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July 16, 2012 03:36 PM UTC

Monday Open Thread

  • 121 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.”

–Charles Dickens, from Hunted Down

Comments

121 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread

  1. If you hated the neocons, hate Big Oil, love green energy, you’ll probably love “TThe Shell Game” by Steve Alten.  

    The premise of the story is that the neocons decide to wipe out a few million Americans so that we obviously have to annihilate Iran, blaming it on them.  

    Packed with real life information about the oil bidness, theh Saudi’s, and the FBI/CIA.

    And, unless someone snuck in behind me in the last minute, FIRST TO POST!

    1. Can’t pull anything over those Polsters, even with a two hour advantage.

      I hang my head in shame and will now listen to Rush all day in penance.  

        1. `…so I’m listening to Stephanie Miller, to be followed by Ed Schultz and Thom Hartman.  I usually get to follow Rush when these shows use sound clips from the blowhard.

      1. There is a difference between an obvious typo and a misspelling…..three times.

        “Bidness” is how GW pronounced “Business.”  I’m sure you’d approve.

        Hint: Don’t trust your spell checker.  

  2. On Friday, Willard told us that he would release only two of this federal income tax returns and that this was all that we, the American people, need to know about his finances.  There must be some real problems in these returns.  

    First, Willard is bucking a tradition which goes at least as far back as his father.  It is common knowledge that when running for President, the senior Romney release 12 years of his returns.  What may be less known is that just 4 years ago when Willard was being vetted as a possible vice-presidential running mate of John McCain, Willard produced 23 years of tax returns to the McCain campaign.  Here’s the thing.  After reviewing Willard’s tax returns, McCain picked Sarah Palin.

    Makes one wonder just how bad they were.

    1. ChickenHawk & Palin fanboy Kristol was out in front this Sunday calling for Willard to come clean. If it’s out on the Sunday shows then you know Mitt is also hearing in from within the campaign and the backrooms.  The seasoned GOPers watch this play out and just shake their heads.

      Campaign folks and basic PR teach you that the best, most efficient way to deal with such a distraction is take it head on, divulge the info, and get past it quickly. They are losing on the Bain/Y-tax/retroactive resignation issues — these are dominating the news cycle.   This self-inflicted wound is now weeks old and nothing is staunching the blood — Mitt sucks at triage.

      This is a helluva show as each day brings more revelations as the sharks circle.  Now Mitt is sole clown in the circus and he’s proving to be the biggest fool.      

      1. say the headlines.  Which is good news.  The longer he does the louder and more dominant the story becomes.  maybe it will drag all the way to the convention before he finally either capitulates or crushes all the GOPers dreams as they realize their circumstances.  If people could just see.  Willard really really wants to be president.  Do you really want to make him say ‘please’?  A man of his stature?  He’s done everything else, including changed all his core beliefs (other than the making lots of money one).  Don’t make him beg.  

        1. I can only think of one good reason for Romney to refuse to follow in his father’s footsteps and release all 12 years of returns that are being demanded.

          He must be worried about the possibility that they could be used as evidence of a felony or that they contain other revelations that would do too much political damage.  Only those possibilities would be worse than allowing this thing to fester while refusing to heed demands from his own allies on the right to get this over with by producing the returns.

          Even if he is certain that there is no evidence strong enough that he couldn’t get out of a felony charge pretty easily, just needing to have his lawyers take any action at all, no matter how routine or preliminary, in defending against the mere possibility of a felony charge would be a pretty nasty turn of events in the middle of a presidential campaign. Especially a felony in conjunction with sending American jobs and the profits from trashing those jobs offshore.

          Guess the Borg is still mulling this one over.  No new responses yet from ArapG, elbee or even a new non-sequitur from ‘tad.    

          1. Guess the Borg is still mulling this one over.  No new responses yet from ArapG, elbee or even a new non-sequitur from ‘tad.

            EdRollins tries to hold it back but the dam is near bursting.  Silence from the resident righties tells ya that Mitt’s stance is pretty indefensible.  

            It’ll be fun to go back over the last week or so and pull quotes from our righties so as to see the ever increasing sturm und drang.  GOP now realizing that Mitt is much harder to love than they thought.

    2. Another “Heard it on the news” just now.  The Rmoney campaign has already dismissed it as just a PR statement, why is it to believed?

      Probably cuz Rmoney signed it?  

