Bain taught Mitt the Value of a Dollar and how to lie with a straight face.
Mitt Romney, and other Republicans, are trying to establish a narrative suggesting that Obama’s policies have been bad for women. They claim that more than 92% of the job losses during Obama’s tenure have been women’s jobs. Many fact checking sites have reported that this figure simply reflects the fact that women’s job losses were delayed compared to men’s, with the bulk of men’s job losses occurring before Obama took office. You’d think that a pseudo smart guy like Romney wouldn’t stoop to using such a statistically sleazy approach to boost his campaign, but I was overestimating him. Mitt can do the double stoop and he learned sleaze first hand breaking up and selling companies and laying workers off and sending their jobs to China.
Mitt is no longer flamboyant with money. He now stashes it in the Cayman Islands and Swiss Bank Accounts.
I know when I heard him say it that it made no sense at all. We all know numbers can be made to say anything and I wondered how Mitt and his people had twisted the facts to reflect what he was saying. I started thinking I should carry my camera with me and get pictures of women in the workforce since such a sighting would indeed be rare. I started researching how women were doing in the labor force knowing that a huge event had happened and I had failed to notice. My fear was that the female species was close to going the way of the dinosauer as far as working outside of the home went. I was not surprised to find Romney was full of it and that republicans were spinning yarns from whole cloth once again or that women were thriving and making gains in the workforce.
Women may soon be largely running the American economy.
More women than ever before are in the U.S. and Virginia workforce, and more women than men attend college by a large margin.
In the knowledge-based global economy, highly trained and educated women can be expected to take on larger roles in the American workplace — including leading more businesses.
"With more women in the workforce, and the fact that they are getting better educated, they're going to be in the position of being those decision makers," said Amy K. Smith, marketing director with the Thompson McMullan law firm in Richmond.
"The glass ceiling's poised to be shattered, and when it is shattered," Smith said, "you're going to have a whole new business model."
That sounds great. It is as if women are making gains which are long overdue.
If it were a horse race Mitt would win by a nose.
Women-owned businesses contribute nearly $3 trillion to the national economy and create or maintain 23 million jobs, according to research by the Center for Women's Business Research in McLean.
About 8 percent of the total U.S. labor force works directly for a woman-owned firm.
"One of the nice things about being in business for yourself is that you get rewarded for doing a good job," said Christine Chmura, president and chief economist of her own firm, Chmura Economics & Analytics in Richmond, "and there is no concern or question about there being a glass ceiling."
If women-owned businesses were their own country, they would have the fifth-largest economy in the world, ahead of such countries as France, the United Kingdom and Italy, the women's research center said.
It appears that Mitt Romney knows little about business or women's progress in the workforce. Perhaps his wife and advisor on women's issues, Ann Romney, will sit him down and school him. If it is not about firing people or breaking businesses up and selling them off Mitt seems to be clueless.
"Things have gotten far better for women," said Janet R. Hutchinson, a VCU professor of public policy and chair of the university's Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies.
"Women have gotten much more confident about themselves. They're using their college degrees" to get ahead economically, Hutchinson said. "Working just makes life more interesting."
While American women are advancing in the world of commerce, they are still not represented in top positions anywhere near their numbers in the total population.
"When they start competing for the really good jobs … that's when the gender issues still come into play," said Patricia Greene, chair of the board of the Center for Women's Business Research. Greene is a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Massachusetts.
Among Fortune 500 companies, 12 CEOs are women, and women hold 15.7 percent of U.S. corporate board seats, according to Catalyst Inc., a New York-based nonprofit organization working to improve opportunities for women and business.
In 2010, 8.8 percent of Fortune 500 lead directors were women, compared with 7.3 percent in 2009, Catalyst said.
"I hope that my children's generation will have a more equitable representation of female leaders in the workforce," said Mirta M. Martin, dean of Virginia State University's School of Business, "but that's yet to be seen."
"I want to earn my position because I am the most-qualified person for the job, not to fill a quota," Martin said. "I think most women would support that, and I think most men would support that."
At the same time, said Mary C. Doswell, Dominion Resources senior vice president for alternate energy solutions, "you do a great job … and it will be recognized, and doors will open."
Of course, said Genevieve Roberts, founding partner of the human resources consulting company Titan Group LLC in Henrico, "women have been in charge of the economy for a while, even if they were stay-at-home moms, because they make a lot of the buying decisions."
