Florida And Beyond

TODAY IS SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013

February 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM

Florida And Beyond

Mitt Romney wins in the Sunshine State. We’ll break down the primary results and ask – what’s next for the GOP?

Mitt Romney and his family celebrate his primary election win Tuesday night at the Tampa Convention Center. (AP)

They fought and punched and sniped in Florida. Hammered each other all over the state and the airwaves. A many-million-dollar carpet bombing of negative ads. And Mitt Romney won. By a big margin.

He is once again, well and truly, the front-runner in the GOP primary contest. The man with the money, and the victory in Florida. But Newt Gingrich is digging in, he says, for the long haul. Angry, and channeling anger. Slugging against the “elites,” he says, including his own party’s.

This hour, On Point: After Florida. Romney, Gingrich, and the country.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Scott Helman, a staff writer for the Boston Globe, he’s the co-author with Michael Kranish of The Real Romney.

Karen Tumulty, national political reporter for the Washington Post.

Kim Alfano, Republican strategist and president and CEO of Alfano Communications.

Rep. Michael Burgess, represents the 26th Texas congressional district.

Highlights

The vote in Florida was “the best reflection to date of where the Republican Party stands,” said Washington Post national political reporter Karen Tumulty, noting that the primary is restricted to Republicans, rather than the open contests in other states. “The race itself is going to go on for another month, but after last night it is getting harder and harder to see where Newt Gingrich’s opening.”

The GOP primary has been fierce and looks to continue for weeks, despite a sense of momentum gathering around Romney. “There’s a visceral hatred for President Obama,” said Republican strategist Kim Alfano. The one quality that GOP voters are looking for above all else, she said, is the ability to win in the general election.

Conservatives will rally to Romney as the primaries continue even though they are wary of his candidacy, Alfano said, noting that the process itself had made Romney a better campaigner.

Yet despite all this talk about conservative angst, though I think it is real, Romney is right where he wants to be, said Scott Helman, Boston Globe reporter and co-author of “The Real Romney.”

But Romney still faces challenges, especially if he is chosen to face the president in the general election.

His wealth is a key issue. “He has to find a way to talk about his wealth and success without turning people off,” said Helman. “There is no one who better represents the one-percent than Mitt Romney.”

From Tom’s Reading List

Washington Post “Mitt Romney’s across-the-board victory in the Florida Republican presidential primary on Tuesday night serves as a direct rebuttal to the criticism that he simply isn’t conservative enough to be the party’s nominee and leaves his remaining rivals with few obvious next steps as the nomination fight moves to Nevada next month.”

Miami Herald “At Miami Fire Station No. 7, Lesmus Ruiz was the first to show up. The 71-year-old Republican salesman said he voted for Gingrich “because he’s the only one that can debate this president right now.”

Politico “After a 10-day, post-South Carolina slog characterized by relentless attacks on Newt Gingrich from Mitt Romney’s forces, Florida on Tuesday will vote in its 2012 Republican presidential primary.”

JustSayin

So…In November we will be able to choose between a Corporatist shill and a Corporatist…. Does voting really matter anymore?
- Tina
  
  That’s why Obama caving in to the corporatists was so damaging! As much as I support him, I am extremely angry at him for his Cave In behaviors.
  
  I just found out recently that even certain parts of Medicare have been linked into corporations like Blue Cross, AARP, etc. For some parts of Medicare (I still don’t understand the whole thing yet), you have to choose a corporate administrator to manage your Medicare. It is so confusing as to be heinous!!! Just looking at how many brochures AARP sends you in the mail — every day!!! — once you reach age 50, you know what a WASTE OF MONEY these corporations roll into their expenses which become OUR costs when there is a public/private “partnership”! Forget “partnership”!!! The corporations are just vultures intruding into a Medicare system which probably needs some tweaking, but it needn’t be offered up as FOOD for the vultures! What government worker who works for Medicare makes what your local Blue Cross executives make?!? WHY are so few people thinking about this?!
SteveV

I have been voting since the 60′s and never missed an election. I’m an
independent, having voted for both parties, but never have I felt such disillusion
with the political process as I do today. I wonder, is the American public
capable of producing real leadership in this (political) environment? If John Kennedy were alive today, and said “Ask not what your country…….” what would be our reaction? I suggest he wouldn’t make it out of the primaries.
- mary elizabeth
  
  There is so much hate, exacerbated with the election of Obama, that it seems impossible for a thoughtful, visionary drawn to lead by reason, compromise, decency and above all an eye for the common good, that incorporates all human variations, to survive.   One would be regarded as weak if unable to match the deep pathology of a Gingrich who unbelievably is on track for leader of the free world.
  I believe that Obama is such a leader. He has tried to take baby steps into the 21st century, while the opposition would have us tethered to a mythical aging, President elected 30 years ago, whose agenda could have nothing to do with the quantum leap the planet is in now.�
  It is ludicrous to think that any one President can resolve issues that have been neglected for generations in a mere half term, let alone against those who are led by the likes of Fox, Limbaugh, et al who would have the nation serve only the precious few who are made in their image- white, rich, bigoted, and  spiritually bankrupt.
  �
  Ultimately, it is we the people who determine the fate of the nation,   The election 2010 is a good indicator of what the people will allow and we are reaping what we have sown, either by voting or not voting,
  - Gregg
    
    “Ultimately, it is we the people who determine the fate of the nation, �
    The election 2010 is a good indicator of what the people will allow and
    we are reaping what we have sown, either by voting or not voting,”
    
    My only quibble would be to change “will allow” to “pine for”. Then I’m with you.
    - mary elizabeth
      
      You missed the whole point.
      - Gregg
        
        I got your point, I just see it differently.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    The election of 2010 is a good indicator of what unfettered cash will do to our election system, since MORE money was put into the 2010 election, than the 2008 election, that had a Presidential election in it!
norlight

Mitt fatigue is setting in. Another month, more opportunities for his negatives (among independents) to go up.
- Gregg
  
  I am an Independent that very much wants to like Romney but I just don’t. I don’t think he is much better than McCain was. My enthusiasm (and a lot of others) went up when McCain picked Palin. Romney could get me excited if he picks Allen West as veep.
  - Ray in VT
    
    West would be a good political choice for Romney. He’s got the military background, and it would probably raise enthusiasm for the campaign in the Tea Party. It would certainly raise the campaign’s conservative cred.
    
