language expert Chris Kowal: "When he talked about Big Bird he looked down at his right and I suspect he was actually uncomfortable making that point. If you're uncomfortable with something you don't give great eye contact." Kowal also said that Romney expressed "anger, contempt, scorn and pride," saying, "Those are the emotions that voters in his base feel." Kowal is a professor at Purdue University who has studied Obama's and Romney's facial expressions since 2007. He said that the emotions Obama expressed were "positive" on the whole. Republicans claim in a new ad that Obama sported a "smirk" at times during the debate, which they suggest is a sign that he was "uncomfortable" and struggling with his answers. Kowal, however, said that Obama's face registered more frustration than uncertainty, according to his software. And that's completely understandable, since Romney lied repeatedly during the debate (numerous examples appear below).

While Romney professed to "love" Big Bird despite being ready to give him the ax, he has also professed to care deeply about Americans whose jobs he outsourced to China during his stint as CEO of Bain Capital. Such cold-blooded axings have left many Americans wondering if thethird strike will be aimed at them. Romney comes across as an eel-slick, consummate salesman who will say and do anything necessary to "trim away the fat," in order to close a deal and make lots of money for his employers. But the "fat" seems to be "we the people," while the employers funding Romney's run for the presidency are mega-billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. If Romney's partner in crime Paul Ryan succeeds in eliminating federal income taxes on capital gains, interest and dividends—the main revenue sources of billionaire investors—their effective tax rates will drop to below 1%, along with Romney's. President Obama and Bill Clinton are correct that the Romney-Ryan budget math just doesn't add up: there is no way to give the super-rich such exorbitant tax breaks without either raising taxes on middle income Americans, or slashing the safety nets of the elderly, sick and poor. Or both.

Romney's main talent and the source of his own wealth is helping the rich get richer, by "trimming fat," which means liquidating jobs. He once said that he likes being able to fire people, and I see no reason not to take him at his word. He was against the federal government making loans to cash-strapped auto companies or helping homeowners facing foreclosures, but he was for much larger bailouts of his fellow Wall Street tycoons and the big banks. He recently called 47% of Americans, or roughly 150 million people, lazy freeloaders. So it's not hard to see why he refuses to reveal any of the specifics of his "plans." He clearly favors the rich and successful, and sees everyone else as so much dead weight. And while Romney has promised not to raise taxes on the middle income class, he recently revealed that by "middle income" he means families who make $200,000 to $250,000 per year, even though the median income for American families is only $50,000. Romney can't reveal the specifics of his budget plan until after the election, because he is about to ratchet up the economic suffering for all but the wealthiest Americans. He can only win the election by persuading poor- and middle-income Americans that he is their "savior," but his real allegiance is to the financial elite.

Some people are claiming that Romney "won" the debate, but I disagree. I think it was more like a cobra mesmerizing a mouse, preparing for the lethal strike.

President Obama seemed to see the same sort of "cobra dance," saying at a post-debate rally: "Gov. Romney may dance around his positions but if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth."

Obama accused Romney of once again changing his political stripes: "I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney" because the "real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that." The president also accused Romney of misrepresenting past statements on education and outsourcing, concluding that Romney "does not want to be held accountable ... because he knows full well that we don't want what he's selling."

Obama seemed to be initially caught off guard by Romney's gigantic flip-flop on his budget "plan." For months Romney has been talking about massive new tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, coupled with a massive increase in military spending. Out of blue nothing, Romney suddenly disavowed the main planks of his economic platform. "It was a very vigorous performance, but one devoid of honesty," David Axelrod said of Romney, accusing him of delivering "fraudulent" lines that will be hard to hold up over the remainder of the campaign.

Brenda Peterson suggested that Romney didn't "win" with many women, saying: "The women I spoke with who watched the debate were dismayed by Romney's rude interruptions, his high-handed dismissal of the venerable PBS moderator, Jim Lehrer, his turning away from the audience—who should be his primary focus—to fix his feisty attention all on President Obama. While Obama calmly addressed the audience and moderator and the world audience, Romney was riveted on Obama as if he were the only person in the room. This is the way a predator focuses on prey. It's not the behavior of someone seeking to serve and heal a country divided. This was a sports event, not an exchange of ideas affecting us all deeply. Romney's fervent goal of seizing the presidency was evident in his body language, his snobbish smirks, his false sympathy for those of us "crushed" in the middle class—those 47 percent he so contemptuously dismissed when he was among his rich cronies. Romney's combative dogfight stance may impress men or those who have held power so long they assume it belongs to them. But women, or anyone who has been in an underclass or faced racism, read this behavior as arrogant and overly aggressive—the language and habit of dominance."

Romney came across as an alpha male bully intent on dominance to me also, and I felt my sympathies going out to Jim Lehrer, an elderly gentleman who deserved far more respect than Romney showed him.

Brenda Peterson again: "We've had bosses, fathers, boyfriends and co-workers like Romney who invade our space, try to dominate every discussion and see every encounter as a chance to 'win,' rather than dialogue. It's the old patriarchal model that women have endured for way too long ... many women are weary of angry, entitled white men controlling our bodies and our workplaces."

While it appeared at first glance that Romney won the first debate by being more aggressive and decisive, he may have won by aggressively and decisively lying ...

• Romney claimed that "pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan" but this was refuted after the debate by Eric Fehrnstrom, one of his top advisers. It would be up to 50 states to pass and enforce 50 laws before every American with pre-existing conditions was covered. Romney as president would have no authority over state laws, courts and legislatures. So his "plan" does not begin to cover everyone with pre-existing conditions.

• Romney haughtily and condescendingly denied that American companies receive tax breaks for moving jobs overseas, as if President Obama didn't know what he was talking about. But according to Annie Lowrey of the New York Times, the tax code currently allows companies to deduct certain expenses when they move operations overseas. As part of its plan to aid the manufacturing sector and promote job growth, the Obama administration has proposed ending this deduction, and instead giving tax credits to companies that move jobs back to the U.S.

• President Obama is correct that Romney rejected a deficit reduction plan that included $10 in spending cuts for every $1 of revenue increases. At a debate in Ames, Iowa, in August 2011, Bret Baier, a Fox News moderator, asked the Republican candidates to raise their hands if they would refuse to sign a legislative package that included $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of revenue increases. Slaves to a rigid ideology, they all dutifully raised their hands.

• Romney claimed that President Obama "doubled the deficit." This is a blatant lie. When Obama took office in January 2009, the Congressional Budget Office had already estimated that the 2009 federal deficit would be $1.2 trillion. The deficit ended up being $1.4 trillion. For fiscal 2012, the deficit was $1.1 trillion, which is lower than when Obama took office. And "measured as a share of the economy, as economists prefer, the deficit has declined more significantly — from 10.1 percent of the economy's total output in 2009 to 7.3 percent for 2012."

• Romney claimed that President Obama is at fault for the Solyndra affair. However, the Solyndra grant process began under the George W. Bush administration, and it received bipartisan Congressional and lobbying support. Romney campaigned at the Solyndra factory in California, where he called the venture "a symbol of gross waste," a failure of the president’s stimulus package and an example of Mr. Obama¹s poor stewardship of a shaky economy. But Republicans bear much of the blame, perhaps because neither Republicans nor Democrats have perfect crystal balls.

