tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61135589098907822672024-02-08T10:36:14.562-08:00MittisevilHoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.comBlogger126125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-80317630214420538592012-12-01T23:59:00.001-08:002013-02-09T20:44:19.523-08:00Romney makes America glad he lostRomney made America glad it didn't vote for him by his bizarre claim that Obama bought the election.<br />
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http://dynamopolitics.com/2012/11/15/romney-says-obama-gifts-to-blame-for-loss/<br />
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There was no mea culpa from Romney about his campaign or his characterization of ordinary Americans as morally deficient leeches. On the contrary, he justified his view of the public as unworthy by saying Obama handed out "gifts" to various constituencies to win them over. <br />
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This particular argument not only showed Romney is unwilling to take responsibility for his own defeat, but it also revealed that his statement to donors last spring that 47% of the public were spongers was no "gaffe" but a real reflection of his thinking.<br />
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The comments also confirmed that throughout the campaign, Romney saw the campaign as a competition of bribes. Thus when Romney promised to spend $2 trillion more on the military, to reach energy independence in five years, to make corporate tax cuts, to make individual tax cuts, to protect Medicare Advantage from reimbursement cuts, to create 12 million jobs, and to align our foreign policy more completely with Israel and Poland, he may well have been fishing for votes rather than actually planning to do these things.<br />
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There is no evidence any other Republican has adopted any of his campaign themes.<br />
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Obama still invited him to the White House as he had promised, and Obama told us all we should be glad that a rich man like Romney would try to give back through public service, which ignores the point that Romney would have given himself tax cuts and invested public money in areas Bain Capital has businesses; and that Romney might see the presidency as a way to force all those spongers off the dole with higher taxes and reduced spending. Obama is determined not to see Romney for the evil that he really represents.<br />
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Romney certainly lost credibility by his poor handling of defeat, however. It is difficult to see how he can "come back" from this, but it would be foolish to count him out entirely because the Republican talent pool is so thin and anybody with money can run campaigns (see Harold Stassen).<br />
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-detached-romney-tends-wounds-in-seclusion-after-failed-white-house-bid/2012/12/01/4305079a-38a9-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html<br />
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Why is it important or interesting that Romney despises the public that rejected him? Ordinary Americans have never had a president who hated them and wished them to suffer before. Calvin Coolidge was a misanthrope, but he had no mission to inflict pain on the country. Romney did have that mission.<br />
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Before Romney made his comments, some did not really understand that. Here, for example, was a typical "plague on both your houses" rationale that created a false equivalence between the Romney and Obama campaigns in lying.<br />
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http://advanced-hindsight.com/2012/10/25/truthbending/<br />
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In getting to their conclusion, the authors misrepresent Romney's quote. Romney was not only discussing election strategy. The actual quote was...<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slFZ8K2aBoY<br />
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Romney was speaking about his electoral strategy, but the emphasis was not on his strategy but on defining people who don't pay income tax or who receive government assisted health care, food, or housing as bad people. He further hints that he sees the election as a bribery contest by saying he could never convince these people "to take personal responsibility for their lives" and that "they will vote for the president no matter what." In other words, he cannot persuade them of his beliefs because they are greedy, but he could promise them things, and he did.<br />
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Presumably, the authors of that ill advised effort to "step back" and indict both camps now realize their error, and that Obama was not bending the truth when he said Romney didn't care about the 47%. Hopefully, they now see that it was a mistake to draw any equivalence between the two sides in this election, and they now understand better than they did that Romney is an angry ideologue who despises the people he intended to govern. It should have been obvious from his daily lying during the campaign that he had contempt for the public, but so ingrained is the notion that "all politicians are the same," that too many people voted for someone who was evil. I think if the election were held today, Romney's vote would be nowhere near the 47% he won on November 6.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-12094294167860339682012-11-06T22:03:00.003-08:002012-12-12T17:06:15.430-08:00Romney Concedes ElectionThe United States has dodged a bullet, rejecting Mitt Romney by a narrow margin. <br />
I want to thank all my blog readers for going out to vote and spreading the word about His Nefariousness!<br />
It was closer than it should have been, and it will be a hard time with Republicans still controlling the House of Representatives, but we can at least be glad of President Obama's re-election. We all know GOP vote stealing went on even though they didn't succeed in the presidential race. Someday maybe we will get the country we really voted for, that is to say, one without a "second party" that represents only 1% of the population.<br />
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Thank you one and all.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-21205585280928118882012-11-06T07:49:00.000-08:002012-12-12T17:06:20.372-08:00Vote Obama: The United States Under Romney is UnthinkableWatching the long lines of people waiting eight or nine hours to vote in Florida and Ohio should seal the deal: the will to stop the Republicans is there.<br />
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A Mitt Romney presidency with a Republican Congress would be unthinkable.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-64699073752178392252012-11-05T06:45:00.001-08:002012-12-12T17:06:46.030-08:00Grounds for HopeIn the last year, since I started my blog when it seemed nobody would unmask the real Romney, the country has learned what a deeply disturbing personality he is. <br />
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/opinion/dowd-mitt-is-this-wit.html?_r=3&<br />
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Most still don't want to believe he is as bad as he is, but the fact is that nobody trusts him, and all his votes will be protest votes against Barack Obama. Could America vote for a man they know to be compulsive liar and a bully: uncaring, secretive, and a fraud, as in this video which summarizes again the Damon Scandal?<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_RHrUarE4A<br />
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(Obama should just run that 7 minute video tonight or tomorrow, nationwide on all three television networks. Of course he won't.)<br />
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If America did vote for Romney, then America would deserve the corporate and military dictatorship we would get. That won't happen, and that the only way Mitt Romney can win the election is to steal it. The same is true of Republican control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.<br />
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Are there reasons for optimism? Yes.<br />
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1. Polls show Obama winning<br />
http://www.politico.com/p/2012-election/polls/president<br />
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2. Polls already contain a red shift to account for differences between actual results and what people tell them. All polls model the electorate and so no poll is presenting raw data.<br />
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http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/17528<br />
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3. Polls show people think Obama will win, so while complacency may cost him some votes, but there is no dangerous trend of people thinking Romney has momentum or smells like a winner.<br />
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/83085.html<br />
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4. Obama has been outperforming national polls in Swing States; that is, wherever his ads run on equal terms with Romney's, Obama does better, suggesting ignorance is Romney's main support in the race.<br />
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http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-dominating-swing-state-polls-three-days-before-election<br />
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Does that mean Republicans can't steal the election? No. Check out the strange lady responsible for counting much of Wisconsin's vote. She shares an office floor with Michelle Bachmann's campaign.<br />
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http://wcmcoop.com/2012/05/22/meet-command-central-the-people-in-charge-of-wisconsin-voting-machines/<br />
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But there is reason for hope there too.<br />
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5. Chuck Hagel endorsed a Democrat.<br />
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http://www.waynedailynews.com/index.php?action=fullnews&id=11933<br />
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This may mean less than you think it does. Hagel is involved with the largest voting machine company ES&S.<br />
In 2006 and 2008 he was also at pains to seem "independent" of the GOP. Democrats won both those elections. However, it is not clear that Hagel actually is independent of the GOP or that less effort was made to steal those elections by ES&S in those years. After all, Democrat Kerrey has the same background in Vietnam operations that Hagel has, making them natural allies.<br />
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http://patrick.guenin2.free.fr/cantho/vnnews/kerrey.htm<br />
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Hagel has been mentioned extensively in an article on vote fraud in Harpers Magazine, and while that may not mean much, the finding of subsequent strong statistical correlation between precinct size and Republican vote could mean the jig is up, and we are close to finding a way to see what the GOP is actually doing. In previous years, it has been noted that early voters tended to lean Democrat more than election day voters. What made this finding suspect is that early voters were not more likely to be Democratic constituencies, suggesting vote stealing is done on election day itself.<br />
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6. Gallup has confused the issue with its early voting poll.<br />
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Gallup says early voters are favoring Romney, but they are including absentee ballots with early voting, and absentee paper ballots usually aren't counted until election day and overwhelmingly favor Republicans because so many elderly and military vote absentee. Many military voted for Obama last time, but hardly enough to overmatch the elderly. In addition, the red shift from early voting is based on what the counting authorities say, not based on what the surveyed public says about how they voted.<br />
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/111304/gallup-daily-early-voting.aspx<br />
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Some Republicans, listening to Gallup, may think they need to steal less than they do.<br />
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What proof do I have that Gallup's wrong about early voting? Rick Scott refused to extend early voting even with people waiting five hours in line. Scott would not be doing that if Republicans were winning the early voting.<br />
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http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/11/03/early-voting-in-florida-not-extended-despite-long-lines/<br />
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People are waiting 8 or 9 hours in line to accomplish early voting in both Florida and Ohio. Ohio says it has had the heaviest early voting turnout ever, putting the lie to the claim that people have no enthusiasm for Obama.<br />
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In some sense, a Republican president to protect their election secrets, with a Democratic Congress, to puncture claims of nationwide fraud, would be in their best interests this year, but even then Obama would have two months to look into it. We have to get out to vote to make sure that doesn't happen.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-75480944089151093872012-10-30T19:39:00.001-07:002013-02-09T21:12:24.432-08:00Mitt Romney: The biggest liar in American historyMitt Romney has told more lies in the last year and a half than any American candidate for any office in history. He is quite simply the most dishonest person ever to run for any office of any kind in America. You could not find a compulsive liar who has told more lies than Mitt Romney in the last eighteen months. <br />
Every single day he goes out and tells whoppers, and very often the inspiration for the whopper is to misrepresent his immediate environment or to lie about what he said yesterday, when he was lying about the day before.<br />