    As an independent who leans in the opposite direction, I generally find Romney to be the least objectionable candidate in the GOP field. Having West on the ticket would certainly decrease my at best lukewarm feelings toward Romney. I actually rather liked John McCain back during the 2000 primary, and I would have been somewhat okay with him in 2008, but I found myself having a reaction quite the opposite to you when his campaign picked Sarah Palin.
    - Modavations
      
      your nose is growing
      - Ray in VT
        
        Yet another great contribution to the discussion here. Congratulations.
      - Modavations
        
        Prof.Lindzen, Sloan Chair Holder MIT,knows nothing.Ayn Rand collected the S.Security she paid into,so she’s invalid.Besides her name is Rosenberg,so she definetly can’t be trusted
      - Ray in VT
        
        Do you have any more tired fabrications and supposed things that I’ve said to pedal? Your mindless patter is truly grating.
      - Modavations
        
        The guy who slurred Ayn Rand used the same process as you with Lindzen.
      - Ray in VT
        
        It doesn’t take much to sully Ayn Rand. Harold Bloom said that “Rand could not write her way out of a paper bag”.
        
        As for Lindzen’s views, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge said that “There’s a realization that we are changing our climate for the worse.” I’m sure that that guy doesn’t know anything about science.
        
        Why do you care what Lindzen says anyways? You yourself have said the MIT is only the 51st ranked school.
    - Gregg
      
      Well that’s the rub isn’t it Ray?
      
      I agree about the military background and I think it holds for all the candidates. Petrayus would be good for the country but probably bad politics.
      
      I say the following with respect (believe it or not). Generalizing, if folks like you find Romney the least objectionable then that’s a strike against him in my book. I understand political calculations are necessary but I hate them. I would rather the candidates honestly let it all hang out and let the chips fall.
      - Ray in VT
        
        I understand your point of view, and I don’t take any offense. “Letting it all hang out” has probably never been such a great idea for candidates for office, at least in situations where the election is closely contested. It’s certainly riskier than ever now, when any misstep can be posted on the Net and go viral. Look at Romney’s firing quote. I get where he was coming from on that, but he chose his words somewhat poorly and people piled on him for it. I’m sure that there would be no one in Congress whose politics you oppose more than Bernie Sanders, but he pretty much calls it like he sees it. Being able to be that outspoken in modern American politics is pretty rare.
      - Gregg
        
        You’re probably right about Sanders but I indeed respect him for that. I even put Al Sharpton in that same boat. What you see is what you get. Romney and Obama, not so much.
  - Anonymous
    
    McCain sold out many of his values to get conservative votes. Romney never had any values in the first place.
    - Gregg
      
      I think that’s overstating it a bit on both counts.
      
      The most extreme example I can think of is Lieberman running with Gore.
      - Anonymous
        
        In both cases the conservative base didn’t trust either of them and their lack of enthusiasm for McCain could be indicative of their efforts for Romney in November.
Anonymous

Yay, a person who’s picture should be under the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in the wictionary is defeated by a person who’s picture should be under Vulture Capitalist.

As a VC, did Mitt actually create anything other than a financial vehicle with which to suck equity out of the companies he took over? His grand vision for America: suck the value out of Medicare, Medicade, Social Security and revise the tax code to reduce his personally horrendous tax burden to half of what it is now. Yeah, like we really need to shore up the social safety net for the terminally wealthy.
Ellen Dibble

I happened to wake up in time to hear Romney at 7:00 AM telling Charlie Rose on CBS that Obama had not done the things he was elected for, had not fulfilled his promises; that’s a paraphrase but close enough. I have been trying to remember, what did Obama promise; what was his campaign all about? I know it was pretty amazing that when the national financial situation tanked in early October 2008, Obama’s campaign seemed to proceed without a hitch, yet the challenges for his administration were surely shifting daily in his sights. So: Where Obama has been thwarted or ineffective, Romney will carry out Obama’s program on his behalf. I guess this is comforting. He will right-size taxes and right-size the debt. That’s something we can all get behind. Obama can’t. Romney can. But I suppose it depends on who we elect to Congress. (A few international incidents vis-a-vis Iran, Israel, maybe Russia, and we’ll all be looking at “the economy” through the eyes of cost in lives and military; piling on, piling on, and voting on that scale.)
- margbi
  
  “Comforting?” I don’t think so, given the public’s unhappiness with Obama’s presidency.
  
  As for those international “incidents” how popular do you think Romney would be when the American people are already sick of our wars in the Middle East? I predict, if Romney if elected, he will soon be the subject of the same criticisms that Obama is now.
- Gregg
  
  ” I have been trying to remember, what did Obama promise; what was his campaign all about?”
  
  He promised anything the people wanted to hear even if it was not going to happen. He called Bush “unpatriotic” on debt but has already added more in 3 years than Bush did in 8. It sounded great to a war weary and naive public when he promised to close Gitmo. It was never going to happen. He railed against the tax cuts then extended them. There was no way he was ever gong to raise taxes in this economy but it sounded good. So did the idea of no signing statements or lobbyist in his staff. He excoriated Hillary because of her support for the individual mandate because it was politically expedient. Now he loves it. He said his stimulus bill would hold unemployment to 8%, didn’t happen but we do have the debt. He said he’d unite us and then told Republicans to essentially sit down and shut up. He’s pitted the rich against the poor and blacks against whites. He has demonized doctors, CEO’s, the coal industry and business in general.
Hidan

Funny how Romney had to go negative, and I mean real negative to win Florida. It’s even funnier who the media has reported it
Ellen Dibble

If there are any economists who are not in the pockets of those on the left or the right, we can queue up this election as a referendum on monopolistic capitalism. I’ve read a few pieces showing that the most effective competition is between about three players, and in international businesses this means the big boys being able to buy out the competition with princely sums and keeping control on a grand scale, with their command of financial ebb and flow allowing them to control whole governments, and even international alliances. Want to give GE a seat at the UN? AIG a seat at NATO? Some conglomerates have more money than certain states (not necessarily democratic ones, but even those can be “owned” by somewhat “corrupt” corporate practices), and this seems to me to be “the” issue globally now. Don’t ask Russia to sort this out for us. Nor China. Maybe Europe will help. But we have a presidential election where Romney is likely the representative of Management, and not the kind of management that grows its business in a community over generations. �
Question: Can the Democrats present an alternative vision of capitalism? One more about individual motivation and mobilization community to community; one less about money as power — as power specifically in politics?
I really doubt it. Obama probably can’t make the case, given Citizens United, but the case is there to be made. Corporations are not People.
- Anonymous
  
  AIG already has a seat at NATO (and GE a seat at the UN). Obama and the Dems are just as cozy with the conglomerates as the Romneys. Our gov’t is not democrate, nor a republic. You and I do not have a representative in Congress. And I did not have a say in who wins the GOP race. People, this is far worse than you think: tomorrow is not what we have to worry about. Today our gov’t is only representing corporations. Unless you have an INC after your name, you lose.
  - Modavations
    
