Romney Wins Second Round of the Debate. Obama Doubles Down on Bengazhi Cover Up
In the end, Obama fared much better than he did in his first debate performance. But, that was hardly a tall order. Romney presented a pretty scathing account of the Obama record in one 2 to 3 minute diatribe. He recounted the high unemployment, anemic growth, record deficits, etc. . . Obama in turn had virtually no defense. Why? Because there is none. Just the same old broken record, "I inherited" x, y and z. We've all heard it a million times over.
What really strikes me is Obama's complete lack of vision going forward. In 270 plus minutes, Obama and Biden have offered no real plan to improve economic growth, nor do they make any concrete proposals to address our coming debt tsunami. What have they told us? They're going to raise taxes on the wealthy. Everyone knows that's only going to hurt growth and cost jobs. He wants to hire more teachers, even if there's no clear indication we need more. He talks about investing in green jobs, yet just today we see another green manufacturer, A123, declare bankruptcy after getting $249 million in tax dollars.
However, the most significant exchange in this debate surrounded the growing Benghazi cover up. The President disinenguously asserted that he described the embassy assault as an act of terrorism on 9/12/12. While he did use the words "an act of terror", he certainly wasn't saying the Benghazi raid was just such an act. To the contrary, he went on the View, Letterman and Univision telling the nation that the ambassador and three other Americans were killed by an unruly mob responding to a youtube video. They then sent their UN Ambassador to all five major networks to continue spreading the fairytail.
Unfortunately for Obama, there's still another debate and its focus is foreign policy. He's going to pay for his blatant misrepresentation.
Going into the first presidential debate between Obama and Romney, some were ready to write off the Republican contender. Poll numbers showed Obama taking a commanding lead in many of the critical battleground states. However, everything changed after the first debate. One Pew poll had Obama leading by 8 points nationally before the debate, and trailing by 4 after the debate.
By all counts, Obama turned in a lethargic, uninspiring performance in the first debate. Even the Obama pom-pom wavers on MSNBC acknowledged the sound defeat. After his boss was criticized for being passive in the presidential debate, Joe Biden showed up for the vice-presidential debate with grins ablazing. He had his gleaming white choppers in full display throughout the debate, even while discussing such comical topics as Iran nuclear capabilities, trillion dollar deficits, and an American ambassador killed by Al-Qaeda terrorists.
To this point, Obama and Biden have focused their attention on defending their abysmal record and attacking their counterparts. We have heard very little about their plan for getting the economy moving, despite anemic 1.3% GDP growth. They have told us about their plans to raise taxes on the "millionaires and billionaires," otherwise known as those making more than $250,000. However, I don't think even a leftist economist like Paul Krugman would have the audacity to claim that will improve growth. Obama mentioned hiring 100,000 new science teachers. That might help 20 years down the road, but will hardly move the needle in the short term. Biden argued the Republicans just have to "get out of the way." Well, much to his chagrin, Republicans will still be there come 2013, and even those from his own party have voiced opposition to the President's jobs initiatives.
Unlike the first debate, there will also be questions about foreign policy. For the first time, the President will be called upon to explain why his administration spent more than a week telling the American public that our ambassador and three others were killed by a mob responding to a deplorable youtube video. We have since learned that the State Department had real time updates from Bengazi while the attack was ongoing. There was no mob. It was a coordinated terroist attack.
The town hall style debate starts at 9:00 p.m. PolicyMic will be covering the presidential debate live. For live updates, bookmark and refresh this page.
10:39- Obama cowardly tosses in the 47% comment in his closing remarks, knowing Romney won't have the chance to respond.
10:37- Obama doesn't believe gov't creates jobs? Hasn't he spent the last 180 minutes telling us about the need for more gov't investment in everything from Planned Parenthood, GM, Chrysler, green jobs, new teachers, infrastructure, etc. . .?
10:33- Obama wants to drop that corporate tax rate all the way down to 28%. Still among the highest in the world. That ought to really spur investment.
10:30- Obama- just stop talking about taxes and economic growth. You're embarrassing yourself.
10:26- Obama- We need more teachers. Since when is that a federal responsibility?!? Putting the obvious aside, does the President even bother to ask whether more teachers are even needed? Turns out we have the lowest teacher:student ratio in decades. Guess what, our education attainment, as measured by standardized testing remains flatlined. Maybe the problem isn't lack of funding. Maybe the system just stinks. Throwing more money down the same rat hole isn't the answer.
10:14- Actually Mr. President, you said the words "act of terror" the day after the attack, then went on the View, Letterman and Univision spreading the tale that this was a spontaneous mob. You then sent out the Ambassador to the UN to all 5 major talk shows to continue the lie. If you knew it was an act of terror on 9/12, why'd you and everyone else in your administration say it was a video related mob for 2 wks?!?
10:11- Obama says he means what he says- Did that apply when he was telling us all that the embassy attacks were related to some stupid video as opposed to a coordinated terrorist attack?