• Romney claimed that President Obama had "cut Medicare by $716 billion to pay for Obamacare" but according to FactCheck.org these are cuts in the future growth of spending which will prolong the life of the Medicare trust fund. There is no transfer of existing money from Medicare to Obamacare, as Romney insinuated. The New York Times said that Obama "did not cut benefits by $716 billion over 10 years as part of his 2010 health care law; rather, he reduced Medicare reimbursements to health care providers, chiefly insurance companies and drug manufacturers. And the law gave Medicare recipients more generous benefits for prescription drugs and free preventive care like mammograms." While fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked this claim, it remains a standard attack line for Romney. The charge that Obama took $716 billion from Medicare recipients has several problems — not least the fact that Mr. Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, included the identical savings in his annual budget plans that nearly all House Republicans voted for in the past two years.

• Romney denied proposing a $5 trillion tax cut, but he did, according to the New York Times, when he "proposed cutting all marginal tax rates by 20 percent — which would in and of itself cut tax revenue by $5 trillion." FactCheck.org has weighed in on this subject, tweeting during the debate that "Romney says he will pay for $5T tax cut without raising deficit or raising taxes on middle class. Experts say that's not possible." PolitiFact has also given a "mostly true" rating to the charge that "Romney is proposing a tax plan "that would give millionaires another tax break and raise taxes on middle class families by up to $2,000 a year." As President Obama pointed out, "For 18 months, he’s been running on this tax plan. Now, five weeks before the election, he’s saying that his big, bold idea is ... never mind." Here’s the problem. As explained in a detailed paper by the Tax Policy Center, if you cut tax rates by 20 percent, you give the wealthy a multibillion-dollar tax break. Even if you take away all their credits and loopholes and preferential rates, they still do not owe the government as much as they did before. If the rich are paying less, then the poor and middle class must pay more in order to raise the same amount of money.

• Romney said that six studies prove that Obama's charge about him raising taxes is "completely wrong." The "studies" Romney cited include two Wall Street Journal editorials, an article in the same paper by one of his own economic advisers, and two analyses by conservative think tanks. And even those studies, according to Glenn Kessler in The Washington Post, "do not provide much evidence that Romney's proposal — as sketchy as it is — would be revenue neutral without making unrealistic assumptions."

• Romney claimed that President Obama had "added almost as much to the federal debt as all the prior presidents combined." That is not even close to being true.

• Romney claimed that ObamaCare creates "an unelected board that's going to tell people what kind of treatments they can have." This attempt to resurrect "death panels" was called "one of the biggest whoppers of the night" by National Journal, which says it's a line Republicans "regularly and inaccurately" use. In fact, the Medicare board created by ObamaCare is "explicitly restricted from directly cutting Medicare benefits." Its charge is to keep overall spending within a specific target. According to PolitiFact, "Romney's claim can leave viewers with the impression that the board makes health-care decisions for individual Americans, and that's not the case."

• Romney claimed that half the green energy companies given stimulus funds had failed, but three out of nearly three dozen is far less than half. Romney's claim is "a gross overstatement," according to John M. Broder in The New York Times.

• Romney said, "I’m not going to cut education funding. But in the past Romney and Ryan have both said they would do just that, particularly Pell grants and student loans. Romney is on the record as saying that students should borrow from their parents: "Take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents." But many parents don’t have enough money to finance their children’s educations. Romney seems like an out-of-touch elitist. His father was the CEO of a major automaker, AMC, but few American children are beneficiaries of such wealth. Romney's own position paper on education says he would "refocus Pell Grant dollars on the students who need them most," suggesting that fewer people would qualify. That Romney would allow banks bank into the federal student loan system is also evidence that he would cut Pell Grants. Obama eliminated the banks’ role as middlemen servicing the loans, saving billions of dollars in fees—money that is helping pay for the Pell expansion. In a speech to donors in Florida that was overheard by reporters, Mr. Romney said he would either merge the federal Education Department with another agency "or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller." As always, Romney’s "plans" are very hazy, and light on specifics, but it seems that he intends to save money by reducing educational opportunities for less affluent students.

• Romney vowed to repeal ObamaCare, but that would actually increase the federal deficit. This summer, after Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal the law, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that doing so would increase the federal deficit by $109 billion over the next decade. Repealing the law would also mean that 30 million fewer people would have health insurance by 2022.

• Romney promised to create 12 million jobs over the next four years if he is elected president, but that is about how many jobs the economy is already expected to create, according to some economic forecasters.

Lewd, Crude, Rude and Obnoxious

Willard Mitt Romney has a long history of insulting and bullying other people. Here is a transcript of the filmed testimony of Cheryl Arnett, a Craig, Colorado first grade teacher who was invited to participate in a roundtable with Mitt Romney: "When I was asked to speak with Mitt Romney, it seemed like a very important thing to me and I wanted to put a lot of careful thought into what I would say, so I went to the roundtable discussion, very optimistic and interested in hearing what he had to say. When he sat down one, of the questions he asked was: 'I understand there’s a teacher here today, which one of you is the teacher?' So I raised my hand thinking that’s a good thing, he’s interested in education. But it wasn’t a good thing. I—I felt like his view was a little old-fashioned. I was surprised by it. He went on to kind of lecture me about schools and how bad they are. He talked bad about the teachers' union. He was talking about the importance of private schools and voucher systems. At one point, I said to him: 'I have an answer for that.' And he said: 'I didn’t ask you a question!' When I think of Mitt Romney I don’t think of a person that could really relate to small-town Craig, Colorado. Although he came here, I don’t think that his life experience would allow him to really understand the perspective of people that live in a small town. One of the things I like best that Obama has done for education is that he is releasing states from 'no child left behind.' Colorado is one of the states lucky enough to be released. I did not become a teacher to become wealthy or powerful. I became a teacher to make a difference. It’s important to us to have a government and a leader that respects us, who will listen to us even if he doesn’t agree with us. We need to have open conversation and open communication between educators and government, and I think President Obama is the one to do that."

Romney's Healthcare Solution: Wait until the Uninsured are on Death's Door, then let them go to Emergency Rooms!

CBS News: Does the government have a responsibility to provide health care to the 50 million Americans who don’t have it today?

Mitt Romney: Well, we do provide care for people who don’t have insurance, people—we—if someone has a heart attack, they don’t sit in their apartment and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care.

But should we wait until people are on death's door before we think about ways to help them? Doesn't waiting until they need ambulances and emergency rooms drive up the cost of healthcare? When people don't have bread to eat, should we echo Marie Antoinette and say, "Let them eat [nonexistent] cake!" When they have chronic health conditions, should we let their health deteriorate until their conditions become acute, then cavalierly say, "Let them go to emergency rooms!"

Romney loves to talk about American exceptionalism. During his recent visits to England, Israel and Poland, he praised each nation's culture and economy. But all three nations have universal healthcare, as do all the more advanced free world democracies. How can Americans be exceptional if they can't do what so many other nations have done successfully? And Romney himself helped establish universal healthcare for Massachusetts, when he was governor there. So why does he attack President Obama for trying to help all Americans have access to quality healthcare, before they need ambulances and emergency rooms?