    Wall St.gives two to one to Dems.Chucky Schumer is their pigeon.
- Steve
  
  Are you asking for someone akin to Ron Paul?
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    I’ve been known to vote in the primary for the candidate best able to undercut some individual I do not want on the ticket at all. I would vote for Gingrich to undercut Romney if I thought it would make a difference, or I might. I don’t know enough for sure yet. But I’d vote for a third party in this election. I hated it that Bush II got elected because of the third party vote that took the election away from Gore. But if things got close this year, I’d favor a third party. We need a non-Republican party, not exactly Tea Party, but something torn from the Tory wing of our body politic. I still don’t see what Romney offers that’s different from what Obama offers, actually. And I think Obama has four years of in-service training; let’s not throw that away.
    - Gregg
      
      I did that in 2008 by voting for Hillary. I’m with you, it’s my vote to use as I see fit.
      - Ray in VT
        
        Is the North Carolina primary open then? Vermont is, and the first time someone told me that in other places you had to register with a certain party in order to vote it really shocked me.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        In Tennessee, we have to register as Dem, or Repub, to be able to vote in Primaries, as Third Parties rarely have Primaries. We can vote in EITHER party Primary, but NOT both party Primaries, regardless of party on your registration!
      - Ray in VT
        
        Are the primaries on the same day? I was looking the other night and it looks like some states have the party primaries on different days. Here you can only vote in one, but you don’t have to be a part of any party to vote in whatever one you choose when you get there.
      - Gregg
        
        They are on the same day here if it has not been settled yet. It usually has.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Primaries are on the same day.
        I’m happy for you. �
        When I went to register to vote, they told me the above, or I would have registered as ‘Independent’, as I see problems with some candidates of each major party.
      - Gregg
        
        No, I don’t think it is open if I understand the term. As an Independent I can vote in either primary but if I was registered R or D then I couldn’t.
    - Anonymous
      
      I don’t think that is very ethical. The parties should be able to nominate the candidate that best represents their members and then the country can decide in the general.
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        I don’t think it’s very ethical either. But I’ve done it.
- Modavations
  
  economists give Palm Readers a bad name.
Anonymous

So Gingrich lost the woman vote. Well, now. Surprise, surprise.
- Gregg
  
  And Romney lost it big time in SC.
- Anonymous
  
  Herman Cain’s endorsement didn’t help?
Anonymous

I’m looking forward to months of Newt trashing Mitt. There is nothing in Newt’s sordid history that suggests he will put his party first. It is already working – turnout was down in FL and the moderates’ favorablity rating of Romney is down.
- Gregg
  
  Romney did that to himself.
  - Anonymous
    
    Right but without Newt, he wouldn’t need to go negative and waste time swatting Newt instead of defining himself and attacking Obama.
    - Gregg
      
      Fair enough but it was still his gamble.
Ellen Dibble

If Ron Paul gets a plurality in five states, he can, I think, move for amendments to the platform at the convention. Ditto for Gingrich. In other words, the disgruntled Tea Party can express its dissatisfaction with the Massachusetts chameleon in a very public way. Not all states are like Florida with winner take all. On the other hand, didn’t Florida give up HALF its delegates in moving its primary up so early in the process? If you add up all the votes that Romney did NOT get (yesterday, in Florida), Not-Romney beats Romney. I actually heard that women are moving away from Romney. Maybe I misheard. Maybe women are the Santorum vote. He is cute, uxorious, steady — we’ll forgive him for being mistaken about things. He’s not the only one. If only he and Ron Paul could team up for a third party…
- Gregg
  
  I think you are correct about the Florida delegates. Moving up has given them more prestige and power (if a state can possess such) as evidenced by the pundits saying it has now been decided. To me, it’s an example of symbolism (momentum, inevitability, etc.) over substance (delegate totals).
Ellen Dibble

I’m trying to see which part of that Romney would be able to do. Get the unemployment to 8%? Close Gitmo? Unify the nation? Unify Congress by having breakfast every day with all of them? Making sure there was someone poor and someone rich at every meeting, each with equal voice, equal vote? Good idea.
- Gregg
  
  I would say he could do the first and I guess he could but 8% is awful. The new normal has skewed our perspective. We need Gitmo and it won’t be closed. If Obama won’t do it, no one will. Every President says he will unify and few actually do. It would be a start if he stayed above the fray and stopped telling folks Republicans want dirty air, or to throw grandma over a cliff, or would rather have mercury our food than raise taxes.
  
  The rich/poor idea doesn’t make sense to me if you don’t give weight to why they are where they are. Should a homeless crack head dropout have the same input in the “meeting” as a driven workaholic drug-free entrepreneur? Or should a spoiled unmotivated coke head who inherited millions have the same voice as the business man who lost everything in a tornado. Silly examples to be sure but I hope you get my point. The thing is everyone already has an equal vote regardless of class.
  
  I tend to agree with Marco Rubio who said sometimes we need to decide which way is best instead of compromising our way to more of the same. IMHO, that’s where we are.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    AGAIN, WE AGREE!!�
       Every President has made promises they (‘he’ now, but I’m looking forward to the future when a qualified woman breaks the glass ceiling), will not keep, or CANNOT keep,due to Congress, or other blocks.
       The rich-spoiled coke-head, and the homeless crack-head, and especially the meth-heads, will likely vote for the least interference with their addiction!
       Many of the ‘onerous regulations’ that ‘conservatives’ want gone, DO pollute, risk lives and health, and cause other problems, for people that don’t profit from the dangers.
       There ARE a lot of regulations that are an impediment, or detriment to the sucess of decent companies, society, and the country.
    ARE the ‘regulation-removers’, trying to remove these truly unnecessary, and detrimental regulations, OR are they trying to do away with regulations that protect safety, clean air, clean water, etc…?
    - Gregg
      
      “Regulations” is another term like rich and poor. It doesn’t mean much unless you say what you are regulating and examine the cost/benefit ratio. Just like corporations, some are good and some are bad.
      - Modavations
        
        The worst is Fairness and Social Justice.Lefty piffle words
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        That’s what I was implying.
    - Modavations
      
      Young Lady.Hugh Rodham said of Bill.He’s got a nose like a Hoover Cleaner.
  - Anonymous
    
    “a spoiled unmotivated coke head who inherited millions” — Didn’t we already try that from 2000-2008?
    - Anonymous
      
      Perfect!
    - Modavations
      
      I’ll guarentee you Pres.Obama is a loadie.I dobn’t trust folks that aren’t
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Loadie? What is a loadie?�
        Musicians have roadies.
      - Modavations
        
        I can’t take it.Were you born the the US.How could one not know the term,or at the very least,understand the jist.A loadie is a drug user,as in getting loaded
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        I have heard MANY terms for drug use, even from the druggies that I helped extricate from the vehicles they wrecked. I have never heard the word ‘loadie’, before.
        Therefore, I asked.
        Since I don’t use drugs, I don’t hear all the terms.
        The main reason that I would need to know them, is to know that a patient is a ‘loadie’, or the person trapped in the car we’re cutting them out of, is a ‘loadie’, therefore to be more careful of them hurting me, for helping save them.
Cory on the Oder

I won’t vote Republican in the upcoming presidential election. In fact, I really would only vote for a republican if it was for a position on a manned flight to the sun.