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#49576203<br />
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The result, if he is elected, will be national calamity. Our Founding Fathers understood that bad people can go into politics, which is why they tried to limit power. We have survived many self-serving demagogues, crooks, and liars, and even people with delusions, although we are remarkably lucky that our presidents before have had at least an idea of a public good apart from what they could steal. But we have never tested the system with such a thoroughgoing evil before. Even George W. Bush had the saving grace of sloth, and an unwillingness to use WMD except in depleted uranium weapons. Romney has a lot more energy than Bush, and no moral limits at all.<br />
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Here's the danger part: our Republic used to be so large that people could do unspeakable things in one section (slavery, Jim Crow, genocide, corporate corruption), but countervailing centers of power would contest and (eventually) neutralize them. That's not happening anymore. The U.S. has never been larger in population and diversity, but it has never been smaller in concentration of political, economic, and communications power. All Americans are getting the news from the Associated Press, controlled by Republicans, and from a limited number of television outlets, controlled by Republicans. Their credit is being controlled by a few companies and their creditors are a few banks. Their votes are being counted by a small number of companies, all Republican. There is no foreseeable rebellion that could take on the U.S. military, and no sense that organization would split into different factions. Wealth has never been more concentrated, or more concentrated in fewer locations. There are no rich guys in Alabama or Nevada who could organize to launch a populist assault on Wall Street. If the New Yorkers don't do it, nobody will, which is why Occupy Wall Street has caused such an extreme vindictive response.<br />
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The result is that in power centers our BIG republic has become a small one. Our Founding Fathers rightly saw that small republics had a harder time remaining republics, and that, conversely, Republics could be too big.. James Madison used the former as a principal reason for abandoning the Articles of Confederation for a stronger Federal Union. When Republics grow too big, he said on the other hand, "The larger a country, the less easy for its real opinion to be ascertained, and the less difficult to be counterfeited." National Gazette Dec. 19, 1791. We see that peril every day when we are told to take on faith news reporters' assertions about the true beliefs of 300 million Americans.<br />
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If Romney is elected, domestic enemies will likely be assassinated, since Congress gave Bush that power and never repealed it. Nuclear weapons will possibly be used under trivial pretexts, since only the moral character of the president has prevented that happening since 1945. The economy will sputter and fail. You cannot elect Mitt Romney president without consequences. There have been bad liars as president, and one reason the system is so broken today is that the American people have had such a high tolerance for them. Mitt Romney, though, is not like any other politician in American history, even George W. Bush. Mitt Romney can justify anything to himself. He's a perfect storm of magical thinking, manic energy, and the challenged masculinity and bullying nature of the spoiled rich kid.<br />
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Every day, new dirt on Romney emerges.<br />
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He set up a trust with a million dollars of shares that would go to the Mormon church on his death. When that trust buys and sell shares under his management they pay no taxes. Meanwhile, every year the trust pays Romney 8% of its assets. Since he is not managing the trust to make money, Romney is running it down, effectively taking back his "charitable donation." Essentially, it was a way to trade shares but avoid tax. Lots of rich people did it, which is why the loophole was tightened by Congress, but not for trusts already created, like Romney's. It was always and obviously unethical, though, especially as Romney probably included the original deferred gift as satisfying his church tithe. Romney probably doesn't do his own taxes, but he certainly agrees with principle of going to any length to cut taxes.<br />
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-29/romney-avoids-taxes-via-loophole-cutting-mormon-donations.html<br />
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An accountant has found pretty strong smelling evidence that Romney actually had a Net Loss, not Net Income, in tax year 2009, and that his statement about paying 14% tax is either 1) a lie; or 2) including other taxes such as foreign income taxes; or 3) likeliest of all, Romney is saying paying negative tax on negative income is still positive 14%, even though the public would interpret that as a man worth at least $250 million paying no tax in 2009.<br />
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Moreover, admitting a Net Loss in 2009 would puncture his supposed business genius. He might have had losses related to some Madoff type investment, which would make him look gullible. If, in contrast, he got there by writing off the money he loaned his 2008 campaign, people would say, you know it shouldn't reduce your taxes that you wanted to be president so badly that you spent $40 million on it. <br />
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It also raises the question of Romney's reason for running for president. Perhaps his plans are so vague and his lying is so obvious because he never intended to be president, and all along he's just done it so he can write off what he spent against taxes. I don't think that's true: I think he's been burning all his life with a desire to be president. But you can't prove it by his actions, and still less by his tax returns. <br />
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Romney received exactly $1 back on his federal return for 2010 for creating American jobs, and his tax returns show he has substantially more overseas investments than has been admitted to in his campaign disclosure forms.<br />
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http://www.accountingtoday.com/ato_issues/26_10/A-reaction-to-the-Romney-tax-return-64133-1.html<br />
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I don't think the public care if Romney is a tax cheat. What they should care about is that he can't tell the truth about anything, which means he has no respect for the public's opinion of him.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-60789786092997181242012-10-29T10:14:00.001-07:002012-12-12T17:08:08.544-08:00Endorsement Derby: Romney camp newspaper endorses ObamaThe Des Moines Register endorsed Romney, reportedly their first Republican endorsement since Richard Nixon. The Romney camp were ecstatic...but why?<br />
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http://www.rttnews.com/1992864/des-moines-register-endorses-romney-for-president.aspx?type=pn&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=sitemap<br />
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The Des Moines Register is part of the Gannett chain, and as reported here in March, their largest shareholder is Integrity Asset Management, a hedge fund owned by Munder Capital Management of Boston and Birmingham, Michigan (Romney's adult and boyhood homes), whose former CEO Lee Munder is a Romney campaign finance co-chair in Florida. Is it really a big story to get endorsements from a company controlled by your campaign? Gannett's CEO was formerly with Brysam Global Partners, a private equity firm which invested in consumer credit companies in Mexico and Russia. There are other private equity types on the Gannett board as well.<br />
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What would be more newsworthy is if any Gannett papers DO NOT endorse Romney. Could this happen?<br />
Yes.<br />
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The Detroit Free Press has endorsed Barack Obama.<br />
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http://www.freep.com/article/20121028/OPINION01/121026117/Detroit-Free-Press-Endorsement-Top-reasons-to-re-elect-Obama-president<br />
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The Detroit Free Press is the tenth largest circulation newspaper in the country. However, the Detroit News retains the right to publish its editorial page (the News endorsed Mitt Romney) in the Sunday Free Press. The very fact such a condition was made when the two papers were un-merged demonstrates the importance conservatives place on media control, since the Detroit News is historically the conservative paper in the Detroit area, and the Free Press the liberal paper. Nonetheless, the Free Press staff showed a rare courage in taking on their own employers. I hope they were clever enough to make it a collective responsibility, or some (all) of them may be losing their jobs!<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-74380483555495227152012-10-26T11:37:00.002-07:002012-12-12T17:11:43.955-08:00NSA analyst demonstrates GOP systematically stealing votes in the larger precinctshttp://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/breaking-retired-nsa-analyst-proves-gop-is-stealing-elections/article20598.html<br />
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A retired national security analyst working on Arizona, then national, results; and another researcher looking into South Carolina Republican primary results, found a startling and ominous correlation between precinct size and Romney votes.<br />
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What are these analysts saying? They are saying that all across the country,
Republicans get more votes from larger precincts. This is
counterintuitive, right? Rural areas are supposed to be more
conservative, but more populous precincts are more likely to vote for
Republicans in general and Romney (but not Santorum) in particular.
Even more amazing, in the South Carolina Republican primary, there was no trendline on
Gingrich votes, which did not depend on precinct size, but Santorum and
Paul votes both dropped in the larger precincts, and Romney votes rose.
When that researcher tried to control for income level, rural percent, population
density, etc. there was no correlation. There was only correlation
around precinct size, nothing else.<br />
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Why does that indicate fraud? If you steal in smaller
precincts, it is more likely you will end up with negative votes, or
there will be few enough people so they can all compare votes and note
that the final totals do not match. It therefore makes sense to steal
votes from larger precincts in order to hide what you are doing and also to reduce the number of results you are touching. Different
voting results for larger precincts is exactly what you would expect to
find when elections are being systematically stolen.<br />
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What can be done? I'm not sure, but I think these systems still use phone lines for reporting. Maybe the Dems (or the Feds) could jam electronic signals at every Secretary of State's office to prevent remote vote tampering. There has to be a technical way to foil whatever is planned, even if it's in the proprietary software of the voting machine companies.<br />
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In the meantime, when you hear of polls showing the presidential race neck and neck, all of which presume a white landslide for Mitt Romney, remember that they are already factoring in Republican election stealing to get these numbers. Also pay attention on election night to clues they are manipulating the exit polls.<br />
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Right now, for instance, we are hearing that Obama leads 53-45 in early voting. How would we know that, why would anyone publish that, and isn't that just an instruction to steal more than 10%? Obviously, if you only steal 8-10% in the larger precincts, that wouldn't be enough to overcome an 8% Obama lead among voters. Therefore, you would have to steal more than that to be sure of victory.<br />
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Think of what this all means. Americans have probably not voted for a Republican for president since 1988. Republicans probably lost Congress probably in 2004, not 2006; and they never regained it. Imagine how much better life would be today in the US without the hard right turn it has taken since 1994. We pretend we would fight for freedom, but all future generations are going to think is that we didn't care enough to do anything about an obvious usurpation.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-70325853066196909452012-10-26T10:24:00.002-07:002012-12-12T17:13:06.521-08:00Romney's proudest boast was Staples, except in courtMitt Romney the great businessman testified in court in 1988 that Staples, whose success he claims justifies all the frauds of his business career, had no future.<br />
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http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-romney-dogged-decades-perjury-accusations.html<br />
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"Romney testified on record that Staples stock was '<i>over-valued</i>,' and that he '<i>didn’t place a great deal of credibility in the forecast of the company’s future.</i> Willard went on to testify that Stemberg spoke about the probability of success as if it was today and that '<i>he minimized the risk and maximized the high probability of success, and the dream went on</i>.'"<br />