Multiple Choice Mitt is America's First Ultra-liberal Conservative!

Mitt Romney told NARAL Pro Choice, "I’m a strong believer in stating your position and not wavering." But as we will see, Romney changes his positions more frequently than even the most adventurous porn stars. Here are examples of why Romney has earned nicknames like Flip Flopney, Mitt the Flopple and Multiple Choice Mitt ...

Romney has accused President Obama and even his Republican presidential rivals of being Washington insiders guilty of pork barrel spending. But here is what Romney told people about himself, when he wanted to impress them with his ability to get money out of the federal government:

• "I am a big believer in getting money where the money is. The money is in Washington."
• "We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games. That is a huge increase over anything ever done before and we did that by going after every agency of government ... That kind of creativity I want to bring to everything we do."

Romney has also flip-flopped repeatedly on women's reproductive rights:

• "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country."
• "I sustain and support that law [Roe v. Wade] and the right of a woman to make that choice [abortion]."
• "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard."
• "I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years we should sustain and support it." ... [but] ... "Roe v. Wade has gone too far."
• His position was clear and he gave his word to NARAL Pro Choice ... [but] ... "I never really called myself pro-choice."

Here are more about-faces by Flip Flopney:

• "It's not worth moving heaven and earth ... trying to catch one person." ... [but] ... "Of course I would have ordered taking out Osama bin Laden."
• "I like [compulsory health insurance] mandates. The mandates work." ... [but] ... "I think it's unconstitutional on the 10th Amendment front."
• "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King." ... [but] ... "I did not see it with my own eyes." [Because they never marched together.]
• "I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there." ... [but] ... "It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam."
• "I will work and fight for stem cell research." ... [but] ... "The stem-cell debate was grounded in a false premise."
• "I don’t line up with the NRA." ... [but] ... "I’m a member of the NRA."
• "I believe the tax on capital gains should be zero." ... [but] ... "It’s a tax cut for fat cats."
• "I’m going to take burdens off the back of the auto industry." ... [but] ... He wrote an essay titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."
• In a 1994 letter to the Log Cabin Republicans, Romney wrote that he was in favor of "gays and lesbians being able to serve openly and honestly" in the military. But during the 2007 presidential debates, he insisted that they should continue to serve secretly and dishonestly, under "Don't Ask Don't Tell," which he wanted to keep.
• "Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts." ... [but] ... "I don’t support any gun control legislation, the effort for a new assault weapons ban, with a ban on semi-automatic weapons, is something I would oppose."
• "I believe the world’s getting warmer ... I believe that humans contribute to that." ... [but] ... "My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change."
• "I’m not in favor of privatizing Social Security or making cuts." ... [but] ... "Social Security’s the easiest and that’s because you can give people a personal account."

Please click here to read more Mitt Romney Flip Flops.

Rebooting the Romneybot

Maureen Dowd recently called the Romney campaign "a moveable feast of missteps." Even arch-conservative Republicans have pretty much thrown their hands up in the air, asking, in effect, "How can he and his wife keep alienating millions of Americans by sounding like rich, elitist pricks?" But perhaps that's what they really are, and they just can't help themselves. If so, "rebooting the Romneybot" won't do any good, because only a change of heart and mind would result in decent behavior. People who are programmed to value wealth, style and "class" over equality and fair play will always seem distant and out of touch to ordinary Americans ... simply because they are.

Ugh, You People!

According to Ann Romney, roughly half of all Americans are utterly lacking in class or style ... at least compared to her Olympic dressage horse, Rafalca. The Romneys took a $70,000 tax deduction for Rafalca Romney, which is more than the median annual American household income. Has Ann Romney, perhaps, confused wealth with class and style? Here's what she said about Democrats recently, so you be the judge:

My horse has more style and more class in its hoof than they do in their whole deal!

The comment above was reported by Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post as having been made by Georgette Mosbacher — "cosmetics impresario and eccentric grande dame of GOP fundraising" — to her younger sister Lyn Paulsin, who once dated Rush Limbaugh. These are loyal Romney supporters, not enemy infiltrators. Horowitz describes them thusly: "Both sisters wear gold Eagle pins on their lapels, identifying them as Romney mega-donors, and a stack of VIP credentials around their necks." Horowitz informed his readers that the sisters discussed Ann Romney's comment "giddily," as if they were impressed or awed by what she said.

This seems like yet more confirmation that the Romneys and many of their super-rich supporters are the ones who lack not only class and style, but basic human decency and common sense. Here is what Ann Romney recently told Robin Roberts: "We have given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life." She sounded like a feudal queen talking down to a bunch of serfs. Like her imperious husband, she seems to think the America public doesn't deserve full disclosure. Who the hell are we to question someone rich enough to have Swiss bank accounts, Bermuda trusts, Cayman Island IRAs, and horses in the Olympics?

More Ann Romney Quotes

Many conservatives criticized Mitt Romney for suggesting that 47 percent of Americans are lazy, shiftless moochers. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 4,000 American households with incomes over $1 million ended up with zero federal income tax liability in 2011. Another 14,000 households made between $500,000 and $1 million, yet paid not federal income tax. So the problem is obviously not limited to poor people who mooch off the rich. According to 2008 data from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, eight of the top 10 states with the lowest income tax liability are Republican-leaning states. William Kristol was especially harsh, calling Romney’s observations "arrogant and stupid." Conservative journalist Peggy Noonan called the avalanche of tactless gaffes a "rolling calamity."

In response, Ann Romney said:

Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring. This is hard and, you know, it's an important thing that we're doing right now and it's an important election and it is time for all Americans to realize how significant this election is and how lucky we are to have someone with Mitt's qualifications and experience and know-how to be able to have the opportunity to run this country.

The problem for the Romneys is that it really isn't "difficult" not to insult millions of people repeatedly. First it was England, then the Palestinians. Now it's half the population of America. I can't think of anyone outside the KKK and neo-Nazi circles who would find it so very hard to be more diplomatic and tactful.

Ann Romney, like her husband, has a remarkable ability to sound condescending:

I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too.

The Romneys' disdain for "those people," by which they obviously mean "we the people," seems obvious. What Ann Romney means seems clear to me: we (the successful people) value (have some minimal concern for) those people (the less successful ones). Thank goodness that we (the successful people) are such saints, considering the other people we have to put up with!

Please click here to read more Ann Romney Quotes.

Bishop Romney's Modest Proposal

In 1729 Jonathan Swift shocked the world with a "Modest Proposal" in which he suggested that Ireland could solve its problems with the burdensome children of the poor, by eating them. Of course Swift was speaking facetiously in order to make a point. But now Bishop Romney (yes, Mitt Romney was a Mormon bishop who once administered a diocese, called a "Stake") seems to have said something very similar, in earnest.

