Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

Sorry to disappoint you but Nate Silver has done the math that gives President Obama a 69.4 percent chance of winning the Electoral College on Nov. 6. Moreover, I can say that the road to electing the most disingenuous, dishonest, untrustworthy, pathologically lying, flip flopping Mitt Romney to the Presidency is like watching Russia from land while seating on the porch of Sarah Plain's home.

I understand the affinity you people and those of you not so out in the open may have towards a person of the same color. White. For some of you, White is just what you know all your life. To be honest with you, its human nature to physiologically feel comfortable with people of the same race, gender, religion, ethnicity, etc. We all stick with those we feel we understand better except unlike you many normal people give people from all walks of life and background the benefit of the doubt and embrace their difference while seeking to learn from them. But, doing that is being compromised in your book. Totally understood.

The doctrine of hate to other people of color or religion has been passed on to you by your parent and their parents and their parents parents, drilled into you like white on rice. Your privilege has empowered you to be hateful and stay hate filled waving your racist slogan for generations. You never take a step back to try to understand why your party platform is doomed and good people are running as far away from you or warning you that the era of purity is long gone . You feel facing the reality of our changing world is so disturbing you want to rewriting history promoting bigots and racists and chauvinist pricks.

Near the GOP convention (the one where the delegates are at, not the VIP one separated out for big donors) site, Mr. Noun-Verb-and-9-11 said that this upcoming election was between Mr. Cool - i.e. President Obama, and Mr. Competent - also, I assume, President Obama. Well, of course Giuliani wasn't referring to President Obama when he picked Mr. Competent; he was referring to Mitt Romney. So, even though this might be somewhat redundant on this blog, I decided to examine just what type of competency Mr. Romney will bring to the White House, should he get to live there for the next four years.

Of course, when you are talking about competency, you are talking about competency in a given field. I may be a competent health care policy reviewer, but be a rather incompetent fool when talking about immigration policy (not that any of the big blogging heads will admit to this). I may be a competent writer but a completely inept singer. The relevant competency in our discussion is the competency to govern - the competency to be President of the United States, the leader of the free world.

Mr. Romney has been competent in certain things. He was a competent corporate vulture. So competent, in fact, that he delivered millions for his investors, and could call the shots where no one without at least $1 million to invest even needed to bother with his firm. That competency, though, came through a painful set of realities. Not painful for Mr. Romney, mind you. Painful for the laid-off workers in the companies he and his firm loaded up with debt and bankrupted, painful for the federal treasury that had to come and bail out pension guarantees at some of those firms, and painful for entire towns and communities devastated When Bain Came to Town.

Mitt Romney's foreign policy advisor, Condoleeza Rice was the most visible reminder of the Bush Administration at the Republican National Convention.  Here is Ms. Rice answering the 9-11 Commission about the Presidential Daily Briefing that she and President George W. Bush received in August of 2011. The title of the briefing was Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the US.  It contains lines like

Nevertheless FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks including recent surveillance of Federal Buildings in New York.

Nevertheless Ms. Rice told the commission that it was only a historical document, not containing any warnings

The 9/11 Commission for all its faults concluded "The System was Blinking Red". Yet Rice and her boss, the last Republican President of the United States didn't bother to take any steps to protect the people of the United States.

In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute.The borders were not hardened.Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts.The public was not warned. 

Thanks for the memories Condi. And thanks for making it clear that in addition to bringing round two of Bush's attack on the economy, the Republicans want to bring back their asleep at the wheel anti-terrorism effort.

The New York Times is reporting that our beloved Speaker Orange has just pushed through rules changes at the Republican National Convention over the objections of delegates. Not only did he ignore the voice vote against the rule changes (which was louder than the voice vote for) to declare the rules passed, he didn't even acknowledge its existence!

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, called for a vote on the rules on Tuesday afternoon after Mr. Romney’s advisers said they had reached a compromise with activists on Monday night.

When Mr. Boehner called for the “ayes,” the crowd roared in the affirmative. But when he called for the “nays,” an even louder “no” echoed through the convention hall, led by supporters of Mr. Paul.

Mr. Boehner ignored them, pressing ahead by saying the rules would be adopted “without objection,” even as the crowd continued to roar its disapproval. Mr. Boehner announced that the rules were approved and quickly moved on to the adoption of the party’s platform.

To be specific, these are the rule changes that will basically allow the party establishment to prevent any grassroots uprising. How you like them apples, Mr. Tea Party? You didn't actually think the Republican party was interested in anything more than your blind hatred against the president, did you?