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Why? One possible reason is he perjured himself to help the Staples CEO minimize losses to his wife in divorce proceedings. Alternatively, Mitt Romney really didn't believe in Staples, and they succeeded in spite of him, not because of him.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-77367213089533749912012-10-25T21:22:00.003-07:002012-12-12T17:15:41.642-08:00Racism is going to be the excuse for Republican Fraud, apparentlyIn case you're wondering how the Republicans could possibly explain a victory for an unpopular compulsive liar, unpatriotic enough to park his money overseas, who has the personality of a serial killer - in short, how Mitt Romney could be elected president, the Dallas News has already staked out the fake explanation: racial polarization.<br />
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http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/national-politics/20121025-voting-in-the-barack-obama-mitt-romney-race-may-show-sharper-racial-divide.ece<br />
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According to this obvious nonsense, whites are showing their disdain for the black candidate, favoring Romney nationwide by 60% to 37%, more than a landslide. Do you believe that? Think of your friends and family. Think of your co-workers. Think of all the whites who live in liberal enclaves like college towns and central cities. Do you believe they favor someone who hasn't studied for the job, who openly lies and changes positions, and who is a high official of an unusual religion that believes itself morally superior to average Americans? I don't know personally any whites who are for Mitt Romney. I only know of one man I met in a restaurant, and he was motivated by jealousy because he knew teachers he thought made a few thousand dollars too much money. I pointed out how the rich like Romney were stealing our jobs and pensions on a daily basis, but he didn't believe me. Not one person hearing this exchange in a restaurant rose to his defense. <br />
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Even within the article, we find that whites are 2% less of the electorate than they were 4 years ago. We also find out that inexplicably in Ohio, white women favor Obama by 6 even when white men are solid for Romney by 20, a gender gap unlike anything ever seen before in any American election.<br />
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The real story is the polls are faked. Not one person in 100 wants Mitt Romney to be president. Of course, being Americans 35% will vote for him anyway, to spite the egos of the majority, but there is no chance he could win this election without fraud. For Romney to lead among white males in Ohio by twenty points is to pretend that white males in Ohio have no ears to hear and eyes to see....and that this is a change from four years ago, when they did.<br />
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They picked this explanation because they think Ivy League liberals will buy it, when you won't find a pickup truck driving, tobacco chewing, beer swilling redneck in the entire state of Ohio who would want to get within 2 miles of Willard Mitt Romney.<br />
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Be smart, don't fall for it. It's a nonsense explanation. But it is the meme. Right now the web is circulating another story from AP claiming antiblack and anti-Hispanic attitudes have gotten worse since 2008.<br />
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http://news.yahoo.com/ap-poll-majority-harbor-prejudice-against-blacks-073551680--election.html<br />
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Is it true? Of course not. They also said Hispanics are viewed more negatively than blacks, which is something I don't think any black person would believe. It is true when times are hard people turn on minorities, but it certainly does not follow they would disdain Obama, who has not done a single one of the terrible things his enemies predicted he would do. AP is the lynchpin of Republican control of the media.<br />
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You are being manipulated. Mitt Romney cannot be elected president without massive and pervasive vote fraud.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-45311481104591340332012-10-24T15:37:00.001-07:002012-12-12T17:23:24.300-08:00Electronic Voting: the nation's Achilles' heelMany Republicans were utterly convinced that Democrats controlled Congress from 1958 to 1994 because lever voting machines were rigged to give it to them. Nobody called these Republicans "tinhats" or "conspiracy nuts." It has become conventional wisdom in much of the nation that Nixon won the 1960 election and it was stolen by Kennedy, Daley and LBJ. Try pointing out that flipping Illinois in 1960 would not have changed the election result, and that Democrats had no ability to steal enough either in Chicago or Texas to flip these states. Try pointing out that Nixon won in 1968 by a far smaller margin and there were numerous instances of fraud.<br />
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That's a part of history that had slipped GOP minds by 2000 and 2004, when their response to Bush stealing the election was, well, Kennedy did it too.<br />
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You can always tell what Republicans are up to by what they accuse the Democrats of doing. When they were buying control of the media in the 1980s, documented in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," they were hysterically conjecturing a "liberal media" conspiracy. When they argued that liberals were attacking religion, the Republican-connected law firm Greenberg Traurig was making a mint suing the Vatican for child abuse. Is it any wonder the Vatican has given up its social justice agenda when it knows only Republicans can keep a lid on lawsuits? When the Republicans said Jesse Jackson and George Ball were traitors, it's probably because Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were breaking U.S. laws doing business with enemies like Libya and North Korea. When they said Islam was at war with us, Prince "Bandar Bush" of Saudi Arabia had free access to the White House, meeting with the president alone just 48 hours after 15 Saudi citizens had apparently conducted a terror attack on our nation. When they said Clinton sold military secrets to China, it was because the Bush family actually had and would continue to give away our strategic advantage. In 2004 they accused Kerry of faking his war hero record because Bush was a deserter. In 2008 they said Obama was not born in the USA, probably because McCain wasn't born in the USA. What is frightening is the amount effort and attention they have put into accusing the Democrats of vote fraud in the last few years.<br />
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They are going to steal this election if they can. This is nothing new. Abraham Lincoln was not elected by secret ballot. The "Australian" or secret ballot only came into wide use in the 1880's in the United States, and its immediate results were fraud and Jim Crow.<br />
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http://rense.com/general80/votesec.htm<br />
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We are told that we need the secret ballot to prevent people from discriminating against us for our political views, but in reality we get that anyway based on what people think our views are, without benefit of legal redress (except in California, where the Unruh Act specifically forbids it). Indeed, a number of Republican employers have threatened layoffs if Obama wins. No prize for guessing which people (female, black, gay) would be targeted in this little purge. If the unthinkable did happen and all the votes were published, maybe people would take more care with their vote. I'm not suggesting we publish anything. I am suggesting that vote secrecy has enabled fraud.<br />
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Already, with the move from lever voting to punch cards, it was clear something was going terribly wrong with our nation's voting. Here's a New Yorker article warning about computerized voting in 1988. In 1977 a Republican bigwig named Prentis Hale bought the nation's biggest vote tabulating firm. Problems began to mount. Perhaps the "Reagan revolution" wasn't a real revolution in public attitudes at all, just a change in voting company ownership.<br />
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http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/dugger.html<br />
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Computerized touch screens further consolidated the industry, behind a mandate in the Orwellian misnamed "Help America Vote Act" of 2002. The move to touch screens pushed the voting results far to the right, and then Republican controlled media began to "fix" exit polls to hide the evidence of fraud. Today, most American votes are counted by ES&S of Omaha and Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, with SCYTL of Spain providing critical software.<br />
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In 1996, there was a bit of a controversy in a U.S. Senate race. Ben Nelson was a popular governor in Nebraska, re-elected in 1994 with 74% of the vote. His Republican challenger, Chuck Hagel, was new to politics. Hagel was a career military man who was inexplicably made a telecommunications corporate executive. Having made a pile of money, he went into politics in his native Nebraska. He went about it the same way Romney has, first investing in a voting machine company (American Information Systems, father of ES&S and Diebold). He resigned from being Chairman of AIS just two weeks before announcing for Senate. His campaign treasurer and investment partner maintained a $5 million investment for him in AIS throughout the election. He won in a surprise, 15 points better than the polls announced in the paper, far ahead of what one would have expected given Nelson's popularity just two years before. Six years later he was re-elected by the one of the highest vote margins ever in any contested Senate race. Nebraska, Hagel would have you believe, has no liberals left at all.<br />
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http://harpers.org/archive/2012/11/how-to-rig-an-election/1/<br />
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If you are not a subscriber to Harpers, you should go to the newsstand and pick up the November, 2012 issue. It punctures once and for all the myth that Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 mean that votes are not being stolen. Statistically there is still blatant evidence of fraud. It's just that in 2006 and 2008 they miscalculated how much they had to steal. Elections are being stolen in an ever more brazen and open manner. Rick Scott was almost certainly never elected Governor of Florida. Jim DeMint apparently won his office by choosing his opponents in a blatantly fraudulent miscounting of the South Carolina Democratic primary. It all goes back to George H.W. Bush, who hired Karl Rove after the latter fixed a Young Republicans election. <br />
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We can probably add Romney to that list of fixers, as noted in this blog. In addition to trying to buy strategic media for this campaign, the Romneyites have tried to tie up voting companies. Bain Capital employees formed a company called H.I.G. to invest in Hart Intercivic, the biggest of the election companies outside the big three previously mentioned.<br />
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http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4725<br />
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Republicans, of course, would have you believe Obama has tried to fix the election. The right wing echo chamber says Soros has ties to SCYTL, one of the companies involved in American voting companies. Not only is this not true, it is the opposite of the truth. Conservatives, not socialists, run the Spanish government which owns a big stake. Another stake is owned by Nauta Capital of Boston, whose director on the SCYTL board came from Booz Allen, owned by the Bush era's corporate darling, the Carlyle Group. <br />
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http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2012/4719<br />
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ES&S is still the biggest vote counting firm and still works with Chuck Hagel. The Obama administration did prevent them from buying Sequoia and Diebold, but the stooge they picked to buy Sequoia and Diebold, Dominion Voting Systems of Canada, still employs the same people who have been running these companies throughout the Bush era, as does SCYTL.<br />
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Elections don't just happen to be fixed. Quite a lot of effort goes into fixing them, and that's why in 2006 and 2008, the GOP screwed up. That's actually an opportunity this year, in that Romney may think the other companies besides the one he controls are manipulating results, but if he doesn't organize to control the process personally, he may lose anyway. The negative is that Mormons have specialized in computer software for years, so if anybody could rig an election, it's the Mormons. The Proposition 8 results in California in 2008 were likely rigged. It is easier, though, to rig ballot propositions than elections where jobs are on the line. It is also easier to rig votes by a challenger. An incumbent president has lots of tools to fight back that challengers do not.<br />
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Do not despair, go out and vote. They've miscalculated before. The important thing is the more awareness of this issue is advanced, the more the public will be likely to get off their butts and do something about it.<br />