After Mitt the Ripper accused 47% of Americans (nearly half the population) of being freeloaders for not paying federal income taxes, suggesting that they only think they are entitled to housing, food and healthcare, and thus implying that all they are really entitled to is death for being unproductive, there was quite understandably a public outcry. After all that 47% includes millions of soldiers, ex-soldiers, teachers, firefighters and policemen. His running mate Paul Ryan claimed that Bishop Romney was "obviously inarticulate," but it seems to me that Romney really does have great disdain for people who are not as successful as he is. In recent days, Romney and his campaign have blasted English Olympics organizers, members of the NAACP who support universal healthcare, blacks who fail to understand America's superior "Anglo Saxon heritage," and the entire Palestinian people for having an inferior culture. And if we examine Romney's stance on women's reproductive rights and gay marriage, it seems clear that he doesn't trust more than half the nation with the personal freedom and responsibility to make essential life choices for themselves. That's a very troubling form of bigotry combined with smug authoritarianism.

Keen-eyed observers quickly noted that Paul Ryan received Social Security survivor benefits after his father died, which he used to finance his education, and that Romney's father received welfare assistance after his family fled a revolution in Mexico. This was verified by Romney's own family. "[George Romney] was on welfare relief for the first years of his life. But this great country gave him opportunities," Lenore Romney, the mother of Mitt Romney, pointed out in a video which apparently dates back to George Romney’s 1962 campaign for governor of Michigan.

When the Romneys want other Americans to see them as human beings, they point out their family's struggles, and that's perfectly fine. But Mitt Romney seems to want to have his cake and eat ours too. When someone in his family struggles, they remain pillars of the nation, full of character. But when other Americans struggle, we are lazy, shiftless freeloaders ... especially if we happen to be female, gay, or have darker skin.

Why is the Terminator—as Romney was called at Bain Capital for liquidating American companies and firing American workers after outsourcing their jobs to China and other low-wage countries—trying to shame Americans who are struggling to make ends meet? Does he intend to terminate them too, by denying them assistance with housing, food and healthcare? Should we take him at his own word, or hope that he is only babbling incoherent, time after time after time?

Romney invests in Chinese Slave Labor Camp, complete with barbed wire and guard towers

One of the most disturbing things I have heard about Mitt Romney from his own lips is his confession that he toured a Chinese slave labor camp/factory, then invested in it, with never a word of protest about the terrible conditions he saw there. Instead of protesting the existence of such gulags, the Romneybot became a pioneer of outsourcing American jobs to them, through his vulture capital outfit, Bain Capital. Here is how Romney described what he saw, in private during a high-dollar fundraiser attended by his rich cronies, not knowing that he was being filmed by a whistleblower: "When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. They were saving for potentially becoming married. And they work in these huge factories; they made various uh, small appliances. And uh, as we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned, living in dormitories with uh, with little bathrooms at the end of maybe 10 rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room. Three bunk beds on top of each other. You’ve seen, you’ve seen them? And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers. And, and, we said gosh! I can’t believe that you, you know, keep these girls in! They said, no, no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in …"

The account above has been reported by major news services such as the Boston Globe. Because the factory made small appliances, we can safely assume that it belonged to Global Tech Appliances, a company that takes over manufacturing from American companies like Sunbeam and Mr. Coffee. According to SEC documents first reported by Mother Jones magazine, a Bain Capital affiliate called Brookside initially acquired about 6 percent of GTA on April 17, 1998 and later increased its ownership to more than 9 percent. Romney was listed as the "sole shareholder, sole director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brookside Inc." So it seems clear that Romney alone was responsible for deciding what to do about the 20,000 young girls he saw living in what sounds like a Nazi concentration camp complete with barbed wire fences and guard towers. Did he go public and protest what he saw? No, he invested in the slave labor facility, then helped American companies save money by firing American workers and outsourcing their jobs to such sweat shops.

What would you have done, knowing that at best the girls were being used like pack mules, and that at worst a fire might kill them all? Wouldn't you have said something to someone, to try to help the girls, and others like them in other Chinese factories? Why did Mitt Romney, a child of wealth and privilege and one of the world's wealthiest men, became a business partner of their enslavers, then send them more American businesses as customers?

What sort of man is Mitt Romney, really? Here's a rather blunt appraisal. China’s Xinhua news agency criticized Romney in a strongly-worded editorial, noting the profits Romney has made from investments in China: "It is rather ironic that a considerable portion of this China-battering politician’s wealth was actually obtained by doing business with Chinese companies before he entered politics."

If Romney wants to get involved in manufacturing, he should stick to his particular area of expertise: flip-flops.

And speaking of flip-flops, here's a real doozy, straight from the lips of Mitt the Flopple himself. At the end of his spiel above, Romney concluded: "The Bain Partner I was with turned to me and said, 'You know, 95% of life is settled if you are born in America. This is uh, this is an amazing land and what we have is unique and fortunately it is so special we are sharing it with the world.'" But this agrees with what President Obama and the Democrats have been saying, which is that Americans built the infrastructure of America together and no one can claim to be completely self-made. Why does Mitt Romney attack President Obama in public as if he is the "enemy" of American values, only to agree with him in private? Is that good character or duplicity?

Bishop Romney

Mitt Romney was a Mormon bishop and claims to be a Christian, but Jesus Christ saved nearly all his sternest criticism for hypocrites and clearly said that the rich should help the poor, rather than take advantage of them. It makes my blood boil to hear a prospective American president condemning less advantaged Americans for wanting a fair shake, when the system is tilted so wildly in his favor and he doesn't even have the good grace to pocket his windfall millions without insulting honest working folks.

And why did Romney say that the government should let Detroit go bankrupt, after he used a federal agency and its money to bail out his sugar daddy, Bain & Company? When Bain was told to go through bankruptcy by a Goldman Sachs advisor, why did Mitt Romney refuse, choosing instead to rely on dirty tricks and fiscal blackmail? As Rolling Stone pointed out in "The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney," government documents indicate that Mitt Romney's personal mythology is just that: a wild fantasy. He didn't save Bain or the Olympics; we bailed them out. One reason Romney is so rich today is that "we the people" bailed out Bain to the tune of millions of dollars written off by the FDIC. But did Willard Mitt Romney ever have the good grace to tell us "Thanks" for saving Bain? No, of course not. According to Rolling Stone, "Federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster—leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had 'no value as a going concern.' Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC—the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers—out of at least $10 million. And in an added insult, Romney rewarded top executives at Bain with hefty bonuses at the very moment that he was demanding his handout from the feds."

Romney paid 30 cents on the dollar to retire Bain's debt, and we covered the rest. Now, rather than thanking us for our generosity, Romney wants to take all the credit. What a hypocrite! How did he pull off this stupendous feat? Rather than going through bankruptcy the way he advised Detroit automakers, Romney threatened to take all the cash out of Bain by giving it to Bain's highest-earners as bonuses, unless the FDIC agreed to let Bain avoid paying the bulk of its debts.

This is like me owing you $1,000 and saying that you can take $300 and call things even, or I'll give all my money to hookers and pay you nothing!

So you tell me ... does Willard Mitt Romney have any reason to accuse ordinary Americans of wanting "free stuff," when he blackmailed the FDIC into giving Bain millions in free stuff? And then, after we bailed him out, he insisted that we let Detroit go bankrupt, which could have cost more than a million Americans their jobs. Why does Willard Mitt Romney demand that we bail him out, and his rich Wall Street cronies, only to insist that we let American autoworkers bite the dust?