There has been a lot of talk lately of the extreme Republican platform of using state power to force women who are rape victims (well, provided it's "legitimate" or "forcible" rape) to carry to term the rapist's child. People have rightly been horrified at the thought of such disregard for a woman's suffering.

But more often than not, this debate has obscured the broader debate over abortion. Let us not accept on face value that abortion is just another issue with political back and forth. Let's not take for granted the idea that only the far extreme of the right is the horrifying prospect in terms of access to abortion. Regardless of one's personal beliefs, using the power of the state to restrict or even ban abortion - in even a normal pregnancy case - should be in and of itself a horrifying concept. I can guarantee you that if something similar existed for men, or if men could become pregnant, the idea that the state ought to be allowed to control this medical decision would not simply be horrifying, it would be unimaginable.

This morning, the media is abuzz about Chris Matthews taking on Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus about the open and brazen racism from the Romney campaign in lying about the President's plan to get states to move 20% more people from welfare to work and Romney's latest birther... umm... "joke". Here's the exchange. Watch Priebus' face. It's priceless.



But what Chris Matthews said to Priebus in his face is only the tip of the iceberg. Mitt Romney's birther comment, his unchecked lying about the president's welfare-to-work flexibility are all part of a Republican strategy for their only possible path to the White House. Mitt Romney's only possible ticket to the White House comes from a blatant, brazen racist campaign strategy, combined with racist laws to block the votes of the poor, elderly, students and minorities pursued by governors and legislatures of his party.

I'm not going to lie and put a happy face on it: I look forward to this week's Republican National Convention with trepidation and disgust. Trepidation not because I think that Romney and his cohorts will come roaring out of Tampa to victory in November. No. My trepidation comes from the ugly, vitriolic, and hateful manner in which the GOP will conduct the campaign to a loss in the fall. We will win, but make no mistake: it will be a bloody victory.

Seven birthers will have prime speaking spots at the convention. Romney himself now finds it acceptable to make birther jokes. ("No one has ever asked ME for my birth certificate.") The GOP knows it can't beat President Obama in a fair fight, so it has reignited the culture wars, with the racism not even veiled. As TPM notes:

Having failed to make any headway with non-white voters, the Romney campaign is doubling down on ads “designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor.”

Just how far will they go?

President Obama did not take $700 billion from Medicare, he reduced future  Medicare costs by $700 billion- costs that would have come from higher taxes or more debt. Medicare is a welfare system where current taxpayers fund the health care expenses of retired people. Each generation funds the health care of those who came before them - that's how the system works. There is a Medicare trust fund, but it never has contained more than a couple of years of costs. We pay into the system because it is the right thing to do, but there are apparently a large number of selfish and ignorant older Americans out there now who believe that they have funded their own Medicare costs and want to break the chain - break the commitment to have the next generation get the same benefits. What the President's health reform bill did, what Obamacare did, was to reduce medicare subsidy to insurance companies that Paul Ryan and other Republicans added to Medicare on the public's credit card.  Obamacare also increased the ability of the government to stop Medicare fraud. One of the provisions of Obamacare that the Republicans want to repeal allows the government to stop payments to Medicare/Medicaid providers who are being prosecuted for fraud.  How about that - GOP administration of  Medicare  did not permit the government to suspend payments when fraud was suspected!  In any case,  Seniors who are tempted to voted Republican need to know two simple facts:

1. Your Medicare taxes you paid while working have paid for healthcare for your parents. That money was spent. There is no magical trust fund that can pay your medical expenses filled with money you put in. You are depending 100% on the willingness of your children's generation to keep paying taxes to fund your health care.
2. Once the Republicans have broken the chain, so that the current generation of taxpayers is not going to get any benefit from Medicare when they get older, the Republicans will do what they have always wanted to do and destroy the program. Bet on it. 

And just for the record,  although Social Security does have a trust fund from which benefits are drawn it's also welfare- no private company can provide the assurance that the Federal government does or could it require employers to pay taxes into the retirement fund.

Welfare is not bad - it's how we meet our moral obligations to people who need help or people we owe something to - like veterans or the last generation of workers. Medicare allows us to live in a society where old people are not treated like trash. But selfishness is bad - at least for those of us who believe the Bible or some other bleeding heart liberal doctrine and who do not follow Ayn Rand. And selfishness is self-destructive: the deluded "conservative" Medicare recipients who think only of themselves may discover the consequences of their hard heartedness when the next generation turns them out onto the street.

