The Romney Administration

[OSR stands with Israel]

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer gives Democratic Response to the State of Union



Whitmer: Good Evening , my name is Gretchen Whitmer and I am currently the Governor of the state of Michigan. Today I want to talk about what the President said in his state of the union address and what my thoughts are about it. The President began by talking about how great the economy is doing because of how low the unemployment rate is , and while yes the unemployment rate is low it does not tell the whole story Mr.President. For example, there are many former blue-collar workers in the state of Michigan who while have recently found employment, the places where they found employment does not give them the same wages and benefits as their previous jobs gave them and that is a problem. So despite the fact that their home or apartment bill may have gone up over the past 10 years they are making less money then before which makes it harder for them to have the same quality of life as they had before.

Another thing the President talked about today was the issue of energy and how he brags about the fact that he has approved more drilling on federal lands. While yes they do increase our energy production, they also increase pollution in our own country's environment by making our air and water more polluted and exasperate the issue of climate change. Now the President said his plan will magically reduce the affects of climate change despite the fact his plan builds more oil pipelines, increases drilling , and does not incentivize reducing emissions. While yes the free market can and will do a good job at reducing the impacts of climate change, they cant do it alone because if the government doesnt disincentive using fossil fuels, alternative energy companies wont be able to get ahead.So while I agree with the President on parts of his plans to increase investment in green energy, I also call on the Congress to add some regulations in the bill which will disincentive fossil fuels. Thank You Again , May God Bless You and May God Bless America

[OSR stands with Israel]

Secretary of State Richard Lugar answers questions to Senate Finance Committe about TPP:



Debbie Stabenow: Secretary Lugar thanks for coming, the question I have is that the environmental groups have expressed concern that this trade agreement could circumvent  US environmental laws, and increase pollution in both our air and water. What guarantee can you make that this wont happen

Lugar: Senator Stabenow, this trade agreement I can assure you wont undermine US environmental laws and regulations. If a business violates our environmental regulations they will still have to pay the penalty for it with stuff such as fines, and sanctions depending on how severely they violate regulations.

Bernie Sanders: Secretary Lugar as you may know over the past 25 years we have signed multiple multilateral trade agreements whether it was NAFTA, CAFTA, LAFTA, WTO and the results of those have been nothing but a disaster. Millions of good paying US manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas which have made life for millions of Americans worse and made Income Inequality worse just so the Top 1% can get richer. Despite this the Administration believes it is a good idea to not only refuse to renegotiate these disastrous trade deals, but sign even more trade deals . So Secretary Lugar why is it a good idea to promote this trade deal an cause millions more manufacturing jobs to go overseas.

Lugar: Senator Sanders, those trade deals were not the reasons why we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs as US manufacturing production is higher than if ever has been in our history. The reason the number of jobs have declined is due to Automation and due to that what used to for example require 10 workers to manufacture a project requires only 6 now due to more and more of the manufacturing industry being automated.


Sanders: The fact is millions of jobs have been shipped over seas , and things what used to be manufactured here in the United States is manufactured in China , Vietnam or other countries of less than a buck an hour with no benefits. So while yes manufacturing production has gone up it is not as much as it would have been if we didnt lose all those jobs.

Lugar: Senator Sanders if we, for example, do withdraw from these trade agreements than what do you think will happen. The Cost of Goods Sold will increase significantly which would mean the price of the good on consumers will also increase significantly which then will reduce demand. When demand decreases our economy will be hit negatively and then that will mean even more jobs will be lost

John Cornyn: Secretary Lugar, thanks for coming here today. The question I have is as you know our trade deficit is very high especially with China. How will this trade deal help lower it

Lugar: Senator Cornyn, the reason our trade defict with China is very high is we are currently overreliant on trade with them. What this trade agreement will do , along with the Latin American Trade Agreement we passed last year is reduce that reliance as these trade agreements will open up more trading partners with the US. Also the Pacific countries can sell many different types of products to us at a similar price as China , and due to that it will reduce reliance on trade with China and thus reduce the trade defict.