That being said…

I am enjoying the political attack dog named Newton tearing holes in the shorts of the phoney baloney rich guy who is certain he can buy the presidency. I have complete empathy for republicans who cannot stomach Romney. Who is he? He has changed his positions opportunistically to the point where he certainly cannot be trusted. Newt is distasteful, but he has a certain honesty to him. He is a pseudo academic philanderer who will knock your duff in the dirt if it serves his purposes. I can see his appeal to angry conservatives.

4 down, 46 to go. Give’m hell Newt!! (a bumper sticker I remember seeing in the 90′s)
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Newt, a certain honesty?
- Brett
  
  To characterize Mr. Newt as a pseudo-academc philanderer is just about the best thinking in the room. This counts as extra credit!
  - TFRX
    
    “Newt Gingrich, pseuuuuuudo academic” rings in my ear like “Wiley E. Coyote, suuuuuuuuper geeeeeeeeenius.”
    
    And is as about authentic.
    - Cory on the Oder
      
      That’s hilarious. I’m donning a huge grin right now!
Anonymous

I really enjoy this race. I’ve never seen the Republicans tear apart each others’ mythologies with such vigor inside their collective bubble. Let this race be long and incendiary!
Ellen Dibble

The site to watch is at Politico, showing all the states, when they vote, the Republican, the Democrat, the senate and congressional races, the presidential. Hover over any state. And at PBS Newshour you can see Florida and county by county how the vote broke down (and lots of other things, like an ethnicity map). Anyway, Romney won by the biggest margin right around Miami, and I’m thinking those are the wealthy retirees, who can afford costly-to-insure homes on the coast. In the middle of the state, there are Gingrich strongholds — maybe that is the Everglades, the swamplands. And in the panhandle, it’s all yellow (Gingrich), which is presumably what Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana will look like, but not until a month or so from now. Next up, I’m watching Colorado and other western states. Hawaii. They say Newt has a chance in Michigan, where Romney’s family has roots — the auto business. I don’t know how that figures.
Modavations

What this country needs is a “turn around’ artist.My guppy can beat Pres. Obama.When Obama took office the deficit was 500billion.He said he’d cut it in half by year three.He tripled it!!!!!.Cut the spending,privatize everything.During Clinton CBO said 200 bill.per year deficits for as far as the eye can see.Now it’s one trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see.We’ll pay 457 billion in interest on the debt this year alone.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  No politician of any political party could have turned around the American trainwreck in 3-4 years. McCain and Palin could have done signifigantly better?
  - Gregg
    
    The “stimulus”, Obamacare and Dodd/Frank have made things much worse. This should have been behind us long ago.
    - Anonymous
      
      Austerity budgets haven’t helped the UK. We’d be worse off without the stimulus.
      - Gregg
        
        In the UK they are now admitting austerity is not enough. The “stimulus” failed.
      - Gregg
        
        BTW, would no “stimulus” have meant austerity?
      - Anonymous
        
        If the austerity failed, what are they proposing in the UK and why are conservatives proposing austerity for here?
      - Gregg
        
        Here is the article I read.
        
        http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/europe/30iht-union30.html
      - Anonymous
        
        Bowing to mounting evidence that austerity alone cannot solve the debt crisis, European leaders are expected to conclude this week that what the debt-laden, sclerotic countries of the Continent need is a dose of economic growth. — How is that not evidence that the US needs more stimulus?
      - Gregg
        
        You assume stimulus means more Keynesian strategy.
      - Anonymous
        
        How do they differ?
      - Gregg
        
        “Instead, leaders will discuss long-term structural reforms and better
        use of E.U. subsidies, while avoiding mention of the one thing that
        could change the climate: a fiscal stimulus from Germany, the euro
        currency zone’s undisputed powerhouse.”
        
        It sound like they are avoiding even a mention. When Clinton cut Capital Gains it stimulated. When Bush cut taxes unemployment went down for 53 months as revenues increased for 4 years. There are lot’s of ways to stimulate.
  - Modavations
    
    Speculation and excuses.Close the govt down.Privatize everything.Including the military
    - TFRX
      
      Hilarious.
      
      Why don’t you wait until a Republican gets into the White House, go over to some right-wing site with this opnion, and see what that gets you. You’ll soil yourself.
      
      If it hasn’t sunk into your brain that the GOP’s modus operandi is to spend like crazy when they’re in power (taking advantage of the “fiscally conservative” birthrighteousness the media has granted them) and cry poverty when the Dems are in power, there’s nothing nobody can teach you.
      - Modavations
        
        The modus operendi of the left is to keep the poor,poor.After all what would the Dependency party do without their chattel.I’m a free agent.I don’t vote the party,I vote the man.If we put “D” next to Stalin,he’d get your vote.
    - Ray in VT
      
      What a terrible idea. I am certainly glad that there are relatively few in our country who support such a radical position.
- jochen
  
  Wonderful idea to privatize everything: The military, and while we are at it why not the police, too. Better even what about all governmental and administrative structures. Cities, states, USA LLC? Make Congress a for profit organization. Let’s privatize the Presidency. Big money wins! Ups! Or are we there already.
  
  You should listen to your guppy a bit more. He probably makes more sense!
  - Modavations
    
    Terry TT paid me off.The guppy won’t challenge.Everyone can be bought
  - Modavations
    
    Terry TT paid me off.The guppy won’t challenge.Everyone can be bought
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      You would have to be VERY cheap, for me to buy you off!�
         Another mercury delusion? Since I deny any knowledge of such a deal, until I read this a minute ago?
         EVERYONE CANNOT be bought!
         There are things that ALL of Bill Gates’ AND Warren Buffet’s TOTAL assets could NOT buy me to do!
      - Modavations
        
        Terry,did you really think that that was a serious post.Seriously,I have never seen niavety like yours.Nor such an acute case of Bush derangement syndrome for that matter.Seriously Terry,
Steve

with respect to Mitt Romney/money/nomination…

“Liberty’s a homicide, she’s been flogged to death
with money’s monkey wrench…”

Mary Gauthier
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1816544 Dan Trindade

To all those who hail Mr. Romney as the savior of America and standard bairer of American values and freedom, I must say you sound a lot like those that called for change and hope and held up “Yes we can!” as a personnel mantra..
- Modavations
  
