Romney 2012?

Is it your contention that the movement doesn't exist, or that the members are lying when they say they favor a smaller government more strictly bound by the Constitution.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles claims a leadership role second only to that of the First Presidency. After the death of Joseph Smith, Jr., the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was Brigham Young. Young emphasized what he said was Joseph Smith's authorization that the Quorum of the Twelve should be the church's central governing body of the church after Smith's death. Then in 1847, the Twelve reorganized the First Presidency with Young as President, and the Twelve took on a supporting role within a chain of command under the First Presidency, a role that continues to the present

The point is that Stapley was a spokesman and determiner of LDS policy and opinion, not whether or not Geo. Romney ever read the letter. And the LDS policies and beliefs were racist. And Stapley was not "any idiot". He was a very highly-placed, influential, and apparently well-regarded-by-the-church idiot.

WASHINGTON -- The House intelligence committee on Monday will release a damning investigation into the Chinese telecom firm Huawei Technologies, according to a "60 Minutes" investigation that aired Sunday night.

A principal aim of the two-track media and political onslaught is to warn U.S. companies not to do business with Huawei, arguing that its close relationship with the Chinese government creates unacceptable security risks.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the Republican chairman of the panel, delivered that warning bluntly. "If I were an American company today -- and I'll tell you this as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- and you are looking at Huawei, I would find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers' privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America," Rogers told "60 Minutes."

One U.S. company that could've benefited from Rogers' warning is Bain Capital, the private equity giant founded by Mitt Romney, which still pays the GOP presidential nominee millions each year. Romney has made his promise to "get tough" on China a central element of his economic message, though the company he started has made it easier for China to get tough on its own citizens.

In 2007 and 2008, Bain Capital partnered with Huawei -- pronounced Wa-way -- to take electronics manufacturer 3Com private in a $2.2 billion deal. The Bush administration raised national security concerns and refused to approve the deal. Huawei is closely tied to the Chinese military, and was founded by a former army major.

Two years earlier, Bain had tried to buy its way into a joint partnership between 3Com and Huawei, but 3Com fended it off.

Bain didn't give up. Later in 2008, it made a bid for Huawei's mobile handset unit, but the company decided not to sell. In December 2011, Bain finally got its piece of China's telecom world, buying the surveillance company Uniview from the joint venture it had failed to join.

Uniview uses advance technology to enable the Chinese government to track dissidents in and out of their homes, at demonstrations, or wherever else they may travel.

Quote:

The New York Times highlighted the Bain-Uniview relationship earlier this year:

The Bain-owned company, Uniview Technologies, produces what it calls “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that enable police officials in different jurisdictions to share images in real time through the Internet. Previous projects have included an emergency command center in Tibet that “provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people’s peaceful life,” according to Uniview’s Web site.
[snip]

Li Tiantian, 45, a human rights lawyer in Shanghai, said the police used footage recorded outside a hotel in an effort to manipulate her during the three months she was illegally detained last year. The video, she said, showed her entering the hotel in the company of men other than her boyfriend.

During interrogations, Ms. Li said, the police taunted her about her sex life and threatened to show the video to her boyfriend. The boyfriend, however, refused to watch, she said.

“The scale of intrusion into people's private lives is unprecedented,” she said in a phone interview. “Now when I walk on the street, I feel so vulnerable, like the police are watching me all the time.”

In a speech he gave at the Virginia Military Institute, Mr. Romney declared that “hope is not a strategy” for dealing with the rise of Islamist governments in the Middle East or an Iran racing toward the capability to build a nuclear weapon, according to excerpts released by his campaign.

The essence of Mr. Romney’s argument is that he would take the United States back to an earlier era, one that would result, as his young foreign policy director, Alex Wong, told reporters on Sunday, in “the restoration of a strategy that served us well for 70 years.”

But beyond his critique of Mr. Obama as failing to project American strength abroad, Mr. Romney has yet to fill in many of the details of how he would conduct policy toward the rest of the world, or to resolve deep ideological rifts within the Republican Party and his own foreign policy team. It is a disparate and politely fractious team of advisers that includes warring tribes of neoconservatives, traditional strong-defense conservatives and a band of self-described “realists” who believe there are limits to the degree the United States can impose its will.

No big changes other than to be a bit more of the jingo in this public voicing of his views compared with what he said in October 2011. But there's the public voice and the private voice. At VMI, he said:

Quote:

I will recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel. On this vital issue, the President has failed, and what should be a negotiation process has devolved into a series of heated disputes at the United Nations. In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew.
There is a longing for American leadership in the Middle East—and it is not unique to that region.

In the 47 percent videotape, he said:

Quote:

I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. [...] [S]o what you do is, you say, you move things along the best way you can. You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem […] and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.”

Terrific, comprehensive speech by Gov. Romney at VMI. He knows America's role in the world should be as a leader not as a spectator.
— @RumsfeldOffice via Twitter for iPhone

Four Key Areas Where Romney’s ‘New’ Foreign Policy Is Identical To Obama

The lack of meaningful difference was particularly evident on four issues:


1. Afghanistan. Romney pledged he would “will pursue a real and successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.” This is precisely the same position the current Administration takes. Romney surrogates have been unable to point to one specific difference between Obama and Romney on our largest ongoing war.

2. Syria. Romney endorsed providing military aid through relevant third party states: “I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets.” The Obama Administration has already approved the provision of assistance to Syrian rebels through friendly Arab states.

3. Iran. Romney said he would “put the leaders of Iran on notice that the United States and our friends and allies will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons capability.” President Obama said that “four years ago, I made a commitment to the American people and said that we would use all elements of American power to pressure Iran and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And that is what we have done.” Romney also pledged to “restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region,” but the US is already maintaining a carrier group in the Gulf.

4. Free trade. Romney, arguing that “The President has not signed one new free trade agreement in the past four years,” pledged to increase a push toward trade agreements. Obama has signed new free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, and Romney didn’t specify what new agreements would be passed in a Romney Administration.

Indeed, much of Romney’s speech — like his pledge to “tighten the sanctions [on Iran] we currently have” — were too vague to constitute meaningful promises to make policy shifts. This is in keeping with Romney’s general “doesn’t want to really engage” view about challenging the President’s policy record on international affairs.

ELECTORAL VOTES
The current view of the 2012 presidential election.
Updated Monday, Oct. 8 2:41 pm ET

BARACK OBAMA 281

ELECTORAL VOTES 270 TO WIN

MITT ROMNEY 191

Romney Foreign Policy Speech Brings More Lies And Reversals In Positions

It would be laughable were it not so completely serious.

As I listened intently to Governor Romney’s foreign policy address delivered this morning at the Virginia Military Institute, I was sure I heard him say that President Obama had not signed so much as one free-trade agreement during the past three years.

The statement struck such a discordant note I pressed the rewind button to make sure I had heard the Governor correctly.

Sure enough, that’s what he said.

Apparently, the Romney campaign did not get the memo—or more likely chose to ignore the facts—that it was on October 23, 2011, not one year ago, when, in a rare moment of bi-partisanship, President Obama signed free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia.

Even the Republicans were happy about the event as Speaker of the House, John Boehner, issued a statement saying, “years of perseverance have been rewarded today as American job creators will have new opportunities to expand and hire as they access new markets abroad.”

Why would Romney say such a thing when it is so obviously disprovable?