[OSR stands with Israel]

House Passes the White House Energy Plan in an Overwhelming vote





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[OSR stands with Israel]

Senate Also Passes White House Energy Plan and Romney Signs it




President Signing the North American Energy Independence Act of 2015


Note : Rand Paul, and Mike Lee joined the Democrats in filibustering this bill but thanks to Democratic Senators such as Joe Manchin , Mary Landrieu, and Mark Begich this bill was able to break a filibuster and pass.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe announces Presidential Run:



Mike Beebe: Thank You , Thank You for the warm welcome here today. Being back here today bring back great memories of the 8 years in which I had the honor of serving the people of the Arkansas. The reason I came here today is that when I left office I felt like I still had much more things I wanted to do  for the people of this state and I felt I was unable to achieve them because many of the problems of the state cant be fixed by the state government and really only the federal government actions can solve these problems. The proof in the pudding to this is the problems that afflict our state currently not only affect our state , but many other states and towns across the country no matter what type of Governor or mayor that area has.

During my 8 year tenure as Governor I felt that many problems facing our state and out nation was going unnoticed by the federal government, and for that reason I have decided to run for President because while the federal government may not want to notice these problems, the problems do exist and we must fix them. Whether it is from our nation's crumbling infrastructure ,  an education system which is falling every year , and rural areas getting in worse economic shape year after year we must fix these problems and yes Mr.President these problems do exist no matter how you want to avoid dealing with them.

Thank You , may God Bless you and May God Bless America

[Sadader]

Secretary of State Richard Lugar answers questions to Senate Finance Committe about TPP:


Lugar: Senator Cornyn, the reason our trade defict with China is very high is we are currently overreliant on trade with them. What this trade agreement will do , along with the Latin American Trade Agreement we passed last year is reduce that reliance as these trade agreements will open up more trading partners with the US. Also the Pacific countries can sell many different types of products to us at a similar price as China , and due to that it will reduce reliance on trade with China and thus reduce the trade defict.

I love this timeline, but this quote is silly. The trade deficit isn’t an issue to be solved, which is a common misconception.I have a trade deficit with the grocery store for example, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly starting a farm in my backyard would make me better off. A trade deficit isn’t a loss o welfare, it’s a gain for both parties.

free trade Republican party of my dreams

[OSR stands with Israel]

Secretary of State Richard Lugar answers questions to Senate Finance Committe about TPP:


Lugar: Senator Cornyn, the reason our trade defict with China is very high is we are currently overreliant on trade with them. What this trade agreement will do , along with the Latin American Trade Agreement we passed last year is reduce that reliance as these trade agreements will open up more trading partners with the US. Also the Pacific countries can sell many different types of products to us at a similar price as China , and due to that it will reduce reliance on trade with China and thus reduce the trade defict.

I love this timeline, but this quote is silly. The trade deficit isn’t an issue to be solved, which is a common misconception.I have a trade deficit with the grocery store for example, but that doesn’t mean that suddenly starting a farm in my backyard would make me better off. A trade deficit isn’t a loss o welfare, it’s a gain for both parties.

free trade Republican party of my dreams

They are only talking about the trade deficit with China, they are not talking the overall trade deficit in general. 

One of the goal of the Romney Administration is to reduce the reliance on trade with China , so Secretary Lugar just tied both those things together by saying how TPP will help us reduce reliance on trade with China and lower the trade deficit (or at least slow down the growth of it) with China.

[OSR stands with Israel]

House of Representatives Pass K-12 Education Reform Bill:




Summary of Bill:

- Increasing School Choice by expanding vouchers in areas with struggling public schools

- Give Highly Teachers who decide to teach at Struggling Schools a $4000 tax deduction

- Increasing accountability in Public Schools by rewarding good teachers with pay raises while making it easier to get rid of bad ones.

- Overall State Test scores of each school will be collected by each state, and schools who fail to meet certain requirements in multiple years, will then have to be monitored by the state or the city more carefully to make sure they meet these requirements.