"None of us wanted to see Bain be the laughingstock of the business world," recalls a longtime Romney lieutenant who asked not to be identified. "But Mitt's reputation was on the line." It seems to me that Mitt Romney cares a lot more about his reputation and his money and power, than he does about us, the American people.

Big Brother

During his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, Romney, not just a devout Mormon but a missionary and bishop who oversaw a Mormon diocese for eight years, promised that if elected he would attempt to have a pornography filter installed in every new computer sold in the United Sates!

Patrick Trueman, the head of ominous-sounding Morality in Media, told the conservative Daily Caller that he was promised that fighting porn will be a top priority for a Romney administration. Trueman said he and another anti-porn prosecutor from the 1980s Justice Department, Bob Flores, met earlier this year with Alex Wong, Romney's foreign and legal policy director. "Wong assured us that Romney is very concerned with this, and that if he’s elected these laws will be enforced. They promised to vigorously enforce federal adult obscenity laws."

Like Rick Santorum, another would-be Big Brother, Mitt Romney is a prude who doesn't trust American adults to make their own decisions about sex. Romney thinks it's a "sin" to drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, or look at racy pictures, thanks to his religion's puritanism. He has called pornography a "home invasion" of "unwanted filth." But the simple truth is that most Americans are much more relaxed about sex than the straight-laced Mormon Bishop, and we don't want a domineering overseer telling us what we can do with our free time, in the privacy of our own homes and bedrooms.

Et tu, Brute?

Classmates of Romney's say that he tackled a gay classmate, John Lauber, pinned him to the ground, then cut off his long, bleached-blonde hair. "He can't look like that," an "incensed" Romney told one of his friends, "That's wrong. Just look at him!"

Gary Hummel, a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated by Romney shouting, "Atta girl!"

In another disturbing incident, Romney caused an English teacher, Carl G. Wonnberger (nicknamed "the Bat" for his diminished eyesight) to walk into a closed door he pretended to have opened for him. When Wonnberger walked into the door, according to another student, Pierce Getsinger, Romney "giggled hysterically."

The first incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently. Four of them — Matthew Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be identified. Buford said Lauber was "terrified," and that the attack was "a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do." Maxwell called it "vicious" a "hack job" and "assault and battery" that he deeply regrets not stopping and has carried as a "black mark" on his character for many years. Friedemann also expressed remorse for not intervening. Seed apologized to Lauber years later when he met him at an airport. A sixth classmate, Stu White, later said that he was "disturbed" by Romney's "prank."

White, a close friend Romney, told ABC that the Romney campaign had approached him and several other classmates to defend Romney's behavior in the wake of the article. It's interesting and probably significant that none of them have stepped forward to defend Romney. So far, everyone has sided with, sympathized with and defended the victim, John Lauber.

The deep and lasting remorse the other participants and witnesses have expressed proves that this was no light-hearted schoolboy prank. Only Romney claims to be unable to remember what happened, even though he planned and led the attack and did the shearing.

According to ABC News, another "former classmate and old friend of Romney’s" who declined to be identified said there are "a lot of guys" who went to Cranbrook who have "really negative memories" of Romney’s behavior in the dorms, behavior this classmate describes as being "like Lord of the Flies." The classmate believes Romney is lying when he claims to not remember the attack: "It makes these fellows [who have confessed] very remorseful. For [Romney] not to remember it? It doesn’t ring true. How could the fellow with the scissors forget it?"

Josh Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, noted: "What strikes me most about this story is Romney’s intense equivocation. First he didn’t remember the incidents. Then he apologized to anyone who was offended but without saying he remembered anything specific. Then he said that he definitely didn’t know or think the kid they attacked was gay, even though he apparently didn’t remember the attack."

Lou Vierling, a scholarship student was struck by questions Romney asked when they first met: "He wanted to know what my father did for a living. He wanted to know if my mother worked. He wanted to know what town I lived in." As Vierling explained that his father taught school and that he commuted from east Detroit, he noticed a "souring" of Romney’s demeanor.

As you will see if you continue reading this page, Romney's behavior as an adult continues to display remarkable insensitivity, at best, and brutish boorishness at worst. He seems to be clueless when dealing with women, gays and other people who aren't rich, lily-white Grand Old Patriarchs.

I find the caption of a yearbook photo of Romney interesting and hopefully prophetic: "Give a guy enough rope and he'll hang himself." In the photo a young Mitt Romney is about to shoot himself in the head with a toy pistol.

Mormon Chauvinism

Mitt Romney's attempts to return women's rights to the Stone Age have been well documented. Is his male chauvinism related to his faith? Let's take a look ...

Romney was no layman, but a bishop and president of the Boston Stake (diocese) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If he wins in November, he will be the first high-ranking religious official to become president of the U.S. in modern times.

Perhaps his alpha male chauvinism is related to the Mormon church's legendary chauvinism, which includes polygamy, female submission, male-only administration, crusading to repeal gay marriage in California (Proposition 8), and working to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. Mormons who supported the ERA received threatening letters from church officials warning them about their spiritual fates; some were censured, denied church sacraments or excommunicated (which means being denied salvation). Sonia Johnson was excommunicated after she delivered a speech entitled "Patriarchal Panic: Sexual Politics in the Mormon Church" in which she denounced the church's allegedly immoral and illegal nationwide lobbying efforts to defeat the ERA. (The Mormon church seems not to believe in equality for women and gays, or in separation of church and state.)

Bishop Romney, Part II

Was Bishop Romney a male chauvinist? Here's a revealing excerpt from "The Mind of Mitt" in Vanity Fair:

As both bishop and stake president, he at times clashed with women he felt strayed too far from church beliefs and practice. To them, he lacked the empathy and courage that they had known in other leaders, putting the church first even at times of great personal vulnerability. Peggie Hayes had joined the church as a teenager along with her mother and siblings ... As a teenager, Hayes babysat for Mitt and Ann Romney and other couples in the ward. Then Hayes’s mother abruptly moved the family to Salt Lake City for Hayes’s senior year of high school. Restless and unhappy, Hayes moved to Los Angeles once she turned 18. She got married, had a daughter, and then got divorced shortly after. But she remained part of the church. By 1983, Hayes was 23 and back in the Boston area, raising a 3-year-old daughter on her own and working as a nurse’s aide. Then she got pregnant again. Single motherhood was no picnic, but Hayes said she had wanted a second child and wasn’t upset at the news. "I kind of felt like I could do it," she said. "And I wanted to." By that point Mitt Romney, the man whose kids Hayes used to watch, was, as bishop of her ward, her church leader ... Then Romney called Hayes one winter day and said he wanted to come over and talk. He arrived at her apartment in Somerville, a dense, largely working-class city just north of Boston. They chitchatted for a few minutes. Then Romney said something about the church’s adoption agency. Hayes initially thought she must have misunderstood. But Romney’s intent became apparent: he was urging her to give up her soon-to-be-born son for adoption, saying that was what the church wanted. Indeed, the church encourages adoption in cases where "a successful marriage is unlikely." Hayes was deeply insulted. She told him she would never surrender her child. Sure, her life wasn’t exactly the picture of Rockwellian harmony, but she felt she was on a path to stability. In that moment, she also felt intimidated. Here was Romney, who held great power as her church leader and was the head of a wealthy, prominent Belmont family, sitting in her gritty apartment making grave demands. "And then he says, ‘Well, this is what the church wants you to do, and if you don’t, then you could be excommunicated for failing to follow the leadership of the church,’" Hayes recalled. It was a serious threat. At that point Hayes still valued her place within the Mormon Church. "This is not playing around," she said. "This is not like ‘You don’t get to take Communion.’ This is like ‘You will not be saved. You will never see the face of God.’" Romney would later deny that he had threatened Hayes with excommunication, but Hayes said his message was crystal clear: "Give up your son or give up your God." Not long after, Hayes gave birth to a son. She named him Dane. At nine months old, Dane needed serious, and risky, surgery. The bones in his head were fused together, restricting the growth of his brain, and would need to be separated. Hayes was scared. She sought emotional and spiritual support from the church once again. Looking past their uncomfortable conversation before Dane’s birth, she called Romney and asked him to come to the hospital to confer a blessing on her baby. Hayes was expecting him. Instead, two people she didn’t know showed up. She was crushed. "I needed him," she said. "It was very significant that he didn’t come." Sitting there in the hospital, Hayes decided she was finished with the Mormon Church. The decision was easy, yet she made it with a heavy heart. To this day, she remains grateful to Romney and others in the church for all they did for her family. But she shudders at what they were asking her to do in return, especially when she pulls out pictures of Dane, now a 27-year-old electrician in Salt Lake City. "There’s my baby," she said.