    3. He has a golden opportunity about how confiscatory corporate taxation and job-killing regulations make the job-creators offshore their money and their production.  With his millionaire-friendly policies his money and jobs could reside in the US.  Given that all the rest of his campaign is similar platitudes, he’d get little pushback on this assertion.

      Keep crying like a baby about Obama’s negative campaigning, Mittens.  That looks strong.

  3. I have a friend who is positive he heard a minion of Romney’s on one of the Sunday Talk shows say that

    Romney “retroactively resigned back to 1999” from Bain in 2002.  I can’t even get the grammar straight.

    Did anyone else hear anything remotely like this?

          1. but Dwyer tell me how you felt about last week.  You have often been critical of the Obama campaign for being pushed around and not meeting the GOP juggernaut head on.  

            Did you like last week ?  Just seriously curious.  

            1. If dwyer is always so critical about how the Dems campaign, she ought to be willing to either give credit for a good job, or explain what the matter is.

              1. They should have brought peace to the Middle East.

                They could have cured cancer.

                It was too soon to win the Olympics….

                but what about those gasoline prices?  Is there $2 gas anywhere?

            2. Three points.  Two positive, one -not so much.

              1) Finally, the democrats are controlling the message and have Romney, et. al. on the defensive and are brilliantly exploiting Romney’s double talk.

              2) On the CBS Morning Show, Obama finally was brutally honest about what he should have done “sooner” including getting the message out to the American public  more effectively.  ( See, sooner or later, they all read ColoradoPols)

              3) The problem…the President in explaining #2 used the term “telling the story.”  “Story” is the new buzz word back East…at least it is appearing on MSNBC and authors talking on C-SPan’s BOOKTV.  The problem is that it is not a buzz word beyond the beltway.  So talk radio is turning that into an elitist comment and what Obama really meant was he was sorry he didn’t “tell stories (read: Lies) to the American people, sooner.

              Obama’s group needs a Frank Lutz or at least they should consult with Carville before trying to reach the “great unwashed.”

              1. It tests really really well.

                Not sure if it tested well for the opposition or the home team, but it tested really well.  Not as well as death panels, but pretty good.

            3. Does he like this at all or isn’t there anything he won’t see as too little too late where Obama is concerned?

              And of course let’s remember how Obama is so lousy on the economy (Dave rarely fails to bring this up in any Obama related comment) except for saving the auto industry, saving the payroll tax cut for workers so they have more money to pump into the economy, getting all those 26 year olds affordable coverage on their parents policies so they can get health care without our paying for it via the ER with its sky high rates, all of this accomplished against the headwind of GOP policy that can’t be changed much with a GOP congress.

              So let’s not get carried away. You know what Pollyannas we lefties all are except for Dave and dwyer.  By the way, what happened to dywer?  

              1. but I didn’t excactly agree as to the magnitude.

                I really don’t know what else David T wants from Obama, given he has the most inept and downright confrontational Congress to deal with in history.  Obama could support a bill that cures cancer (if there were such a thing) and the Orange Man/Cantor/Doogie Howser of Wisconsin would make sure it never passes.

                  1. But if Obama then took his case to the American people, they would force Congress to pass it.

                    He already did. You remember the national televised address when the jobs bill was introduced?

                  2. you remember the beating R’s took from Obama about tuition increases ?  Hell, part of that happened a few months ago right here in Boulder at CU.  

                    First R’s in Congress were proud to be assholes and not pass it, then that progressed into ” oh, we were always going to keep the rates the same”.  He OWNED them on that issue.

                  3. And to think, dwyer calls rest of us, not you, naive and clueless. After that, maybe he can erase the deficit by having us all put on a show in Uncle Elmer’s barn.  

                  4. BlueCat – What I’m asking for won’t work.

                    Fidel – Why am I complaining – Obama did that with student loans and the Congress did cave.

                    Aristotle – Hey Obama tried on jobs – he gave a speech.

                    What would be nice is if the student loan bill was the rule, not the exception.

                    1. “I’m stymied, but I better try to be clever.”

                      It won’t work, Dave. You made criticisms, we showed they weren’t accurate. Answer them on their own merits, or be honorable for once and admit you are wrong.

                    2. The fact that you disagree with me does not mean I’m wrong. I hate to break it to you but you’re not perfect. And oftentimes you don’t even list why you disagree, you just state from on high that someone is wrong and therefore Q.E.D. they are.

