Election

Romney and then Ryan will give us a nine member reactionary Supreme Court. I think I know that after 25 or 30 years the baleful effect of Ronald Ragan and Margaret Thatcher dwindled and then we had Clinton and that George W. Bush making conservatism look like sheer crap but Medicare will be trashed maybe even Social Security, retirement will be moved up to 77, or something like that. These are horrible people these Republicans. There suppressing the vote, they obstructed civil rights, Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare and they have the south which is proslavery for God sakes. The majority of Southerners would make intermarriage illegal again. And Republicans want those kinds of states to have rights.

Welfare and automation

Here's the deal on the 47%. It's true. 47% of our people don't like their job and would love to win the lottery and quit. 53% of people are at work that gives them more than the paycheck, it gives them leadership and creativity and the opportunity to be somebody, to make something of themselves. They are comfortable and happy in their workplace to a large degree. This narrow majority and it's a dwindling majority, has the work ethic and has the values, and also has the temperament the stamina and the intellect to do well at work and to move forward and be promoted. To repeat myself they enjoy their work. Those of us who don't enjoy our work want the welfare state. I can understand that. Maybe you can't. It's too bad. For many of us, every day in the workplace is an ordeal. The commute, the short lunch break, co- workers who are indifferent or worse toward us and vice versa, the commute back and coming home to a wife who worked all day. They would quit their jobs if they won the lottery. The American dream is liking your job.

Debate

Uncaring, lazy, disrespectful, unprepared. To go into a debate watched by 60 million people with NO memorized talking points is the height of disrespectful arrogance.

Debate

Uncaring, lazy, disrespectful, unprepared. To go into a debate watched by 60 million people with NO memorized talking points is the height of

DEBATE

Romney denied the seven trillion argument. One of them is lying.  You know, five trillion in lost tax revenue. Need I explain? Right at the start of the debate.  A total factual opposition.  Obama let it slide.   And of course, the  issue that Obamacare was premature ill timed during this recession. That one is an Achilles' heel. But the five trillion, that should have been vetted then and there!  Mr. Romney says Mr. Obama doubled the deficit. That is not true. When Mr. Obama took office in January 2009, the Congressional Budget Office had already projected that the deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30 of that year, would be $1.2 trillion. (It ended up as $1.4 trillion.) For the just-finished fiscal year 2012, which ended last week, the deficit is expected to be $1.1 trillion — just under the level in the year he was inaugurated. Measured as a share of the economy, as economists prefer, the deficit has declined more significantly — from 10.1 percent of the economy’s total output in 2009 to 7.3 percent for 2012. Obama simply hasn’t pressed any points where Romney said things that were demonstrably false. A bit on his tax cut plan, but not much. And there is no explanation. Obama should have called him a liar, Romney called him a liar, compared obama to one of his boys.  Remember that part?  I'm sure he wasn't calling Obama a boy, but it was a rude comparison. Definitely calling us liars. And Obama didn't seem to notice.  He was very sleepy.  I've always worried that Obama is intermittent, unreliable, occasionally tongue tied. I never bought him as any silver tongued wordsmith. Neither of these men meet my expectations. I just vote party. Union.  Against the party of voter suppression, and all their past misdeeds, civil rights, Medicare, national health, social security, and the horrible southern constituency.   But how does it play over the next week? Romney’s been holding back all the details on his plans, basically refusing to talk about him. He’s put a lot on the table here, made a lot of claims which simply don’t add up.  Obama didn't  press the falsehoods or math that doesn’t make sense.  NO HE DIDN'T, AND IT  WAS HORRIBLE TO WATCH.  Does the press do it tomorrow? How well do these claims wear? That’s how we’ll know how each did. Along those lines, here's a highlight from Wonkblog's live fact-check of the debate:  PRE EXISTING CONDITIONS LIE.  Romney said his web site has a “lengthy description” of his health-care plan. In fact, it’s only 369 words. He also said it covers preexisting conditions. It doesn’t. Romney wouldn’t cover preexisting conditions for Americans who fall uninsured for periods of time, which happened to 89 million Americans between 2004 and 2007.  Jackie Calmes also catches Romney bending the truth: AND MEDICARE LIE. ROMNEY WILL GUT IT.  Or not.  Another factual opposition that should have  been settled then and there.  Ambinder's take on why Obama underperformed: Why didn't Obama do better? Here's some speculation: He is not as good at these formats like Romney is. He was too cautious ... even about appearing too flip and arrogant, which might have itself come off as arrogant; he didn't clip his answers; he didn't remember to say what he intended to say; he spent the day dealing with Turkey and Syria; he let his disdain for Romney show. I think all of those contributed to some degree. But fundamentally, when it comes to domestic policy, Obama just doesn't have a very good affirmative argument to make.  Yes he does. Should ask how Romney's vision is any different from bush.   That's a consequence of being a crisis president of a country where, as some are now saying, the old dismal is the new normal. 

