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How Romney Spent All Day Calling Obama A Foreigner

Mitt Romney’s campaign is hoping to distract voters from the growing drum beat of conservatives calling on the former Bain Capital executive to release his tax returns by smearing President Obama as a foreigner, in a not-so-subtle effort to revive the right-wing conspiracy theories surrounding his birthplace.

Indeed, the Romney team, and even Romney himself, spent all of Tuesday painting the president as not a “real” American. Here is a timeline of the campaign’s orchestrated smear:

11:00 AM — OBAMA IS ‘SMOKING SOMETHING,’ GREW UP IN INDONESIA: Obama “has no idea how the American system functions, and we shouldn’t be surprised about that, because he spent his early years in Hawaii smoking something, spent the next set of years in Indonesia, another set of years in Indonesia, and, frankly, when he came to the U.S. he worked as a community organizer, which is a socialized structure, and then got into politics in Chicago.” [Co-chair John Sununu, Fox News]

11:30 AM — OBAMA HAS TO ‘LEARN HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN’: “The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world. It is the American way. And I wish this president would learn how to be an American. [Co-chair John Sununu, Romney campaign conference call]

11:30 AM — OBAMA’S AMERICA IS ‘SOCIALISM’: “It seems to me that the Obama America, there’s no risk but there’s plenty of reward. That’s called socialism to me. In the small business America, there’s a lot of risk, and a chance of reward, and that’s called capitalism, and that’s what made the United States the greatest nation on the face of the earth.” [Businessman Kyle Koehler, Romney campaign conference call]

1:35 PM — ROMNEY SAYS OBAMA’S POLICIES ARE ‘EXTRAORDINARILY FOREIGN’: “Celebrating success instead of attacking it and denigrating making America strong. That’s the right course for the country. His course is extraordinarily foreign.” [Mitt Romney, Pennsylvania]

20 Prominent Republicans Who Want Romney To Release More Tax Returns Right Now [UPDATED]

Mitt Romney continues to resist pressure to turn over more tax returns. In an interview today he said he is “simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.”

The call for more information about Romney’s financial past, however, is bipartisan. A poll released today found fifty six percent of all voters, including sixty one percent of independents, think that Romney should release twelve years of returns.

These fifteen prominent Republicans are calling on Romney to release more tax returns, now:

1. George Will. On ABC’s “This Week,” Will, a long-time conservative commentator and Washington Post columnist, said, “The costs of not releasing the returns are clear, therefore he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.” At one point, he even played devil’s advocate to Republican consultant Mary Matalin, who was defending Romney.

2. Bill Kristol. “Here’s what he should do,” said Kristol, another conservative commentator, on Fox News. “He should release the tax returns tomorrow. This is crazy… you’ve got to release 6, 8, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two. Then give a serious speech on Thursday.”

3. Ron Paul. Unitl just days ago, Paul was the other Republican presidential candidate. He is also one of those calling for Romney to release the returns. Paul told Politico today, “Politically, I think that would help him. …In the scheme of things politically, you know, it looks like releasing tax returns is what the people want.”

4. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley. The Alabama Governor actually went further than others in suggesting that perhaps Romney is hiding something by not releasing his tax returns. “If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong,” he told the AP. “I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.“

5. Michael Steele. The former chair of the Republican National Committee is pushing for release. He claims it will help voters trust Romney, especially since he claims there is nothing to see in the returns: “If there’s nothing there, there’s no ‘there’ there, don’t create a ‘there.’ Put out as much information as you can. Even if you don’t release 12 years worth of tax returns, at least three, four, five.”

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GOP Rep Drives Away From Constituent Asking About Minimum Wage Increase

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI)

A Vietnam veteran in Wisconsin will have to wait until next year to find out if Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) supports raising the minimum wage, after the Tea Party Congressman shut his door and drove away from the question.

Yesterday, in video flagged by CREDO SuperPAC, a constituent approached Duffy outside a meeting in Wausau and attempted to ask him a question about the minimum wage. Duffy told the man he’s already held his single yearly town hall, got in his car, shut his door, and drove away, leaving the veteran tried to shout his question through the car’s rolled up window:

CONSTITUENT: Mr. Duffy, when are you going to hold your next town hall meeting?