Here is a disturbing excerpt from a Huffington Post article:

A 1994 article in the Boston Phoenix told the story of an anonymous woman (who has since been identified) who wrote an article in a feminist Mormon magazine claiming Romney, as bishop, discouraged her from having an abortion even though her health was at stake. Romney later said he could not remember the incident.

The episode above was also reported by Vanity Fair. Here is how the second woman, also a mother of five, described her experience with Bishop Romney after being told by her doctors that she had a serious blood clot in her pelvis and that even if she risked her life to give birth, the baby's chance of survival would be only 50 percent:

"As your bishop," she said that he told her, "my concern is with the child." The woman wrote, "Here I—a baptized, endowed, dedicated worker, and tithe-payer in the church—lay helpless, hurt, and frightened, trying to maintain my psychological equilibrium, and his concern was for the eight-week possibility in my uterus—not for me!"

Romney would later contend that he couldn’t recall the incident, saying, "I don’t have any memory of what she is referring to, although I certainly can’t say it could not have been me." Romney did however acknowledge having counseled Mormon women not to have abortions except in exceptional cases, in accordance with church rules. The woman told Romney that her stake president, a doctor, had already told her, "Of course, you should have this abortion and then recover from the blood clot and take care of the healthy children you already have." Romney, she said, fired back, "I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t say that. I’m going to call him." And then he left. The woman said that she went on to have the abortion and never regretted it. "What I do feel bad about," she wrote, "is that at a time when I would have appreciated nurturing and support from spiritual leaders and friends, I got judgment, criticism, prejudicial advice, and rejection."

That Romney claims not to remember giving advice that could have killed a woman or endangered her health, especially when she had five children to care for, is troubling. He has also claimed not to remember tackling a gay classmate, pinning him to the ground, and cutting off his hair, even though students who watched the event remember it vividly many years later. Most of us would remember such things vividly, with tremendous remorse, if we were ever capable of such callous behavior. But we don't remember ants we crushed by accident. Is that how Willard Mitt Romney thinks of females outside his family circle, and gays? Here's another revealing excerpt from the Huffington Post article:

In July 1994, during Romney's U.S. Senate campaign, the Boston Globe published a story saying that Romney, in a speech to a congregation of single Mormons, said he found homosexuality "perverse and reprehensible." The story cited one named and three unnamed sources. Romney denied the comments. "I specifically said they should avoid homosexuality and they should avoid heterosexual relations outside of marriage," Romney told the Globe then. "I did not use the words perverse or perversion. I just said it was wrong. ... That is what my church believes."

So if his church believes something, it seems Romney believes it too. But the Mormon church has any number of strange beliefs: ... that Jesus was a polygamist, that God is an exalted man who lives as a physical being with multiple wives on the planet Kolob, that only men with multiple wives can reach the highest heaven (making polygamy a prerequisite for salvation), that in heaven the wives of polygamists will remain eternally pregnant and have billions of spirit children, that there are multiple gods, that human beings can become gods, and that magical underwear required and sold by the Mormon church can protect Mormons from lust and attacks by supernatural entities.

Is it possible that some of these beliefs are incorrect and should not be used to deny women and gays fully equal rights? Has the Mormon church, perhaps, been wildly wrong before?

Until 1978 the Mormon church taught that black people were the children of Cain and were black because they had been cursed by God, making them unfit to serve as ministers. The Mormon prophet Brigham Young said that if a white man has sex with a black woman the "law of God" is "death on the spot." (This despite the fact that according to the Bible it seems that the greatest prophet, Moses, and the wisest man, Solomon, both had black wives.) Brigham Young told the Utah Territorial Legislature that "any man having one drop of the seed of [Cain] ... in him cannot hold the priesthood and if no other Prophet ever spake it before I will say it now in the name of Jesus Christ I know it is true and others know it." John Taylor a president and prophet of the Mormon church, taught that God is a segregationist who discriminates against blacks, who "represent" the Devil. Mormon apostle Mark E. Petersen said that if a child had a single drop of negro blood, he would "receive the curse" and that the best such a cursed child could hope for, if he was "faithful all his days," was to be a "servant" (slave) in heaven. But then in 1978 one of the "prophets" of the church had a "revelation" that the curse had somehow mysteriously been lifted. But in the church's official notice, the prophet went oddly unnamed, as if no one wanted to take credit for the prophecy.

When the Mormon church was so obviously wrong about racism and segregation, and attempted to correct its obvious mistake in such a contrived and clumsy manner, can it be trusted to hand down edicts on the rights (or lack of rights) of women and gays? Should a potential president like Willard Mitt Romney withhold (or attempt to withhold) basic human rights from women and gays because his church teaches that women are supposed to submit to men in all things, and that God discriminates against non-heterosexuals, the way he used to discriminate against "the children of Cain?

Or are the Mormon church's current teachings about women and gays as absurd and laughable (albeit not funny) as its former teachings about blacks?

Did Romney call homosexuality "perverse"? Isn't that a teaching of most conservative Christian churches, including the Roman Catholics, the Southern Baptists and the Mormons? Romney’s alleged comments on homosexual practices were part of a 20-minute address he delivered on November 14 to the Cambridge University Ward, which numbers about 250 to 300 single Mormons. "He said he was appalled at the incidence of homosexuals in the congregation," said Rick Rawlins, a 32-year-old Mormon who had previously served as a counselor to the ward’s bishop. "He went on to say that he found homosexuality both perverse and reprehensible." Romney denied the veracity of the comments but, as the Globe noted, the account was confirmed by three other attendees: "I believe that his general message was that sex outside of marriage is immoral, but on the other hand, I do remember that there was a specific remark that he was appalled at the incidence of homosexuality in the ward and he termed it perverse," said one. "It was specific enough that I wanted to go see Bishop [Steven] Wheelwright right after that talk." Another person present offered this account. "During the talk, President Romney began talking about families and family values, and he mentioned homosexuality as a perversity. He went on for some time." This person didn’t recall the exact term Romney used to express his dismay at report of homosexual conduct, but said: "He certainly was conveying that he was appalled." Said a fourth person: "He started going on about being upset about homosexuality in this ward. I remember him calling it a sickness and a perversion."