There's a mention of drones way down in  Ta-Nehisi Coates'  fascinating article "Fear of a Black President".  Despite the other strengths of Coates' writing and analysis, this passage exhibits the crippling effect of the "progressive consensus"

The political consequences of race extend beyond the domestic. I am, like many liberals, horrified by Obama’s embrace of a secretive drone policy, and particularly the killing of American citizens without any restraints. A president aware of black America’s tenuous hold on citizenship, of how the government has at times secretly conspired against its advancement—a black president with a broad sense of the world—should know better. Except a black president with Obama’s past is the perfect target for right-wing attacks depicting him as weak on terrorism. The president’s inability to speak candidly on race cannot be bracketed off from his inability to speak candidly on every­thing.

Barack Obama came into office promising to wage war on Al Qaeda. He has done so with great success. To argue, as Coates does, that President Obama's drone war on AQAP results from a craven "submission" to right wing fear mongering is to attack President Obama's character because he is doing what he said he would do, not what Dennis Kucinich promised to do. The progressive fantasy that the President somehow should be following their policies and not his policies is a damaging fantasy. Coates even alludes to the progressive complaint that their criticism of the President meets with hostile response from many Democrats but he does not understand what draws the hostility. Progressives don't seem to be able to make policy criticisms without insisting that the President is, as the Republicans claim, a weak vacillating character whose statements about his own intentions can be ignored. Such arguments don't make much sense, but they do have the effect of amplifying the fundamental GOP marketing message that Democrats are weak and untrustworthy.  Enough of this stupidity. We have a strong Democrat in office - give him his due.

 

Washington, D.C., March 21, 2010

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defined the stakes of the 2012 election this way:
"Everything is at stake. Civilization as we know it today," she said, catching herself with a laugh. "That's all. So, no pressure."

Crossposted with modification from ThisIsOurTime Blog

That's the million dollar question about Mitt Romney. Why isn't he releasing his tax records? Is it that he may have not paid enough on his taxes or is he a tax defier? Is he trying to avoid a three years maximum jail sentence for tax evasion? Is he trying to protect people he had partnered with who may have bad skeleton, namely money laundering criminals or families tied to death Squads whom Romney has helped in his off-shore tax heaven operations? Would releasing his tax returns reveal blood money Romney has been a part of?

I am no conspiracy theorists but I am inclined to say I may have to agree with Harry Reid. I actually go a little further and say that Mitt Romney is not reporting his taxes because if he does, it will open up a whole host of questions related to how he has made his money, who he has made it with and whether there has been more unethical business behaviors buried in his past activities as it appears to be the case.

First, a quick apology for my recent absence.

On April 13, 2011, President Obama gave a press conference in which he shredded Paul Ryan's Republican budget and its kill-Medicare plan into pieces, while Ryan could only sit in the audience and look stunned. Let me refresh your memory:



Something started that day. Something started that day that's boiling the current presidential campaign of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan along with down-ticket Republicans.

As you might know, Republicans, including their Vice Presidential nominee-in-waiting, are rolling out their moms, in order to try to hide their votes (and in Ryan's case, authoring the bill) to kill Medicare. It's going to be a disaster, if you ask me. This whole "I have a mom therefore I love Medicare" thing strikes incredibly close to another rollout the Republicans did four years ago. Her name was Sarah Palin. John McCain was desperate for women's votes, wanted to exploit the internal Democratic primary fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and figured if you put a woman on the ticket, people will forget the GOP's dangerous stand on issues important to women - whether it's the dignity of equal pay, or equal access to needed health care services.

It is Sunday evening as I write this. I have purposely stayed off the Intertubes, as I am a huge soccer head, and this weekend was the opening weekend of the Barclay's Premier League in England, and the Liga BBVA in Spain. I surrendered myself to an orgy of footy, which I felt was deserved after working 10 days in a row without a day off.

So, I'm a bit late to the horror show that is Representative Todd Akin's comment earlier today. To recap, he restated his position that he's against abortion in all cases, including rape. Fair enough; not exactly blazing new territory in right wing abortion ideology. Of course, what set this particular declaration of principles apart was his attempt to defend it logically. See, in cases of "legitimate" rape -- I assume he means a rape where the woman is bound and gagged and violated repeatedly, with not even the possibility of licentious "assent" -- he has heard from "doctors" that women's bodies are able to somehow ward off the rapist's sperm. Thus, they don't get pregnant.