For years, leading left commentators reacted to this circumstance of increasing Republican control over voting by shrill denials, under the false theories that 1) to point it out it would discourage Democrats from voting (my vote won't count), making the situation worse; and 2) that it would give too much credit to Republican organization. I disagree with this thinking. They should be able to communicate the necessity of voting quite clearly. Romney is so personally unlikeable that there is no chance he can win the present election without fraud. They will never have a better chance to prove fraud on the other side than if Romney wins this election. It cannot even be imagined unless turnout were to drop some huge number like 25 million from 2008. Remember, Romney got fewer votes than John McCain did in 2008 in the Republican primary season. Second, Republicans are idiots, but that doesn't mean everyone who profits from Republicanism is, and the military and the rich are quite capable of organizing fraud: competently, but not intelligently. Finally, if vote theft is the truth, it needs to be exposed regardless of whether it is politically convenient for this election.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-24980197702533697412012-10-22T20:31:00.000-07:002012-11-26T15:52:52.173-08:00Obama ends with clear win on foreign policyPresident Obama turned in his best debate performance tonight, and Mitt Romney his worst. The moderator tried to help Romney by focusing attention on Libya and by cutting Obama off right after Mitt Romney changed focus to jobs. However, it was still abundantly clear the president was the master of his subject.<br />
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Obama did make mistakes. He went off message on Libya and Syria to bring up domestic concerns, which played into Romney's hands, since he could smirkingly talk about the how bad the economy is. It smelled of desperation, of Obama trying to get back that first debate, and was clearly far away from foreign policy, where he was easily winning and making Romney look foolish.<br />
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Romney, however, more than returned the favor with mistakes galore. Romney started out with a memorized speech on the middle east, "We can't kill our way out of this mess," presumably intended to damp down expectations he would go to war with Iran, more or less undercutting his own bellicose position. He then had trouble sticking to this theme, and seemed overly proud of himself for memorizing the names of countries like Qatar. He admitted the president was right to go into Libya, and his insistence that we "take the leadership role" in Syria and funding Egyptian moderates seemed juvenile, as though America could just snap its fingers and make everybody jump. The president handled all this masterfully, talking about how America had won respect in the region. He didn't point out that Romney's claim that "We all had great hopes for the Arab Spring, for more moderation and wide participation of women and others in political and economic life" was a childish fantasy when under dictatorship, the only effective opposition in all these countries was necessarily Islamist. Indeed, Obama could have contrasted what he did in Libya with what the Republicans had done in Iran supporting the Shah, but did not.<br />
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In one respect, the focus on Libya helped Obama because Romney completely forgot to dwell on Poland and Russia, important to Ohio and Pennsylvania voters, and that has to count as a big (and rather foolish) mistake for him since he had a much better prospect of success in making Russia the bogeyman.<br />
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Romney's second big mistake was to talk about friendly relations with China when his whole campaign has been trying to China bash. The two positions don't mesh, and there was an air of unreality about his claiming he would get tough with China when he seems to view them so favorably from a geopolitical stance. The president probably erred when he made positive remarks about China himself, although it was probably long after the average person's attention span expired. It was as though Romney were conceding that issue to the president, and failling to promise anything different.<br />
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Romney's third big mistake was to try to claim the U.S. had bungled relations with Pakistan, that we should be friendlier to them. Pakistan, of course, harbored Osama bin Laden for years. The president didn't point that out, but when the moderator asked Romney to expand on this question, Romney's answer made it sound like he didn't know his own mind on Pakistan, since he portrayed it as a failed state run by the ISI, so it wasn't clear why the U.S. should be friendlier to them. Romney looked unsure, and he remained unsure until his next to last statement, when he went on a rant about jobs.<br />
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That was his fourth big mistake, since that clearly wasn't about foreign policy and was intended solely to hit the president when he had no time to respond. Both closing statements from both candidates were smarmy and forgettable.<br />
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The president clearly won by having command of his facts, by sounding more measured and balanced, and by not having anything he could be called out on. Imagine any other time in U.S. history when the big story for foreign policy in a presidential campaign was the death of four diplomats. The very fact that the Republicans didn't have anything more to hit Obama with showed how well the nation's foreign policy has gone since Obama has been in charge (and also reinforces the question of who exactly organized the attack).<br />
Romney did not confront the president because he wanted to come off as peaceable and close that gap with women voters, but not offering a fundamentally different view than Obama made his candidacy seem rather pointless.<br />
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If people vote on foreign policy, then Obama has won the election. Unfortunately, nobody seems to believe that.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-30780513936774064292012-10-19T15:34:00.003-07:002012-11-26T15:53:06.008-08:00Obama talks about RomnesiaGreat little video.<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=sNGZil616ugHoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-43236040354431966162012-10-19T15:26:00.003-07:002012-12-01T23:08:27.978-08:00Is it too extreme to say Mitt Romney's business was fraud?No it is not too extreme. And you would hardly be among the first to say it.<br />
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Here is a class action lawsuit against Bain for fraud and unjust enrichment. Bain apparently schemed to avoid French legal regulations requiring it to assist downsized workers. Bain sold a factory it wanted to close to a failing small business, apparently to get around French regulations on big business. The complaint was dismissed because the Statute of Limitations expired, not because it lacked merit. Bain didn't want to pay for worker retraining, which shows the petty and devious mindset of these ideologues. <br />
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http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/cgi-bin/recentops.pl?filename=tauro/pdf/abdallah%20v%20bain%20capital%20memo%20final%207-24.pdf<br />
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Granted that was 2007, after Romney "retired."<br />
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Let's back up a year. HCA people accuse Bain Capital of price fixing.<br />
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/business/documents-depict-equity-firms-like-bain-as-colluding.html<br />
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Back up a few years. More fraud. Big Lots sold KB Toys to Bain in 2000, when Romney was still Bain chairman, accepting a note payable from Bain-KB. KB took on debt and paid Bain off 2002, which left it unable to pay its note to Big Lots 2004. Remember the parties involved here. Big Lots thinks it sold KB Toys to Bain for money, but negligently allows Bain to structure a note promising their new KB acquisition will pay Big Lots the money promised, and Bain then sells its KB interest, clearing so much in fees that KB has no money and stiffs Big Lots, which means that Bain never paid Big Lots most of the money that it promised and walked away cash in hand after looting the company. Big Lots' lawsuit was dismissed because all such legal actions go through the bankruptcy court, which is why Bain was not formally convicted of fraud. <br />
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/100227151/Big-Lots-v-Bain<br />
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Bain, of course, had competitors. It neither invented nor perfected this bit of corporate chicanery. Here a company called Caxton-Iseman does the same thing to Old Country Buffets.<br />
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http://www.startribune.com/business/138093388.html?refer=y<br />
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But let us back up still more, to what happened to a company Romney himself managed.<br />
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Let's look look at the defense Romney's people have made of Dade International. Mitt Romney managed this deal personally until he left for the Olympics. In 2002 Dade declared bankruptcy. As part of the settlement, Bain Capital was cut out of any role because it was clear they caused the bankruptcy. At least 1,700 workers lost their jobs and 100 creditors and bond holders lost $900 million.<br />
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http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-10-04/business/0210040120_1_dade-behring-reid-anderson-diagnostics<br />
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Romney defenders claim this deal was a big success because Dade went from being a company Bain Capital bought for $442 million in 1994 to one worth $7 billion when sold to Germany's Siemens in 2007 as reported in the pro-business, pro-GOP Forbes. <br />
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/11/14/was-romneys-turnaround-of-dade-a-triumph-or-a-smoking-gun/<br />
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We aren't comparing apples to apples in Forbes' article or in the Romney claims. Dade International was a medical testing division of Baxter Labs, sold off after the company experienced losses. Baxter had losses because the U.S. government temporarily banned it from bidding on government work because the company had cooperated with an Arab boycott of Israel. I'm sure Romney didn't highlight this deal, his deal to manage one of Baxter's business lines, in his talks with Benjamin Netanyahu.<br />
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http://data.synthesis.ie/site_media/trec/FT/FT944-18023.txt<br />
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Of course, a quick change in name to Dade International was necessary.<br />
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Dade had 4,000 employees and $625 million annual sales. In 1995, under Romney management, they announced they were buying DuPont Medical Diagnostics with 1,800 people and $375 million annual sales for "an undisclosed sum."<br />
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http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-12-14/business/9512140188_1_baxter-international-abbott-laboratories-unit<br />
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In 1997 Bain under Romney merged Dade International with German company Hoechst Behring. Hoechst Behring had 3,200 employees and $650 million in sales.<br />
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http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Dade+International+and+Behring+Diagnostics+to+Merge,+Creating+a...-a019197868<br />
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So when they say Romney "grew" the business to $1.5 billion and 7.400 employees when Romney was in charge, what they mean is he took 3 businesses which independently had $1.65 billion in annual sales and 9,000 employees and merged them to become one company with $1.5 billion in annual sales and 7,400 employees, furthermore favoring German products over the American product line, meaning it was the US that provided the layoffs. Thus, during a time of explosive annual growth in medical diagnostic equipment markets and prices in the USA, Mitt Romney managed to shrink 3 large medical diagnostic equipment companies. Dade International paid Romney $100 million dollars in management fees for that "service," more than covering Bain's $30 million investment, but not yet paying off Bain's loans. <br />
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In 1998, Bain Capital decided to cash out. KKR offered $1.9 billion for the combined company, but the company did not like that price. Bain made Dade borrow $420 million to pay off Bain and other investors who wanted to leave. Dade could no longer meet its obligations with that debt and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy a few years down the road (after Romney had left Bain Capital). The 100 creditors and bondholders accused Bain Capital of "unjust enrichment," causing the bankruptcy judge to eliminate any Bain Capital claims from the settlement, which left the creditors who lent money to Dade for its expansion with a $900 million loss. <br />
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When Siemens came in and paid $7 billion for Dade International, where was the company at? Ah, it was at $1.7 billion in sales, barely more than pre-Bain Capital years, and 6,400 employees. Profits were around $200 million per year, which is probably about the same as all three major business that were part of Dade were earning in 1994. That is to say it had the same level of sales it had in 1994, before Bain interfered, but employed 2,600 fewer people, but probably without making any more money.<br />
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http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Dade+International+and+Behring+Diagnostics+to+Merge,+Creating+a...-a019197868<br />
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So why did Siemens pay so much for it? Well Siemens paid $7 billion in cash for a company the market <br />
only valued at $5 billion, and which had only been valued at $3.5 billion earlier that year. Why would they do that? Siemens is a giant global competitor of General Electric. GE had tried to buy Abbott Labs' similar medical diagnostics business for $8 billion. The deal fell through, but Siemens rushed to block GE's position by grabbing Dade. In other words, it was GE and Abbott Labs whose merger talk created half the value for which Dade International was sold. As for the rest of the $3.5 billion value, quite a healthy P/E ratio for $200 million in profit: we don't know what Bain paid for DuPont Diagnostics and what considerations were part of the Behringer deal, but we do know you can't compare Dade in 2007 to $442 million Dade in 1994 without putting a value on DuPont and Behringer. Dade International was likely no more profitable in 2007 than its three independent businesses were in 1994, despite the magic of Mitt Romney and Bain. 1,700 employees who were downsized by Bain were worse off; as were any creditors who lent money to Dade, not realizing it would be stolen by Bain Capital, and if they couldn't stick around for the Siemens pay day.<br />
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There is no magic, still less any "management skill" in Mitt Romney. Was it profitable to Bain? Yes. The $420 million payout to the ownership group didn't perhaps quite meet their $442 million initial investment, and since Bain borrowed most of its share, some interest as well; but the $100 million management fee covered all and then some. <br />
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It is not too extreme to say the business of Bain Capital was destruction and deceit. Bain's profits came directly from the workers it laid off and the lenders who had mistakenly lent to Dade in good faith. Some of them probably made it back from Siemens, but that hardly makes Bain Capital a positive change agent.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-87565056705596548722012-10-16T21:05:00.001-07:002012-11-26T16:14:18.974-08:00Obama wins debate but still needs to work on persuasionA combative President Obama did much better as dispelling the atmosphere of unreality Romney projects on stage tonight, causing Romney to engage in a self-pitying moment near the end, that the "president has a problem with who I am" personally. Romney felt it is okay to slam Obama's record but that Romney's business record should be off the table. That self-pity should have lost him the election, along with his non-answers on women's issues, his fumbling on immigration, tax cuts, Libya, etc. The problem is that if you don't understand anything about the issues, which includes the majority of voters, you won't necessarily understand that Romney was fumbling these issues.<br />
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The first question was about jobs for college grads, and Romney claimed he's for expanding Pell Grants and student loans, which the Republicans have been fighting for years. Obama stuck to script and said we should support manufacturing, education, energy independence, and invest war savings. Romney claimed fewer people are employed than when Obama took office and Romney's plan would create 12 million jobs. He also claimed he had wanted Detroit to go through a managed bankruptcy that would make them stronger, which Obama asserted wasn't true. It wasn't, but the public didn't have enough recollection of those 2009 events to remember who was telling the truth. Obama said Romney didn't have a real plan, which is true, and that Obama created 5 million jobs: well that's a question of duelling facts and no way for the public to understand that Obama's numbers are right. Obama should have explained that if you go to May, 2009 as your starting point, that's where his job creation numbers came from and that Romney was in effect blaming him for losses caused by the Bush recession in the first months of 2009. Neither question really answered the college kid who needs a job in three years, although Romney claimed to. The general point went to Obama because he was more specific about his plans, although the right wing commentators at Fox tried to attack Obama for saying "I, I, I, I" all the time.<br />
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The second question was about gas prices and Obama made a clever quip, but fumbled the question badly. In effect, Romney says we can have energy independence in 5 years and lower gas prices, but this isn't true. In order to make shale oil profitable enough to fulfill all our energy needs, and get production on line that quickly, gas prices have to be much higher than they are today, and if prices were high enough to do that, then OPEC could hold or lower prices and the energy companies could make hundreds of billions by getting their oil abroad. In that scenario, you could only get energy independence if you could force the oil companies not to buy foreign oil. Obama said Romney would turn energy policy over to oil, gas, and coal companies, which was perhaps too much of an accusation. He will be attacked by the fact-checkers for saying it. What could Obama have said? When Romney blamed Obama for oil prices going up, Obama should have responded that we want energy independence, lower carbon emissions, and reasonable gas prices, but that it's a balancing act to get there. Romney says we can have lower prices and energy independence together, and that's not going to happen. People in America aren't stupid. If we can create jobs at home instead of sending billions to Saudi Arabia, they will be willing to pay some more, but not so much more that we lose more jobs in other sectors than we gain in the energy sector. That should have been the response. On the other hand, Romney didn't really "win" in the sense that his goal of energy independence in five years with little sense it can even be done and with no coercion of the oil companies has to sound like a wild fantasy. Recommendation to Obama: focus on the price Romney's energy independence in five years would send gas to, the harm it would do to employment, and the need to coerce oil companies not to import cheaper oil to satisfy that demand, which Romney would have get from Congress. Romney has no real plan, but Obama still fails to get that message across.<br />
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The third question was about taxes. Here Obama really shined in pointing out that Romney's tax proposals don't add up. Romney repeated his lie that he doesn't want to reduce the proportion of total taxes paid by the rich even though all his proposals (like ending inheritance tax, which Obama consistently fails to mention) have that effect. Obama got a little shrill, but he had to, Romney is selling snake oil. I think that a real undecided voter watching this debate would have found this a compelling point for Obama, but I don't think Romney leaning voters would have been swayed at all.<br />
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Then they talked women's issues, and here Obama had a clear advantage, but it was kind of a negative for Obama that he seemed more comfortable talking about this issue than about taxes and the economy. Romney's improved election prospects in this election since the first debate were largely based on his better standing with women. Instead of answering this question, Romney went back to repeat his lies about taxes and the economy, which was a missed opportunity. He then said he employed equal numbers of women in his Massachusetts cabinet, but that may have sounded like a quota to some of his male supporters. He certainly can't defend his tenure at Bain Capital in similar terms. His attempt to claim he did not want employers to have the right to refuse health plans offering contraception to women was an entirely and startlingly new position. Again, Obama failed to congratulate him for his change of heart, but at least he showed irritation for the lie.<br />
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Next, the candidates were asked to be more specific on jobs plans. Romney said he would crack down on China, and that was the heart of his plan, to call them out on Day 1 as a currency manipulator. What he did not say is how that would work, would he put tariffs on Chinese goods? Would he ban Chinese imports? He won't say these things because he doesn't really intend to do them, and the president should have pointed that out.<br />
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Obama did a great job in defending his record: mentioning he doubled unfair trade complaints and won them all, that he got the Chinese currency to appreciate 11% during his term, that he got several new trade agreements, and that exports had increased significantly (they have almost doubled) under his presidency. He also said Romney was involved with pioneers in outsourcing and would be the last one to get tough on China. It was a good point, but it really should have been reinforced by stating that Romney attacks my record, but he says his business record is irrelevant and that we should only talk about his plans, but I think his record id relevant in evaluating whether or not he will follow his plans. That would have been a nice little extra "oomph," but Obama did get in some good points.<br />
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On immigration Romney suddenly announced he was for the DREAM Act, which the Republicans have fought for years. Obama did an excellent job of handling this issue, but it's not one Romney would have really cared to win. It was clear that the longer the debate went on, the more fluent and tough Obama became.<br />
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Next came a softball Republican oriented question saying that the State Department refused extra security in Libya and that's why we were attacked. Obama got testy and said those were his friends who got killed that they were talking about. He slammed Romney's early criticism, which elicited a denial. Obama actually came off worse from this exchange than necessary by making it a personal insult when he could have also pointed out Republican Congresses cut funding requests for security and that the Bush administration had coddled Qadaffi while pretending to oppose him, when it turned out Qaddafi did have weapons of mass destruction when he was overthrown. That said, Romney did not "win" the question because he had nothing to offer but the usual Republican nonsense about "apologizing for America." Certainly, Obama's base got fired up by this answer when Romney lied and said Obama waited 14 days to call it a terror attack and Obama quoted his words the morning after the attack, when he said it was a terror attack.<br />
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There was a question about gun control. Obama tried to avoid the trap of saying he is against guns, which the right has been trying to put him in, but he wasn't entirely successful. He wasn't going to get any of those votes anyway. Romney's blaming gun violence on single parent families was laughable and insulting. <br />
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On the subject of Outsourcing, Obama slammed Romney personally, but forgot to mention that Romney also offshores his money. Romney probably lost the debate by whining that the president had some personal hate of "who I am" which was not about policy. He did not do a good job of denying his past in this area or explaining how his "getting tough on China" would actually work.<br />
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Both candidates made appeals about education in their closing remarks, with Obama talking about giving everybody a chance, and Romney outrageously promising the U.S. would be #1 in education if only he were elected president.<br />
<br />
Obama came off much better on this debate, but unfortunately, did not entirely slam the door by persuading the average voter who hasn't been following any of these issues (does the average voter have any idea what Romney meant by self-deportation?). Obama did enough to sway some voters, and Romney definitely sounded like a bully and then a grouchy victim, losing some but not all of the style points he picked up in the previous debate. I think Obama is back in the game, but it will still require a massive effort and some intense persuasion to sway the voters between now and November 6. Unfortunately, all that's left is a foreign policy debate.<br />
<br />
I am gratified that the president did not throw away the opportunity of the second debate. I don't find it likely that he put the election out of reach of the Republican propaganda storm that is coming. Indeed, Romney still got a few of his bogus points across without adequate rebuttal. I guess that makes me cautiously pessimistic about the results of the debate, but I think Obama can win and right now has a better than even chance of doing so if a titanic effort is waged these next three weeks.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-30440097427869445902012-10-16T06:48:00.002-07:002012-11-26T16:34:47.264-08:00A Real Libyan Timeline:Cheney, GOP was Qaddafi's Hidden AllyRepublicans in Congress are now in hysteria mode blaming Obama for the attack on the U.S. Benghazi consulate. These were the same Republicans who cut the requested increases for worldwide embassy security. They were the same Republicans who resisted Obama's giving help to the rebels who overthrew Qaddafi. They were successors to the Republicans who claimed Libya's abandonment of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in 2003 as a foreign policy success, believing Qaddafi when they did not believe Saddam Hussein, only to have WMD stockpiles found by the rebels in 2011. It was also revealed a week before the attack that the US had rendered opponents of Qaddafi to Libya for torture by the dictator during the Bush administration. Cheney's Halliburton helped construct Qaddafi's bunker and supplied him with WMD materiel in violation of U.S. law in the 1990s, giving the ex-vice president a profit motive for preferring Libya to Iraq. Bush left Qaddafi off the Axis of Evil even before Qaddafi renounced WMD, despite Qaddafi's support for terrorism, and seeking and using WMD. Republicans don't want you to see the real timeline of Libya, which reveals their extensive collaboration with Qaddafi. It raises the question of who wanted to attack the Libyan consulate Sep. 11. Al Qaeda or Libyans disgusted by US support for Qaddafi...or, possibly, the kind of Libyan elements who supported Qaddafi and were supported by his American ally, Dick Cheney.<br />
<br />
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1968 King Idris of Libya signs nuclear non-proliferation
treaty</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1968 King Idris supports rebels in Chad civil war</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1969 King Idris overthrown by army coup from Benghazi.
Civilian government installed but Qaddafi made head of the army and the real
government</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1969 Qaddafi claims strip of Chad. Army defeated by French.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1970 Qaddafi asks Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai to sell him
nuclear weapons</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1972 Qaddafi buys strip of land in Chad for Libya</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1974 Libya and Pakistan agree to share nuclear secrets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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1975 Qaddafi ratifies the nuclear non-proliferation treaty</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1977<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pakistan
president assassinated. Libyan nuclear techs sent home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1978 Libya asks India to sell it nuclear technologies</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1978 Libya uses proxies to invade Chad, but proxies defeated</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1979: Rebels take power in Chad but cut Qaddafi ties</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1980 Libya obtains uranium from Niger</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1980 Swiss engineer Tinner begins trying to construct
centrifuges for Libya to enrich uranium for bombs</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1981 Soviet Union agrees to build nuclear facility in Libya</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1981 Libya sends 200 students to U.S. to study nuclear
technology</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1981 Libya invades Chad, seeks unification of the two
countries. OAU and France say no. Libya retreats</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1981: US shoots down two Libyan planes </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1982 Libya tries to buy nuclear plant in Belgium</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1982 Libya supports new revolution in Chad. USA supplies
government of Chad.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1982 French troops arrive in Chad</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1983 Libyan students sent home. U.S. bans training Libyan
students in nuclear technology</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1984 Libya contracts to buy uranium conversion plant from
Japan</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1984: French and Libyans withdraw from Chad</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1986 American planes bomb Libyan ships after Libyan planes shoot at them. Libya says it will support terrorism as long as west supports anti-Qaddafi Libyans</div>
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1986: Libyans bomb nightclub in Berlin frequented by U.S. soldiers; U.S. bombs Libya</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1986: Libya invades Chad again</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1986 Soviet nuclear plant construction in Libya suspended</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1987: Libya uses mustard gas in latest Chad
intervention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still defeated.</div>
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1987: Libya crushes internal revolt it says was organized by U.S. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1988: Libyan terrorist undertakes Lockerbie bombing of a civilian jet</div>
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1993: Halliburton, under the direction of Richard Cheney,
sends six neutron generators <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to Libya</div>
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1993: Halliburton helps build Qaddafi’s bunker </div>
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1995: Libya recruits South Africa’s disbanded apartheid era Chemical
Warfare unit</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1997: Libya buys centrifuge components</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2000: Libya succeeds in getting a centrifuge working</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2002: Axis of Evil published. Libya not included despite 1)
support for terrorists; 2) use of WMD; 3) seeking WMD</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2003: US intercepts ship with centrifuge parts for Libya
from Malaysia</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2003: Just before US attack on Iraq, Libya says willing to
dismantle nuclear program</div>
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2003: Dec. 19 Libya announced it is done with WMD programs</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2003: Libya admits responsibility for Lockerbie bombing</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2004: Libya joins chemical weapons treaty</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2004: U.S. arrests Tinner</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2004: Libya ships nuclear materials to US but some not
included. US claims Libyan compliance. Bush and Cheney say Libya's stand down a major victory for Bush foreign policy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2011: Qaddafi overthrown with US, NATO assistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republicans resisted Libyan “quagmire”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2011: Radioactive materials found in warehouse in Libya;
chemical weapons also found despite Republican assertions of Libyan stand down of WMD</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yellow cake uranium:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-20111540.html</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
nerve gasses:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/footage-of-wmd-stockpiles-uncovered-in-libya-defense-ministry-assures-theyre-in-the-safe-hands-of-rebels/">http://www.theblaze.com/stories/footage-of-wmd-stockpiles-uncovered-in-libya-defense-ministry-assures-theyre-in-the-safe-hands-of-rebels/</a></div>
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
2012: Republican Congress cuts funding for embassy security</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2012/10/republicans-cut-funding-for-embassy.html</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2012: Libyans discover USA rendered enemies of Qaddafi to
Libya for torture, acting as an ally of the Libyan dictator despite his enmity
for the US and possession of WMD.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/05/us-torture-and-rendition-gaddafi-s-libya</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2012: Benghazi U.S. consulate attacked; Republicans start “investigation”
of Obama security failure</div>
<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-85015411573803503852012-10-11T20:13:00.003-07:002012-11-26T16:41:24.336-08:00Biden Rides to the RescueThe vice-president had a lot to overcome in this debate. Paul Ryan is smooth, well-informed, a competent liar, and doesn't sound crazy. The crowd at Center College, Kentucky was heavily Republican. The moderator asked biased questions intended to help Ryan, saying "we all agree Medicare and Social Security are going broke," "nobody wants defense cuts" after winding down two wars, and implying that Biden may not be a good Catholic if he is pro-abortion. Given this scenario, Biden did a superlative job. He couldn't counter every lie, most notably Ryan's riff at the end when he misquoted Obama repeatedly trying to make it seem like Obama is as bad a liar as Romney. There were also issues Biden could have handled better. In general, though, he got across the reality of the cold heartless mean core of the Republican party on domestic issues and their failures on foreign policy. His riff on the 47% didn't quite hit home as well as it should have, but the policy discussions on taxes made it clear that Biden was giving the facts and Ryan was obfuscating. Overall, I'd say a big win for the Democrats, The press tried to make it a "tie," with Republican Anderson Cooper, a gay Quisling, trying to smash Biden for "interrupting" Ryan, which he had to do because of the sheer weight of Ryan's lies and because Romney had done that to the president.<br />
<br />
The main problem was the odd discussion of the elephant in the room, Romney's defense buildup. The reason why it's an elephant in the room is that the Republicans probably don't really intend any kind of defense buildup. It is a political calculation, and it runs thusly. The Pentagon since World War II has protected its budget by spreading its facilities across the United States with a view to giving Congress a vested interest in the military budget. Romney and Ryan know as well as anyone that people want stuff from the government. They say Obama's "stimulus" didn't work and "government can't create jobs," but they also say they want to stop defense cuts and build the defense budget to an arbitrary 4% of GDP, making no cuts in the wake of the Iraq withdrawal. (Actually, Romney says this. Ryan assents, but he has voted for defense reductions and would do so again). Their reasoning must be strictly electoral. They believe the Pentagon knows how to win elections by spreading jobs across the land, and if vaguely promising a buildup will get them those votes that the Pentagon has already mapped, they will win too.That's the game. It is strictly an effort to leverage the Pentagon's political expertise. They probably have no intention at all of maintaining or increasing military spending. I don't how the president should respond to this particular theme of Romney's but I suspect pointing out its political aim would be more helpful than just shaking the head in wonderment of why they are doing it. It takes away the "we have a secret plan" kind of argument.<br />
<br />
It's the same for Romney's lies about not giving tax cuts to the rich. Why would he come out in a debate on October 3 and change the positions he's been running on? Calculation. The president is calm and collected and knows his facts. The only way to throw him in the debate is to present new positions, and unless he has been doing nothing but campaigning, an impossibility for the president, he will wonder if his staff has given him accurate briefings on Romney and that hesitation will lose the debate. It worked. That was it. It was a clever idea about how to win a debate. It had nothing to do with moving to the center, still less of changing Romney's mind. It was a tactic with one aim: winning. Winning is not policy, and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have no fixed policies beyond the success of their gang and the failure of Obama, but their cynicism about things like the Pentagon's political expertise do not bode well for the future. <br />
<br />
Ryan's rant at the end about Obama's lies was itself a lie: Obama's plans weren't lies but promises. They couldn't be kept, in general, because of Republican opposition. For example, the deficit would have been cut in half if the Bush tax cuts had been rescinded as Obama wanted in 2008. Taxes have gone down on the middle class during his time in office (and the claim of 21 new "hidden" taxes in Obamacare is a silly, easily tossed off lie, the kind that says Romney made "18 tax cuts" as Massachusetts governor when his main contribution to fiscal policy was raising 750 fees that fell mainly on the poorer end of the public). Unemployment would have gone down if Obama could have gotten a bigger stimulus and adjustments to the tax code to stop outsourcing. The 7% per year medical cost growth curve has stalled. True, insurance costs are too high, but again it was the Republicans who blocked the public option, for the simple reason that Medicare Advantage proved that private companies cannot compete with government on cost because they are not more efficient. They don't have the economies of scale, they have marketing and executive costs and profits to price in, as well as political contributions to their Republican politicians, all of which the government does not have... It shouldn't be any surprise to anyone that Medicare Advantage is 12% more expensive per person than Medicare but offers no more benefits, and that's even with "preventive care." Republicans do not believe in privatization because they want to reduce costs. They just want opportunities to turn tax dollars to private profit. That is their only "rhyme and reason."<br />
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Ryan's efforts at "sounding stupefied" failed. When Biden pointed out that 97% of small businesspeople make less than $250K per year, Ryan said 3% is one million people! Of course it's not. 3% of 2 million small businesspeople is 60,000 people.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-18529396078423380272012-10-10T15:30:00.000-07:002012-11-26T16:41:55.786-08:00Romney on China: Don't Believe himRomney says on the campaign trail that he'll "get tough" with China on "Day One." But apparently, despite being embarrassed about his investments in Russian and Chinese oil companies doing business with Iran in the 2008 campaign, he still has Chinese shares.<br />
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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/romney-china-stock-investments<br />
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Remember when they tell you it's good to have the rich running the US economy: the rich have been investing in China. They expect a better return from Communism than from you. And that all by itself should let you know how they really feel about the role of government in society. They are not for less government. They are for more government and less freedom.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-42083481769989174072012-10-08T16:28:00.001-07:002012-11-26T16:42:35.970-08:00Getting Rid of Exit Polls the latest effort to steal electionsFirst, they reduced the exit polls to one firm. Then they they made that firm "correct" its results to match the reported results. And now they are eliminating exit polling entirely in 19 "sure" states, to save money.<br />
Of course some of those "sure" states have had marked demographic movement against the Republicans in the last four years, such as Texas. Exit polling is how people found that elections had been stolen in the Ukraine some years ago, resulting in an Orange Revolution. Our media masters wish to prevent anything like that happening here, even though exit polls have found faked election results from the very machines we will be using in November.<br />
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http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9613<br />
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Palm Beach elections overturned after computer reported false results<br />
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http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9221<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-73332917942354061572012-10-08T15:02:00.003-07:002013-02-09T20:51:22.893-08:00Time's Mormon puff piece: "Pragmatism" and "Expediency" are the new euphemisms for "Lying"It's funny, but nobody is supposed to talk about the Mormon church, Mitt Romney's biggest commitment in life - unless it is a pro-Mormon, pro-Romney piece like the one published in the October 8 issue of "Time" magazine. It was written by Jon Meacham, a long-time right winger known for his close association with Joe Scarborough<br />
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Meacham is most known for his twisted historical portraiture, trying to attribute to the Founding Fathers a faith that they never had. In 1776, 80% of American families belonged to no church (source: Ahlstrom, "Religious History of the American People"). In 1800, 90% belonged to no church. That is the real "context" of the American separation of church and state. Any description which ignores these facts is just verbiage and selective quotation. Meacham does not, it's true, attribute any born again "Christian Nation" theology to these Founding Fathers, but his effort to occupy a middle ground between Republican propaganda and the emerging historical academic consensus of a secular majority amounts to a farce worthy of Soviet propaganda.<br />
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Meacham misrepresents the Mormons as a peace loving folk, and to "explain" Romney's lying, he uses two euphemisms: "Pragmatism" and "Expediency," which in Mitt's case is because he is to "expect persecution" because of his Mormonism, and so conforms to whatever audience he is with. Thus he's not really lying, just trying to survive by fooling an expected hostile audience. The persecution expectation, if real, is not based on personal experience. Mitt Romney has never lived outside a bubble of Mormon culture. It was a small bubble when he was growing up in Michigan, which has few Mormons, but since his dad was Governor and an auto CEO, it was nevertheless a highly insulated bubble. Mitt had a car and a state police uniform and could pull people over without getting arrested as he bragged to his Stanford friends. Mitt Romney has never been "persecuted" and if he believes he would be persecuted as a Mormon, it is worth remembering that all his life he has sought out Mormon companions and Mormon associates in his social environment and career. This is not someone carrying the Mormon flag into gentile territory but someone hoping the Mormons justify his loyalty by delivering him the presidency. Bain Capital bought the nation's two largest radio networks and largest newspaper chain before Romney started his second run. This is not a brave outreach to the enemy, but a personal strategy to rely on the group for advancement.<br />
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Meacham, an Episcopalian and presumably no relation to Arizona's infamous Mormon governor with that name, is a veritable cheerleader for the Mormon faith in this article, excusing polgamy as "peopling" the desert. In truth, polygamy was reserved for the top hierarchy, and its use confirms the Romney family's exalted status within Mormondom. Mitt's story, that his ancestor married more women because he was told to, reveals the unconscious power of hierarchy in the Mormon world. An average American would never invent a story where the hero lets a church official choose his bed partners. Meacham also repeats the Romney lie that they were driven out of Mexico by revolutionaries, forgetting that many of the colony still remain in Mexico, including Romneys. <br />
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When he isn't misinforming us about Mormon history, Meacham is praising Mormon practice. Meacham gives a two paragraph rant on the wonders of Mormon "charity," neglecting that mutual aid is not generally seen as charity outside of the Mormon church, and only in a later paragraph mentioning the church expects service in return for its aid, nor did Romney's personal "charity," as opposed to the church's, normally touch any underprivileged people, let alone non-Mormons. Meacham has to go to Harry Reid (Mormon approval rating: 20 percent) and the days of FDR to pretend the Mormons are not a right-wing political machine.<br />
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The big lie, the whole point of the article, gets slipped in by little doses, when Meacham speaks of Romney's "devotion to personal liberty," and his "commitments to liberty and individualism...also have Mormon origins." Uh no. The Mormons are highly anti-individualist, as is Romney. This is a church where men and women are confined to different roles, where every day of the week is planned by the Church, including "family home evenings" on Monday. This is a church that organizes periodic mandatory visits with the faithful to prevent their falling away. The Mormons are, in that sense, the heirs to old-time Puritanism, which was a busybody religion, whose more intrusive aspects of group control have largely been abandoned by the Congregationalists, Unitarians, and other lineal descendants. Romney may believe in the power of "innovation" and "derring-do," but it is not the work of an individual entrepreneur but of a System. To vote for Romney is to vote for the Mormon System, not to vote for a liberty loving individualist. When Romney was Massachusetts governor, the "moderate" refused to grant any more liquor licenses, usually a routine administrative matter, and refused to provide correct forms for court-mandated gay marriage. He resurrected a defunct 1913 law to stop gays from other states from marrying in Massachusetts. This is not a man who has ever believed in individual liberty, and you can see it by noting the short leash his children are on. Romney runs their lives, and feels free to insult them on television.<br />
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In the end, Meacham is trying to "center" the Mormons by giving them American traits of patriotism, charity, and individualism, that they have never had. And Meacham is trying to bolster Romney by excusing his lying as the result of Joseph Smith being killed by an anti-mormon mob in 1844, and that won't fly either. <br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-56413482681637885432012-10-05T10:55:00.003-07:002012-11-26T16:51:34.684-08:00Romney Spokeman: Lying is good tacticsIt is rare to see a defense of lying so baldly stated. The problem is that Romney is planning tax cuts for the rich, and he didn't not really abandon those positions in his debate.<br />
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http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2hYrdv/www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/05/romney-surrogate-claims-etch-a-sketch-lying-is-good-campaign-tactics/<br />
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So this is sort of lying about lying about lying.<br />
<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-67685811218300091792012-10-04T22:32:00.000-07:002012-11-26T16:52:18.656-08:00Romney and voter suppressionNothing reveals the corruption at the heart of Mitt Romney than his organized effort to prevent legal voters from casting ballots. People who care about democracy always want people to vote. Mitt Romney's father was an activist against the poll tax and other means by which blacks were disenfranchised in the South.<br />
Mitt Romney embraces all these tactics and more. The Republican party is now engaged in the biggest campaign of vote suppression since the Civil Rights Act was passed in the 1960s. This link on Salon notes the ongoing efforts by Republican officials in every state to prevent people from voting.<br />
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http://www.salon.com/topic/voter_fraud/<br />
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It also shows that the Republican National Committee and several Republican state committees were working with Nathan Sproul, who had been implicated in several attempted voter suppression scandals over the last decade. They only fired him when new scandals have come to light.<br />
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It needs to be said that if the Republicans can steal this election, they will. They have no moral qualms about this. It is an entire political party at war with the United States of America, and no real patriot on the ticket would ever have allowed it.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-51202022004396475482012-10-04T22:19:00.002-07:002012-11-26T16:58:04.733-08:00Obama should have said he was Glad Romney Changed his MindWhat could Obama have done when Mitt announced "I don't want to cut taxes on the rich" and "I'm not going to cut any taxes that would raise the deficit"? Obama should have said "Thank you, Governor, I'm glad you have changed your mind. That you no longer plan to eliminate the inheritance tax, which affects only estates larger than $5 million and creates privileged families who no longer need to work for a living, setting an example of sloth and greed that Americans don't want. Why just today, I was told you said we could lower the tax rates for everyone by eliminating the home mortgage deduction. Every year, millions of middle class families are able to afford their tax bills by claiming their mortgage payments as a deduction. Rich people don't have mortgages on their houses, as you know because you don't hold mortgages on your many homes, so when you cut everybody's taxes while eliminating the deduction, only the middle class would pay more and you would pay less. I am truly thankful you have decided these proposals you have campaigned on for the last year were not good ideas. I look forward to hearing your new proposals in this debate." It should have been shooting fish in a barrel.<br />
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When Mitt Romney said, "You shouldn't raise any taxes in a recession," the president should have said, "Mr. Romney says you shouldn't raise taxes in a recession and I agree. The government economists hired by George W. Bush tell me we haven't been in a recession since May, 2009, so now is the time to start paying for this war of convenience Mr. Bush waged in Iraq."<br />
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When Mitt Romney said, "The debt is out of control," the president should have said, "Debt is one of our biggest problems. Not public debt. Oh sure, it's a problem, but other prosperous countries like Japan have more. What's urgent is our private debt. And how did we get there? By Wall Street playing with derivatives. Mr. Romney doesn't like our financial regulation bills like Dodd-Frank. You know why? Did you know last year there were a dozen or so hedge fund operators who paid themselves a billion dollars? That's a lot of money. It's so much money that to most people it's just a number. The average monthly food stamp benefit for a poor person is $130. You could feed 7.7 million people for a month with a billion dollars. So that means with the money a dozen Wall Street people made in a year, you could feed 7.7 million Americans for a year. It's not right when a dozen people have so much money they are making decisions about what products get made, what businesses get financed, and where the nation goes economically that should be decided by millions. Every year that wealth becomes more concentrated, new business startups fall and patents decline.<br />
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"Where did those hedge fund boys get that money? You don't really hear about them taking risks and going broke. You don't hear about them starting businesses. They got it playing games with derivatives. In the last thirty years, derivatives markets have gone from being a way to smooth commodity prices in the economy, to a giant betting casino.<br />
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"And these folks in Wall Street, they've taken out more than $30 trillion in outstanding derivatives betting on their hunches. That's two years' worth of the goods and services produced by every single person in the United States. They've taken out a debt that the whole country would have to work two years to pay off with no food, no pay, no clothing, no transportation, nothing if they are wrong in their bets. Two years of slavery. Actually much longer: they'd have to keep you alive to work, right? They committed you and your children to work for nothing for years at some point in the future to pay off their bets if they go wrong. And Romney doesn't want that market regulated and its risks contained. His business partner Mr. Edward Conard has said he doesn't think these folks make enough money."<br />
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I'd like to believe Mr. Obama just had a bad night. Apparently, he was in rip-roaring form this morning in Wisconsin. I'd like to think, oh he's still smoking, and he doesn't realize that when you fly you get less oxygen, and Denver was a high altitude.....but he blew his Charlotte convention speech too, and it was low altitude and he had been in town for a few days. How can he perform so well on the stump and so badly when the whole country is watching? Do you really think the first black president of the Harvard Law Review couldn't think of replies as snappy as this? Do you really think it was a "surprise" to him that Romney lied about positions he's been campaigning on for a year? Romney has done nothing but lie for a year. It is not conceivable the president didn't know that he would, and in a most brazen manner.<br />
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It leaves the impression that somebody else is making Obama dance to a script, and whoever that is, does not have the American national interest at heart. I suppose it could be a "deep strategy." If Obama were the clear favorite, maybe emergency funds of $10 or $20 billion would roll into the other side from Bain Capital or its allies. By keeping it close, maybe Obama prevents the big money from taking over and drowning the election in cash. But they have the cash and they can spend it anyway, so it doesn't seem like that strategy would be worthwhile.<br />
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Think about Obama's term. He came out swinging in 2009, and got health care reform passed in 2010 and then....nothing. He didn't campaign in 2010 and the Democrats lost control of Congress. He acted listless until the bin Laden killing. It's true that Citizens United happened, so he might have thought they were thinking, "black man too good, let's change the rules." The Supreme Court is so reactionary, they were probably thinking exactly that. The health care reform must have been more conservative than he wished. He ended up accepting a mandate conservatives wanted that poor people be forced to buy health insurance, which the Republicans didn't even vote for, which means it was done to satisfy one demented corrupt conservative Democrat from Montana. Obama had made fun of it before, "Then let's solve homelessness by mandating that poor people buy a house." But he had a political theory to explain it: liberal presidents find it easier to make conservative changes and vice versa.<br />
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So why is he acting as though somebody burst his bubble, that change is not really possible? Threats of violence against him skyrocketed after health care reform, Gabby Giffords was shot, and the GOP made it their only mission to prevent him accomplishing anything these last two years. It must be exhausting to be so hated by so many people, and for no real reason other than they think they can get away with it. But I still have my doubts. I hope he decides not to take their money and to share with the public what they have really done that we should know about. Certainly he is not money motivated in that he didn't go into a fancy corporate job after law school. But I wouldn't bet on Obama ever sharing what is bothering him with the public. Barack Obama has always been an outsider, and he will probably keep his doubts to himself.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-41598467646966188562012-10-03T20:51:00.001-07:002012-11-26T17:04:52.383-08:00Has Romney offered Obama money to throw the election?You have to wonder after seeing Obama's poor performance in the debate tonight. He did land some blows on Romney, but didn't call him a liar when Romney lied and did not defend himself from several lies that Romney has made over and over. I'm a terrible debater and I would have done better than Obama tonight. The average man in the street would have. Obama never even mentioned Romney's 47% remark, which has been the biggest gaffe of the campaign.<br />
