Maybe Mitt Romney’s confused about what "foreign" means. 

The Romney campaign hyped what it called a "foreign policy speech" in Virginia yesterday.   He focused on the Middle East so he missed several other big foreign policy issues.  Actually, he missed a couple of Middle East issues, too.

Let’s start with Yemen, where al-Qaeda is hunkered down.  Militants have mounted a number of kidnappings and are said to be interrogating an American who might be linked to terrorists.  But Romney only mentioned Yemen two times during his “foreign policy” speech.  Both in the vaguest of terms:

“It is a struggle that has unfolded under green banners in the streets of Iran, in the public squares of Tunisia and Egypt and Yemen, and in the fights for liberty in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Libya, and now Syria. In short, it is a struggle between liberty and tyranny, justice and oppression, hope and despair.” 

“But al-Qaeda remains a strong force in Yemen and Somalia, in Libya and other parts of North Africa, in Iraq, and now in Syria.”

Romney doesn’t outline any specifics for dealing with the mounting threat in Yemen.

Here are the foreign policy issues Romney completely left out.  Not a single mention:

Sudan:  Insurgents are shelling a key oil-producing city.  At least 5 people were killed there today.  Sudan and South Sudan split last year under a peace accord that was supposed to end decades of civil war.  But the renewed violence has forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes.

Mexico:  The former President of Mexico says the war on drugs is a total failure and he wants to legalize drugs.  Vicente Fox spoke at the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan in Grand Rapids today.  He’s calling for an amended drug policy.  Apparently, Romney didn't think the drug-fueled violence was worth mentioning.  By the way, current President Felipe Calderon says the drug cartels have cost the lives of 47,000 people as of August. 

Europe:  While Romney’s focused on the Middle East, the European financial crisis isn’t going away.  Europe’s stock markets dropped today.  Investors are reportedly worried about the World Bank’s forecasts for Asia’s economic growth (oh yeah, that OTHER continent). 

Thousands of people protested budget cuts in 56 cities in Spain.  They’re facing a second recession in three years and unprecedented unemployment.

Romney keeps proving he’s not quite ready to cover ALL the issues he’d need to tackle as president.  

During last night’s debate, Mitt Romney tried to give a "shout out" to the Cleveland Clinic and completely missed the mark.  Romney was probably hoping to score some points with Ohio voters, since he’s trailing in that key swing state. 

President Barack Obama mentioned the Clinic first, saying  “…at Cleveland Clinic, one of the best health care systems in the world, they actually provide great care cheaper than average.” 

In his response, Romney says, “Your example of the Cleveland Clinic is my case in point, along with several others I could describe. This is the private market. These are small -- these are enterprises competing with each other, learning how to do better and better jobs.”

We’ll get to the big picture in a moment, but let’s stop right here briefly.  Romney calls the Cleveland Clinic “small,” and then he seems to catch himself.  For the record, the Cleveland Clinic gets more than four million patient visits per year.  It’s got 2,800 physicians and scientists on staff.  It’s not “small.” 

Romney refers to the Cleveland Clinic as an enterprise “competing” with other enterprises in a private health market.  To Mitt Romney, health care is a business.  He thinks the Cleveland Clinic competes with other health care providers. 

Romney goes on: “Mayo Clinic is doing it superbly well, Cleveland Clinic, others. But the right answer is not to have the federal government take over health care and start mandating to the providers across America, telling a patient and a doctor what kind of treatment they can have. That’s the wrong way to go. The private market and individual responsibility always work best.”

Here’s why this is an embarrassing blunder:  The best, most talented doctors at the Cleveland Clinic, the ones Mitt Romney thinks are so great, totally and completely disagree with this view of health care. 

To them, your health is not a business.  Health care providers don’t want to compete for your dollar.  They want to help you stay well or get well. 

Dr. Steven Nissen, the chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told Cleveland.com, "Driven by these perverse economic incentives, we are doing a lot of procedures to people that they don't need.  When medicine became a business, we lost our moral compass."  (emphasis mine)

One of the keys to the Cleveland Clinic’s success is that it pays providers a fixed salary so they don’t feel like they have to compete or add treatments to bump up their paychecks.  Does Romney agree with that? 

The Affordable Care Act creates networks to bring together healthcare providers.  It’s similar to the Cleveland Clinic’s process of integrating care.  Does Romney agree with that?