Don't believe me? God knows, I would have trouble believing myself. But, here's the video proof:



The quote in question was this:

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Again, some unnamed "doctors" -- who should probably have their licenses pulled by their state boards -- have assured  Mr. Akin that in cases of "legitimate" rape -- which one would assume would be rape not accused as having occurred by some slut having "second thoughts" on the morning after -- a woman's body is able to dispose of the offending sperm. He didn't go into the biological process involved in this wondrous operation; however, to steal a line from President Obama, it probably involves fairy dust.

† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm CST.

The Corporate "Person" and Corporate Crime
by nancy a heitzeg

"The Corporation is a person without a soul to save or a body to incarcerate."
~ Noam Chomsky in The Corporation (2003)

CI typically focuses on the criminal injustice system, and the harsh and, often discriminatory responses to "street crime". But now that a Corporation -- namely Romneyhood, RyanRandRove, Koch, Adelson, et. al., LLC* -- is running for President of the United States, perhaps it is time that CI turns the spotlight on the real murderers and robbers of the US public. The Corporate Criminal.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

How could one respect a candidate who is always opportunistic and an expert in double talking simply to win an election? I can respect a person who has conviction and dignity with a principle that is grounded even if it is different than my ideology but how could anyone truly think Mitt Romney who engage in over the top veiled deceit and absolute deception is a leader material?

Mitt Romney has a truth problem and in fact he has said so many things through out his political career, I don't think he has any position that can define who he really is which is a reason why I personally feel Mitt Romney is a very untrustworthy man. Not so long ago, his former 2012 presidential rival, Gov. John Hunstman called Romney, a "perfectly lubricated weathervane" accusing him of changing positions depending on which direction the wind blows.

A must see Rachel Maddow program has picked up on Mitt Romney's misleadership as shown below and I hope the rest of the MSM will catch up with her.

Well, I have also put together a compilation of Mitt Romney's flip flopping positions and evidence why this man can not be trusted:

1) He was Pro choice before he flipped against it.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

Mitt Romney has finally tapped his Vice Presidential running mate, the Congressman from Wisconsin, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who mocked Romney Massachusetts' Health Care plan saying Romneycare Is an 'Unsustainable' 'Fatal Conceit', while just a couple of days ago Romney spokeswoman spoke positively of it. The decision could not have been a god sent decision by Romney camp for the Democratic party. The Obama camp has been given a gift that just keep on giving from the Romney camp as Mitt Romney has just doubled down by selecting one of the most extreme Tea Party darlings who is ready to take this country to the failed policies of the past.

The House Budget Committee Chairman, Rep. Ryan, known for his "I will take your Medicare and Social Security" budget plan (the Path to Prosperity) could not have been one of the worse picks for vice president but this doubling down by the Romney camp to appeal to the Republican base while alienating seniors who rely on both Medicare and Medicaid, has probably secured toss up State like Florida into a solid Obama State for the November 2012 Presidential Election as soon as the Obama camp defines who Paul Ryan really is and introduce him to the American people.

Did you see the bloviators on the Professional Left going into absolute freakout mode today over an ad released by the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action? Here's the ad:



A number of armchair activists, Huffington Post's Sam Stein and The Hill's Brent Budowski just to name a couple, sparked into their righteous (or perhaps Lefteous) indignation. Why? Is anything factually wrong with the ad? Did this man lose his job after Bain bankrupted his company? Yes. Did he and his family lose health insurance coverage because of it? Yes. Did she get seriously sick when they did not have insurance? Yes. Did she pass away from that sickness? Yes. These are all facts not in dispute.

So what's the beef? Well, the beef is that Soptic's wife (the deceased) had her own insurance while Soptic was employed, and that her husband insurance was her secondary insurance. She, however, lost that insurance after being injured and losing her job due to that injury, and any thinking person would realize that had her husband still had the job Mitt Romney's vulture capitalist firm stole from him, his insurance would take over as his wife's primary after she'd lost her own job.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

Considering all of Mitt Romney's positions on women issues, it is quite unbelievable that there are still women who would vote for an anti-women Presidential candidate. While the number of women who are taking a closer look at the Presidential candidates has significantly increased, currently polls are also indicative that by in large women have already picked the candidate who would fight for them favoring President Obama by huge margins giving him a double digit lead in key swing states.