                    3. Me disagreeing with you doesn’t necessarily make you wrong.  The facts can be reported by anyone. They are what they are – me believing them or even knowing them doesn’t make them true.  Therefore me citing them is not what makes you or anyone else wrong when they believe something counter to those facts.

                      You, of course are entitled to, and responsible for, your own opinion.

                      You do not get to make up your own facts. When you do so to support your opinion, that opinion is supported by nothing more than your mistaken understanding of the facts. Or your desire.

                      And I desire peace in the middle east and a pony. No a unicorn.  No- a pony, unicorns do not exist.

                    4. I gave them away.  I mean I respect the talent but just because you can do something while skating doesn’t make it entertaining.

                    5. As Fidel pointed out, when Obama put on a full court press taking his case to the American people and doing it repeatedly and well – he won. On student loan interest rates he kicked their ass. And the Republicans started off being their usual obstructionist selves.

                      Aristotle, I think your example is that he made a single speech. Or a couple. But he didn’t put in close to the effort he did on student loans. So no, a minimal effort is not going to succeed. But if he had put in the same level of effort, we could well have some significant additional stimulus going into play now.

                      Does that answer your question?

                    6. But I’m concerned that you’re going to continue to say he did nothing – which is false; and continue NOT to blame the GOP, who are more at fault here.

                      Here’s the thing. Student loans – again – are a relatively simple issue. It’s more black and white, therefore it’s easier to take to the people without a hostile right wing media ready to pick on gray areas, make them appear black and white, and generally obfuscate issues. They do try that with things like student loans, but people understand the fairness of not letting rates suddenly double.

                      Tell you what. I personally find your criticisms irritating because they’re fundamentally unfair. You don’t show me that you understand that 2012 isn’t 1964 isn’t 1933. You don’t show me that you understand the complex differences between those crises and this one. You don’t show me that you understand that today’s GOP is fighting a war of attrition, or that they have powerful media allies fighting for them.

                      Show me that you understand this stuff, and the perspective in which that place’s the president’s performance to date, and you’ll come across as more of a critical thinker and less of a concern troll. (I understand that you’re not truly a concern troll, but your one-dimensional criticisms make you seem one at times.)

                      Or, hell, you don’t even really need to grasp this stuff. Just be balanced in your criticisms. Blame the GOP for their part in this – every time. That will help.

              2. Basically saying I think the Obama campaign is handling this perfectly and that I’m thrilled to see them campaigning like Republicans – brutal take no prisoners maximum advantage campaigning.

    1. Ex-Bain managing dir Ed Conard was on MSNBC yesterday to talk about Mitt’s 3-yr departure.  Conard’s story is that Romney stayed as Bain CEO for 3 yrs (’til 2001) so he’d have more leverage to extract as much money as possible from the company on his exit.

      Conard explained the candidate’s position at the time:

      ‘I created an incredibly valuable firm that’s making all you guys rich. You owe me.’ That’s the negotiation.”

      Conard explained that Romney stayed on as CEO “in part, yes, of course” to drive a harder bargain with the company.

      So Mitt wasn’t just a party guest overstaying his welcome; no Mitt blackmailed his partners and took Bain hostage for more money.  He signed & filed SEC documents ID’ing him as CEO/Director/Owner of various funds for more money!    

      WTF would happen with Mitt as POTUS?  Would we “owe” him if US succeeds?  What would American public “owe” him and wouldn’t that just chafe a lot of GOP ball sacks?  It’s more than just true-believing GOP’ers that are bought hook & line into the lie of a self-made man.  A person that owes success only to their blood, sweat & tears.  How is that reconciled with a Pres Mitt crowing that any & all economic success is his due — that we would “owe” him?  Imagine the flames if folks ever thought Obama would try to take that kind of credit.  Wow, Mitt’s ego far surpasses his intellect.    

  4. What is so bad about running Bain from 1999 through 2002 that Romney wants to run away from it?

    Was it the outsourcing contract?  Explain how that was supposed to raise all boats, or lead to a feedback that would increase American jobs – or, you know, something…

    Was it the companies that went TU during this time because Bain dumped losses in to them in order to make a profit themselves?  Obfuscate with the good old “recovering their initial investment” line or something.

    What am I missing?  Why is Romney so scared of being associated with Bain during this timeframe?

    1. but maybe he had more than a few conflicts of interest during those years when he was doing what everyone publicly knows he was doing with the Olympics, and some of those Bain entities or acquisitions.  I’m sure Willard wouldn’t have used any of his insider knowledge and influence to personally enrich himself while he was doing such admirable public philanthropy.  