- Requiring students to pass an technology class to graduate high school

- Increasing amount of Engineering Classes Taught in High Schools

[Pericles]

Interesting developments. How is the TPP different or is it the same as under Obama?

[OSR stands with Israel]

Interesting developments. How is the TPP different or is it the same as under Obama?

The  same but this time around the democrats in general will be more aggressive in opposing the deal .


Their opposition will be mainly on these points :

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18695/TPP_Free-Trade_Globalization_Obama



Then they hope to peel of 3-4 republican senators as well to succefully filibuster it 






 

[President Johnson]

Great update! I liked how Lugar defended free-trade policies against Bernard, whose questions/remarks are very realistically written. Keep it up.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Great update! I liked how Lugar defended free-trade policies against Bernard, whose questions/remarks are very realistically written. Keep it up.

Thanks

[KingSweden]

Wanted to say - read it all this morning. Great timeline. Well written. My only quibble is that he GOP gains in 2012 seem a bit inflated - I could see six or seven pickups being realistic rather than ten.

Still, great job.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Wanted to say - read it all this morning. Great timeline. Well written. My only quibble is that he GOP gains in 2012 seem a bit inflated - I could see six or seven pickups being realistic rather than ten.

Still, great job.

Thanks , Im Glad You Liked it

[OSR stands with Israel]

Former Governors Martin O Maley and Former Senator Jim Webb announce Presidential Run

Martin O Maley's Announcement speech:



Webb: I want to thank everyone for coming tonight. After many months of careful consideration, I have officially decided to run for President as I believe it is time for a change. For decades the Democratic Party has slowly moved away from being the party of the working class to the party of special interest groups and due that the party slowly began to lose support year after year and the results of the 2012 Presidential Election, and the last 3 congressional elections were a culmination in this failed Democratic Strategy. The Republicans in 2012 won white working class voters a formally strong democratic group, and made huge inroads among minority voters and unless we do something to change the path our party is going on not only will Republicans win Midwestern White Working Class votes again they will once again make further inroads among minority voters meaning we will lose in a landslide defeat which will give the Republicans the final mandate to fully pass their pro-corporation and neo conservative agenda. We as democrats are the only people who can stop them from implementing their agenda for another 4 years, and that is why I am running for President

[Politician]

Very well-written. I prefer Romney in this timeline to real-life Romney. My only complaint is that the GOP does too well in Senate elections (I could see them gaining 1-2 seats, but 4 seems a bit much).

[OSR stands with Israel]

Very well-written. I prefer Romney in this timeline to real-life Romney. My only complaint is that the GOP does too well in Senate elections (I could see them gaining 1-2 seats, but 4 seems a bit much).

Thanks , Im Glad You Liked it .



BTW The Republicans gained 3 seats not 4 in 2014(Due to them losing GA).

[OSR stands with Israel]

Senate passes K-12 Reform Bill as well:

Summary of Bill:

- Give Highly Teachers who decide to teach at Struggling Schools a $4000 tax deduction

- Increasing accountability in Public Schools by rewarding good teachers with pay raises while making it easier to get rid of bad ones.

- Overall State Test scores of each school will be collected by each state, and schools who fail to meet certain requirements in multiple years, will then have to be monitored by the state or the city more carefully to make sure they meet these requirements.

- Requiring students to pass an technology class to graduate high school

- Increasing amount of Engineering Classes Taught in High Schools


Note: The Expanding Vouchers positions was not in the Bill due to Senator Lisa Murkowski telling the Senate Majority Whip that she would not vote to invoke cloture if it was in the bill .

[OSR stands with Israel]

House passes Senate version of the Bill and Romney signs it:



Romney: Thank You , Thank You. Today I have the honor of signing this bill which will reform our nation's public school system by increasing accountability in our school, and fully getting our kids ready for a changing world where technology is getting more and more important .