  Real men would never say Yes We Can
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1816544 Dan Trindade
    
    Real men who don’t show their face or use their real name when they sling insults?
    - Modavations
      
      Frederick Douglas Manning.Yeah that Frederick Douglas
      - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1816544 Dan Trindade
        
        Pleasure to make your aquintance. Why do you post such vociferous junk behind a fake name then? Do you not wish to take credit for everything you say?
      - Modavations
        
        .Modavations is the name of my business.My stuff isn’t junk.It’s purpose is to make you sit up.I’ll bet half the stuff I say you’ve never even considered.I’ll bet you live in a cocoon of Liberals.Ants stroking each others antennea.I don’t care if I sway you,I just want you to see the alternatives.Other then that,it’smy pleasure to meet you lad.Believe me ,many of my mates are punk as- liberals and we all party hearty
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        Do you have a website for your business?
      - Modavations
        
        negative.Clients are too lazy to go to a website.I have photos of my lines and send them directly to their computer
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        What do you sell? Besides “motivating” things, how would you describe them?
      - Modavations
        
        Silver jewelry,mineral specimens(I have to wrestle alligators to get to some of the mines),loose gems,Cotton Shawls from Jaipur.I’m the real life Indiana Jones.I’m also a credentialed Gemologist,a Diamond guy
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        You know, I have a cotton shawl from India, which I bought from Glimpse of Tibet last spring. They import things from various parts of the world, and no, their website doesn’t market them, but other stores in town say they have done very well selling their eclectic mix of merchandise, globally, using the net. We have all sorts of mineral specimens here too, silver jewelry sold on the street by local people who have made it, and craftsmen from all over the globe who have come here to market their products. If I lived in the middle of Montana, I might find it motivating to think of an individual providing these things, but I like to window shop, personally, and think about who would like this, who would like that, before I actually buy something.
      - BHA in Vermont
        
        To whom do you sell? TOTAL Luddites?
        
        I don’t do Facebook or Twitter but I sure as heck shop web sites for information. Much better way to narrow the choices based on features than dragging store to store to store?
      - Modavations
        
        Your asbad asTerry.Busy bodies
      - Modavations
        
        couldn’t read the later post
      - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1816544 Dan Trindade
        
        Aww did I touch a nerve?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

All the fighting may actually help Romney later. Gingrich supporters will do nothing but vote Republican. But attacks on Romney as more moderate may actually attract independents who also tend to be more moderate.
Cory on the Oder

Disquss says I’ve been blocked from comenting on the Google/privacy topic. What’d I do!? What’d I do?!

I must be too saucy, salty, or controversial.
- JustSayin
  
  That happens to me all the time. It may be related to flagging.
- Brett
  
  Sassy comes to mind…
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Twice, and they never told me why I was NOT allowed to comment for over a week, each time.
  - Modavations
    
    Guppies,mercury,B.C idiot,lead ,and on and on.Plus you’re endlessly hysterical
    - Anonymous
      
      Look at you, pot calling the kettle black.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      If that was the criteria, you would not have been on here, since I first found this comment board?
      - Modavations
        
        The difference is you just throw the word out without making a point.The equivalent would be my calling you A-shole every time you posted and say nothing more.
AC

i think my summary word for the whole thing thus far is – ‘tacky’.
- Gregg
  
  I can’t argue with that except maybe is Santorum’s case.
  - Anonymous
    
    santorum is the worst one in the field.
    - Gregg
      
      But “tacky”?
      - Anonymous
        
        Sweatervests aren’t?
      - Gregg
        
        You got me there.
      - TFRX
        
        I just hope Santorum’s dog doesn’t look good in one. You know what could happen then.
      - Ray in VT
        
        Maybe Marcus Bachmann will buy it some sunglasses.
      - TFRX
        
        Okay, doggie sweaters are one thing, but a dog in sunglasses? That’s tacky.
      - Anonymous
        
        He is a dog lover: http://www.hslf.org/press-releases/santorum101206.html
      - Rbrunelli3
        
        Yeah, but there seems to be this impression that there is monolithic support for the republicans in the military. How on earth does that happen? I must be the only known military member stating an opinion.
        
        But you’re right–I’ll do the right thing and cease forthwith.
        
        BTW: when is Scott Brown resigning either his commission or his Senate seat? Isn’t having both just a bit of a problem?
Patrik

What I took away from Florida primary is that the repbulican candidates have became comfortable with all out neagative ads without providing any positive solutions of their own. The lack of presenting specific solutions, right now, to the problems they keep spouting will be their downfall in Novmeber.
- Patrik
  
  *November
BHA in Vermont

When does Romney detail his plans for all the problems he blames on Obama and CLAIMS he will fix?

Somehow I can’t see how building the most awesome military the world has ever seen is in line with his claim to cut government spending.
MarkVII88

Who out there thinks Gingrich still has a chance to win the nomination? I suspect that with his relative lack of money Newt’s game at this point is to poison the water in the Romney well for independents who will vote in the November general election. What’s most important to Newt, winning among Republicans or beating Obama in November?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

Who cares if Romney appeals to conservatives? What are they going to do? Vote for Obama?

The Republican party needs to appeal to moderates and independents if they are going to win in November. And Gingrich doesn’t.
MarkVII88

President Obama’s campaign manager recently stated in a memo to reporters that “the more voters learn about Romney, the more unfavorably they view him.” Do you think this was true in Florida and how do you predict this will play out going forward?
- BHA in Vermont
  
  Obviously the people who voted for him think he is the best choice (for whatever reason). He got less than half the votes and by rough count, 1.9 million voted for Republican candidates in the 2008 primary but only 1.6 million this time around. Clearly the Florida voters aren’t as ‘excited’. Perhaps because many are not fond of their choices.
Chris

This is what our Democracy has devolved into:

a choice between the corrupt, evil red party

and the corrupt, complacent blue party.
- Gregg
  
  I disagree with your characterization but that’s the choice. Make the best of it.
  - Chris
    
    No.
    
    VOTE NO CONFIDENCE IN THE CORRUPT SYSTEM.
  - Amy
    
    Making the best of it means that we ALL have to begin paying more attention to what is going on. The people with the education that gives them the knowledge to slice and dice the law until is doesn’t resemble the law at all anymore have to be put under the microscope, we all have to become better educated, and we have to speak up in objection.
    
    When policies do not help the averge person, when the benefits go to a few by taking those benefits away from the many, when this country, with all of its money and influence, sinks to 37th in education, around the same in medical care, and has a faster rising poverty rate than any other nation, it is time for those of us being forced into poverty to take a stand.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  I don’t entirely disagree, but the party that at least feignd altruism will still get my vote.
  - Cory on the Oder
    
    sorry “feigns”.
  - Chris
    
    Why?
    