DUFFY: We said we’re going to do one every year, and we’ve done that. So if you want to come set up an appointment in my office, we’d be happy to have you come on by.

CONSTITUENT: What I’d like to know is the law to raise the minimum wage… [Duffy drives off]

Watch it:

Last month, House Democrats proposed increasing the minimum wage to $10, allowing it to catch up to inflation over the past 45 years. Duffy has not taken a position on the bill, but fellow House Republicans continue to block it from coming up for a vote.

Top Romney Spokesperson Urged Kerry’s Presidential Campaign To Release More Tax Returns In 2004

Mitt Romney’s campaign has pushed back against calls he release more tax returns by insisting that former presidential candidates have only publicized a couple of years of tax documents.

“Well, as you know, the standard of– of releasing fully two years of returns, which goes above what the law requires, was a standard that Senator John McCain had adhered to as the Republican nominee in the last presidential campaign,” Romney adviser Ed Gillespie explained on Meet The Press this Sunday. “This is standard Senator Kerry adhered to as the Democratic nominee in the– in the election before that.”

But Gillespie, who served as the Chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2004 presidential election, must know that “Kerry had put a total of 20 years of tax returns into the public domain by the time he ran for president.” After all, throughout that campaign he personally insisted that Kerry’s wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry, who files taxes separately from her husband, publicize her tax information — a position that is in direct conflict with his current spin for Romney. From an October 14, 2004 RNC press release:

Throughout history, presidential candidates have disclosed income tax information prior to Election Day. We believe Americans value disclosure and transparency in campaigns.

During the 2003 filing year, Sen. Kerry made a $6 million loan to his campaign based on the value of a home jointly owned with his wife.

“Were it not for that infusion of cash John Kerry might not be on the campaign trail today. Because of her financial interest in the presidential campaign of her husband, Teresa Heinz Kerry pledged to disclose her tax information on October 15. Tomorrow is October 15 and Americans will find out if they plan to keep that promise.”

Throughout the 2004 campaign, Republicans pressured Heinz-Kerry to publicize her tax returns, given her investment in her husband’s campaign. She eventually released more information in October of that year, as Gillespie insisted that the documents presented “a legitimate question” for voters. Eight years later, the former RNC head is singing a decidedly different tune.

Economy

Romney Says He Sympathizes With Struggling Middle Class Workers, But His Policies Would Make Them Worse Off

Mitt Romney, who has long battled perceptions that his immense wealth renders him out of touch with voters, tried to prove his sympathies with the middle class at a fundraiser in Jackson, Mississippi last night. To an audience that paid $2,500, $10,000 or $50,000 a ticket, Romney pointed out the waitstaff in the room, saying “they’re not having a good year” due to the country’s slow economic recovery:

I know that people in this room are probably doing relatively well, relative to folks across this country. But not everyone in America is doing so well right now, it’s tough being middle class in America right now. The waiters and waitresses that come in and out of this room and offer us refreshments, they’re not having a good year. The people of the middle class of America are really struggling. And they’re struggling I think in a way because they’re surprised because when they voted for Barack Obama…he promised them that things were going to get a heck a lot of better. He promised hope and change and they’re still waiting.

Though he may embrace the middle class rhetorically, his actual policy tells a different story. Romney plans to increase the taxes for half of middle class families with children, while his wealthy fundraiser attendees who make $1 million or more would get an annual tax cut of nearly $150,000. He also wants to make it easier for companies to outsource jobs; by exempting companies from taxes on foreign profits, Romney could send as many as 800,000 jobs overseas. 

He also recently flipped his position on raising the minimum wage, saying, “There’s probably not a need to raise the minimum wage.” In Mississippi, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and the minimum wage for tipped employees is an even lower $2.13. The minimum wage would need be be near $10 today to have the purchasing power that it had in the 1960s.

Just a few months ago, Romney dismissed concern for the struggling middle class as “envy” and “class warfare.” Now he’s trying to change his tune a bit, while still embracing policies that would do no favors for American workers.

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