Media Member shouts out question: Mr.President school vouchers werent included in this bill. How do you respond to that

Romney: Well as President Reagan said if you get 80% of what you want in a bill  than that bill is your friend not your 20% enemy and we got more than 80% than what we wanted .

[OSR stands with Israel]

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Former Governor and DNC Chair Howard Dean announce Presidential Runs


Hillary Clinton's Announcement Speech:





Hillary Clinton : Thank You , Thank You. Its great to be here in New York where I had the honor of serving as your Senator for 8 years, and the home of a great President named Franklin Roosevelt. Thanks to FDR's Legacy our nation is the home to the best economy in the world, and he built the strongest middle class in history . He did that despite the fact that the Republicans viciously opposed everything he did , and despite the fact that they did he won and his legacy still endures today no matter how much the Republicans have tried to rip it apart for these past 80 years. Today's though they talk abut how the President is creating a Conservative New Deal , which really stands for ripping his legacy apart and we cannot let that happen. That is why I am running for President because we must not only save his legacy but build upon it by creating an economy where anyone who works hard can get ahead in life. Thank You and May God Bless America.


Howard Dean's announcement speech:




Dean : Thank You , Thank you to everyone who came out here today. It's great to be back in Vermont, where I got to be your governor for 8 great years. It also brings back memories of the beginning of a great Presidential campaign we started 13 years ago, and while we didnt win we created a movement which culminated in us taking back Congress in 2006 and the White House by a landslide margin in 2008 and expanding our majorities in Congress. Unfortunately, since then not only did we lose what we gained in 2006 and 2008 our party has fallen into the worst shape it has been since 1920 and allowed the Republicans to take complete control of the Government. Remember the last time Republicans had that much power , they cut taxes for the rich , deregulated buisnesses completely ,   and cut almost all spending what benefited the middle class and after 9 years of their policies it led to the crash of 1929 and 3 years of their laaiz faire way of handling the mess turned a recession into a depression. If we dont want that to happen again we must build a strong Democratic party in all 50 states which will fight for workers, make healthcare affordable to all Americans, and make college affordable for every kid in America and if we do that we will beat the Republicans in 2016 and beyond. Thank You and may God Bless America

[OSR stands with Israel]

Senator Bernie Sanders and former Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry announce their Presidential Runs



Bernie Sanders : Thank You , Thank You. I want to start off by thanking all of you for all your support for me over the years whether as this beautiful city's mayor and in all the years I have spent in Congress. As you know the people in our country face many problems in their lives : whether it is due to not being able to afford healthcare, afford to go to college without going deep into debt which stays with many Americans for decades after they have graduated, good-paying manufacturing jobs in their communities being shipped overseas just so the top 1% can make more money , and seeing the infrastructure where they live crumble. Now the President repeatedly tells us he has not only made this country great again it , but our nation is on pace to being better than it ever was. Now he is right if he is talking about the top 1% who I agree are doing well, but the rest of America is not and that is why I am running for President because our nation needs a President who represents the working class in this country and not just the millionaire and billionaire class. I believe its long overdue that we join every other developed country on earth and guarantee healthcare for all Americans, make college tuition free for all Americas so they can attend college without having to go deep into debt, renegotiate our trade agreements so they actually benefit workers instead of shipping their jobs overseas for cheap labor, and rebuild our unions in General because our middle class was the strongest during the 1950s and 1960s when our unions were at their peak. If we do that we will rebuild our middle class and make American more prosperous than it ever has been . Thank You Again For Coming.