10:07- Nice. Romney nails Obama for his hypocricy. Turns out he has investments in Chinese companies as well.
10:01- HILARIOUS!! Obama says we're a "nation of laws", yet completely ignores the Constitution whenever it's inconvenient. Congress won't pass your "Dream Act", just do it by executive order. Your union buddies won't come out on the winning end in a normal bankruptcy proceeding, no problem- just ignore the bankruptcy laws. Congress won't approve your appointees, just declare Congress in recess and appoint them without their advice and consent. Obama has no regard for the rule of law.
9:58- On to immigration. We're sure to here Obama touting his trampling of the Constitution, issuing a Dream Act by executive order. Even he said he acknowledged he lacked the power to do so, until he went ahead and did it.
9:55- Romney is killing Obama with this bill of particulars of failure.
9:53- Can someone explain to me why it's the federal gov't's job to fund planned parenthood?
9:50- As has been the case for the past 4 yrs, Obama glosses over what caused the economic meltdown of 2008. Everyone knows it wasn't tax cuts. That's malarkey, as Biden would put it. The housing mess collapsed the economy. He doesn't mention the elephant in the room because his party was largely to blame, though not solely, for the misery.
9:46- Obama also thinks the federal gov't should be telling religious entitities like Catholic Hospitals that they must provide for birth control and even the morning after pill, which runs directly against their deeply held beliefs.
9:44- We need gov't to tell employers they must offer birth control pills free of co-pay. But, you still have to pay a co-pay for that anti-hypertensive medication that keeps you alive.
9:42- Thank you President Obama for passing the Ledbetter act. It's going to be a real boon to lawyers like me.
9:39- Obama- "We've enabled millions of people to afford go to college." Well, they can get a loan, but unfortunately they can't get a job that pays enough to off the principle after graduating. It's little comfort to have a low interest loan when you owe $300k and make $35K/yr.
9:38- Obama gives a lecture about budgets when his party can't even propose a budget in Congress, much less pass one. In fairness, Obama did propose a budget every year, however, he couldn't even muster up one vote from either party.
9:38- I love it when Obama and his statist buddies talk about lost revenue as a "cost". Letting people keep their own money doesn't "cost" the gov't one dime.
9:27- Obama- "My view of taxes is simple." Agreed. You want to raise taxes on the "millionaires and billionaires", i.e. those making more than $250k. That ought to do wonders for the economy. In fact, one study showed that tax hike will cost 700K jobs in 2013. Here's what Ernst & Young found- letting tax rates for the wealthiest Americans lapse would sap $200 billion and some 700,000 jobs out of the economy, reduce wages by 1.8 percent and lead to a decrease in investment.
9:24- According to the report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, Section 1503 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus), the part that covers green energy projects got some $9 billion in stimulus cash for 2009-11 and created a whopping 910 direct jobs — those involved in the ongoing operation of the wind and solar projects that were funded. That's $9.8 million per job created. What a great investment!
9:21- Obama explains why gas is $4/gallon because our economy is just booming!
9:19- Toe to toe. Are they going to rumble?
9:13- Obama's blabbering on about green energy. Why don't we ask Spain how their huge green energy push worked out. An economist studied the Spanish green job investment and found that each green job created in Spain cost Spanish taxpayers $770,000. Each Wind Industry job cost $1.3 million to create.
9:11- Ahh, Obama enlightens us on how tax cuts killed the economy. I wish someone in this audience would ask the President how leaving more money in the private sector hurts the economy. I don't think even Keynesians like Paul Krugman would utter such complete nonsense.
9:10- Hmm, the guys at GM and Chrysler told us they needed American tax payers to foot the bill, so it must be so.
9:09- Romney gives Obama a reminder that GM did actually go bankrupt.
9:06- Obama- "Governor Romney wanted to let GM go bankrupt." I seem to remember GM filing for bankruptcy in June of 2009. I guess Obama just forgot. Of course, this wasn't a normal bankruptcy proceeding. It was rigged to help his union buddies, defying centuries of bankruptcy law.
9:03- Unfortunately, both Romney and Obama think the answer to bringing down student loan debt is giving out more federally subsidized dollars. This only leads to higher tuition and greater debt, albeit at lower interest rates.
9:02- And it's on!
8:38- It will be interesting to see how Obama deals with the Benghazi cover up. Here's a timeline of the events.
8:10- Here's a topic that might come up tonight- immigration. Here, we see Obama telling us why he can't pass the Dream Act by executive order because it would be unconstitutional. That was, of course, before he did just that.
8:02- Here's 2008 Barack Obama describing himself in 2012.
7:58- Another one bites the dust: Car battery maker A123 files for bankruptcy today. While no Solyndra, the company received $249 million in tax payer dollars. More money down the green jobs toilet.
Here's a live stream of tonight's debate:
