Election 2012

"JOHN HEILEMANN: To me the core difference between 2008 and 2012 is going to be politics of hope which we saw in 2008 versus the politics of fear in 2012. They won't call it that, but so much of this campaign in terms of driving turnout among all of these groups to be about making the Republican alternative totally unacceptable. And they are going to have a billion dollars. You are going to see a negative, an onslaught of negative advertising we’ve never seen anything like. We’ve never seen anything…

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: If the story is hope for Obama, how does he build that by trashing his opponents?

HEILEMANN: No, now it's fear this time. 2012 it's fear of the alternative. And it's $500 million of negative ads run against Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman or Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry?

MATTHEWS: Does the public want to see that, the President of the United States trashing his opponent?

HEILEMANN: The public may not want to see it, but they’re going to get it, and in the past even though they say they don't want to see it, it has worked in the past, just not on this scale.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN: It’s a very old Democratic campaign running against Republican extremists."

Fear of change. Unbelievable. When Democrats win, it's "hope" yet when Republicans win, it's because of "fear" and they are "angry". That's how the left has framed the debate. And that's why it's impossible to have a serious conversation about the economy, stimulus, debts, Healthcare, tax hikes, free trade... Well done. Continue to insult us and to express contempt for our ideas and our philosophy, but at least don't expect us to compromise with you. You started a dirty campaign against us when Reagan, Bush, Gingrich and Bush 43 were in power, now you have it. A divided nation.

I side with Kent Mesplay on most issues in the 2012 Presidential Election.

Candidates you side with...

76% Kent Mesplay
I side with Kent Mesplay on issues of Science and the Economy. More info

75% Barack Obama
I side with Barack Obama on issues of Healthcare, Science, and Domestic policy. More info

68% Gary Johnson
I side with Gary Johnson on issues of Social and Domestic policy. More info

19% Ron Paul
I side with Ron Paul on issues of Domestic policy. More info

16% Mitt Romney
I side with Mitt Romney on issues of Domestic policy. More info

Who you side with by party...
75% Democratic

70% Green

52% Libertarian

16% Republican

In a nutshell...
You are a moderate Democrat. You are socially and fiscally Liberal. Despite your moderate Democratic stances, you may tend to disagree with the party on science and healthcare issues.

The problem stems from the lopsided margins President Obama will surely pile up in a few uncontested states with big populations, including California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Romney, meanwhile, will likely prevail by comparable margins in only relatively small states: Utah, Idaho, the Dakotas, Alabama, and Alaska. The big states that offer Romney his most plausible path to Electoral College victory probably will be won by much smaller margins, leaving Obama with a clear popular-vote advantage.

All credible scenarios for a Romney victory with his “swing state” strategy begin with the presumptive GOP nominee holding all 22 states McCain carried, which are worth six additional electoral votes this time because of reapportionment. From this Republican base, Romney needs to implement a three/two/one trifecta: winning back the three traditionally Republican states (Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia) that Obama carried last time; seizing the two perennial battlegrounds that elected George W. Bush twice (Ohio and Florida); and then winning one more state—even a very small state—(New Hampshire is a likely candidate) to bring him the magic number of 270 electoral votes.

In order to accomplish this feat, Romney needs to add as few as 650,000 votes to McCain’s totals in just six decisive states to get an Electoral College victory with the bare minimum of 270 votes, even though Obama won in 2008 with a near-landslide margin of nearly 9 million votes in the popular total—18 times Al Gore’s popular-vote advantage over Bush.

TheMercenary;813944 wrote:

I side with anyone who is against the Liberal Savior....

Stormieweather;814068 wrote:

Where's the intelligence in that?

I mean, reasonable and intelligent individuals would presumably form a position about who they side with based on actual facts rather than emotional REactions.

Current TV's overall viewership failed to meet Nielsen's minimum reporting standard, which means that the network's average audience was not large enough to be rated, since the new TV season began last September 19.

According to three sources with knowledge of the situation, Time Warner Cable Inc's carriage agreement with Current TV stipulates that, if the left-leaning political news network fails to meet a minimum threshold for overall viewers in a given quarter, financial penalties such as Current TV being required to increase marketing and promotion spending on the cable operator's systems are triggered.

If Current TV misses the audience benchmark in two consecutive quarters, another clause is triggered that would allow Time Warner Cable to drop the channel.

...stating their number one goal is to keep Obama from being elected

classicman;815140 wrote:

Sorry to tell you, but this is the goal of every party which loses the previous election.
This is nothing new. To the victor go the spoils and all that.

Sheldonrs;815164 wrote:

True, but very rarely is it stated out right by a leader of the other party on the first day the President in question is sworn in.

classicman;815171 wrote:

So you at least admire their openness and honesty?

classicman;815140 wrote:

Sorry to tell you, but this is the goal of every party which loses the previous election.
This is nothing new. To the victor go the spoils and all that.

classicman;815140 wrote:

Sorry to tell you, but this is the goal of every party which loses the previous election.

Lamplighter;815174 wrote:

quelle drole

classicman;815171 wrote:

So you at least admire their openness and honesty?

tw;815220 wrote:

Rush Limbaugh, et al openly said in 2008, "We want America to fail."

maineiac04631;815346 wrote:

He said he wanted Obama to fail, meaning he did not want him to be able to implement his agenda Obamacare, bailouts, stimulus, etc.

maineiac04631;815346 wrote:

He said he wanted Obama to fail, meaning he did not want him to be able to implement his agenda Obamacare, bailouts, stimulus, etc.

maineiac04631;815346 wrote:

He said he wanted Obama to fail, meaning

BigV;815364 wrote:

pretty fine hair to be splitting there.

I don't find much of what Rush Limbaugh says of substance to be very defensible, and this statement, even with your clarification, is classic Limbaugh. Provocative, negative, generally unhelpful. You and I are adults, so is he; each of us can think of a dozen ways to say the same thing but in a constructive way. But that's not his style. I don't like his substance and I detest his style.

TheMercenary;815347 wrote:

Yea, I could support that. Obamacare will fail and cost a shit more than they originally told us...., the Bailouts were generally a failure, the "Stimulus" was a huge fucking failure.... So what did we get? Transparency? Fail. Jobs? Fail. Economic prosperity? Fail. Same-old-shit? Yep.

tw;815415 wrote:

... meaning he wanted America to fail.

maineiac04631;815346 wrote:

He said he wanted Obama to fail,

According to the reliable inside-Washington source "Politico," the Koch brothers' network alone will be spending $400 million over the next six months trying to defeat Obama, which is more than Sen. John McCain spent on his entire 2008 presidential campaign.

Big corporations and Wall Street are quietly funneling big bucks into other front groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that will use the money to air anti-Obama ads while keeping secret the identities of these firms. The chamber and other front groups argue if they revealed their names, the firms might face "retaliation" and "reprisals" from their customers. That's another way of saying they might be held accountable.

Looking at the all the anti-Obama super PACs and political fronts like Crossroads GPS, Politico estimates the anti-Obama forces (including the Mitt Romney campaign) will outspend Obama and pro-Obama groups (including organized labor) by 2 to 1.

How can it be that big corporations and billionaires will be spending unlimited amounts on big lies like the one in this ad with no accountability because no one will know where the money is coming from?

xoxoxoBruce;815734 wrote:

More.

They only way they can get away with this is if lazy voters believe the sound bites, and complacent voters stay home. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

xoxoxoBruce;815734 wrote:

They only way they can get away with this is if lazy voters believe the sound bites, and complacent voters stay home.

Brianna;815582 wrote:

Ah but with capitalism when you run out of money you just have
the stupid tax payers eat the cost! Now I see the difference!

tw;815596 wrote:

Please list nations that do not have socialism and are therefore prospering.

glatt;815873 wrote:

we aren't doing ANYTHING to slice them up into smaller businesses that can fail without hurting us?

We broke up Ma Bell. Why can't we break up these horrible banks? Break them up already.

xoxoxoBruce;815734 wrote:

More.

They only way they can get away with this is if lazy voters believe the sound bites, and complacent voters stay home. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

"House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to extend President Bush’s income tax cuts for households making up to $1 million a year would lose nearly half of the revenue that President Obama’s proposal to extend the tax cuts only for households making up to $250,000 would raise, according to new estimates from Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). The higher threshold would raise 44 percent — or $366 billion — less in revenue over the coming decade than the lower threshold. Citizens for Tax Justice has released estimates showing a virtually identical percentage revenue loss."

Ibram;816306 wrote:

I think the bottom one is important because it shows that we really don't like the insane exponential growth of the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

infinite monkey;816302 wrote:

Hell, I'd like to be a unicorn but it ain't going to happen.

infinite monkey;816302 wrote:

What we would 'like' wealth distribution to be is rather silly. I like the contrast between what it 'is' and what we 'think' but what we 'want'?

Hell, I'd like to be a unicorn but it ain't going to happen.

DanaC;816866 wrote:

Waitafuckingminutetheresunshine!

How comes Infi gets to be a unicorn? Why is it the hobo-killer gets to play horny ponies?

<snip>
The eventual compromise, brokered by Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader,
requires companies to pay higher premiums for federal pension insurance.
It would also loosen requirements on how much companies would have to contribute to pension funds,
which would mean companies would take fewer tax deductions on those contributions.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Republicans won a provision that would limit the loan subsidies to six years for students pursuing bachelor’s degrees.[/COLOR]
<snip>
This deal only lasts a year, which will mean another showdown next summer.
As it is, college students are already the victims of two other Republican-imposed cuts from last year.
They must now start paying interest as soon as they graduate,
instead of six months later, despite the rugged job market.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]And, starting Sunday, subsidized loans will not be available to graduate students.[/COLOR]
<snip>

We've given all [that] you people need to know and understand
about our financial situation and about how we live our life,
and so the election will not be decided on that. It will be decided on who
will turn the economy around, and how will jobs come back to America.

Lamplighter;821044 wrote:

Now Griff, Mitt understands that people don't like him, but his wife, Ann, is very likable.
He sends her out to "explain" to us the some of the more difficult aspects the campaign.

On Thursday morning's ABC Good Morning America,
Ann Romney explained her and her husband's refusal to make their
tax returns public for any other years than 2010 and 2011, by saying:

Sheldonrs;821045 wrote:

And nothing endears someone to me quite like when they refer to us as "You people". lol

classicman;821054 wrote:

Wasn't referring to you - "You people" = the press.

We've given all [that] you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and about how we live our life, and so the election will not be decided on that. It will be decided on who will turn the economy around, and how will jobs come back to America.

Lamplighter;821140 wrote:

Doesn't that eliminate everyone in entire State of Texas ?

We left in 1963, and I think we were the last liberals in the state :rolleyes:

Clodfobble;821166 wrote:

Nah, there's still Austin.

She *may* have been intending the grammar of her sentence to refer to the reporter
she was having a conversation with.

classicman;821206 wrote:

snip--

"Out of touch rich guy mantra" which is a cornerstone of the Obama campaign.

The election should be about jobs & the economy, not how wealthy a candidate is or isn't and certainly NOT about their tax returns. YMMV.

The election should be about jobs & the economy, not how wealthy a candidate is or isn't and
certainly NOT about their tax returns. YMMV.

But what is the specific plan that Mitt Romney has that will
create all those jobs this country needs so much faster than Obama?

BigV wrote:

I don't want my government run like a business.

Lamplighter wrote:

But what is the specific plan that Mitt Romney has that will create all those jobs this country needs so much faster than Obama?

classicman;821233 wrote:

I know, but you have to realize that some people disagree with you.

--snip

classicman;821251 wrote:

@ Dana - I'd love to hear it, but even with all the sound on max, I wasn't able to follow it.

BigV;821250 wrote:

Why must those computers have a needless filter for non existent children?

classicman;821255 wrote:

Hmm. So what you are saying is that every program pre-installed on a computer is applicable to every consumer?
Don't want it? Don't turn it on. As for the work computers, I'd bet that it would be cheaper than each company having to install their own, no?

classicman;821255 wrote:

Hmm.

classicman;821255 wrote:

So what you are saying is that every program pre-installed on a computer is applicable to every consumer?

classicman;821255 wrote:

Don't want it? Don't turn it on.

classicman;821255 wrote:

As for the work computers, I'd bet that it would be cheaper than each company having to install their own, no?

Seatbelts come to mind. You can't buy a new car without them. Of course, you don't have to use them, though not using them is usually a violation of the law.

What I don't want is the government deciding what I can access on my computer.

You declined my request for your opinion as to why Romney advocated such a position

Who decides what is pornographic.

Now we want the government deciding it?

It's stoopid anyway.

[QUOTE]Originally Posted by Lamplighter
But what is the specific plan that Mitt Romney has that will create all those jobs this country needs so much faster than Obama?

I've been involved for many years with a family business worth considerably more than what Romney has disclosed in his federal forms, first on the board, then on the committee to sell the company. I got some sense of Romney's financial world when the board sat down with our high-priced investment bankers in the sale process.

At 40, I was the youngest by 20 years on our side of the table, the rest being folks who had given their whole adult lives to patiently building up the company. When the bankers came in, there was one guy my age, the senior banker, and the rest looked like they were barely out of college.

I was instantly struck by a sense that I was back in the locker room before a [big college game]. The smell was the same-- testosterone and a swaggering sense of competitiveness. These were just like guys I'd played with in college, except they couldn't give up or hadn't outgrown having to win at all costs, and they were wearing $1,000 suits, not sports gear. I got the sense that they would have had a hard time letting their kids win at a board game.

Throughout the process, the bankers tried to sell the founders on various tax avoidance strategies, essentially using a complicated process where separate entities were set up, and loans were employed to allow the sellers to defer the large capital gains tax that would be due on the sale. A sort of legal maneuver of having your cake and eating it too, where the family could receive money for their interests, but do so in such a way that for tax purposes they hadn't really sold. And, of course, the bank was more than happy to manage all the money for the family.

The bankers also tried to sell us on letting their bank use what's called "stapled finance", where their bank, in addition to advising the seller, would also provide financing for the buyers. The founder asked how they could be on both sides of the transaction. They said, don't worry, we have a Chinese wall, which will ensure that we can do both.

After a quick consult, we told them we just wanted them to sell the company for us. The proposed financial engineering was too confusing, didn't smell right, and, after all, there was a big gain built up over decades, and taxes were due. In the end, the bank tried to gouge more fees out of us and then they moved on to another deal.

Looking back, it seems plain that Romney would have gone for the tax avoidance scheme. After all, he's a product of the financial world where value is supposedly unlocked by messing around with the process, restructuring or repackaging things in a way that makes the company look better, but also allows connected folks to get a payoff. But the folks who had built the company made a different choice. To be sure, they used trust structures over the years, but there clearly was a limit to how far they would go to avoid taxes. (Of the three branches of the family, two are strong Democrats, one a Republican.)

I don't think that Americans begrudge rich folks, particularly those who start and build companies. But it's harder to warm up to someone who gained wealth by manipulating what the labor of others has built, and getting the lions share of the profit. And doing this over and over. I think this largely explains why the Romney campaign doesn't want to release any more tax returns.

Certainly it's easy for folks on the left to buttonhole any rich folks as being as out of touch, tax scheming, selfish, tax avoiding jerks. But I think that Romney actually represents a particular kind of wealth that's arisen from the success in the world of private equity/high finance.

If someone is planning to run for the Presidency, or any political office,
they are certainly going to start planning their campaign at least two years before the election.

In remarks that may prompt accusations of racial insensitivity, one suggested that Mr Romney was better placed to understand the depth of ties between the two countries than Mr Obama, whose father was from Africa.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special,” the adviser said of Mr Romney, adding: “The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have”.

Mitt Romney's campaign forcefully repudiated a quotation, ascribed to one of his foreign policy advisers and published by a leading British newspaper, suggesting that President Barack Obama does not understand America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage."

Spokesman Ryan Williams angrily denounced the comment on Wednesday as "an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper." And Williams assailed Vice President Joe Biden for using the news report to accuse the Republican standard-bearer of playing politics with foreign policy while on an overseas tour.

"Today, the race for the highest office in our land was diminished to a sad level when the Vice President of the United States used an anonymous and false quote from a foreign newspaper to prop up their flailing campaign," Williams said in a statement emailed to reporters. The spokesman charged that Biden&#8212;who did not cite the specific quotation&#8212;had "advanced a falsehood" and accused him of trying "to divert voters' attention with specious shiny objects."

Ibby;821826 wrote:

The Telegraph is standing by their reporting. Just cause the campaign says nobody told them that doesn't mean nobody told them that.

classicman;822281 wrote:

From what I've read he did rather well in Poland.

WARSAW — Mitt Romney delivered a lyrical speech here in Warsaw on Tuesday afternoon,
lauding Poland as a model for other nations in the throes of economic uncertainty.<snip>

“I believe it is critical to stand by those who have stood by America,” Mr. Romney said.
“[COLOR="DarkRed"]Solidarity was a great movement that freed a nation.
And it is with solidarity that America and Poland face the future.[/COLOR]”
<snip>

DanaC;822304 wrote:

Well, he managed to piss off us Brits :p

Lamplighter;822368 wrote:

Is it me ? Romney in Poland sounds like a union organizer.
Next he will be breaking out in song: "Solidary Forever"

Stephen Colbert, playing with the theory that Mitt Romney's team
will be polishing the Wikipedia entry of his VP choice,
urged viewers to recklessly edit entries of potential picks.
Wikipedia was not amused.
<snip>
On air, Colbert dragged out his laptop and (pretended) to mess up Mr. Pawlenty’s info,
as one can do with the crowd-sourced Wiki database.
He altered “born in St. Paul” to “St. Paul is where born Tim Pawlenty was," for example.
He changed the former Minnesota governor’s genealogy to reflect that
he was the child of Eugene Joseph Pawlenty and “Mrs. Butterworth."<snip>

Colbert’s own edits may have been pretend, but the Wikipedia hierarchy took his threat seriously.
As the Wikipedia talk page on the Pawlenty entry makes clear, administrators
have locked the Pawlenty page to prevent any more Santa’s workshop-level changes.

They’ve locked and armored the pages of Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio,
Marco Rubio, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and
Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus as well.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]And that could end up frustrating the detail-oriented communications folks in Romney’s HQ.[/COLOR]

Lamplighter;822368 wrote:

Is it me ? Romney in Poland sounds like a union organizer.
Next he will be breaking out in song: "Solidary Forever"

NY Times
By ASHLEY PARKER
7/31/12

Romney Lauds Poland as an Economic Model

WARSAW &#8212; Mitt Romney delivered a lyrical speech here in Warsaw on Tuesday afternoon,
lauding Poland as a model for other nations in the throes of economic uncertainty.<snip>

&#8220;I believe it is critical to stand by those who have stood by America,&#8221; Mr. Romney said.
&#8220;[COLOR=DarkRed]Solidarity was a great movement that freed a nation.
And it is with solidarity that America and Poland face the future.[/COLOR]&#8221;
<snip>

Spexxvet;824051 wrote:

Romney/Ryan: Dismantling America

DanaC;824080 wrote:

or is that Ryan/Romney ? :p

Rhianne;824123 wrote:

That girl wouldn't be wearing a Chinese uniform if Romney was President.

Sheldonrs;824323 wrote:

Both Romney and Ryan pressed the fact that Ryan was a man who got things done in Congress. The things he got done in congress in his 13 years? Re-naming a post office and an excise tax on arrows.

Sheldonrs;824323 wrote:

Both Romney and Ryan pressed the fact
that Ryan was a man who got things done in Congress.
The things he got done in congress in his 13 years?
Re-naming a post office and an excise tax on arrows.

SamIam;824338 wrote:

Well, there goes the Robin Hood and his band of merry men vote.

Romney wants to let the &#8212; he said in the first hundred days he&#8217;s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, &#8216;unchain Wall Street.&#8217;
They&#8217;re going to put y&#8217;all back in chains.

wrote:

Romney wrapped up his own bus tour Tuesday, closing the trip with a sweeping indictment of Obama's campaign. "Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago," he said in Chillicothe, Ohio, insisting that Obama had abandoned his 2008 campaign's messages of hope and change.

classicman;824549 wrote:

Joe Biden 8/14/2012


Biden was telling his black audience that a Romney-Ryan administration would put the people to whom he was speaking (“y’all”), i.e., black people, back in chains. What other meaning could his statement possibly carry?

"(Romney) is going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street," Biden said at a campaign event in Danville, Virginia. "He is going to put y'all back in chains."


Biden later clarified the remarks at an event in Wytheville, Virginia suggesting his comments were in reference to House Speaker John Boehner's use of the word 'unshackled' in talking about Ryan's House budget proposal.

"The last time these guys unshackled the economy, to use their term, they put the middle class in shackles. That's how we got where we are," said Biden.

"And I'm told that when I made that comment earlier today in Danville, Virginia, the Romney campaign put out a tweet. You know, tweets these days? Put out a tweet, went on the airwaves saying, 'Biden, he's outrageous in saying that,' I think I said instead of 'unshackled,' 'unchained.' 'Outrageous to say that," said Biden. "That's what we had. I'm using their own words. I got a message for them. If you want to know what's outrageous, it's their policies and the effects of their policies on middle class America. That's what's outrageous."

wrote:

The president's re-election effort, Romney said Wednesday, "is all about division and attack and hatred." Obama, Romney added later while campaigning in Charlotte, is an angry man who "will do or say anything to get elected."

I’d been wondering how long it would take Republicans to realize
that Paul Ryan is their guy. He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in.
He has a winning air of sad cheerfulness. He’s affable, clean cute and really cute,
with the Irish altar-boy widow’s peak and droopy, winsome blue eyes and unashamed sentimentality.

Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?
He’s Scrooge disguised as a Pickwick, an ideologue disguised as a wonk.
Not since Ronald Reagan tried to cut the budget by categorizing ketchup and relish as vegetables
has the G.O.P. managed to find such an attractive vessel to mask harsh policies with a smiling face.<snip>

Rush Limbaugh hails Ryan as “the last Boy Scout,” noting that the tall, slender
42-year-old is a true believer: “We now have somebody on the ticket who’s us.”
For the rest of us, at least, Ryan is not going to raise our hopes only to dash them.
Unlike W., he’s not even going to make a feint at “compassionate conservatism.”
Why bother with some silly scruple or toehold of conscience?<snip>

The secretive, ambiguous Romney was desperate for ideological clarity,
so he outsourced his political identity to Ryan, a numbers guy whose numbers don’t add up.

This just proves that Romney will never get over his anxiety about not being conservative enough.
As president, he’d still feel the need to prove himself with right-wing Supreme Court picks.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Ryan should stop being so lovable.
People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces.[/COLOR]

SamIam;824654 wrote:

Like the bully on the playground, he'd rather shout nasty names at his opponents then actually stand up for what he believes in.

No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations, and flat-out lies.

Just look at the Other Side&#8217;s latest commercial, which take a perfectly reasonable statement by the candidate for My Side completely out of context to make it seem as if he is saying something nefarious. This just shows you how desperate the Other Side is and how willing it is to mislead the American People.

The Other Side also has been hammering away at My Side to release certain documents that have nothing to do with anything, and making all sorts of outrageous accusations about what might be in them. Meanwhile, the Other Side has stonewalled perfectly reasonable requests to release its own documents that would expose some very embarrassing details if anybody ever found out what was in them. This just shows you what a bunch of hypocrites they are.....

Mitt Romney&#8217;s plan to overhaul the tax code would produce cuts for the richest 5 percent of Americans &#8212; and bigger bills for everybody else, according to an independent analysis set for release Wednesday.

The study was conducted by researchers at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, who seem to bend over backward to be fair to the Republican presidential candidate. To cover the cost of his plan &#8212; which would reduce tax rates by 20 percent, repeal the estate tax and eliminate taxes on investment income for middle-class taxpayers &#8212; the researchers assume that Romney would go after breaks for the richest taxpayers first.

They even look at what would happen if Republicans&#8217; dreams for tax reform came true and the proposal generated significant revenue through economic growth.

None of it helped Romney. His rate-cutting plan for individuals would reduce tax collections by about $360 billion in 2015, the study says. To avoid increasing deficits &#8212; as Romney has pledged &#8212; the plan would have to generate an equivalent amount of revenue by slashing tax breaks for mortgage interest, employer-provided health care, education, medical expenses, state and local taxes, and child care &#8212; all breaks that benefit the middle class.

&#8220;It is not mathematically possible to design a revenue-neutral plan that preserves current incentives for savings and investment and that does not result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers,&#8221; the study concludes.

....

The Romney campaign on Wednesday declined to address the specifics of the analysis, dismissing it as a &#8220;liberal study.&#8221; Campaign officials noted that one of the three authors, Adam Looney of Brookings, served as a senior economist on the Obama Council of Economic Advisers. The other two authors are Samuel Brown and William Gale, both of whom are affiliated with Brookings and the Tax Policy Center.

&#8220;President Obama continues to tout liberal studies calling for more tax hikes and more government spending. We&#8217;ve been down that road before &#8211; and it&#8217;s led us to 41 straight months of unemployment above 8 percent,&#8221; said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams. &#8220;It&#8217;s clear that the only plan President Obama has is more of the same. Mitt Romney believes that lower tax rates and less government will jump-start the economy and create jobs.&#8221;

DanaC;825678 wrote:

Funny how he has discovered the importance of creating jobs in America since he started running for President. Maybe If he and his ilk had taken that stance earlier instead of outsourcing as much as they could to low wage earners in developing economies, their country wouldn't be suffering the way that it is.

ABC News
8/22/12
“I’m proud of my pro-life record,” Ryan said.
“And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress.
It’s something I’m proud of.

But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president
and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.”

piercehawkeye45;825690 wrote:

I actually wouldn't blame Romney or Bain for the outsourcing.

Right now we are living an increasing competitive globalized world and many of the jobs that were available 20 years ago are disappearing because of the competitiveness. To put it in wording that favors Bain, Bain capital took failing companies, reworked them, and (sometimes) made them successful again. When they "reworked them", they usually cut higher paying jobs and replaced them with minimum wage jobs or outsourcing. While it is obviously bad for the middle class, I see that "reworking" as more reactionary to the current global economic climate then anything else. If this reworking didn't happen, there is a good chance the companies would fail and the jobs would have been lost anyways.

However, I don't see any of this as reasons why Romney should be president.

henry quirk;825737 wrote:

"Bain is largely reactionary"

I disagree. Bain (and, vehicles like Bain) is (are) the economic version(s) of a maggot colony, eating away at roadkill.

Less the 'reaction' and more a (natural) 'response'.

BigV;825732 wrote:

What do you think it is a reaction to?

Griff;825769 wrote:

I'd say that is essentially true. The Dems shouldn't allow Bain to be passed off as a venture capital company though. They need a less loaded term for vulture like maybe maggot. ;) A venture capital company risks money supporting new start ups rather than stripping the bones of weak companies, that is, creating jobs not eliminating them.

piercehawkeye45;825775 wrote:

Also, I am aware of how they would sometimes basically make money off a dying company but how often would that be? I'm guessing it couldn't happen all the time or else why would anyone allow them to buy them?

Op-Ed Columnist
The Real Romney
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: August 27, 2012 666 Comments

The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee:

Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.

Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (&#8220;I like to fire people&#8221;) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal.

Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, &#8220;Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,&#8221; was widely admired.

The Romneys had a special family tradition. The most cherished member got to spend road trips on the roof of the car. Mitt spent many happy hours up there, applying face lotion to combat windburn.

The teenage years were more turbulent. He was sent to a private school, where he was saddened to find there are people in America who summer where they winter. He developed a lifelong concern for the second homeless, and organized bake sales with proceeds going to the moderately rich.

Some people say he retreated into himself during these years. He had a pet rock, which ran away from home because it was starved of affection. He bought a mood ring, but it remained permanently transparent. His ability to turn wine into water detracted from his popularity at parties.

There was, frankly, a period of wandering. After hearing Lou Reed&#8217;s &#8220;Walk on the Wild Side,&#8221; Romney decided to leave Mormonism and become Amish. He left the Amish faith because of its ban on hair product, and bounced around before settling back in college. There, he majored in music, rendering Mozart&#8217;s entire oeuvre in PowerPoint.

His love affair with Ann Davies, the most impressive part of his life, restored his equilibrium. Always respectful, Mitt and Ann decided to elope with their parents. They went on a trip to Israel, where they tried and failed to introduce the concept of reticence. Romney also went on a mission to France. He spent two years knocking on doors, failing to win a single convert. This was a feat he would replicate during his 2008 presidential bid.

After his mission, he attended Harvard, studying business, law, classics and philosophy, though intellectually his first love was always tax avoidance. After Harvard, he took his jawline to Bain Consulting, a firm with very smart people with excessive personal hygiene. While at Bain, he helped rescue many outstanding companies, like Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, Atari and DeLorean.

Romney was extremely detail oriented in his business life. He once canceled a corporate retreat at which Abba had been hired to play, saying he found the band&#8217;s music &#8220;too angry.&#8221;

Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his wife&#8217;s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five perfect sons &#8212; Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip &#8212; who married identically tanned wives. Some have said that Romney&#8217;s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the stairs.

After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after the G.O.P. He then decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. His campaign slogan, &#8220;Vote Romney: More Impressive Than You&#8217;ll Ever Be,&#8221; was not a hit, but Romney won the race anyway on an environmental platform, promising to make the state safe for steeplechase.

After his governorship, Romney suffered through a midlife crisis, during which he became a social conservative. This prepared the way for his presidential run. He barely won the 2012 Republican primaries after a grueling nine-month campaign, running unopposed. At the convention, where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man, effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker. If elected, he promises to bring all Americans together and make them feel inferior.

Joe Nocera is off today.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 28, 2012, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The Real Romney.

666 Comments

His ability to turn wine into water detracted from his popularity at parties.

So I am impressed, in a bad way, that Ryan thought he could just brazen it through. But it is also impressive that, at least in the short run, parts of the press are responding as they must in an era when politicians don't care. That is, they're not simply quoting "critics" about things Ryan made up. They are outright saying that he is telling lies. For instance:

The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, with the headline, "Ryan misleads on GM plant closing in hometown."

A more omnibus fact-check item also by Kessler, with half a dozen similar exaggerations, distortions, etc.

A very tough item by Jonathan Bernstein, on the WaPo's Plum Line blog, with the headline "Paul Ryan fails -- the truth."

And another on the Post's site by Ezra Klein. Sample: "Quite simply, the Romney campaign isn't adhering to the minimum standards required for a real policy conversation."

And even a WaPo editorial on the misleading nature of the speech.

An excoriation by Jonathan Cohn, in The New Republic, under the headline, "The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?" As Cohn adds: "I'd like to talk... about what Ryan actually said--not because I find Ryan's ideas objectionable, although I do, but because I thought he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth.

"At least five times, Ryan misrepresented the facts. And while none of the statements were new, the context was. It's one thing to hear them on a thirty-second television spot or even in a stump speech before a small crowd. It's something else entirely to hear them in prime time address, as a vice presidential nominee is accepting his party's nomination and speaking to the entire country."

I know that TNR is not "mainstream" in the sense that the NYT, WaPo, AP, etc., are. Still this is a very powerful item. And it leads to:

An AP item headlined, "FACT CHECK: Ryan takes factual shortcuts in speech."

An item from NPR with a mildly "he said, she said" headline ("Fact Checkers Say Some of Ryan's Claims Don't Add Up") but that gets the main points across.

One just now from the NYT, with the headline "In Ryan Critique of Obama, Omissions Help Make the Case." It begins this way: "In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for vice president at the Republican National Convention, Representative Paul D. Ryan criticized President Obama for seeking Medicare cuts that he once sought as well, and for failing to act on a deficit-reduction plan that he too opposed."

Another excoriation by Michael Tomasky, in the Daily Beast, that is headlined "Paul Ryan's Convention Speech and his Web of Lies" and which begins, "It just boggles the mind to imagine how Paul Ryan can stand up there and lash Barack Obama for abandoning Bowles-Simpson when he did exactly that himself."

An item on the Fox News site for which there must be an interesting backstory, in which contributor Sally Kohn says that "Ryan's speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech."

On TPM, a catalogue with the headline "Top 5 Fibs in Paul Ryan's Convention Speech."

Update An excellent item I had somehow missed before, by Jonathan Chait in NY Mag, about "Paul Ryan's Large Lies and One Big Truth." Worth reading in general, and to see what that "truth" is.

Sheldonrs;826026 wrote:

Just some funny video of Paul Ryan being asked about his love of Ayn Rand by a Catholic activist.


http://dangerousminds.net/comments/paul_ryan_refuses_bible_runs_to_his_suv_to_avoid_being_asked_about_ayn_rand

maineiac04631;827369 wrote:

....I have in laws that are conservative catholics, they do exist.

maineiac04631;827369 wrote:

Maybe Paul Ryan should have Mike Huckabee as his spritual advisor instead of being a cathunist. It's all good, I have in laws that are conservative catholics, they do exist.

Griff;827371 wrote:

Church leaders prefer only conservative Catholics exist. Liberal Catholicism is being systematically swept from the Church.

BigV;828412 wrote:

...why aren't the Republicans talking about any of "their" presidents?

infinite monkey;828456 wrote:

:jig: Michelle Obama :jig:

Richard Engles:
At 10:25 p.m. ET Tuesday night -- after news of the attacks in Cairo and Benghazi
but before it was confirmed Stevens had been killed --
the Romney campaign released a statement in which Romney said,
[QUOTE]“I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions
in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn
attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”[/COLOR]<snip>

But NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that the Cairo embassy
[COLOR="DarkRed"]statement was issued six hours before the mob attacked the embassy.[/COLOR]
She pressed Romney foreign policy advisor Ambassador Richard Williamson
to explain why Romney had criticized a statement made before the mob assault.

Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu go way back, and some in Israel
believe the prime minister sees his old friend capturing the White House
as the perfect opportunity to vanquish Iran's nuclear threat.

The depth of their relationship, sown back in the 1970s when they both worked
as corporate advisers at the Boston Consulting Group, has been on
the minds of Israelis lately as the American election season grinds along.

In addition to an entry on their resumes, Romney and Netanyahu appear to share
a similar perspective of the danger Iran poses to the Jewish State.
And given the often-frosty relations between Netanyahu and the Obama administration,
decisive action by Israel could come quickly if Romney wins on Nov. 6.

The head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, paid a visit to Israel's Prime Minister
to urge him not to back strikes against Iran, it was reported last night.
Sir John paid a personal visit to Benjamin Netanyahu to appeal to the leader
to hold fire after he appeared to be impatient over the UK and US's approach
towards Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his nuclear programme.

Yesterday, Mr Netanyahu said the US did not have the "moral right" to stop Israel
from taking action against Iran, where he is concerned by a number of nuclear sites.
"The world tells Israel to wait because there is still time," he said.
"And I ask: Wait for what? Until when?
Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines
before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel."<snip>

Fears over Iran and debate about what to do about the threat it poses has reached a fever pitch.
The most recent meeting of the security cabinet was abandoned midway
after Netanyahu learned that alleged differences of opinion between Israel&#8217;s security services
over the best course of action had been leaked ahead of the top security gathering.
Netanyahu is now reportedly considering submitting all members of the security cabinet
to polygraph tests in order to establish the source of the leak.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]A U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities would derail
the Islamic Republic&#8217;s suspected weapons program for four years at most
while uniting its citizens and alienating the Muslim world,[/COLOR] according to a report.

The report to be released today by the &#8220;Iran Project,&#8221; a bipartisan group
of former national-security officials and foreign-policy specialists, discusses
the military pros and cons of a strike on Iran&#8217;s nuclear facilities and outlines
the less- discussed political fallout of any such attack. <snip>

But how does he define "middle-income"?
[COLOR="DarkRed"]The Republican presidential nominee defined it as income of $200,000 to $250,000 a year.[/COLOR]
Romney commented during an interview broadcast Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The Census Bureau reported this week that the median household income
— the midpoint for the nation — is just over $50,000.

The definition of "middle income" or the "middle class" is politically charged.
Both presidential candidates are fighting to win over working-class voters.
President Barack Obama has defined "middle class" as income up to $250,000 a year.
Obama wants to extend Bush-era tax cuts for those making less than $250,000.
Romney wants to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

"Is $100,000 middle income?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less," Romney responded.

LOS ANGELES &#8212; Mitt Romney was dealt a new distraction when a video surfaced
Monday that shows him dismissing President Obama&#8217;s supporters as &#8220;victims&#8221;
who take no responsibility for their livelihoods and who think they are entitled to government handouts.

In the video, published by Mother Jones magazine, the Republican presidential nominee
tells a private audience of campaign donors that the backers will vote for Obama
&#8220;no matter what&#8221; and that he does not &#8220;worry about those people.&#8221;
<snip>
He added that his job[COLOR="DarkRed"] &#8220;is not to worry about those people.
I&#8217;ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.&#8221;[/COLOR]
<snip>

Lamplighter;830684 wrote:

Buzzfeed
9/15/12
Rick Santorum Says "Smart People Will Never Be On Our Side"

:facepalm:

Happy Monkey;830686 wrote:

Ironically demonstrating a high-water mark of his own intelligence.

Romney wrote:

"I am big believer in getting money where the money is," Romney said in an address to the New Bedford Industrial Foundation on Oct. 16, 2002. "The money is in Washington."

&#8220;I want to go after every grant, every project, every department in Washington to assure that we are taking advantage of economic development opportunities,&#8221; the candidate explained.

...

&#8220;I have learned from my Olympic experience that if you have people who really understand how Washington works and have personal associations there you can get money to help build economic development opportunities,&#8221; Romney said.

...

"We actually received over $410 million from the federal government for the Olympic games," Romney boasted. "That is a huge increase over anything ever done before and we did that by going after every agency of government."

BigV;830768 wrote:

Yes, but he was speaking sarcastically. There are smart conservatives.
I don't consider Santorum one of them, but taking his words out of context
is just as bad as anyone else doing it "I like to fire people" (actually true in Romney's case)
or "you didn't build that" from Obama, not actually what he said.

He said that his job “is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," Romney says in one clip. "There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing."

"At a fundraiser you have people say, 'Governor how are you going to win this?' And so I respond 'Well, the president has his group, I have my group. I want to keep my team strong and motivated and I want to get those people in the middle.' That's something which fund-raising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in," Romney said.

"My dad, as you probably, know was the governor of Michigan and was the head of a car company. But he was born in Mexico ... and, uh, had he been born of, uh, Mexican parents, I'd have a better shot at winning this," Romney said. "But he was unfortunately born to Americans living in Mexico.... I mean I say that jokingly, but it would be helpful to be Latino."

glatt;830798 wrote:

Is he saying that his job in the campaign is not to worry about half the country, or his job as president is not to worry about half the country?

henry quirk;830807 wrote:

Agreed.

'Course, I say the same about Obama.

Two used car salesmen...mediocre of intellect and idea.


*WORK FOR BINDING NONE OF THE ABOVE FOR 2016*

#

Since he's the 'flavor of the day'...

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/09/in-new-campaign-strategy-romney-to-have-mouth-wired-shut-until-november.html

;)

infinite monkey;830818 wrote:

But in what 'context' is Obama black? Because, you know, that means everything. :rolleyes:

infinite monkey;830804 wrote:

It would be helpful to be Latino? Helpful to whom? Helpful in what way?

“This is a guy running for President who says he’s a great businessman and that he knows how to create jobs…He was such a monster there … To me, he’s a demon. How could this guy have any compassion? How could this guy really care about this country? … This new scam, leverage buyouts, it doesn’t produce a product! It takes money and puts it into other people’s hands … If this is a guy who is fundamentally out for himself and not altruistic and want to help other people? How could a guy like that be President? … This was just an industry of moving money around…It reminds me of, like, a bank robbery.”

EDITORIAL

Mr. Romney's Government Handout

Mitt Romney has proposed making the dysfunctional tax loophole system,
which provides benefits only for the very rich, even more unfair.
EDITORIAL

To Combat 'Modern Slavery'

President Obama has begun meaningful new initiatives against human trafficking.

Spexxvet;834400 wrote:

I heard a story from a credible source yesterday, a frame salesman. It's the flip-side of the welfare queen story.

An ophthalmologist in South Jersey makes over a million dollars a year. He owns a rental property, which has 4 units, at $2,000 per month. Three years ago, he refinanced, taking out a significant portion of the equity. Two years ago, he decided to stop paying his mortgage. He's going to pocket $8,000 a month during the foreclosure process, and then he'll walk away, screwing the bank, the taxpayers, the tenants, and who knows who else?

Asshole.

Adak;834952 wrote:

Seriously?

We're supposed to choose our President from advice by a shock jock, who has become famous for saying things unwelcome in polite company?

And who is Mr. DJ beholding to? Let's see -- oh! the FCC, by golly! Who could yank Mr. DJ's license, and his job would be ALL GONE.

But I'm SURE Mr. DJ is COMPLETELY UNBIASED - oh sure! :rolleyes:

He knows about a Mormon, like he knows about the Higgs Bosun particle, and why it gives us mass.

glatt;834956 wrote:

I don't follow Howard Stern much at all, but I know enough that I know he made the jump to satellite radio a few years back. The hoopla at the time made a big point of saying that because it was a subscriber only service, the FCC had no jurisdiction. And oh boy what was Howard Stern going to do once there was nothing to hold him back?

Howard Stern doesn't remotely care about the FCC. Even when he was on the radio, he didn't care.

Adak;834957 wrote:

... the tenants will have no losses...

What Happens to Tenants When a Property is Foreclosed?

Tenants whose rented homes were the subject of a foreclosure almost always lost their leases before federal law, signed in 2009, changed the rules. Under current law, leases survive a foreclosure; the tenants can't be evicted unless the new owner intends to occupy the home -- in which case the lease can be terminated with 90 days' notice. Month-to-month tenants, who were always subject to termination upon proper notice, can now be terminated after a foreclosure with 90 days' notice.

Even if the lease or rental agreement can be terminated with the notice above, the new owner of the property must still follow state eviction procedures in order to remove a tenant from the rental unit. (To learn more about eviction procedures, read How Evictions Work: What Renters Need to Know.)

Adak;834957 wrote:

I'll tell you why he's doing it.

Three years ago, he refinanced, and was given a much higher interest rate than is currently available. Now, he wants to re-negotiate the interest rate (or refi), but the bank wants that higher interest, and won't budge. He can't refi, because now he doesn't have the equity in the property to do it.

So he's stuck, and he's VERY pissed at the bank - which has been given programs to help cases like this, but has chosen NOT to help him.

Yes, the bank will be screwed (but not terribly), the tenants will have no losses, and neither will the taxpayers. Property taxes must be caught up when the property reverts to the bank's ownership, or at least, not too far in arrears. Otherwise the property reverts to the local gov't which collects the property taxes.

Spexxvet wrote:

I heard a story from a credible source yesterday, a frame salesman. It's the flip-side of the welfare queen story.

An ophthalmologist in South Jersey makes over a million dollars a year. He owns a rental property, which has 4 units, at $2,000 per month. Three years ago, he refinanced, taking out a significant portion of the equity. Two years ago, he decided to stop paying his mortgage. He's going to pocket $8,000 a month during the foreclosure process, and then he'll walk away, screwing the bank, the taxpayers, the tenants, and who knows who else?

Asshole.

Adak;834961 wrote:

SNIP

Howard's no dummy, and he knows the dear old President has an enemies list. If you get on it, you WILL have an IRS audit, and any other nuisance the fed's can give you - which is usually plenty.
Just like Joe the Plumber.

SNIP

glatt;834981 wrote:

A complete and total idiot.

If Stern is trying to avoid getting on lists, why would he say anything at all? The election looks pretty close right now. Why would he risk getting on Romney's enemies list?

(I don't think either man has an enemies list, but I'm just throwing your own "logic" back in your face.)

BigV;834976 wrote:

This shows you are a total idiot.

Adak;835344 wrote:

Howard would LOVE to get acknowledged for being on Romney's enemies list
...

But Howard would NOT want to be on Obama's enemies list.

John Sununu, a top adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign,
suggested Thursday that Colin Powell endorsed President Obama because both men are African-American.

Asked Thursday on CNN about Powell’s endorsement, Sununu said
the endorsement might be for reasons other than policy.
“Frankly, when you take a look at Colin Powell, you have to wonder whether
that’s an endorsement based on issues or whether he’s got a slightly different reason
for preferring President Obama,” Sununu said.
Asked what those might be, Sununu pointed to race.

“Well, I think when you have somebody of your own race that you’re proud
of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him,” Sununu said.
<snip>

Sometimes, people reveal what is really on their mind. It can be informative.

BigV;835916 wrote:

I believe he believes what he said. I believe that revealing his true feelings was unintentional, hence "gaffe". He meant what he said, he just didn't mean to say it out loud.

“Best you learn your f***ing place. You don’t run this f***ing government. You’re f***ing plebs.”

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/4553515/.html#ixzz2AUuNKE6Z

This computer fraud resulted in votes being flipped from Democrat to Republican in every federal, senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial election since 2008 (thus far) and in the 2012 primary contests from other Republicans to Mitt Romney.

Vote flipping gave Romney a 57,000-vote victory over Santorum in Wisconsin. Absent vote flipping, Santorum would have won over Romney by about 54,000 according to the analysis. Was Wisconsin the only state where Romney’s share of the vote increased in this way as precinct size increased? No. There were eleven states that showed this amazing anomaly, Romney gaining in votes and margins as precinct size increased.

...

A retired NSA analyst has spent seven years studying computerized voting anomalies. He applied a simple mathematical formula to past election results across Arizona. His results showed across-the-board systemic election fraud on a coordinated and massive scale.

When the analyst applied a mathematical model to actual voting results in the largest voting precincts, he saw that only the large precincts suddenly trended towards Mitt Romney in the Arizona primary – and indeed all Republicans in every election since 2008 – by a factor of 8%-10%. The Republican candidate in every race saw an 8-10%. gain in his totals whilst the Democrat lost 8-10%. This is a swing of up to 20 point, enough to win an election unless a candidate was losing very badly.

In Ohio, GOP consultant Michael Connell claimed that the vote count computer program he had created for the state had a trap door that shifted Democratic votes to the GOP. He was subpoenaed as a witness in a lawsuit against then-Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, and lawyers for the plaintiff asked the Dept. of Justice to provide him with security because there were two threats made against Connell’s life by people associated with Karl Rove. But in Dec. 2008, before the trial began, Connell was killed in a plane crash outside Akron Ohio.

There were problems in Florida, as well.

A study by the Quantitative Methods Research Team at the University of California at Berkeley found that anomalies between Florida counties using touch-screen voting and those using other methods could not be explained statistically. Noting the higher-than-expected votes for Bush in three large Democratic counties, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, Michael Hout, a Berkeley professor who did the study said there were strong suspicions of vote-rigging.
...

“No matter how many factors and variables we took into consideration, the significant correlation in the votes for President Bush and electronic voting cannot be explained,” Hout said. “The study shows that a county’s use of electronic voting resulted in a disproportionate increase in votes for President Bush. There is just a trivial probability of evidence like this appearing in a population where the true difference is zero—less than once in a thousand chances.”

DanaC;835983 wrote:

Like the Chief Whip who recently had to resign after losing his temper with some police officers and shouting:

I made the following claim: that if Virginia and Florida and North Carolina flip back to the GOP from Obama this November, as now looks likely, Romney will have won every state in the Confederacy.

piercehawkeye45;836208 wrote:

It didn't click until I read this but kind of eerie:
<snip>

piercehawkeye45;836208 wrote:

It didn't click until I read this but kind of eerie:



http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/10/the-gops-geography-and-the-confederacy.html


The election is literally split by geographic location besides a select few examples. I don't think this should be looked into too much but it seems the political polarization is turning more and more into a cultural issue (the best explanation I've heard/thought of).

Griff;836235 wrote:

The geography of American culture is interesting stuff. Here is Colin Woodward's map.

Ibby;836248 wrote:

reeeeeally not liking how appropriative it is to talk about "american nations" without meaning, yknow, the actual native american nations that we exterminated...

piercehawkeye45;836250 wrote:

Do you recommend the book? It seems interesting.

piercehawkeye45;836470 wrote:

Iran is missing too.

Stormieweather;836077 wrote:

I'm not a statistician, but this doesn't look right, even if I'm reluctant to accept conspiracy theories.

What do you all think? Is this hogwash or possible? If it is real, I seriously doubt anything will be able to change it...too much money behind this.



Hacking the Vote

Some states—including swing states—are more vulnerable to glitches that could tip the election. But the lack of a paper backup means such errors can go undetected.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation.

...

The report is extensive, but the reasoning behind its conclusion is fairly straightforward. The richest Americans are the least likely to spend extra money they get as a result of a tax cut, and are more likely to save it or invest it offshore. Those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, meanwhile, are the most likely to spend transfer payments they receive from the government.

Ibby;836914 wrote:

All you brainwashed lib'ruls have it wrong, and the evil liberal media conspiracy to skew the polls is thoroughly debunked, gosh. Obviously.

maineiac04631;836946 wrote:

I do not buy that for a second.

Ibby;836948 wrote:

yeah... neither does anybody else saner than Adak and Merc and UG. in other words, anybody sane.

Adak;837039 wrote:

Why I don't like Obama:

I'm tired of:

*high gas and diesel prices - but Obama's restricted oil projects, and oil drilling on Federal lands. Even cut down on oil production in the oil preserve in Alaska - chosen because it has no impact on the animals (there are VERY few).

*his abandoning Ambassador Stevens and others, when they came under attack in Benghazi - despite having real time video from a recon drone, and military assets, nearby.

And having his Administration spokesmen talk about it, like it was a demonstration against a video - when he was told by the Consulate, that it was a militia attacking them, with military weapons (mortars, explosives, etc.), and had real time video of the attack, as well.

*crony gifts to his supporters: A123, Solyndra, etc., and his pursuit of his "enemies" (whistleblowers, Conservatives, etc.)

*lack of recovery from the recession. By his own account, he is a failure.[quote]
No, it is only a "failure" because of how conservative frame it. I can say the Packer's last year's regular season was a failure if the bar was set at 16-0 (which was widely claimed).

The current recovery is not much different than past recoveries besides the fact that this one is MUCH deeper. Plus, there are many other factors that Obama has no control over.

[quote]*lies and etc. He didn't close Gitmo, he didn't secure our borders, he didn't improve immigration, he has the justice department file suit against every single state that has passed Voter ID laws.

*failure to pass even ONE budget, in either part of Congress.

*and of course, the huge run up in the national debt.

*Obamacare should have been a crowing achievement, but it's a complete disaster, since all the largest employers have filed for an exemption from it. What kind of a messed up national health care system is that? Small businesses are exempt, and big businesses just need to file for an exemption! What a load of crap!

*inciting hate between classes, and racism. I thought surely THIS President would be color blind - instead, he's anything BUT color blind.
Meanwhile, he had coddled Wall St. (Especially Goldman Sachs), like nobody else.

That's not much for nearly 4 years worth. I'd give him a grade of D, so far.

Adak;837039 wrote:

*inciting hate between classes, and racism. I thought surely THIS President would be color blind - instead, he's anything BUT color blind.

I'm not exonerating the Democrats because their performance has been less than stellar too.

Adak;837025 wrote:

I hadn't heard of Gary Johnson, but I wish he had run in the GOP primaries, with us. Would have been interesting!

Unfortunately, we have a two party system, so if you want a conservative, and you vote for Johnson, you're handing the election to Obama - because third party candidates never get any kind of a decent number of electoral votes.

The last 3rd party candidate that did well, was Ross Perot - who had a good platform - but his supporters handed the election to the democrat, on a silver platter.

Think twice about voting for a third party candidate, and look at the history of them, and their effect on candidates they are closest to in their platform, who are also in the race.

Don't hand the race to Obama, by voting for Johnson. Get Johnson to run as a Republican, perhaps for a Senate seat? (and President whenever he would like to run for that - but as a Republican, not a Libertarian).

I like the Libertarian platform, but we can't win elections with that party.

Ibby;837084 wrote:

Being colorblind IS being racist. In a massively racist society, to pretend not to see the crushing effects widespread racism has on people of color, IS the racist thing to do.

Definitions Explained Better Than I Ever Could.

This is an exerpt from the article Why There&#8217;s No Such Thing as Reverse Racism. It is a fantastic article and I encourage you to read it in it&#8217;s entirety. For now, I want to highlight the explanation/definition of three specific words.

Prejudice is an irrational feeling of dislike for a person or group of persons, usually based on stereotype. Virtually everyone feels some sort of prejudice, whether it&#8217;s for an ethnic group, or for a religious group, or for a type of person like blondes or fat people or tall people. The important thing is they just don&#8217;t like them &#8212; in short, prejudice is a feeling, a belief. You can be prejudiced, but still be a fair person if you&#8217;re careful not to act on your irrational dislike.

Discrimination takes place the moment a person acts on prejudice. This describes those moments when one individual decides not to give another individual a job because of, say, their race or their religious orientation. Or even because of their looks (there&#8217;s a lot of hiring discrimination against &#8220;unattractive&#8221; women, for example). You can discriminate, individually, against any person or group, if you&#8217;re in a position of power over the person you want to discriminate against. White people can discriminate against black people, and black people can discriminate against white people if, for example, one is the interviewer and the other is the person being interviewed.

Racism, however, describes patterns of discrimination that are institutionalized as &#8220;normal&#8221; throughout an entire culture. It&#8217;s based on an ideological belief that one &#8220;race&#8221; is somehow better than another &#8220;race&#8221;. It&#8217;s not one person discriminating at this point, but a whole population operating in a social structure that actually makes it difficult for a person not to discriminate.

rac·ism
&#8194; &#8194;[rey-siz-uhm] Show IPA

noun
1.
a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

2.
a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.

3.
hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

Ibby;837103 wrote:

also, PH45, i take it from your description there that you think it's possible to be racist against white people. That's not true.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Authorities said Friday they were investigating suspected ballot tampering
by an election worker in one of Oregon's most populous counties.

Clackamas County Clerk Sherry Hall said a criminal violation of election law was uncovered
by her office Wednesday and reported to the secretary of state's Elections Division.
Hall declined to identify the worker or describe the specific nature of theviolation.<snip>

Oregon was the first state to conduct elections exclusively by mail,
and this is the fourth presidential election in which the system has been used.
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Despite initial fears that the method would lead to fraud, allegations have been rare.[/COLOR]

Because it's a criminal matter, the Elections Division referred the case to the state Department of Justice.

"We can confirm we are currently investigating criminal felony violations of Oregon's election laws,
which allegedly took place in Clackamas County and allegedly involved a
temporary county elections employee tampering with cast ballots," said Jeff Manning,
a department spokesman.
<snip>

Officials wouldn't say how extensive they suspect the tampering might have been.
About 95,500 of the county's 228,000 registered voters had returned their ballots as of Thursday.

Clackamas County is home to 10 percent of Oregon's registered voters,
and is almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats,
It's considered a swing county that is pivotal in deciding close statewide races.
Three neck-and-neck legislative races could be decisive in determining
which party controls the state House.

“It throws the entire election result in doubt at this point,”
said Chris Edmonds, campaign manager for Lehan
“We don’t whether this was part of a larger and more coordinated effort in the elections office.”

sexobon;837128 wrote:

In the good ol' USA, the word "racialism" fell out of popularity with "racism" being substituted for it while maintaining its application for describing individuals as racists. The definition you presented seems to drop that application which, as Clod said, would preclude any individual from being called racist; unless, their whole cultural social structure exhibited the same behavior. This reeks of agenda. I don't buy it; but, I can see how it would appeal to a connoisseur of poppycock.

Ibby;837102 wrote:

Psychology Today - Colorblind Ideology is a Form of Racism

Adak;837025 wrote:

Unfortunately, we have a two party system.

maineiac04631;837135 wrote:

Can you cite any constitutional amendment or any legislation to back this up?

maineiac04631;837135 wrote:

Can you cite any constitutional amendment or any legislation to back this up?

The GOP deserves to lose and I hope they learn some hard lessons, that way after 4 more years of Obama and not having to run against an incumbent, that they nominate a better candidate. If the GOP nominates another whack job from a weird religious cult like Rick Santorum, you will get Nancy Pelosi in the White House.

Right now Richard Mourdock is down 11 points in a very red state because of his "pregnancy by rape is god's will" BS.

This is the "social conservative" crap that drives the younger people away from the GOP in droves and it's killing the party.

piercehawkeye45;837133 wrote:

... I think this addresses your point?

Ibby;837131 wrote:

[ATTACH]41507[/ATTACH]

Not particularly bovvered i gotta say.

xoxoxoBruce;837140 wrote:

Of course not, none exists, but I believe he was addressing the reality that the two parties have locked up sufficient control to squash a third party run for anything but a local post.

Adak;837142 wrote:

Oh, you can have more than two political parties, (and we do), but the way our gov't is set up by the Constitution, only two parties are ever likely to dominate any election.

Here are the facts. The majority does not want war, it does not want unnecessary intrusions, and it wants to be humane toward the poor and sick and immigrants and gays. The other side is running out of angry white men to win elections. If this historic election goes to Obama, then the Republicans will never again mount a campaign based on such extremism, because the limited electoral appeal of this repressive ideology will have been exposed.
If even conditions of economic distress (though they’re much exaggerated by the Republicans) can’t secure a national election, then the Tea Party will be dead, extremism will be dead, and the Republicans might start contemplating moderation again, a la Jeb Bush or Jon Huntsman. They will pull back from the brink of extinction.

ZenGum;837426 wrote:

On the other hand ... Christie-Huntsman 2016!

Seriously, Christie is about as good a leader as I can see anywhere in the US. Huntsman seems sane, despite coming from Utah.

piercehawkeye45;837430 wrote:

I would have seriously considered Huntsman over Obama.

DanaC;837446 wrote:

Christie seems a more sensible chap than most of the current crop of republicans. Not just because he endorsed Obama (I thought his reasoning for that was excellent though) but generally he seems pretty sensible. The times I've seen him in interview, that is, 'cause I know very little about him as a politician.

Our drug of choice is Nate. In the morning, Keurig cup, Nate summary, then the charts...then back to the Keurig. At night, Nate's updates, wine, dinner, TV, and check to see if Nate is still working. If so, check charts, read the lead, followed by nightmares or, with any luck, sound deep sleep.
So thanks Nate, we're rounding the last Pole, hope it's one more stop for you with Maher on Friday and then...off you go!

Great Job. Much Appreciated. Will switch to Red Bull while you're gone or otherwise engaged.

My wife and I went to the voting booths this morning before work. There were 4 older ladies running the show and 3 voting booths that are similar to a science fair project in how they fold up. They had an oval VOTE logo on top center and a cartridge slot on the left that the volunteers used to start your ballot.

I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted. I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney. Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode. I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine. Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney's name and started tapping very closely together to find the 'active areas'. From the top of Romney's button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama's name was all active for Romney. From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama. Stein's button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.

I asked the voters on either side of me if they had any problems and they reported they did not. I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it. She him hawed for a bit then calmly said "It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK." and went back to what she was doing. I then recorded this video.

There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I'm not a video guy, but if it's possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.

BigV;837704 wrote:

touch screen voting machine in Pennsylvania "switching" vote from obama to romney. this machine seems to be badly out of calibration. 309 views as of 11:22 am PST.

uploader's comments. he says not a calibration issue, perhaps we just don't have the same understanding of the meaning of calibration.

1550: Reports circulate of voting-machine glitches. Pennsylvania polling officials say one of their machines had to be rebooted after switching a vote from Obama to Romney. There was a similar snag on Monday in Pueblo County, Colorado, this time of machines turning votes for Romney to Obama. But an official told the BBC that was user error and those particular machines were not in use today.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, did not capture a single electoral vote here. Sen. Scott Brown, who electrified Republicans with his upset victory in a January 2010 special election to succeed the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, was cast aside by Massachusetts voters in favor of Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

More Times Breaking News
Two injured in Sandwich crash - 2:51 pm Woods Hole man killed in early a.m. crash - 1:30 pm Predicting presidents, storms and life by computer - 10:30 am Singles Day: China's online shopping holiday - 9:45 am See All Breaking News Stories »Elsewhere in New England, Republicans lost every major election for Congress and governor. The six-state region will not have a single Republican U.S. House member, and only two Republican senators will serve in the next session. Only one of six governor's offices will be filled by a Republican.
~snip~
The rout extended to local races, as well. Republicans fell from eight to five out of 38 seats in the Rhode Island Senate, leading one Republican operative to observe on Twitter, "RI Senate GOP can caucus in a mid-size sedan. How convenient." The same can be said in Massachusetts, where only four of 40 state senators are Republican.
~snip~
Maine still has a Republican governor, tea party-backed Paul LePage, and Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont had Republican governors who left office in January 2011. But the overall trend has been Republicans losing ground, even in New Hampshire and Maine, once strongholds for the party.

In New Hampshire, the "live free or die" state that has long prided itself on low taxes and small government, Republicans lost both the state's U.S. House seats, as well as control of the state House of Representatives, although they retained narrow control in the state Senate. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, won the governor's office.

Maine still has a sitting Republican U.S. senator, Susan Collins. But Democrats on Tuesday won both chambers of the Legislature, and independent former Gov. Angus King won the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by centrist Republican Olympia Snowe.

The only other Republican who represents the region in Washington is Sen. Kelly Ayotte, of New Hampshire. Vermont's senators are a Democrat and an independent, Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist and caucuses with Democrats.

A long-simmering generational battle in the conservative movement is boiling over
after last week's shellacking, with younger operatives and ideologues going public
with calls that Republicans break free from a political-media cocoon
that has become intellectually suffocating and self-defeating.

GOP officials have chalked up their electoral thumping to everything
from the country's changing demographics to an ill-timed hurricane
and failed voter turn-out system, but a cadre of Republicans under 50
believes the party's problem is even more fundamental.
<snip>
[COLOR="DarkRed"]The party is suffering from Pauline Kaelism.

Kael was The New Yorker movie critic who famously said in the wake of Richard M. Nixon's
49-state landslide in 1972 that she knew only one person who voted for Nixon.[/COLOR]

Earlier this week, Webster told a local television station that
&#8220;In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people
who came in and voted on Election Day. Everybody has a right to vote,
but nobody in town knows anyone who&#8217;s black.&#8221;

Lamplighter;837127 wrote:

Remember that post about John Ludlow

Now look at the crap going on in that election...

Times Union.com
STEVEN DUBOIS, Associated Press
November 2, 2012
Ballot tampering reported in Clackamas County
[Skuttle-butt says a female, temporary, employee in the Sec of State's office
was illegally marking ballots for John Ludlow when the original voter had not voted for either candidate.]

Republicans party officials are already denying everything,
and demanding an apology from Ludlow's opponent, Charlette Lehan,
after her campaign chairman made the following statement:

Deanna Swenson, a former Clackamas County elections worker,
was sentenced to 90 days in jail after pleading guilty to official misconduct
and tampering with ballots cast for the November election.

Besides the jail time, Clackamas County Circuit Court Judge Susie L. Norby ordered
Swenson to pay more than $13,000 in fines and perform community service.
After working in several elections, Swenson is now banned from the Clackamas County Elections Office.

“This prosecution sends a strong message:
Voter fraud will not be tolerated in Oregon,” said Secretary of State Kate Brown.
<snip>
Senior Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. McCauley prosecuted the case.
“Department of Justice investigators and prosecutors took this case from the initial tip
through investigation to indictment and guilty plea in less than six months,”
said Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.
“Anyone attempting to subvert Oregon’s elections should know
from this quick and successful prosecution that such conduct is unacceptable.”