Maybe Romney didn’t know that the Cleveland Clinic plays a key role in a scathing new documentary debuting tonight called “Escape Fire”.  In it, Dr. Andrew Weil and others explain why the health care system we all grew up with can’t continue to work and may actually be bad for our health, and even deadly.  Here’s the trailer: 

Mitt Romney praised the Cleveland Clinic, but doesn’t support its money-saving philosophies.  It’s an empty compliment.  It’s just name-dropping.  And he should be embarrassed about petting an institution he’d take apart if he understood it better.

Here is a transcript of Ed's first reaction to tonight's debate, speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow:

"I was disappointed in the president.  The president - he had an opportunity tonight - he created a problem for himself on Social Security tonight, he agrees with Mitt Romney.  Everybody liberal in this country knows that Mitt Romney wants to privatize Social Security down the road and to do a deal with the devil on that would be a wrong thing to do.  I think the president created a big problem for him tonight - for himself.  I don't think he explained himself very well on the economy.  I thought he was off his game.  I was absolutely stunned tonight.  Rachel, you just mentioned about time -- the president needs to get in and fight for that time.  There's people out there that expect him to fight for that time."  

Later, Ed said this:

"I was in front of a crowd last night in Denver, Colorado, and I know that they're stunned, I can feel it.  I mean, the president tonight was disappointing when he allowed Mitt Romney to talk about $716 billion in Medicare and the president did not come out and explain it and go after it." 

Ed added:

"[Obama] was not properly prepared for this tonight.  He was afraid to call out Romney because he didn't want to look angry.  The fact is that he has faced obstruction - he was afraid to use that term tonight, he wouldn't go down that road.  He was afraid to use the Ryan plan as a manifest of what these people want to do to this country.  It was playing soft, I mean [Obama] was in prevent-defense big time."  

Who won tonight's debate?  Leave a comment and/or take our poll!

One of the architects of the Affordable Care Act created this cartoon before the bill became law.  The cartoon illustrates just how ridiculous it is for Republicans to criticize health care reform during this election cycle. 

Both Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have said they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  They won’t say what they want to replace it with, if anything. 

M.I.T. Professor of Economics Jon Gruber calls those attacks unfair, and he’s entitled to his opinion.  He created that cartoon.  More importantly, he helped write the Affordable Care Act. 

He also helped write the health care reform law for Massachusetts when Romney was governor.  Gruber says reforming health care is a massive undertaking.  His state is still finding ways to save money and cut costs under "Romneycare."    

So, Professor Gruber is a guy who knows what it takes to change health care.  His complaint with the Republicans is that instead of supporting the fledgling changes, Romney and Ryan are trashing the entire idea. 

Gruber says this process is like watching a baby as it learns to crawl.  Do you threaten to throw it back into the crib if it doesn’t walk right away? 

Gruber’s point is that the Affordable Care Act won’t immediately solve the country’s health care problems.  Millions of uninsured Americans won’t suddenly become happily insured without any noticeable cost.  The reduction in the deficit doesn't happen right away. 

Just like teaching a baby to walk, achieving meaningful health care reform on a national level is an investment.  It’s going to take time and patience.  And it’s going to take a commitment to stick with the kid and believe walking and even running will be possible. 

A threat to repeal the Affordable Care Act before it’s taken its first steps is simply short sighted.  

(AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

Wind turbines at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Wind Farm are shown in front of snowcapped mountains near Boulder, Colo.

Tonight’s presidential debate at the University of Denver could reveal to Colorado voters how dangerous Mitt Romney’s energy plan is for their state and the country.  Romney has called Green jobs “fake” and “illusory”, and he opposes extending the wind energy tax credit.

This tax credit is hugely important for people in Colorado. The wind industry in Colorado employs approximately 5,000 people and more than 30,000 people nationwide. If Mitt Romney had his way, all of those jobs would be eliminated to cater to his oil focused energy plan.

The wind energy tax credit is set to expire at the end of this year unless it is renewed by Congress and signed into law by the president.  President Obama supports the credit.  

Until recently, this tax credit wasn’t a political issue, in the past it has been supported by Democrats and Republicans and was actually signed by former President George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, science denier Mitt Romney’s energy plan is focused on one thing: oil. Romney’s energy plan opens up public lands to oil companies for drilling cuts funding for renewable energy. It’s quite a change of position since Romney was the Governor of Massachusetts.

You can take a  look at how the candidates differ on energy policy here.

A document from 1998 shows that Global-Tech, a China-based home appliance company, tried to entice investors with descriptions of its extremely low wages, long hours, and low tax liability.

It turns out that Mitt Romney was one of the investors that bought the pitch. Ed gives the details of the report.