It seems there is still work left to do on women's issues but that things are improving under President Obama's leadership. That's just not the thing a republican will say about President Obama, that he's doing a good job but it is the truth as supported by all the facts.
Women are now more likely to go to college and complete their degree than men, roughly tripling the ranks of college-educated females since 1970.
Among working adults, 37 percent of women had earned a bachelor's degree or higher through 2010, compared with 35 percent of men, according to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Women 25 and older also were more likely than men to have completed at least high school, at 88 percent versus 87 percent.
Among Virginia women 25 years and older who hold a bachelor's degree or better, nearly 97 percent are employed, said demographer Qian Cai, demographics and workforce director at the University of Virginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
More good news from the women's front, republicans really don't want to hear this.
Women are overwhelmingly concentrated in white-collar jobs.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, most employed women — 40 percent — work in management, professional and related occupations, while 32 percent work in sales and office occupations.
Service occupations employ 21 percent of working women. Only 5 percent of employed women work in production, transportation, material moving occupations, and just 1 percent in natural resources, construction and maintenance jobs.
Industries in which women-owned businesses have the highest revenue include professional, scientific and technical services; retailing and wholesaling; communications and media; administrative, support and waste remediation; and business services.
According to the U.S. Labor Department, women's earnings, compared with men's, also have grown over time. In 1979, women working full time earned 62 percent of what men did. In 2009, women's earnings were 80 percent of men's.
I had heard this factoid before, for my whole life women have earned a percentage of what men earn for the same work and the same job. The Unions were big in this fight and wrote contracts that assured women were paid the same as men for the same work work. I am glad the percentage has climbed to 80% and ashamed at the same time that it is not at 100%. I hope this baddle will be won in my lifetime. The Leadbetter Act signed by President Obama is a great step foreward for equell pay for women and it is shamefull that so many republicans opposed it and want to repeal it.
"You have to take into account where we started, " VSU's Martin said. "The traditional role of women was in the home. You have nowhere to go but up."
In 1940, 28 percent of American women were in the labor force, Census Bureau figures show, and this percentage steadily increased to 60 percent in 2009.
In Virginia, women in the workforce climbed from 42 percent in 1970 to 62 percent in 2009, Cai said.
At the same time, men's participation dropped from 79 percent in 1970 to 73 percent in 2009.
"What can women and men working together create that will give us a better world of work?" asked Green with the Center for Women's Business Research. "That's really what I'm in this for."
Women's participation in the labor force appears to have begun leveling off in the 1990s, studies show, apparently because the time-consuming responsibilities of childrearing fall disproportionately on women in families.
"Fathers are not assuming equal burdens at home," VCU's Hutchinson said. "Mom still seems to be doing the laundry and the shopping and taking care of the kids."
Women still tend to be the primary caregiver for their children, whether by choice or not, Roberts agreed.
"When your child gets sick, the school calls the mom first, always," she noted, "and certainly, if my child's sick, I want to know about it."
Whenever Mitt Romney or any republican tells you something accept right up front it is a distorsion or an outright lie. Truth and republicans are like fire and water. Learn it and live by the rule and you will have the wool pulled over your eyes less often.
Go on, Pull My Finger Old Timer. I'll show you the real gold standard.
Unless you are a big business or a wealthy person the GOP
does not represent you. Vote for and support Democrats and your life will be many times better.
Here are some of the things Rick Santorum said about Mitt Romney during the GOP presidential race:
Mitt Romney will lose to President Obama.
_"Pick any other Republican in the country. Romney is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama." – March 25, 2012, Franksville, Wis.
_"Conservatives will not trust Romney, will not rally around him." – Conference call with reporters, March 5, 2012.
_"Are you going to vote for someone that says one thing one day, anything else the next day that's necessary to win? Or are you going to vote for someone you trust?" – Feb. 25, 2012, Troy, Mich.
_"Any time someone challenges Gov. Romney, Gov. Romney goes out and instead of talking about what he's for ... he just simply goes out and attacks and tries to destroy." – Feb. 6, 2012, Rochester, Minn.
_"He's got a lot of money, but he doesn't have the convictions, the authenticity nor the record that is necessary to win this election." – Jan. 17, 2012, South Carolina.
Gingrich Unloads on FOX News
Fox News was in the tank for Romeny but the laugh's on them. Mitt Romney will lose to President Obama.
