SALEM, N.H. — Mitt Romney on Thursday branded President Obama a “crony capitalist” for making three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board without Congressional approval, suggesting the move was a reward to organized labor for its political support.
     “This president has engaged and is engaging in crony capitalism,” Mr. Romney said. “It is happening with the Labor Relations Board.”
     It was an unusually pointed and personal attack on Mr. Obama, whom Mr. Romney has long sought to portray as an overzealous advocate for labor unions, and it appeared deliberately timed to appeal to Republican primary voters in South Carolina: the state has relatively relaxed union rules and a labor board decision involving a Boeing airline plant there has stirred widespread anger.
     Also too, please note one of the appointees is a Republican.
     Okay, let’s just get out of the way that he has reversed the meaning of the phrase in trying to make his point:
     Crony capitalism is a term describing a capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.
     since a government appointment is not one of the ‘rewards’. Yet he continues on this line of accusation:
     “This president is a crony capitalist,” Mr. Romney said. “He is a job killer.”
     The president’s relationship with organized labor has become the focus of Mr. Romney’s central critique of the Obama presidency: that it promotes an “entitlement society” driven by government spending and judgments, rather than the rules of the free market.
     “You know he said he wanted to create green jobs,” Mr. Romney said of the president. “I don’t think we understood that he wants to give jobs to the people who gave him the green.”
     Unfortunately Mittney fails to explain how supporting unions equates to being a ‘job killer’, something which Romney himself has been accurately accused of, just today.
     I think we know who the job killer is, Mittney.

 LONDON—Rupert Murdoch’s News International has paid out settlements to seven more prominent figures in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at its now-shuttered News of the World​ tabloid.
The company said in a statement Tuesday it had settled claims brought by Princess Diana’s former lover James Hewitt, ex-Liberal Democrat lawmaker Mark Oaten, TV presenter Ukrika Jonsson, model Abi Titmuss, and Paul Dadge, who helped rescue victims of the 2005 London transit bombings.
     Theatrical agent Michelle Milburn and Calum Best, the son of soccer legend George Best, rounded out the settlement list.
     The scandal over phone hacking at the News of the World tabloid boiled over after it emerged that journalists at the paper had routinely hacked into the phones of celebrities, politicians, sports figures and even crime victims.
      The now-defunct tabloid has already settled with several prominent figures, including actress Sienna Miller​ and the family of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler​, whose phone was broken into by the paper soon after her disappearance in 2002.
     The Dowler case in particular revolted Britons and was instrumental in pushing Prime Minister David Cameron to set up an inquiry into U.K. media ethics, which is still hearing from witnesses.
     The terms of the new payments announced Tuesday were not disclosed but they are likely to be substantial. Miller received 100,000 pounds (nearly $157,000) in damages; the Dowlers were awarded 2 million pounds ($3.1 million) plus 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) from Murdoch himself, which was earmarked for charity.
     The scandal has hit News International parent company News Corp​. hard, most notably by scrapping the company’s multibillion-pound bid for full control of satellite broadcaster BSkyB. 
    

The list:
     1. “We are the 99 percent.” — slogan of Occupy movement.
     2. “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.” — U.S. Sen. candidate Elizabeth Warren, speaking in Andover, Mass., in August.
     3. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress.” — Billionaire Warren Buffett, in a New York Times op-ed on Aug. 15.
     4. “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” — Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman in an Aug. 18 tweet.
     5. “Oops.” — Presidential candidate Rick Perry after unsuccessfully attempting to remember the third federal agency he would eliminate during a Nov. 9 debate.
     6. “When they ask me, ‘Who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan?’ I’m going to say, ‘You know, I don’t know. Do you know?'” — Then-presidential candidate Herman Cain in an interview by Christian Broadcasting Network on Oct. 7.
     7. “I am on a drug. It’s called ‘Charlie Sheen.’ It’s not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.” — Actor Charlie Sheen in a February interview with ABC News.
     8. “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” — Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ last words on Oct. 5, as reported by his sister Mona Simpson in her eulogy.
     9. “I can’t say with certitude.” — Then-U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner on June 1 when he was asked whether a lewd photograph was in fact him.
     10. “Instead of receiving the help that she had hoped for, Mr. Cain instead decided to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package.” — Lawyer Gloria Allred on Nov. 7 discussing Herman Cain’s alleged sexual harassment of her client.

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