The Morning Flap: January 27, 2012

Graphic from Investors Business Daily

These are my links for January 26th through January 27th:

• Obama admits his presidency has been flawed… but claims economy is stronger – Barack Obama said he makes mistakes on an hourly basis as President but stood firmly behind his administration’s work in bolstering the U.S. economy and jobs market.

  The President was in Las Vegas to champion investment in clean energy, declaring the U.S. ‘the Saudia Arabia of natural gas’ in a speech to UPS workers.

  However in an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer last night, he said: ‘I second-guess constantly… I make a mistake, you know, every hour, every day.’

  He added: ‘But when you look at the broad outlines of what we did, had it not been for the steps we took our economy would be profoundly weaker than we are right now.’

  Obama spoke at a Las Vegas UPS center to showcase a refueling station that will permit vehicles that use liquefied natural gas to travel from the Port of Long Beach to Salt Lake City. The station was built with help from Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus plan.

  He also announced the sale of oil and gas drilling leases for nearly 38 million acres in the Gulf Coast and promoted the completion of a highway corridor for vehicles that run on liquefied natural gas, a response to critics who say his policies have stifled domestic energy production.

• Obama: Bush Is Food Stamp President, Not Me – “First of all, I don’t put people on food stamps. People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened under my Republican predecessor, not under me. Number three, when you have a disastrous economic crash that results in 8 million people losing their jobs, more people are going to need more support from government.”

• Obama: I Want An Economy “Where We’re Making Stuff And Selling Stuff And Moving It Around” – “On Tuesday at the State of the Union, I laid out my vision for how we move forward,” President Obama said at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada. “I laid out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last, that has a firm foundation. Where we’re making stuff and selling stuff and moving it around and UPS drivers are dropping things off everywhere.”

  “That’s the economy we want. An economy built on American manufacturing, with more good jobs and more products made here in the United States of America,” he also said.

• Is Obama Creating A Nation Of Dependents? Nearly Half Now Get Government Benefits – If the Republican primaries are any indication, one big debate in the upcoming election will be whether President Obama is pushing the country toward a European-style welfare culture.

  Mitt Romney, for example, argues that “over the past three years, Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

  Newt Gingrich has taken to calling Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.”

  Obama, in contrast, says the government must play an increasing role — what he likes to call “shared responsibility” — to ensure a society that is fairer.

  So is Obama turning the country into a welfare society and away from one focused on opportunity?

  While it’s true that the country has been headed in this direction for many years — with the explosion in entitlements since the 1960s and the aging of the population — Obama has, in fact, greatly accelerated the trend.

• 1.7% – Real GDP increased 1.7 percent in 2011 compared with an increase of 3.0 percent in 2010
• Worst News Story of 2012? | Power Line – Reuters and Sen Marco Rubio: Worst News Story of 2012? #tcot
• Mitt Romney’s Struggle With Truth Continues – RT @LizMair: Hilarious video. RT @mattklewis ‘Mitt Romney’s Struggle With Truth Continues’
• (500) http://flapsblog.com/2012/01/27/flap-twitter-updates-for-2012-01-27/ – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-01-27
• AD-38: Scott Wilk Vs. Patricia or Is It Rep. Buck McKeon? » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk Vs. Patricia or Is It Rep. Buck McKeon?
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News – Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News – Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News – Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News
• President 2012: GOP Debate Tonight – Long Knives Out for Newt Gingrich | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012: GOP Debate Tonight – Long Knives Out for Newt Gingrich
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News – Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income
• Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy – The Hill’s E2-Wire – Another one bites the dust | Obama-backed electric car battery-maker files for bankruptcy
• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – Mitt Romney’s campaign is amending the financial disclosure forms he filed in 2007 and 2011 to acknowledge that a Romney trust held a Swiss bank account, a detail that had been missing from both reports.

  “An amendment is being filed to address this minor discrepancy,” a campaign official told ABC News in an email Thursday in response to questions about the apparent omission.

  The discovery that the Romneys had $3 million in an account with the Swiss bank UBS came only after the Republican presidential candidate released his tax returns for 2010 on Tuesday. The campaign had maintained that it was not necessary to disclose the Swiss account because Romney’s money manager, Brad Malt, had shuttered it in early 2010.

  Several Republican election lawyers told ABC News Thursday that the account still needed to be disclosed because a Romney trust earned about $1,700 in income on the account during 2010. The campaign’s decision to amend the forms was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

• Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income – ABC News – OOPS | Romney Failed to Disclose Swiss Bank Account Income #tcot
• InsiderAdvantage Poll: Romney Surges to Florida Lead – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney apparently has reversed a surge by Newt Gingrich to retake the momentum in the Florida primary, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/Florida Times-Union poll.

  The poll shows that Republicans most likely to vote in the state’s closed primary now favor Romney over Gingrich by 40 to 32 percent. Rep. Ron Paul has 9 percent, while former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has 8 percent.

  Nine percent of those surveyed were undecided. The poll, which was conducted Wednesday night, was weighted for age, race, and gender and has a margin of error of plus and minus 4 percent.

  The poll’s result also is supported by other polls conducted Wednesday and earlier this week. A CNN/Time/ORC International Poll also indicates that, although Gingrich surged following his 12-point victory in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, his momentum appears to be cooling off.

• CA-26: Ventura County Republican Party Endorses Tony Strickland for Congress | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-26: Ventura County Republican Party Endorses Tony Strickland for Congress
• AD-38: Scott Wilk for Assembly Announces More Local Leaders on Campaign Team » Flap’s California Blog – AD-38: Scott Wilk for Assembly Announces More Local Leaders on Campaign Team
• Dole Unloads on Gingrich – Yes—>RT @politicalwire: Doesn’t having both McCain and Dole backing Romney actually help Gingrich make his point?
• Log In – The New York Times – Log In – The New York Times
• HPV study finds human papilloma virus carried in mouths – latimes.com – RT @latimes: Study finds that 7% of U.S. teens and adults carry human papilloma virus in their mouths
• Untitled (http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/84/159/2147483694/2cb9cd86-960a-4443-bac6-116c400614fb.pdf) – RT @fivethirtyeight: New SurveyUSA/Monmouth poll has Romney up 7 in Florida.
• Log In – The New York Times – Log In – The New York Times
• Reuters’ embarassing Rubio hit piece | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner – Reuters’ embarassing Sen Marco Rubio hit piece #tcot
• Log In – The New York Times – Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China
• Geithner Says Obama Won’t Ask Him to Lead Treasury if He Wins Re-Election- Bloomberg – Geithner Says Obama Won’t Ask Him to Lead Treasury if He Wins Re-Election
• The Morning Flap: January 26, 2012 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: January 26, 2012