According to the Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, President Obama is leading the Presumptive Republican Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, in three key swing states (PA, OH and FL) due in large part to independent and women voters. In Pennsylvania, President Obama leads Romney by a 53 percent to 42 percent with independents and women favoring the President by 22 and 24 points, respectively. In Ohio, the President leads 50 percent to 44 percent, women backing him up by a 21-point margin while Ohio men backing Romney by ten points. In Florida, the President leads by 51 percent to 45 percent holding a small lead among both men and women but leading by a double digits among Hispanics and voters age 65 and above.

One may ask why are women flocking towards President Obama or ask why women are afraid of Mitt Romney?

The shootings at the Oak Creek Gurdwara reminded me of the story of Bhagat Singh Thind who could be fairly described as the man who caused the United States Supreme Court to define White in the same way that inspired the murderous Wade Page.

Link to source material

Bhagat Singh Thind, a native of Punjab, immigrated to America in 1913. Working in an Oregon lumber mill he paid his way through University of California, Berkeley and enlisted in the United States Army in 1917, when the United States entered World War I. He was honorably discharged in 1918. In 1920 he applied for citizenship and was approved by the U.S. District Court. The Bureau of Naturalization appealed the case, which made its way to the Supreme Court. Thind's attorneys expected a favorable decision since the year before in the Ozawa ruling the same Court had declared Caucasians eligible for citizenship and Thind, as most North Indians, was clearly Caucasian.

First, a few words from my friends in Monty Python, which describe the current GOP quite fully:

Now, a little bit of truth from Steve LaTourette:

But he reserved his harshest words for Norquist, from whom LaTourette recalled receiving a phone call after he and Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) proposed legislation that would enact the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan. That plan aimed to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years through budget cuts and tax reforms, which would set taxes at 21 percent of the gross domestic product.

"Grover Norquist called me and said, 'You're raising taxes $2 trillion,'" LaTourette said, adding that he wondered why Norquist didn't also label the budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a tax hike, since it would raise taxes from 15 percent to 19 percent of GDP.

(Yes, I know the article is from HuffPo, but it's good.)

And, of course, this gem from GOP representative Richard Hanna:

U.S. Rep. Richard Hanna took his own party to task today, saying the Republican Party is too willing to accommodate its most extreme members.

“I have to say that I’m frustrated by how much we — I mean the Republican Party — are willing to give deferential treatment to our extremes in this moment in history,” he told The Post-Standard editorial board.

Add to this Harry Reid sticking a shiv in his co-religionist Mitt Romney over the possibility that he went ten years without paying taxes, and you detect a pattern, one not seen in Democratic politics for many decades.

How was that overseas trip, Mr. Romney? I suppose that depends on which definition of trip one is using. Mitt Romney visited three countries that would almost surely constitute a hypothetical "axis of America's best friends" and proverbially tripped and fell on his face, leaving disasters in his wake. He insulted the British about the London Olympics, and made racist comments in Israel (that is racist against both Palestinians - obviously - and Jews, because hey, why not milk that Jews-are-just-cold-hearted-money-grubbers line). While Mr. Romney was super busy making sure his foreign trip in 2012 looks diametrically opposite of then-Senator Obama's in 2008, his campaign was "helping:" they found a reason why Romney would be better as President with respect to England - because he's white, and, um, you know. And his campaign spokesperson told the press to kiss his ass in Poland.

Let's hope he keeps his going, because if he does, he might soon be able to kiss his presidential hopes goodbye, as you can see on the combined charts on the right.

Today is not just the deadline for health insurance companies to refund you (or your employer) portions of your premiums if they spent too much on things that are ... you know.... not health care, today is also the day women become fully equal in our health care system.

Today is the day that a host of preventive services especially important for women's health are being added to the list of preventive services your insurance company must cover without a copay or deductible, including, you guessed it, contraceptive services. Among the services covered are:

• Well-woman visits.
• Gestational diabetes screening that helps protect pregnant women from one of the most serious pregnancy-related diseases.
• Domestic and interpersonal violence screening and counseling.
• FDA-approved contraceptive methods, and contraceptive education and counseling.
• Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling.
• HPV DNA testing, for women 30 or older.
• Sexually transmitted infections counseling for sexually-active women.
• HIV screening and counseling for sexually-active women.

You can see more complete descriptions here. Just as these essential, lifesaving services for women are beginning to be covered without any extra burden beyond one's premiums, Republicans are trying fast and hard to try to repeal the whole health reform law, and with it, these benefits. But Democrats aren't taking their attempts lying down. They are letting women know who stands by them.