    They are destroying the middle class just like the Republicans.
TFRX

Caller at :13 min says “Romney is going to help small businesses”?

How? For example, by making banks loan money to them?

Businesses aren’t government. At the very least, CEOs can fire loser customers who hurt the profit margin, governments can’t.
- Ellen Dibble
  
  I thought the caller must have thought the taxes on incomes over whatever level it is could go up under Obama (if Congress goes along) whereas taxes on incomes over whatever level it is could stay steady or go down with Romney (if Congress goes along).
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    If that’s what she meant, I say to myself a business is always stronger, if it is a nonprofessional business (not a lawyer or doctor) if the profits are put back into the business rather than into the pocket of the founder. The founders of enterprises that are most promising have no compunction about going very lean themselves in the interests of growing their businesses.
  - TFRX
    
    Then I’m curious what this callers “knows” about small business and if she is an owner of one. (Pressing that issue sounds like a job for our host.)
    
    Nobody in the media likes pointing out that the GOP has put up a series of Poster Child Fails–like Joe The Plumber’s Little Helper–for all their blather about small business.
Guaym

I feel like Romney is living in some bizzaro alternate universe whenever he attacks Obama. His facts & rhetoric are so off base from the truth/reality.
And the media seems to let it slide.
Edwashere

Ron Paul brings up the issues and has ideas and solutions. The general public doesn’t want that. The general public wants catch phrases and mantras.
- Anonymous
  
  Ron Paul’s simplistic solutions aren’t catch phrases and mantras?
  - Edalsey
    
    You should read “the road to surfdom” by hayak
    - Anonymous
      
      Hi Dave.
    - Modavations
      
      He’s too afraid
JP

No ideas, plenty of flubs, plenty of outright stupidity and LIES…

… every day the Republican dopes stand before the public is one more day that goes against them.

These lackluster Republican smudges on the face of American politics don’t exactly shine in the light of day.
Firefoxav

Can a guest comment on how the total number of voters were just under 1.7 million and how that was much less that the projected over 2 million voters for the Florida Primary?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

The winner this November has already been decided, just like 4 years ago – and 4 years before that – and 4 years before that.

The 1% will win, the 99% will lose, and that won’t change regardless of which of these candidates become President.
Ronald Johnson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/mitt-romney-very-poor_n_1246557.html
- Ronald Johnson
  
  This is Romney “not caring about the very poor”
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  Typical left wing distortion. He was talking about closing holes in the safety net to protect the poor.
  - TFRX
    
    I’m not concerned
    about the very poor (because) we have a safety net there. If it needs repair,
    I’ll fix it
    
    I agree that this itself is a plausible enough statement. I don’t know that someone so wealthy should be saying things that sound like he’s setting the poor and the middle class against each other.
    
    And there is no Rockefeller/Eisenhower wing of the party anymore. I don’t trust any Republican who says “I’ll maintain and fix the safety net” today.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      Trust is a different matter than misstating the candidate. We shouldn’t let blatant misstatements stand on either side.
      - TFRX
        
        Then why didn’t Romney talk about the safety net in South Carolina?
      - Cory on the Oder
        
        Mitt isn’t familiar with the notion of phrases being taken out of context? Maybe he should’nt be president then.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        AGREED!!
  - Cory on the Oder
    
    It was still an astoundingly stupid thing to say if you are running for president.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  Are you the meatball plastics millionaire Senator from Wisconsin named Ron Johnson?
Edalsey

Santorum says that global warming is a “hoax”. His running is a Hoax.
- Modavations
  
  Canada dropped out of Kyoto.Last friday Spain said they would no longer subsidize phoney baloney green industries
  - Edalsey
    
    so you are saying that polution doesn’t effect the envoirnment because politicians say so? You are a lemming and you are jumping off of a cliff. wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
    - Modavations
      
      Our Hysteriacl lady Terry Tee Tee said Fri.it’s now “man enhanced global warming”.I guess you didn’t get the Move On update
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Moda remembered something correctly? Meds are working? Guppy told you? Guppy still needs to correct your self-proclaimed second grade spelling, grammar, and punctuation?�
        Guppy is over-worked?
Dave

Why did Romney win Florida? Don’t overlook the elderly factor. Thousands of elderly women saying, “he’s so handsome!” I don’t know that Florida will be predictive of other states going forward. It’s a different demographic there.
- Anonymous
  
  If he is so handsome, how did Newt get more wives?
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    I thought Newt joined the Roman Child-Molesting and Child-Abusing church? He’ more Mormon than Romney?
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  No, its because he such a good singer. Didn’t you hear the acappella America the Beautiful? How many votes was that worth?
  - BHA in Vermont
    
    I hope to never hear it again. Can’t carry a tune!
    Obama did much better with “Let’s stay together”.
    
    But, I don’t vote based on how well the candidate sings
Edalsey

Calista is so hot!
- BHA in Vermont
  
  Yeah, OK. To me she looks a WHOLE lot older than her 45 years.
  - Modavations
    
    If she were a Dem you’d call her Eros
    - Ray in VT
      
      If she were a Democrat, then I would still wonder why she doesn’t seem to blink.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Stepford?
- Anonymous
  
  Pretty weird and very off. Each to their own.
Edalsey

I’d leave my wife for Calista!
- Anonymous
  
  You might not need to if your wife is more open than Newt’s second one was.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman
  
  Having someone named Callista in the White House sounds like a bad vampire novel.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  but can you afford her?
  - Edalsey
    
    no, she looks expensive (
- Modavations
  
  Had her!!
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    PROVE it?
    - Modavations
      
      Are you serious.Do you really think I had her.Will your brain to science.Somebody’s got to study it
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Am I the one having continuous Delusions of Grandeur, about having someone else’s wife, getting ‘limp-wristed’ about celebrity guys, being consulted by heads of state?
        Has anyone else on here seen my comments to that effect?
TFRX

Our host calls “corporate raider” Mitt v. “plenty of money” Ted Kennedy irony?

That’s not irony, Tom. Irony would be a Ken Lay-sort calling Mitt a “corporate raider”, or a Donald Trump complaining that Romney destroys companies for their pieces while still being revered as a business builder.

You’re in MA. This race was ages ago. You should know better.
- Modavations
  
  Herr Krugmans one and only job was a defender of Enron during the embroglio.Did you ever locate Corzines 1.2 billion.What party was he,I forgot
Just Thinking

Firefox is right. The media is failing to say there are less people voting this time. This idea of anybody but Obama may be promoted now, but when push comes to shove, I’d rather Obama than Romney. Obama knows what the average man sufferes – Mit Romney is all about him and his coterie – donations – to the church; connecting to the people – only to do his mission which was with the sole intent to get people to become Mormon. What does he know about the people? – and don’t get me started on what it has taken to clean up MA since he was governor!