During a meeting with 18 Delaware Tea Party leaders here on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich lambasted FOX News Channel, accusing the cable network of having been in the tank for Mitt Romney from the beginning of the Republican presidential fight. An employee himself of the news outlet as recently as last year, he also cited former colleagues for attacking him out of what he characterized as personal jealousy.
“I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said during the private meeting -- to which RealClearPolitics was granted access -- at Wesley College. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX,
and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact.”
Gingrich’s contract as a FOX News contributor was terminated last spring as he geared up for his White House run.
The former House speaker’s blunt remarks came in response to a question from one of the state Tea Party leaders about the manner in which his campaign has been treated by conservative media outlets.
Gingrich did not pull his punches in accusing Rupert Murdoch -- the chairman and CEO of News Corp., FOX News’ parent company -- of pushing for Romney behind the scenes.
“I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point [who] said, ‘I want Romney,’ and so ‘fair and balanced’ became ‘Romney,’ ”Gingrich said. “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches FOX.”
He saved his strongest condemnation for syndicated columnist and ABC television commentator George Will, who has been critical of the former congressman throughout his campaign.
Gingrich said that Will was among the conservative media figures who harbored “personal jealousy” against him.
“In the case of Will, I was on George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning with him, and it was kind of a ‘You’re not allowed to run for office -- I mean, if you could run for office, why am I not running for office?’ ”
Republicans are dead in the water in 2012.
Gingrich said. “And it’s almost like they were personally offended. You know, ‘This can’t be real, and how can
this guy go do that?’ I got that reaction from Will a few years back about writing a book because I’m supposed to be a politician. He’s supposed to be the writer. Well, I’ve now written 24 books, and 13 of them are New York Times bestsellers. I mean, there’s a morning when George ought to just get over it.”
Gingrich said that despite serving two decades in Congress, he was the “least establishment candidate since Ronald Reagan” -- another reason why he said he had not endeared himself to conservative media figures.
“They know I don’t care about their opinions,” he said. “I don’t go to their cocktail parties. I don’t go to their Christmas parties. The only press events I go to are interesting dinners when the wife insists on it, so we’re going to go to the White House Correspondents' dinner because she wants to. And we’re actually going to go to CNN’s table, not FOX.”
At one point in the meeting, Gingrich left the room to conduct a satellite interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer before returning to take further questions from the activists who sat at four tables that had been pushed together in the middle of a room.
Gingrich said that last June and July -- a time when his campaign was widely considered dead in the water by political analysts -- were “the two hardest months in 53 years of doing this,” and he lamented that people he knew personally at FOX News had written him off.
“The sense of being shocked that somebody I’d talk to and worked with for 10 or 11 years would say some of the things they said, if you go back and look at the transcripts for June, it was amazing to me,” he said. “They all said, ‘He’s dead.’ This is part of why I laugh at them now. I say, ‘Is this going to be like the fourth
cycle where I’m gone?’ ”
The former speaker also took a direct shot at the political party whose presidential nomination he continues to seek, calling the GOP “a party that’s inarticulate.”
“The Republican Party is a managerial party that doesn’t like to fight, doesn’t like to read books,” he said. “This is why the Tea Party was so horrifying. Tea Partiers were actually learning about the Declaration of Independence. They wanted to talk about the Federalist Papers. It was weird. They could be golfing.”
Despite having won only two states and continuing to trail Romney by a substantial margin in the unofficial delegate count, Gingrich vowed once again to take his campaign to the Republican National Convention this summer.
He said that his candidacy has helped compel Romney to “accommodate reality” on issues that are important to
conservatives.
“I’m prepared to go all the way to Tampa, and I’m prepared to make the case for a Republican platform that is dramatically more conservative than the Etch A Sketch comments that Romney’s communications director made,” he said.
Gingrich has singled out Delaware as his best chance of notching a victory among the five states holding primaries on April 24.
Several of the Tea Party activists in the room had already endorsed him or said that they were planning to do so.
“That’s why if you will help me carry Delaware, it will be that big a jolt, because it breaks up their narrative so decisively, and it actually says, ‘Oh gosh, people actually get to make a decision, not just the
power structure,’ ” Gingrich said. “And so I’d be very grateful if any of you feel comfortable endorsing me in public, doing it on Facebook, doing it on Twitter -- I mean whatever techniques you want to use -- issuing a press release. I think we have a real shot to pull this off.”
