"Corporations are people, my friends": In advance of Wednesday's presidential debate, Obama for America has released a new web video to lay out the facts about Mitt Romney's private sector experience. As Valerie Burton, who lost her job to Bain’s business practices explains, “I really feel in my heart people ought to know what Mitt Romney did.”

At Bain, Romney did not work to create jobs, but instead to create wealth for himself and his partners. As a corporate buyout specialist, Romney led Bain Capital to load companies up with debt, driving several into bankruptcy. Thousands of American workers lost their jobs while Mitt Romney and his investors walked away with millions.

It is these men and women, who lost their jobs because of Bain, who can best express what Mitt Romney is referring to when he talks about his business experience, and, just a few days out from the first presidential debate, why he must not be president.

As some Americans decide who to cast their vote for in November because some still mistakenly believe that because Mitt Romney is a wealthy businessman, that he would know how to create jobs and return us all to prosperity more rapidly. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Romney is a job destroyer who picks the wealth from prospering companies and leaves nothing behind.

Mitt Romney is what's wrong with America, and he must not become president.

President Obama spoke from the University of Colorado Hospital Sunday evening after meeting with the families of the victims killed in the Aurora theater shooting.

“It was an opportunity for families to describe how wonderful their brother, or their son, or daughter was, and the lives that they have touched, and the dreams that they held for the future,” Obama said in a hallway of the hospital. “I confessed to them that words are always inadequate in these kinds of situations, but that my main task was to serve as a representative of the entire country and let them know that we are thinking about them at this moment and will continue to think about them each and every day, and that the awareness that not only all of America but much of the world is thinking about them might serve as some comfort.”

Reflecting on the victims’ stories, the president said the stories of recovery are a reminder that “even in the darkest of days, life continues, and people are strong and people bounce back and people are resilient.”

Obama said he was particularly moved by the stories of Allie Young and Stephanie Davies, two survivors of the shooting and spoke at length of their experiences.

The president said Allie, 19, was saved by her friend Stephanie, 21, after being shot in the neck. Obama said Davies pulled Young out of the line of fire, staying with her and applying pressure to her wound even as the gunman continued to fire into the theater.

“I don’t know how many people at any age would have the presence of mind that Stephanie did or the courage that Allie showed and so as tragic as the circumstances of what we’ve seen today are, as heartbreaking for the families, it’s worth us spending most of our time on young Americans like Allie and Stephanie because they represent what’s best in us and they assure us that out of this darkness a brighter day is going to come,” Obama said.

Full transcript of the President's remarks after the jump.

Continue reading »