    1. I will wager that “Obamacare” gets a lot more popular, starting now.

      If you have to buy your own insurance chances are you will get a check. If your covered by an employer they will get the check. Obama care has already lowered the cost of healthcare.


      Colorado

      Individual Market

         American Republic Ins Company: $441,643

         Mid West Natl Life Ins Co Of TN: $114,314

         Rocky Mountain Hospital and Med Service, Inc: $1,469,782

         World Ins Co: $717,295

         Companion Life Ins Co: $10,588

         The Mega Life & Hlth Ins Co: $305,051

         Wilton Reassurane Co: $14,363

         Total: $3,062,448

      Large Employer Market

         UnitedHealthcare Ins Co: $22,894,529

         Humana Hlth Plan Inc: $842,538

         Total: $23,737,066

      Small Employer Market

         Colorado Choice Hlth Plan: $653,254

         Total: $653,254

      Affordable Care Act premium rebate checks will soon be in the mail. How do you like that Obamacare now?

      http://yourhealthsecurity.org/

        1. GW mailed out 2 tax rebates for most of America (granted he just charged them to the next Pres) and just WTF did they do to help the economy?Polls showed majority of people used those rebates to pay bills — not to buy, not to invest but more to help get themselves out of just a little bit of their overwhelming debt.

          Rigthies are already out there saying ACA was Obama politicking at it’s worse.  GOP arguments are pathetic but that doesn’t keep them from be shouted from the pulpits.  

  5. Just heard on the news that he was on Fox and Friends and tried to turn the national discussion around to Obama’s alleged failures.  

    I’m sure he was really sweating there on the Fox network.

    1. Boy, did I laugh out loud at that one!

      Someday historians are going to look at the Bush Republican period, the blatantly stolen election, the Rove tactics, the illegal and stupid Iraq war, and be astonished that it happened here in America.  

    2. While pursuing the Rove link, I came across this one: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201

      Sununu is trying to make an issue of an American astronaut using the Russian rockets to get to the space station.  Well, it seems that just like the Second Great Republican Depression and the Iraq War, said “outsourcing” was done on the watch of GW.

  6. as has been noted. So, he either has them all on a thumb drive, several discs or several boxes. And, he did that just wanting to be the VP. You know that once you compiled that much of your crap you’re going to keep it compiled. So it would be easy to pass on. If he has it electronically we’re all going to get it sooner or later. Some enterprising 12 y/o will be hacked into his computer, he’ll plug it in and voila

    The Mayor of Aspen, when asked by ABC, if he’d be willing to disclose his put up 5 years really quickly.  

    1. go through all those old campaign files in your garage (you know, the ones you didn’t read) and see if you can dig up Mitts’ tax returns from that really small vettin’ file.

      Fedex them to the Obama campaign. You’re a darn shoo in come 2016.  Done.

      1. you gotta believe she is watching this with a gleeful twinkle behind her wire frames. Oh, to be the great, white huntress riding in to save the wrong-headed GOP and teach ’em all ethics & morals (like they live by up in Wasilla).  She has the whole story already writ out in her lil’ brain and it would be a blockbuster.

  7. The following are 27 things that every American should know about the national debt….

    #1 It took more than 200 years for the U.S. national debt to reach 1 trillion dollars.  In 1986, the U.S. national debt reached 2 trillion dollars.  In 1992, the U.S. national debt reached 4 trillion dollars.  In 2005, the U.S. national debt doubled again and reached 8 trillion dollars.  Now the U.S. national debt is about to cross the 16 trillion dollar mark.  How long can this kind of exponential growth go on?

    #2 If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rises to just 7 percent, the U.S. government will find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

    #3 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

    #4 Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. national debt has increased by an average of more than $64,000 per taxpayer.

    #5 Barack Obama will become the first president to run deficits of more than a trillion dollars during each of his first four years in office.

    #6 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

    #7 The U.S. national debt has increased by more than 1.6 trillion dollars since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  So far, this Congress has added more to the national debt than the first 97 Congresses combined.

    #8 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more new debt than it did from the time that George Washington became president to the time that Bill Clinton became president.

    #9 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

    #10 As Bill Whittle has shown, you could take every single penny that every American earns above $250,000 and it would only fund about 38 percent of the federal budget.

