Mitt's Closing Speech

From a comment on HP by IgnatiusJ:

Mitt will say:
1. "Let GM Go Bankrupt"
2. "Corporations ARE People, my friend"
3. "I'm not concerned about the very poor."
4. '47% are lazy'
5. "...they brought us whole binders full of women"
6. "As president, I will create 12 million new jobs." —Mitt Romney, during the second presidential debate
"Government does not create jobs. Government does not create jobs." —Mitt Romney, 45 minutes later (Oct. 16, 2012)
7. "We use Ann sparingly right now so that people don't get tired of her." –Mitt Romney, referring to his wife while speaking to a room of wealthy donors in Florida, May 17, 2012
8. "No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less." -Mitt Romney, ABC's "Good Morning America," Sept. 14, 2012
9. 'My wife drives a couple of Cadillacs''.
10. "We have a president, who I think is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps." —Mitt Romney, who has two Harvard degrees (April 5, 2012)

Vote Hacking

The electoral system is inviolate... right?




If you think that the voting machines cannot be hacked then the above should be eye opening.  This almost 12 minutes is very amazing to me.

Frankly, that Tagg Romney (& his father) have an interest in a company that owns voting machines used in places like Ohio is a frightening idea.  Very toxic to our democracy.

Political Prisoners

Incredible.  There really ARE political prisoners in the United States.  Don Siegelman was running for office but the net result was his arrest and conviction on trumped up charges in Alabama.  Helping to free him through a Presidential pardon or commutation.

Change.org|How to Start a Petition

More of the story at:

Read the whole story.

The 60 Minutes story was not enough but once the petition has enough signatures it will go to the President.

Stealing the Vote - A Theory

Now it is known that Tagg Romney is an investor in a company that provides voting machines in many places but especially notable is in Ohio.  The company, Hart Intercivic, has connections to place where the vote may have been tampered with in the past. 

As Lee Fang points out in his detailed analysis of the Romney investments: 

 “Many of these private equity–owned companies rely on federal and state contracts, from HIG Capital’s Hart Intercivic, a voting machine company, to EnviroFoam Technologies, a biological and chemical decontamination firm that does business with the US military and is owned by Peterson Partners, a private equity firm listed in the Solamere prospectus.”

 Solarmere’s tangled web of investments now includes Hart Intercivic voting machines which will be used in Cincinnati Ohio says Truth Out which could guarantee Mitt Romney the White House.

The State of Ohio is Ground Zero for the White House, in particular Hamilton County a repeat of the George Bush election in 2004

There is a call for investigation by the DOJ.  It is not known if that will forestall any monkey business in this election cycle but one can only hope Eric Holder's bunch can track down any problems before they happen.  You have to ask yourself, did Romney senior line up this Tagg investment for a reason?

Another source has said Tagg's company is also being investigated for laundering Central American drug money.  Hmmm, Romney senior got the start up money for Bain Capital from the family in Nicaragua that has been traced to drugs and death squads.  A few too many ties to illegal activity?

In any case, such a soulless liar as Mitt Romney has never shown much core value for honesty.  We will see if this goes anywhere.

    Cleveland Leader...

We are still a couple of days away from the Rolling Stone story about Romeny the tax cheat.  Perhaps that will help lead to more hard looks into his less than ethical behavior.

The GINI Coefficient

From Wikipedia

 There are a few versions of this out there but I caught a bit of this on a radio show (The Ed Schultz Show) when Mike Papantonio brought this up.  Essentially, the coefficient is a predictor of social unrest/civil war.  When the number is higher than .40 it says that there is trouble afoot.  Some further explanation is in order:

Global GINI Coefficient

The part of the discussion that brought me up short (in part because I have been feeling it) is what the number is for the U.S. and what that portentds for us.

Here is the break down by state for the U.S. and then ponder where you are.  There is not a single state where this is not a problem.  The combined figure for us is .47 and that just breaks the public political discussion into bits and pieces.

The U.S. State Breakdown.

Pondering this will take up considerable time for me in the next week or so.

By Way of Informing

This very long list of accomplishments is what voters need to know but many will not.