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First of all there is the lie that Obamacare is cutting $716 billion from Medicare. Obama said, it's only cutting reimbursements, not benefits, but that's not enough of a response. It was a great opportunity for a teachable moment. Medicare Advantage is a perfect example of failed conservative social engineering.<br />
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http://www.hapnetwork.org/medicare-advantage/ship-resource-guide/overview.pdf<br />
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Medicare works by the government reimbursing private (and public) care providers on a fee for service basis. In order to control costs, Medicare instituted Diagnostic Related Guidelines to fix the customary charges for various procedures. Doctors howled, but because Medicare and Congress allowed them to increase charges more than inflation, they mostly signed on.<br />
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In 1998 a Republican Congress said this is stupid. We could save tons of money if more efficient private companies were to compete and offer things like preventive care that could reduce expenses for the whole system. Private companies were encouraged to compete by getting a per capita subsidy for enrollees, and it was expected that they would make such efficiencies from preventive care they would make money. Now one may question the likelihood of big preventive savings on seniors, but they blithely pushed ahead. Instead they all lost money, and by 2003 half had left the business and enrollees were down to about 10% of seniors, from 17% when the program started.<br />
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In 2003, the Republicans "fixed" their failed program by upping the subsidy, so now Medicare Advantage costs the government 12% more per person than original Medicare. Enrollment has gone up to 26% of seniors because private insurers are keen to get the new higher subsidies, yet studies show they are not giving better or more benefits to seniors, and numerous marketing abuses by insurance companies constructing these plans have left many seniors without proper care.<br />
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Privatization cost more and delivered less care. Obamacare cut the extra subsidy without cutting benefits. That is to say, if companies stop offering plans because their rates have been cut, then people will still get original Medicare. Congressman Ryan is so on board with this idea that he had "cost savings" in his budget that exactly matched what Obama was going to get by cancelling Medicare Advantage's extra subsidies (which was estimated at $515 billion, but Romney always inflates numbers).<br />
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Romney, however, says Obama is cutting Medicare, which is a lie because 1) Obama is only cutting Medicare Advantage, not Medicare; 2) There is no evidence seniors are benefiting from the extra subsidies provided by the government to private insurance companies under Medicare Advantage; 3) Romney's own VP has made budget proposals which assume the same cuts; and 4) Romney proposes freezing Medicaid payments to the states, which will primarily affect the elderly in nursing homes with reduced benefits. Under Obamacare the elderly will still get Medicare at the same reimbursement rate that has always been offered to most of them and Medicaid; but under Romney's plan many seniors will not.<br />
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The Republicans have been making this claim of Medicare cuts at every rally and at every opportunity. By now Obama should have had an easy snappy answer to it. He doesn't. Most likely, the snappy retorts his people have thought of did not do well in Focus groups. Fine, but the damage from leaving big charges like this apparently unrefuted is much more serious than coming up with an answer some people don't understand. It's Debate 101: Do not let the opponent make unrefuted charges.<br />
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The second obvious failure was on Dodd-Frank. Romney makes an incredible claim that people can't get mortgages because banks won't issue them; and banks won't issue them because Obama's regulators have not been clear about qualifying mortgages. This is a lie. It's true that the "qualifying mortgages" have not been finalized due to industry and government foot dragging. It is not true that any lending going on now is therefore curtailed. Quite the opposite.<br />
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http://www.sourceoftitle.com/article.aspx?uniq=7014<br />
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The purpose of Dodd-Frank was to force banks to evaluate credit risk in the mortgages they write. During the last decade it was clear that banks were writing mortgages to anyone with no thought of the credit worthiness of the buyers because they could sell the mortgages and didn't need to worry about the repayment. So Dodd-Frank's notion was that by making them keep 5% (1 in 20) of the mortgages they write, banks would have an incentive to exercise due professional care in evaluating mortgages. That was unacceptable to industry, which said they wouldn't write any mortgages on that basis, showing in effect that they were no longer in the business of evaluating credit risk. In truth, they were overexposed in real estate and needed to reduce their exposure in that market by cutting lending, but they couldn't admit that to the government which is frantic for them to support the real estate market. So Dodd-Frank said, okay, if buyers are highly qualified (such as putting a 20% downpayment and making monthly payments less than 28% of buyer income), you don't have keep any of the mortgages and you can carry on as before. Industry thinks those credit requirements are too steep. The idea of offering an exception was to keep mortgage markets going, and support markets for the mortgages the banks have already sold. The whole idea of the "qualifying residential mortgage" then, was to keep the banks lending. However, to prevent that from being so profitable it would be the only lending the banks would do, closing fees were to be capped at 3% on those super high quality mortgages, including title insurance and all the rest.<br />
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However, all these provisions can't take effect until the the details of the "qualified" mortgages are nailed down, which means that effectively the reform hasn't happened yet. So the banks are free to do whatever they want, contrary to Romney's claim. The financial people, as well as other real estate professionals, are dragging their feet on the government's proposed qualifying standards so they can keep their fees high and maybe overturn the whole law. Obama is dragging to prevent a temporary dip in the lending that would happen when standards are put in place. So the regulations have not taken effect, and any banks who want to lend in the mortgage industry have a strong incentive to do it right now, making Romney's claim the opposite of what is actually happening. Banks are writing more mortgages than they would without Dodd-Frank.<br />
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The problem here is that the government wants to stop the banks writing bad mortgages, which means fewer mortgages, and to reduce their overall exposure to real estate fluctuations; and at the same time, the government wants to put a floor under the current market, which has lost more value than it did during the Great Depression, so the market can recover more quickly. These goals are incompatible, but the Obama administration in not getting that rule finalized has tended to support the current immediate market rather than cope with the long-term changes required. Romney wants to eliminate any thought of long term structural reform, which leaves the banking system highly vulnerable to any shock affecting real estate. Remember the lie: Romney says Dodd-Frank is too much regulation, and it has hurt the economy by not being implemented. It makes no sense on its face and since his own goal is to repeal the new regulation, is doubly absurd.<br />
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Obama didn't respond effectively to that lie either. That's just two examples. Throughout the debate he seemed to be trying to make peace with Romney instead of pressuring him on his lies. It's obvious that Obama has some kind of Stockholm Syndrome response to Republican opposition, and I can only wonder if they've tried to buy him off as their best chance to win the election. Going into the debate, it was unclear how Obama could contrive to lose the election except by going off script and saying something deranged. Obama did not, but he did surprise everyone. By refusing to fight back when attacked, even though the attacks could not have come as any kind of surprise - granted it started out with Romney outrageously claiming he would not reduce taxes on the rich, which all his plans do - Obama came across as someone who has no fight in him at all. It's as though he thinks his performance sells itself even though he has been in politics long enough to know better.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-87792309043202939312012-10-03T04:15:00.000-07:002012-11-26T17:07:32.834-08:00Romney's plan to "fix" Education: Put more money in his own pocketRomney's tax proposals would leave him paying no tax. But his conservative social engineering projects like education would also leave him with money in his pocket. Take his favorite "school choice" idea. For two hundred years, the government has stopped short of funding private religious schools with tax dollars as an unconstitutional "establishment of religion." Romney wants to overturn that, and thinks he has the conservative Supreme Court which will do it.<br />
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http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2012/05/details_of_romney%27s_school_ch.html<br />
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Conservatives at first settled for charter schools, privately run public schools that use non-union teachers and compete for public funds while promising not to discriminate. Despite overwhelming evidence that charter schools have not improved educational standards, and that fake or badly run charter schools hurt children, the "experiment" rushes on.<br />
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What conservatives always wanted, however, was money for religious schools taken from the public schools<br />
as well as for online schools and tutoring (like Sylvan Learning Center) that can be run cheaply and make them money. This is the second step towards that goal, by allowing poor students to use school vouchers to go to private schools. They won't in general: even with the vouchers, private schools are too expensive for most poor children. The point is to "sell" the dream of sending your kid to a private school without actually having to expand opportunities to the underclass.<br />
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The main goal would be to make money off online schools and tutoring. Romney's new school choice program would do that, withholding federal funds from any school that does not offer online options. What he hasn't talked much about is his own proactive investments in this area, that would profit him personally if he could get this program adopted. Indeed, it is difficult to see how taking money away from public schools and giving it to Sylvan Learning Center will improve the nation's competitiveness.<br />
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He and his family have made a special commitment to for-profit colleges with no reputations, the financial kind. Naturally he will profit if he can divert money to these companies from the taxpayers.<br />
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http://www.republicreport.org/2012/romney-has-some-great-friends-who-are-for-profit-college-owners/<br />
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But he doesn't stop at colleges. Bain Capital, for example, runs Penn Foster online school.<br />
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http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/04/bain-capital-ventures-penn-foster-ceo.html<br />
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How much will Romney profit? The sky's the limit.<br />
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Will any of this actually help children? Probably not.<br />
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He will, of course, report all sorts of fake statistics. There are many around. Texas, for example, which started the charter school movement, reports all kind of progress. Unfortunately, it appears this progress has been made by making the tests easier.<br />
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http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/440<br />
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Test cheating has become a routine news story. In this case, an El Paso school encouraged low-performing students to drop out to improve their tests scores.<br />
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http://lubbockonline.com/texas/2012-10-03/el-paso-school-district-rebuilds-after-fraudulent-testing#<br />
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Other schools take a more traditional approach, tampering with the tests.<br />
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http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Irregular-Test-Scores-Found-at-17-North-Texas-ISDs-144277515.html<br />
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Education reform, Republican style, is just a racket. it is just like business, Republican style. They are creating a caste society with zero social mobility.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113558909890782267.post-66445695224755466522012-09-28T11:37:00.001-07:002012-11-26T17:08:57.999-08:00Romney 1985 video: "Harvest" companies for profitThose who still believe Romney believes he was doing good for companies at Bain Capital should take a look this video where he nakedly explains that his business investments are to harvest profit and value (aka loot) from target companies.<br />
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EsxNYXW5i8<br />
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Romney knew what he was doing, and understood from the very beginning that he was a predator not a manager, a consumer of wealth, abd not a producer of wealth except for his investors. Bain Capital also turned companies over much faster than the 5-8 years he foresees, but he probably couldn't sell a shorter time frame to investors in 1985. Remember that Bain's consulting model was that they only worked for one company in an industry. In order to not hurt that business, they would need to invest in the competitors of their clients, which would give them an ultimate customer for the companies they were flipping, that is to say, their consulting clients. That's why Bain had a "proprietary" edge in identifying targets.<br />
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<br />Hoop de hoophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00782887264233262400noreply@blogger.com0