    #11 Today, the government debt to GDP ratio in the United States is well over 100 percent.

    #12 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

    #13 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

    #14 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

    #15 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

    #16 The U.S. national debt is now more than 22 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

    #17 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2015.

    #18 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011.  That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.

    #19 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

    #20 The U.S. government has total assets of 2.7 trillion dollars and has total liabilities of 17.5 trillion dollars.  The liabilities do not even count 4.7 trillion dollars of intragovernmental debt that is currently outstanding.

    #21 U.S. households are now actually receiving more money directly from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

    #22 The U.S. government is wasting your money on some of the stupidest things imaginable.  For example, in 2011 the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

    #23 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for last year would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

    #24 The Federal Reserve purchased approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.

    #25 At this point, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

    #26 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 480,000 years to completely pay off the national debt.

    #27 The official government debt figure does not even account for massive unfunded liabilities that the U.S. government will be hit with in the years ahead.  According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. government is facing a future “fiscal gap” of more than 200 trillion dollars.

    http://theeconomiccollapseblog

    1. Did you know that Ronald Reagan increased the national debt more than every single president did before him?

      Mostly stupid points, many taken out of context.  No mention of how much money we give very profitable giant corporations like Exxon, GE, ADM, the farms, etc.  Much, much more than monkey poop investigations.

      Lots of research is dead end.  But sometimes it leads to other things which leads to other things that we benefit from.  Now, what were they thinking, funding that ARPA net to link computers of a bunch of eggheads?

      You have to factor in inflation when you compare “then’s” and “now’s.”

      Here’s how you take care of the national debt: Progressive taxation.  That’s what FDR did to fund the new social safety nets like Social Security (which was really to get old people out of the workforce), the CCC, etc.  But we can’t let Americans have off shore tax shelters and profits for that to work, and we know how ready Congress is to support that.  

      1. You’re hurt poor Nock’s feelings.

        Now, there’s an unbiased source

        He has the finest links passed around the internet by dopes who don’t spend one second thinking about them, because they can’t comprehend complex issues without having it dumbed down to the fairy tale level.

        (You can also take my last sentence without the final prepositional phrase – it’s just as true without it, maybe more so.)

    2. #1: How long can this go on?  It can continue for a while given our country’s overall fiscal strength and economic power.  However, it shouldn’t continue.  Are you willing to pay back all the taxes you should have been paying under the Clinton tax code which was actually paying down the debt in 2000?  Are you interested in helping to take Defense spending back to year 2000 levels?  And how much do you want to axe government spending with the economy still on the edge?  I’m willing to work on medical cost reforms some more if you’re willing to admit that in 2000 we were paying down the national debt and that it’s not really hard to fix if certain groups would stop demonizing paying for what you buy (i.e. taxes).

      #2: What happens if the interest rate rises on the US debt?  Considering the rest of the world is in the same boat, will this be the fault of our debt, or the fault of the banking industry who seems to be interested in bilking countries out of money and guaranteeing their instability?

      #4 and others: Most of the debt incurred under the Obama administration was under budget plans inherited from his predecessor.  Obama’s proposed budget is closer to being balanced than that of Republicans in the House.  The Progressive Caucus budget is actually balanced before 10 years.

      #13: And the United States has higher per capita earnings, too.

      #19: GDP rising more slowly than government spending is supposed to be normal in a recession economy.  See Krugman’s Nobel-winning thesis.

      1. #19,

        I thought Obama said everything was fine and the r was over?

        Do you have a deadline as to when GDP will outpace debt?

        Or is this the new America?

        BTW Krugman panders thinly veiled socialism and deceptively labels his teachings economics and monetary policy.

        1. Krugman       or      Nock

          Nobel Prize   or      can’t spell Nobel

          NYT           or     theeconomiccollapseblog

          Damn, this is going to be a hard one…

        2. But it’s only an opinion, and doesn’t take away from the actual work he has done in a field you apparently barely understand.

          Obama didn’t declare the recession over; that is done by the NBER based on a reasonably simplistic set of numbers.  Having said that, while the recession is over, the economy hasn’t exactly recovered – unless you’re a wealthy investor or CEO.