This is a man who says he “knows what it’s like to get a pink slipped”… get real. You think this country has troubles now!
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  Obama has the common touch?
  
  How is 90 rounds of golf in less than 3 years a common touch?
  - TFRX
    
    Oooh. “Now watch this drive.”
    
    I’d play this game with you but I have some brush to clear on my ranch pig farm.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      I didn’t think Bush was running this time but we can still have fun.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        ‘W’ set the bar HIGH for time off while in office! Including over 15 minutes to ‘decide’ that he might have something maybe more important than being read to, when told that ‘the country is under attack’?
      - Modavations
        
        Do you really believe that?
  - Cory on the Oder
    
    Is that much different than any ceo? How about Reagan and Bush Jr “clearing brush” at their ranches? Rich guys at the top waste time in America.
    - Ellen Dibble
      
      In America, even we in the middle boast about how we waste time, how we go to the beach, or the tanning salon, or dance at this place or that. Take China, now, in capitalist adolescence; now there, do their yuppies clear brush and boast about it, play golf and spend hours talking about entertainment and celebrities? Just sayin’. (My understanding is that the great majority of people in China are always figuring better ways of making money, not better ways of spending it.)
  - Anonymous
    
    So? The man plays golf. Bush took a lot of holidays I seem to remember.
    
    I bet if you were stuck in traffic today you would blame Obama for it. If your toilet backs up, you blame Obama. You people on the right are turning into comedians. You seem to want to bring back vaudeville with all the bad acts and dog tricks.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      You are missing my point. I could care less how he spends his free time.
      
      The optics of 90 rounds of golf isn’t good for Obama’s brand. Golf isn’t just ‘country club’. It is a huge time sink at about 6 hours per round. I think they call a golfaholics spouse a golf widow.
      
      Many golfers would love to play as much as Obama so he’s not going to get the golf envy vote.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        52 weeks in a year, times 3 years? NOT even every other week?
        How MANY MONTHS did ‘W’ take VACATIONS?
      - TFRX
        
        Concern troll is concerned.
        
        Too busy washing dog diarrhea off Mitt’s wagon to see the optics issue, unless you’re to be another “reasonable righty” like David Brooks.
        
        (I have to tell you that that is not a compliment.)
        
        Voters know the difference between Obama and the most obstructionist Senate and least productive House ever. Voters know the difference between Obama and his brush-clearin’, big-hat no cattle predecessor who ran this country into the ditch.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    ‘W’ took off more days for vacation, than ANY president, even his father ‘HW’, who held the record!
- Modavations
  
  Pres.Obama’s private school in Hawaii cost 26,000 per annum
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    Then, or now? Paid by his grandparents or was the school offering a scholarship and hoping as an alumnus he would kick in something extra?
    - Modavations
      
      quien sabes.
tim in upstate NY

Presidential races are no more than huge advertising campaigns. The more money candidates can muster, the more successful their campaigns because of advertising. Therefore voters are voting proportionally to the amount of advertising, not the issues. Money comes from superpacs, whose money derives from corporations. Voters don’t have chance of making an informed choice.
Amy, Bellows Falls, Vermont

I suspect that the republican money machine will install a new president UNLESS there is so much noise on the street, if you will, that people are voting to re-elect President Obama.

The obstructionism that this president has faced is rooted in racism, no matter how fancily the repubs have danced around that fact. They block Obama no matter WHAT and it is just that the breaking of the colour barrier was done by the Dems.

That’s what I am afraid of, our political system is now so corrupt that MONEY is the only thing that counts.
- Modavations
  
  Get ready kids.When the intellectual riposte fails we can always depend on the Dem.to yell racist.Were we racist when the President had a 70% approval rating
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    30%? That’s about the percentage of the U.S., that claims to be Republican?
    - Modavations
      
      I didn’t quite get what you meant yesterday.So first Move On told you to say Global warming,then they told you to say Global Climate Change,yesterday they told you to say Man enhanced Global Climate something or other.Arn’t you the guy who said of the 20,000 shovel ready jobs at the Keystone Pipeline,that it’s really not that big a deal?
      33% Reps.,33% Dems. and the rest Independents.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Move On does NOT tell me what to say!�
        I came up with the ‘man-enhanced climate change’, myself, (I have NOT seen it before) to emphasize the different aspects of the problem.
        No, I’m the guy that said ‘TransCanada admitted that it was FAR fewer jobs than 20,000 jobs’!
        TransCanada has said it’s probably about 13,000 jobs! THAT is NOT as big of a deal as 20,000?
        Guppy needs to get you some meds for your memory?
- Tim in Upstate NY
  
  Money is the root of the problem. You’re rashly stereotyping every republican as racist, which isn’t fair at all.
  - TFRX
    
    Tell me which Republican can get anywhere with their tastemakers, their opinion leaders, or their propaganda press without either being 1) genuinely racist or 2) having to appeal to the genuine racists.
    
    The “reasonable Republicans” still in elective office are cranking their wheels rightward in order to not be primaried. I don’t know where that process ends.
    - Tim in Upstate NY
      
      Listen, I’m not defending racists at all. Racial prejudice exists within our country since it’s establishment. Sometimes poor rhetoric can be interpreted as racist. Furthermore, being obtusely racist is inherently bad politics. Why would an aspiring politician say racist things even if they were, in fact a racist?
      - TFRX
        
        First, I don’t believe you’re defending racists, and sorry if I left that impression.
        
        Second, the original poster said “rooted in racism”. For me, that’s where all the Kenyanism, birtherism, “food stamps” crap comes from.
        
        Third, when it comes to how racist a politician is, or appears to be, or how they communicate, there’s a lot of hay to be made with racist dogwhistling. See the Kenyanism, birtherism, foodstamps.
        
        I don’t know about your particulars in upstate NY, and mine are different in the suburban northeast. But there are great swaths of the US where there are concentrated numbers of voters who can be swayed by this.
    - Modavations
      
      What party was the beloved Robert Byrd
  - Anonymous
    
    No, she’s not stereotyping, Tim. She’s right. Much of what we saw on the Republican side of Congress was mighty close to old-fashioned racism, measured by their statements. It’s a nasty piece of history and of our contemporary Congress. Yes, money is the root of what our democracy has turned into, but racism is deeply embedded in America — even after all these years of patting ourselves on the back for “civil rights.”
    