Brad Henry Announcement Speech:





Henry: Thank You , Thank You. Its great to be back here to speak with you , and it brings back great memories my time as Governor. As Governor an important thing I learned was the importance to work with not only members of your own party but the other party as well , and that helped all of us make Oklahoma a better place to live. Unfortunately in Washington being bipartisan has lost its meaning and it seems like whenever a party gets in power it uses its power to ram down their agenda down everyone's throats. It has been true throughout the Bush, Obama, and now Romney administrations and while yes I get it its easier to govern that way, its not the correct way to govern. Remember as President you represent all the people in America not just your party and Americans elect a good numbers of representatives from both parties in each election which proves we arent a right wing or left wing nation , we are a centrist one. Now that does not mean we should meet in the center everytime , but we do need to work together for example on issues such as increasing teacher pay, reducing taxes on the middle class , and making our economy better. Thank You and May God Bless America

[OSR stands with Israel]

Romney's Approvals and other polls:

Romney's Approval Rating:

Approval : 60%(-1%)
Disapprove: 38%(+2%)
Not Sure: 2%(-1%)

House Generic Ballot:


Republicans: 53.5%
Democrats: 43.5%
Not Sure: 3%

Opinion of TPP:

Approve: 40%
Disapprove: 41%
Not Sure : 19%


2016 Democratic Primary Polls:

Hillary Clinton: 30%
Joe Biden : 25%
Howard Dean: 21%
Bernie Sanders: 11%
Mark Beebe: 7%
Martin O Maley: 3%
Jim Webb: 2%
Brad Henry: 1%


If Biden Doesnt Run:

Hillary Clinton: 49%
Howard Dean: 23%
Bernie Sanders: 12%
Mark Beebe: 8%
Jim Webb: : 4%
Martin O Maley: 3%
Brad Henry : 1%

[OSR stands with Israel]

2015 UK Election Results: Cameron to remain PM with a larger mandate as Conservative Party wins a majority


Results:

Conservative Party(David Cameron) : 340 Seats
Labour Party(Ed Milibrand) : 222 Seats
SNP(Nicola Stuergon) : 56 Seats
Liberal Democrats(Nick Clegg): 8 Seats
Others: 24

CNN Analysis of what it means for US-UK relations:


Wolf Blitzer: Lets Bring In CNN International Anchor Richard Quest to see what these results mean for US-UK Relations

Quest: Well it will mean both countries will see eye to eye on the vast majority of issues for at least the next year and a half, and likely at least the next 5 years. As you may know, there are many similarities between President Romney and Prime Minister Cameron with both leaders came from the more moderate wings of the party , and  are very hype focused on economic and fiscal issues while mostly ignoring the cultural issues that dominated both parties from the mid 90s to the late 2000s.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Breaking News : TPP approved in House , will now go to Senate for final approval

[OSR stands with Israel]

President Romney gives an Oval Office address on the issue of Free Trade and the TPP:




Romney: My Fellow Americans, today I would like to talk to you about the issue of Free Trade and the TPP. As you may also know the issue of whether or not the Congress should approve of the TPP has been very divisive and the reasons for that is many people believe Free Trade agreements have caused many good paying jobs to be shipped overseas and destroyed the manufacturing base of the US. Now as you can see from this graph here , US manufacturing production is higher than has ever been in our history, despite the fact that the number of manufacturing jobs has declined. The reason that manufacturing production is higher despite the fact the number of workers they employ has declined is because of Automation. Due to automation, a job that before would require 5 workers to successfully finish, now only requires 1 or 2 workers.

Now some people who are opposed to Free Trade argued it would be higher if not for free trade , and that too is not true. Due to free trade , the Cost of Good Sold of products have greatly been reduced and due to that it has made the price consumers have to pay for these products much cheaper as well. Due to that the demand in our economy has actually increased, which then results in more people getting jobs due to companies having to hire more people to keep up with the demand. If we didnt have these free trade deals , demand would decline, and that would result in more people losing their jobs, and the overall economy getting worse.

One more advantage the TPP has is it will reduce our reliance on trade with China. Due to having more trading partners, we now can get goods from multiple different countries instead of having to buy them from China. This will mean China and other trading partners will have to compete with each other on being better trade partners from US companies if they still want to remain as successful as they are today, and due to that we will have a chance to get a better trade deal with them as well.


Thank You , May God Bless You , and May God Bless America.


Opinion of  the TPP after the President's Speech:


Favorable: 48%
Unfavorable: 43%