          We could change the curve tomorrow by ending the ill-advised tax cuts Bush gave to the wealthy.  Eliminate the special rate paid for capital gains.  Sen. Bernie Sanders proposes a small tax paid on purely speculative investments (futures, derivatives, hedge funds), which would be a similar concept to taxes paid by casinos on gambling earnings.  Lots of ways to bend the deficit curve…

            1. A) The Simpson-Bowles Commission failed to pass a plan back to Congress.

              B) The plan put forward by Simpson and Bowles themselves made artificial cuts to Social Security.  (And the S-B commission wasn’t supposed to look at SSI anyway, since it’s separately funded from the rest of the government.)

              C) The Simpson-Bowles proposal contained tax increases, which were unacceptable to the new cloture-proof Senate Republican minority of Dec. 2010.  And once the 2011 session was sworn in, the Republican House wouldn’t touch it; all revenue measures must originate in the House.

              D) Obama has, in fact, included a number of S-B proposals in his own budget proposals – proposals which have not even received votes in the House.

    3. The debt topped $1 trillion in 1981 – Reagan – Republican.

      The debt topped $4 trillion in 1992 – Bush I – Republican.

      The debt topped $10 trillion in 2008 – Bush II – Republican.

      Are you starting to see a pattern here. Albert loves to complain when a Democrat is in office trying to clean up the mess that the last Republican president made.  

      1. Do not try to make this about party.

        I can spend all day railing on Republicans. Reagan was full of it.  Bush 41 was bad, Bush 43 may have been the antichrist.

        Do you want to go to Nixon or further? Vietnam and closing the gold window?

        Heck the other day I complemented Carter for appointing Volker while I condemned Reagan, Bush and Obama.

        This is exactly what you guys do; you make it all about party, us versus them, gang warfare. Knowing all along nothing will get solved and your creeping socialism will continue.

        This is your main tactic. R versus D. Keep the people fighting over nothing.  Hey look over here, not over there.

        1. It is about party – that is unless you are one of the few who hold that Republicans and Democrats are merely two wings on a single bird.  Then, why vote?

        2. Think of it in the same vein as the simplest explanation often being right, or not assigning to malice that which can be explained by ignorance.

          If you want to pay down the deficit, you won’t get there under Republican leadership.  Clinton ran a surplus, and he was cutting government spending before Republicans ever got in to power in the House.  Move the debate back to the center from the right, and perhaps we can pay down the debt we incurred.

          Along the way Democrats will probably do a lot to infuriate you, but if the debt is your major concern, at least you’ve got a pretty clear choice and history when voting this fall.

          Remember, there are a lot of us here on this site who are former Republicans turned D or U; most of us aren’t uber-government sorts, though we may seem it to you.  (E.g. I think a single payer basic medical insurance program is the only viable solution to our current cost problems – and there are studies that back me up on that.  The other way hasn’t worked.)

  8. Not that anyone noticed I was gone 🙂 was out of the state all last week dealing with some business matters. (Yes, saying that makes me feel special and important… deal with it, it keeps me going when I spend a week in California and all of it’s inside a dimly lit office!)

    Came home to find that my house sitter had not changed the cats’ litterbox (eww) or watered my tomato plants (bummer) but that the rain had caused my Russian Sage to bloom (yay!) and my wildflowers to grow like weeds. Which, technically, I guess they are, just pretty weeds.

    Bummer about Margaret Chapman being asked to resign, she’s fantastic! Hope she is reappointed fast. Jeffco is better off with her in charge of such a sensitive process.

    Amused to see Peak calling for Tracy Kraft-Tharp to disavow a nonexistent “attack” on Ramirez’s daughter. Nobody attacked anybody’s daughter. An attack on a daughter is what John McCain once said about “Why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly” (Google it, I won’t repeat it) not “she’s attractive.” I don’t know one teenage girl who feels attacked by being described as attractive, so I gotta say, the one who owes Ramirez’s daughter an apology is Ramirez–for using her as a political pawn to avoid answering for his own inability to count to five.

    1. Progressive Cowgirl,

      In the past, you have mentioned Laura Ingalls Wilder is a favorite of yours. Her Daughter Rose Wilder Lane is a famous libertarian and vehemently opposed the new deal.

      How do you reconcile their pioneering/libertarian spirit with your heart of socialism?

      1. My dad wouldn’t approve, since he’s also a Libertarian. If a person who felt inspired by him based their political tendencies on me, that person would be aligning themselves in many cases with the exact opposite of their idol’s ideals.