Earlier on Wednesday, he spoke to a crowd of about 150 people at the Newark Senior Center in northern Delaware, where he did not mention Romney’s name until prompted by reporters in a brief scrum following the event.
“We’re working very hard to talk to people here and get as many votes as we can,” he said. “My experience in history is it’s not over until it’s over and that currently it’s very clear that Romney does not today have a majority of the delegates.”
Gingrich said that Rick Santorum’s exit from the race on Tuesday had given him hope of doing “much better” in places like Delaware, North Carolina, and Louisiana -- a state that already held its primary but is still in the midst of its delegate-awarding process.
“I just had 15 people say ‘thank you’ for staying in,” Gingrich said. “We had 3,500 people send money to Newt.org online after 2 o’clock yesterday saying, ‘Please stay in.’ ”
Scott Conroy is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at
sconroy@realclearpolitics.com.
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Repeal "Stand Your Ground" Law
"Stand your ground" is a perversion of the notion of self defense; it makes the use of deadly force the first resort, not the last. And its application in the killing of Trayvon Martin is a perversion even of "stand your ground." The law cannot give impunity to a person who initiates confrontation and carries it to its ultimate conclusion. It cannot be a justification for wanton vigilantism.
But that is what has happened in Florida, where findings of justifiable homicide have skyrocketed since "stand your ground" went into effect. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg this week launched a national campaign to repeal "stand your ground" laws, versions of which have been enacted in 25 states. He is right that the laws contribute to a "shoot first, ask questions later" culture that makes society less safe, not more.
There can be no question that Sanford was made less safe by George Zimmerman's actions. Trayvon Martin and his family can get justice in the courtroom through a determination of whether Mr. Zimmerman's reckless and foolish conduct was criminal. But the state of Florida and the nation can only restore the balance of justice by repealing these reckless and foolish laws.
Luckily the NRA hasn't targeted Virginia for this law. No doubt the republicans running everything in Virginia would fall in line quickly once the NRA waived a few bucks under their noses and Gov. McDonnell would sign it quicker than a vaginal probe bill.
Arresting George Zimmerman doesn't mean justice for Trayvon is assured.
The arrest of George Zimmerman on charges of second-degree murder in the killing of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin does not mean that justice has been done. But it does provide the opportunity for justice — for a full presentation of the facts before a judge and impartial jury. It was the denial of that opportunity by local officials in Sanford, Fla., who chose not to arrest Mr. Zimmerman immediately after the shooting six weeks ago, that had so inflamed the nation. It led to inevitable questions about whether race was a factor in how the case was handled — Trayvon was black, and Mr. Zimmerman is white and Hispanic — and to outrage at the notion that a young man could be killed without anyone being forced to publicly account for it. Now the Sanford community and the entire nation can get answers about what happened that day, and that is what our criminal justice system is supposed to do.
Angela B. Corey, a special prosecutor brought in from Jacksonville to handle the case, said Wednesday evening that her decision to bring charges was not based on public pressure but on the evidence she had gathered. She declined to say what that evidence is and whether it contradicts in any way the many news reports in the case, but based on what is known so far, her decision to charge Mr. Zimmerman with second-degree murder seems prudent. It is the most serious charge possible for a murder that was not premeditated — as this killing clearly does not appear to be. If convicted, Mr. Zimmerman faces punishment ranging from 25 years to life in prison. But Ms. Corey's decision also preserves the option that the jury could consider lesser charges, such as manslaughter, if that is where the evidence points.
The primary issue in the case is likely to be whether Florida's self-defense law applies in this case. At the urging of the National Rifle Association, Florida lawmakers in 2005 enacted a "stand your ground" l aw, which eliminates the traditional requirement that a person in fear for his life seek to retreat before using deadly force. Mr. Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watch captain, began following Mr. Martin as the teen walked home from a 7-Eleven where he had bought iced tea and Skittles. Mr. Zimmerman called 911 to report a suspicious person, and despite the operator's instructions, he continued to follow the youth. Mr. Zimmerman's father has said that when the two came face-to-face, Mr. Martin punched Mr. Zimmerman in the nose, knocked him to the ground and began pounding his head into the sidewalk.
Trayvon Martin's side of the story will remain forever unknown. But Ms. Corey can bring to light other crucial details. Did Mr. Zimmerman have any signs of physical injury after the confrontation? What did witnesses see? Where in relation to Mr. Zimmerman was Trayvon Martin when he was shot?
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