Econ

I am not an economist. If I were I would be in one camp or another. A Keynesian or anti Keynesian. Believing FDR solved the depression or didn't. Believing tax and spend is or isn't tax and invest. Questioning trickle down or believing in it. Believing Reagan did a better job with his recession than we did, or that Obama's recession was incomparably worse. Here's what this is all about.  I am not an economist so I don't claim a position. That may sound like some kind of cop out, and it is, but it is a truthful one. I really cannot vouch for Robert reich or Paul Krugman. Or Paul Ryan or Ayn Rand, or Bill Clinton or FDR or Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Chris Christie or Carl Rove. I couldn't argue with any of these people, or my fucking Aunt Tillie for that matter, or my brilliant lying bullying step son Josef for that matter. I couldn't argue arithmetic with that motherfucking bastard.  So I vote union and tax the rich, (they won't feel it). I vote against the party that opposed civil rights, Medicare, national health care and social security. Against the party that opposed stem cell research. And I vote agains the party of our sick South. Drunk Rick Perry, stupid Herman Caine who said, and believes "if you aren't rich or employed its your fault". Chris Christie. And weirdos like Dennis Prager who believes if you're poor its largely because of your values. A patently ignorant absurdity. Who believes that liberals and secularists have no valid ideas. None. What a crock of shit. How could he say such a thing. Or this. : "No one has the self esteem of a liberal. No one". See, that's just fucking NUTS.  The party that spawned a man who could say that half the nation are moochers that he couldn't "convince to take responsibility for themselves". "To CARE for themselves." He said that and he meant it. It is ignorant and hateful.  That's a sick mother fucking plutocrat hater of the common man. That was not a gaffe. It is how he thinks about us. It was completely in context.  And again, I wouldn't bother to risk my self confidence by entering into a "discussion" with any of the geniuses above. On ether side.  At the usual risk of repeating myself, which ought to be an acronym, I cannot vote the only issue, economic philosophy. I cannot take a position, and apparently, neither can anyone. Nobel Prize winners in economics disagree with astonishing clarity. In other words, THEY DON'T KNOW. NOBODY KNOWS!  So I'll vote republican for abortion restraint, and religious freedom. Or democratic, because every time I hear Michael Medved say "democrat party" I cringe. and because we don't have a Rush Limbaugh in our stable. What a terrible and frightening man. Sent from my iPad

Economics

I am not an economist. If I were I would be in one camp or another. A Keynesian or anti Keynesian. Believing FDR solved the depression or didn't. Believing tax and spend is or isn't tax and invest. Questioning trickle down or believing in it. Believing Reagan did a better job with his recession than we did, or that Obama's recession was incomparably worse. Here's what this is all about.  I am not an economist so I don't claim a position. That may sound like some kind of cop out, and it is, but it is a truthful one. I really cannot vouch for Robert reich or Paul Krugman. Or Paul Ryan or Ayn Rand, or Bill Clinton or FDR or Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Chris Christie or Carl Rove. I couldn't argue with any of these people, or my fucking Aunt Tillie for that matter, or my brilliant lying bullying step son Josef for that matter. I couldn't argue arithmetic with that motherfucking bastard.  So I vote union and tax the rich, (they won't feel it). I vote against the party that opposed civil rights, Medicare, national health care and social security. Against the party that opposed stem cell research. And I vote agains the party of our sick South. Drunk Rick Perry, stupid Herman Caine who said, and believes "if you aren't rich or employed its your fault". Chris Christie. And weirdos like Dennis Prager who believes if you're poor its largely because of your values. A patently ignorant absurdity. Who believes that liberals and secularists have no valid ideas. None. What a crock of shit. How could he say such a thing. Or this. : "No one has the self esteem of a liberal. No one". See, that's just fucking NUTS.  The party that spawned a man who could say that half the nation are moochers that he couldn't "convince to take responsibility for themselves". "To CARE for themselves." He said that and he meant it. It is ignorant and hateful.  That's a sick mother fucking plutocrat hater of the common man. That was not a gaffe. It is how he thinks about us. It was completely in context.  And again, I wouldn't bother to risk my self confidence by entering into a "discussion" with any of the geniuses above. On ether side.  At the usual risk of repeating myself, which ought to be an acronym, I cannot vote the only issue, economic philosophy. I cannot take a position, and apparently, neither can anyone. Nobel Prize winners in economics disagree with astonishing clarity. In other words, THEY DON'T KNOW. NOBODY KNOWS!  So I'll vote republican for abortion restraint, and religious freedom. Or democratic, because every time I hear Michael Medved say "democrat party" I cringe. and because we don't have a Rush Limbaugh in our stable. What a terrible and frightening man.