It seems to me that Romney and the Mormon church, like other fundamentalist sects of Christianity, are now wrestling with intolerance against homosexuality the way they once wrestled with intolerance against "the children of Cain." Obviously, the churches are wrong and their prehistoric teachings do not come from a loving, wise, just, enlightened God.

Can we afford to have a president who refuses to admit that his church's "prophets" are wrong and that their teachings are relics of a stone age past? Should millions of Americans be denied full equality because someone like Mitt Romney believes that God is a sexist and a homophobe?

Why does Mitt Romney deny gay veterans their constitutional rights?

While other American men his age were fighting and dying in Vietnam, young Willard Mitt Romney took two and a half years off to vacation in France as a Mormon missionary, receiving a deferment from military service as a "minister of religion" despite being barely out of high school. While vacationing in France, Romney encouraged his fellow missionaries to read Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill, so it seems Romney was evangelizing Mammon along with God and magical underpants. Nor did he wish to serve his country as a soldier. As a Massachusetts Senate candidate in 1994, Romney told the Boston Herald: "It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam." But when he met an American veteran of the Vietnam War recently, Romney had the audacity to deny him his constitutional rights.

"You can’t trust him," said Bob Garon, a gay 63-year-old vet, after meeting Romney, looking him in the eye, and calling him out for his bigotry.

While Garon was risking his neck in Vietnam, Mitt Romney was tooling around Le Havre and Paris. But Romney, acting in his usual cold-blooded style, had no problem telling Garon that he is a persona non grata, despite his service to his country.

Asked by reporters to assess Romney’s chances for the nomination after their encounter, Garon replied: "I did a little research on Mitt Romney and, by golly, you reporters are right. The guy ain’t going to make it. Because you can’t trust him. I just saw it in his eyes. I judge a man by his eyes."

Ironically, Romney met Garon during a campaign stop at Chez Vachon, a French cafe in Manchester, N.H. While working the room, Romney spotted Garon wearing a flannel shirt and a Vietnam Veteran hat, then slid into his booth for a quick photo op. But to his consternation, as the cameras rolled, Garon confronted Romney with a blunt question: "New Hampshire right now has some legislation kicking around about a repeal for the same-sex marriage. And all I need is a yes or a no. Do you support the repeal?"

"I support the repeal of the New Hampshire law," Romney said, confirming that he denies equality to gay Americans, even if they risked their lives in service to their country while he vacationed in France, incubating his get-rich-quick schemes.

Garon, who was eating breakfast with his male husband, pointed out correctly: "If two men get married, apparently a veteran’s spouse would not be entitled to any burial benefits or medical benefits or anything that the serviceman has devoted his time and effort to his country, and you just don’t support equality in terms of same-sex marriage?"

Romney confirmed that he not only denies gay veterans the right to marry, but that he also denies their partners having the same rights and benefits as heterosexual partners of other veterans. This is consistent with what Romney has said about denying gays the right to marry or to enter into civil unions, thus leaving them bereft of essential human rights.

"It's good to know how you feel, that you do not believe everyone is entitled to their constitutional rights," Garon replied dismissively.

When Romney started to argue that the Constitution is a homophobic document, a desperate-sounding aide urged him to wrap up the conversation: "Governor, we’ve got to get on with Fox News right now!" Was Romney saved from a knockout blow by the ding-dong bell of likeminded bigots?

"Oh, I guess the question was too hot," Garon remarked.

"No, I gave you the answer," Romney replied. "You said you had a yes-or-no [question]. I gave you the answer."

"You did," Garon agreed, although quite understandably not pleased or impressed. "And I appreciate your answer. And you know, I also learned something, and New Hampshire is right: You have to look a man in the eye to get a good answer. And you know what, governor? Good luck ... You’re going to need it."

"You are right about that," Romney said, unintentionally acknowledging that his bigotry against gay vets would come back to haunt him.

As reporters swarmed around his booth, Garon, an independent, said that he would not support Romney.

"I was undecided," Garon said. But "I’m totally convinced today that he’s not going to be my president—at least in my book. At least Obama will entertain the idea. This man is ‘No way, Jose.’ Well, take that ‘No way, Jose’ back to Massachusetts."

Later, Garon spoke to MSNBC about the exchange. "Well, quite frankly I'm not a professor of the Constitution but I don't believe it says anything about a man and a woman defining marriage," he said. "I didn't expect the answer that I got—I thought he'd be a little more diplomatic in his answer. But I did ask for a yes-or-no question and I've got to respect that that he did give me a yes-or-no answer."

But shouldn't we expect a prospective president and commander-in-chief to give the right answer, the fair answer, the just answer, the equitable answer?

Garon continued, "What I didn't expect from Mr. Romney is how confrontational he was and argumentative ... my question was really hoping that if he did get into the White House that he'd be in support of the benefits entitled to veterans and their spouses. Currently, they're not ... It just makes no sense to me."

Asked by reporters after Romney left why he feels so strongly about the issue, Garon responded passionately: "Because I’m gay, all right? And I happen to love a man just like you probably love your wife. I went and fought for my country and I think my spouse should be entitled to the same benefits as if I were married to a woman. What the hell is the difference?"

A very good question, indeed.

Garon said there is one aspect of Romney’s candidacy he supports: "I kind of liked his health care plan in Massachusetts." But of course Romney now castigates President Obama for Obamacare, even though it was clearly modeled on his own Romneycare. Romney has also waffled on climate change, women's reproductive rights, gun control and other issues. Take invasions of other countries, for example. His father, George Romney, who had once supported the Vietnam war, famously claimed that he had been brainwashed, possibly costing him the presidency. Mitt Romney agreed with his father and was quoted in a 1970 Boston Globe article as saying: "We were brainwashed. If it wasn’t a political blunder to move into Vietnam, I don’t know what is." But today Romney is a right-wing war hawk. He supported the invasion of Iraq and the troop surge. He supported the invasion of Afghanistan. He sealed his political marriage to Paul Ryan in the shadow of a battleship, after "America's Comeback Teamn" ran down to the podium from the battleship, laughing and waving. And in his speech to the Citadel in October 2011, Romney seemed to be the one brainwashing young American cadets to pursue wars of preemptive retaliation (i.e., offensive wars). If you continue reading this page, you can hear Romney sounding like the second coming of Hitler ...

Mitt Romney strikes me as a fascist who believes that might is right and will say or do almost anything to achieve his personal goals of acquiring money, fame and power. It seems the only position that he hasn't changed is his belief in his money, his power and his budding godhood. Like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Hitler, this endlessly strange creature named Willard Mitt Romney seems to see the rest of us a pawns in his game of cosmic chess. He claims that his Mormon faith is very important to him, and perhaps that's part of the problem, because Mormonism teaches that human beings can become gods and rule worlds. Romney and the Romulans seem to be cold-blooded conquerors intent on ruling ours.