List of Accomplishments - with citations.

President Obama has outstripped so many Presidents of the past in real terms.

What's Wrong with Our Demcracy

Electoral Map... just one of many

Just the fact that we have a term for the "battle ground" states says something is broken.  When 20% of the electorate can decide the Presidency it becomes clear that we need to fix some things about how we vote.

The large money that comes into the political arena is phenomenal today thanks to the Citizens United case.  If you live in a battle ground state you are bombarded with the advertisements.  If you own a TV or radio station in a battle ground state you can look forward to an income increase (pot of gold) during the ever longer election season.  The strategy of running more and more primary debates and more and more election debates with larger viewer-ships means more possibilities for income and influence by the donors to that system.

Explaining What's Wrong.

At the moment it appears that President Obama has a slight lead in the Electoral College but of course this could be gamed by more money pouring into the conduits for Governor Romney.  The winner take all rules of most states make the game even more difficult in non-battle-ground states.  Once a candidate has 51% (or anything over 50%) he/she gets all the marbles.  Fully representative voting would be more modern and more easily done in this techno age.  A law similar to Australia's that penalizes those who do not vote would be helpful (Australia has a near 98% participation level).  A set of laws making it a felony to mess with the system as the Republican operatives have been doing would help.  Making voter suppression laws illegal with severe penalties would help.  Public financing of the elections and a shorter season would help.  Just a few things to tweak the system and we could be on the way to a recovered democracy.

Great Picture

From the debate... Romney showed himself to be the jerk that he has been all along.  He doubled down on being a liar.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

 

 

What Is Important Here??

 From Huffington Post>>


Employer Threatens Employees

This was a comment left that displays the one sided nature of the threat:

tnkeating:
"The Economy is barely limping along, many employers are faced with having to lay-off people because of additional healthcare cost and the highest corporate tax rate in the World, They have a responsibility to the employee's to keep the company going strong and staying competative. If the employee's are going to vote against their best interest, they should be foreworned with whats to come, its simply the responsible thing to do."

This was my response... although not carefully worded:

"Own best interests," really??  The idea of a democracy means we need an informed electorate.  An employer using threats (bullying) to foist his/her opinion on employees is the opposite of informing.  Knowing what is in ones own best interest is difficult enough without this sort of interference.  The actual case for or against a candidate or issue is not related to the boss' opinion.  The employer may have a board of directors that actually thinks more clearly than the "Boss" and will do many things to keep a business viable.  It would be extremely short sighted to think that the employer's rant (and that is really all it is) has any place in trying influence the election.  Companies just work with how good or bad their intellect is... their own best interests may or may not include what the boss threatens."

It seems that something should be done to lower the temperature of the election rhetoric as practiced by all.  Yes, that would be me included.  It is difficult to be constantly assaulted by insults and not reply in kind.

 

Yes, Biden Won the Debate... Quit Whining.

This article (blog) by Robert Reich hits the right tone for the second debate's results:

Biden Won the Debate Against Ryan

Spot on.  With all the toxicity in the air due to the Republican refusal to do ANYTHING the debate was as refreshing as this Huffington Post blog.  The CNN (too small a sample) 'poll' aside, Joe took down every point offered up by a disingenuous Paul Ryan.  The Right criticized the President's demeanor then when Vice President Biden gave a lively debate they want to nay-say his performance as being too exuberant!!!  Too funny.  Calling out the Pants-On-Fire direction Representative Ryan  wants to take the country was just what was needed.  The moderator was the best as well... giving equal treatment to both candidates and asking for the specifics we deserve.  Too bad Ryan didn't answer any of those questions.  Watching Ryan's jaw tense up and grind away when he didn't have an answer was interesting as well.

At some point in the coming week we will see the bounce that Joe Biden has given the campaign.  I mean, really, when asked what the criteria for calling out the military was for National Security interests Ryan could only say he would do so only when National Security was at stake!?!?!  As if that were an answer!!??  In any case, Ryan was schooled by Biden and the world will turn away from non-answers.  Now hoping the President turns it on for the next one.

Obama/Biden and ALL down ticket Democrats -- 2012