        For another thing, I dispute the use of “socialism” to refer to my own ideology. I approve of aspects of socialism, such as a robust social safety net. However, there’s really no question of implementing socialism as an overarching policy structure in the US. Our infrastructure and government simply aren’t designed for it. Instead, we should borrow the best policies from socialism, as we do from other forms of government. I’d consider myself a civil libertarian (small “l”) and fiscal progressive. I appreciate the policies that recognize the contributions and essential value of all human beings, rather than allocating liberty and justice to those who can afford it, as many big-L Libertarians’ policy suggestions could.

        For a third thing, I find a lot of personal inspiration in Laura Ingalls-Wilder’s autobiographical writings; that doesn’t mean I’d blindly follow her off a cliff if she’d written about how she grew as a person by falling off a cliff. One can draw inspiration and derive value from a source one does not agree with politically. Even if we assume that Laura’s daughter accurately reflects Laura’s views on politics, I can certainly agree with her personal choices without adhering to her political belief system. I also have, from time to time, been inspired by the writings of Rand, Marx, Keynes, Comte, Socrates, Plato, and various others who I certainly do not agree with entirely, or even mostly.

        I think I’ve devoted way too many words to a ridiculous question already, but let me close by suggesting that you ask all of McCain’s followers why they don’t support gay marriage since McCain’s voluptuous and attractive (oh, look, I’m attacking her!) daughter does.

          1. I really want an answer to this question. Do you seriously rate the worth of apolitical art and literature by the politics of the artist or author?

          2. Can be slotted into modern partisan politics on what basis? There wasn’t even a Libertarian party in her lifetime. Everyone who believes in the Constitution is, to some degree, a small-l libertarian. If the Libertarians, capitalized, got to claim everyone who historically championed (in a general sense) libertarian values, we’d all be Libertarians, except maybe Romney.

      2. Albert Nock has the same number of syllables as Donald Duck, as well as a similar cadence.

        Donald Duck–although a fictitious character, like John Galt–is renown for making stupid mistakes, then getting very flustered when things don’t go well.

        How do you reconcile DD’s bumbling frustrated personality with your imagined competence?

             

        1. Donald Duck is Mickey’s nemesis.

          He wears a hat and a jacket – but never pants.

          Pluto – a dog – is MIckey’s pet and wears only a  collar. Never pants.

          Goofy is a dog. He is MIckey’s friend. He wears a shirt and vest, pants shoes and sometimes a hat. He is never pant-less.

          Are you suggesting nock wears pants or not?  Ie, is he like the crazy duck – or more like Goofy.

    1. that you should have made a diary out of it.

      That’s just my opinion. (Or, as Woody Paige used to do when they let him vent on the 10pm news, “That’s MY opinion!!”)

  9. Here’s to the Misfits

    The school I went to in England used to proudly display their famous alumni in black and white photos circling the theatre lobby. From John le Carre, to John Cleese, the list included notable actors, top politicians and accomplished actors. What the school didn’t tell admiring visitors though, is that the vast majority of those famous alumni had been expelled. They were misfits, and the system couldn’t cater to them.

    Most schools (private as well as public) do a really crappy job handling students who are different and/or very very smart. They remain factories trying to crank out identical products.

      1. Romney probably doesn’t want to release his because there would be too many 0% years and it’s really hard to argue that the key to creating jobs is lowering the top .01% and .001% and .0001%’s (etc.) taxes if they already aren’t paying any.

        Besides, what are taxes?  A minor annoyance to the handful of billionaires to whom the Roberts Court has handed the rest of us on a silver platter?

        Harry Reid said it best:

        “If this flood of outside money continues, the day after the election, 17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they’ve just bought the country,” Reid said on the floor. “That’s a sad commentary. About 60 percent or more of these outside groups’ dollars are coming from these 17 people. These donors have something in common with their nominee. Like Mitt Romney, they believe they play by their own set of rules.”

        Reid’s heated rhetoric comes as Senate Republicans are poised to reject a Democratic bill to require outside groups to disclose the names of their contributors. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the bill a distraction intended to “create the impression of mischief, where there is none.”

        Nothing to look at here.  Just the “impression” of mischief, right righties? Obviously oligarchy is just what the founders had in mind. Who knows why they used all that pinko sounding we the people and public welfare talk. Bait and switch to keep the riff raff happy? Wouldn’t they be proud to see control firmly in the hands of the super fat cat few, where it belongs? It’s heartwarming and patriotic all at once, right?

        http://www.politico.com/blogs/

        By the way Dave, you’re sig line is really lame.  

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