Romney's War on Women

Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that.—Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney is leading the ever-escalating Republican full-frontal assault on American women's rights. If there was an Olympics for male chauvinism, Romney and the Romulans would undoubtedly sweep gold, silver and bronze.

A recent Guttmacher Institute report reveals the startling extent of the GOP's war on women’s reproductive rights: "By almost any measure, issues related to reproductive health and rights at the state level received unprecedented attention in 2011. In the 50 states combined, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions ..."

And the GOP’s biggest stars are leading the dash to force girls and women to bear their rapists’ babies. When Todd Akin spoke of "illegitimate" rape, he was merely echoing what Ron Paul said when he told CNN’s Piers Morgan that victims of "honest rape" should be treated differently than other rape victims. Paul Ryan obviously concurs, as he and Akin were co-sponsors of the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," which in its original form included an exemption only for "forcible rape." Rick Santorum has called rapists’ fetuses "gifts" from God and opposes abortion and contraceptives under all circumstances. Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann signed the "Personhood USA" pledge, which allows no exceptions for rape and incest. Mitt Romney wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood, to repeal Roe vs. Wade, and to define life as beginning at conception, meaning that a microscopic egg fertilized by a rapist against a teenage girl's will can sentence her to death. So why all the fuss about Todd Akin, really? He is no more extreme than any of the best-known conservative presidential candidates, and less extreme than the only one with a legitimate shot at becoming president.

Romney and the Romulans will sell American women down the river, returning them to the Dark Ages, the same way Romney's Bain Capital vultures sold American workers down the river, and the same way Romney intends to sell poor- and middle-income-class Americans down the river once he becomes president. In Romney's United States, unless you are rich, healthy, white and male, there is something terribly "wrong" with you—thus all you are good for is to work and pay taxes, so that rich, healthy white men don't have to pay taxes. When you can no longer work and pay taxes, you will be quickly discarded. If you ask for any help from the government you helped fund all your working career, you will be called a freeloader in search of "free stuff." But things will be even worse for girls and women. If a girl iis raped, she will have no choice but to bear her rapist's baby. If a mother has two jobs and three children, and she forgets to take a birth control pill, or a pill is defective, if she becomes pregnant she will have no choice but to bear another child. It will be illegal for her to choose not to become a mother.

A mere two days after Akin's gaffe, we learned conclusively that he is actually far less extreme than his party, when the Republican platform committee approved language seeking a constitutional amendment to ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to a pregnant woman's life. The wording of the GOP’s renewed call for a "human life amendment" agrees with what the party approved in 2004 and 2008. Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman, noted that the absolute abortion ban "is the platform of the Republican Party." The Romney campaign declined to comment on the platform committee’s vote, but in the past Romney has endorsed identical language. In 2007, during his first White House bid, Romney told ABC News: "I support that [human life amendment language] being part of the Republican platform." During a Republican presidential debate in 2007, Romney said that he would welcome a consensus that "we don’t want to have abortion in this country at all, period." He added that he would be "delighted" to sign a bill banning all abortions.

So Romney is obviously much more extreme than Todd Akin. And yet Romney told a New Hampshire TV station that Akin’s remarks were "deeply offensive" and that he and Ryan "can’t defend him." Ryan, seated beside Romney, nodded his head in agreement. But Akin effectively tied Ryan to his comment when he confirmed on Mike Huckabee's radio program that by "legitimate rape" he meant "forcible rape," the term that appeared in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act." bill co-sponsored by Akin and Ryan!

The bottom line is that—as stupid, evil and offensive as Akin's comments were—Paul Ryan is just as bad, and Mitt Romney is worse.

Is Mitt Romney a Sociopath?

I have studied the findings of several handwriting experts, and this one by Sheila Kurtz seems to agree with the general consensus about Mitt Romney: "... inclined to think quickly, act impulsively, dream big, and hang on to what’s his." But several of the experts pointed out real problems with his ability to empathize with and relate to other people.

Here is a graphology (handwriting) analysis by Joel Engel, the author of two books on the subject: "Mitt Romney’s capacity to relate is bleak. His signature has abrupt endings. This signifies being short with others. The two hooks reflect stubbornness. Dashes reveal a (usually subconscious) desire to be unsocial, especially when they vary from the standard (forward slashes). The disproportionately distant and disconnected T bar shows personal detachment. These combined traits produce feeling awkward in public. [Romney's] middle zone is also small. What is unique is that he connects from this area to the upper zone (instead of the routine middle zone). [By] avoiding the social (middle zone) area, this man’s thought processes are purely intellectual ... His rightward slant informs us that he can use his gifted brainpower aggressively."

Here is another graphology analysis, by Treyce Montoya, CEO of Center of Forensic Profiling: "Romney's handwriting is more separate or disconnected (mostly print) than Obama's. This indicates that he can be abrupt and impatient with others as well as not wanting to socially engage. His disconnections on his "TT"s in his name show his desire to not truly connect to [other] people ... the exit strokes are short ... which indicate stubbornness and reemphasize his 'unsocialness.' ... Romney's signature is more rightward and this shows that he is more impulsive ... Romney likes to acquire (collect) things and retain them."

Another handwriting expert, David Littman, said that to be on the same wavelength with Mitt Romney, because he is so analytical, we would have to appeal to his mind, not his emotions. Littman also said that Romney takes umbrage when people break the rules, is aggressive and would go "straight for the jugular," which could account for his warlike talk about attacking Iran.

The handwriting experts give Romney credit for high intelligence and leadership, but question his character. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highest, Engel rated Romney as a 2 for personality. Anyone who has watched Romney try to "connect" with other people in public should be able to confirm that Romney seems to be functioning purely or mostly on intellect. He doesn't seem to be able to empathize with the suffering of others. This would explain why he "can't remember" holding a fellow student down and cutting off his hair, and why he doesn't understand that it was inhumane to strap his dog to the roof of his car for an 11-hour road trip. A classmate of Romney's compared him to the "Lord of the Flies." I have read what many people who know him have said about Romney in my research, since I became concerned that Americans may be about to elect a sociopath to the presidency. While people have complimented his intelligence and ability to get things done, almost no one has had anything nice to say about him as a person. While none of this is conclusive proof, still his handwriting, his actions, and what people do and don't say about him, all seem to suggest that Romney may lack normal human empathy and sociability. Our greatest presidents obviously cared about other Americans: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, JFK, et al. Can we afford to elect a president who can't connect with other Americans, in these trying, dangerous times?

Mitt Romney’s $100 million Cayman Island IRA: Did he pay 13%, really, or is he a tax cheat?
Will Romney's Fascist Dreams of an "American Century" lead to more unwinnable wars in the Middle East?
Will Bishop Romney continue to Wage War on American Women and Teachers and Big Bird and China and American Workers?
Will Romney Hood rob Americans blind with his Medicare Scam, by stealing from the poor to give to the rich?
Are Romney and the Romulans trying to get rid of Martin Luther King Day?
Mitt Romney Quotes, Paul Ryan Quotes and Ann Romney Quotes
Mitt Romney Poems, Parodies, Songs, Jokes and Nicknames

The HyperTexts