    It’s easier to see this if one has lived outside the country for a while. Although we have “integrated” in many ways, our racism still shows up not only in our personal behaviors but in our economy, our communities, our schools, and our prison system.
    - Tim in Upstate NY
      
      Yes, but blaming republicans, who are mostly regular citizens and not politicians is wrong. Also, you’re assuming no democrat has never supported a law that favors perpetuating this inequality, which can’t be the case as democrats have been in the congressional majority over the past 50 years.
      - Anonymous
        
        Tim, I’m obviously not blaming Republicans as a whole, except to the extent that regular Republican citizens vote for these rotters. (And I do believe that to vote Republican at national level now is to be complicit in their party’s actions — as we all are when we vote. This is a democracy, after all, in which we share the responsibilities.)
        
        I see no “equivalence” in the current Congress when it comes to outright racism, greed, and obstruction. Republicans, whether all the members of their party like it or not (and many moderates don’t!) have come to be the party over the past 40 years that represents our worst instincts, not our best.
        
        So eat your words, Tim. I’m not “assuming that no democrat” [or Democrat] “has never supported a law that favors perpetuating this inequality.” Your “if you think A, therefore you assume B” doesn’t work in the real world.
  - TFRX
    
    “The obstructionism that this president has faced is rooted in racism.”
    
    isn’t the same as stereotyping every Republican as racist.
JP

Did she just say “Republicans are smart???!!!!!”
Anonymous

In spite of the panel and with respect for On Point’s effort to open up the discussion to every point of view, my own view is that treating this election process as normal enough to talk about without gagging on Newt, Romney the raider, Rove, Americans for Prosperity, every Adelson sibling and their cousins, and the overall corporate influence, is helping to perpetuate a great national lie.

No matter what kind of puppet show the Republican party puts on, we are looking at low-grade candidates who are wholly in thrall to big money. In a context where money is the power, the rest of us separated from the stage on which these puppets are performing. We can clap or we can hiss and moan, but we don’t really have the vote. The money votes for us.
BHA in Vermont

Do these Republican candidates remember that ~ 2/3 of the voters in this country ARE NOT Republicans?

They need to be careful about trashing the sitting president, especially when most of it is standard politics – spin, half truths and outright lies. “I’ll fix everything” but there is no plan on how they will do that. Obama is not to blame for the state of the economy, it crashed before he was elected.
- TFRX
  
  Republicans? I’d settle for one person on every mainstream media show saying it once every hour.
joye in Iowa

Maybe conservatives just don’t have the pull or the prevalence that they used to. Gingrich has often been accused of being the pot that calls the kettle black. Maybe the majority of Republicans are waking up to the fact that this kind of hypocrisy is not what they want, and that radical conservatism is against their own interests.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

SuperPACs are going to get really ugly – money can be used for a lot more than advertising. Eventually the amount of money becomes big enough where back room deals and flimflam get more bang for the buck than buying more commercials. And of course the winner will suppress any follow up investigations into improprieties.
Edalsey

Old republicans will die out and the party better start embracing us Ron Paul libertarian republicans!
- Modavations
  
  Agreed.If we could put Paul’s brain in Romney’s body we’d win in a landslide
Listener

If Newt wants to take down the entire Republican party, then everyone, including Democrats should vote for Newt. It seems like the Republican party is the party of extremism, ideology, and gold-bug conspiracy theorists. Taking down the Republican party would be a good thing.
Rbrunelli

As a Officer in the Reserves, I do not like the bellicose talk of the Republicans (excepting that retrogressive, Ron Paul). Obama has announced meager, insignificant withdrawals from Afghanistan, but at least it’s a start.

As for PACs, the the Rep. are now reaping what they’ve sown.
- Edalsey
  
  As an officer in the reserves, you shouldn’t post “as an officer in the reserves!”
  - Anonymous
    
    Why not, it’s a free country. At least to some extent.
    - Edalsey
      
      Your a solider. You can’t make that statement as it is a representation of the military. How long have you been in the military, a day?
      - Modavations
        
        This guy spit on the Vets coming back from Vietnam
      - TFRX
        
        Okay, Foghorn. Prove that ever happened.
        
        Ever wonder why nobody wants to play with you?
      - Modavations
        
        Dude I’m not here to make friends.These are the Culture Wars.Europe has been liberated,Mexico and Canada are liberated.The US is next
      - Ray in VT
        
        Yes, look how “free” they are with their universal health care. You are aware that in some parts of Europe women get paid maternal leave by the state, right? I mean, you may have missed the windmills, but you saw that didn’t you?
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        If Moda could miss seeing 21,000 wind turbines, what makes you think he could see, or comprehend women on maternity leave?
      - TFRX
        
        Can’t back up your assertions again, hm?
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        WHICH guy spit on Vets coming back from Vietnam?
        Rbrunelli? NOT likely that he is OLD enough!
        YOUR service in millitary?
      - Modavations
        
        Draft Dodger,got out on the lottery(#291).Your credentials as a Fire Bug and your military history please.I lived in Joburg for 4 years.No police.We were armed at all times.I can handle all Pistolas.As for Jeffe68,Trfx,and the OWS crew,the animous to the military is worn on their sleeves
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Such a surprise?
    - BHA in Vermont
      
      I think because it potentially gives the impression that he is speaking for “all” the military.
      
      I don’t think that is the intent, only saying it to point out that HE/SHE has a closer relationship to the hawk talk.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000753377770 Joachim Kriegel
    
    Really?? Why not. JUst fodder for the canons or a “people” of this country with a voice.
  - Rbrunelli3
    
    Yeah, but there seems to be this impression that there is monolithic
    support for the republicans in the military. How on earth does that
    happen? I must be the only known military member stating an opinion.
    
    But you’re right–I’ll do the right thing and cease forthwith.
    
    BTW: when is Scott Brown resigning either his commission or his Senate seat? Isn’t having both just a bit of a problem?
    - Modavations
      
      He’s been in for 30 years.Way before his political days
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      I hope that you don’t get into trouble for this, like I would’ve, during Vietnam!
Dsheldon

I cannot believe anyone could possibly compare the disgust the republican voters feel about getting rid of Obama with the the way the democrats felt with Geo. Bush. One of them took us to a ill prepared war based on lies and mistakes,was president when the economy imploded. The other man, Obama has been working diligently trying to dig us out of this financial hole he inherited and repairing our relationships with the rest of the world. His biggest mistake was underestimating the size of the economic crises. That leaves me to believe the only real reason for their intolerance of Barack Obama is the color of his skin. It’s sad and frightening to hear the republicans so united against a good man trying to serve his country. Where’s the patriotism?
- Anonymous
  
  His biggest mistake was thinking that the Republicans were interested in working with him.
  - Gregg
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jifjRVLVjzA
  - BHA in Vermont
    
    I agree. He ran on a platform of working together. He ignorantly believed the Republicans would come around and do their job working for ALL the people of this country. He spent 3 years trying to get things done from the middle and was shot down every time.
    
    In retrospect, he should have quoted GWB “I have a mandate from the people” and shoved everything down the Republicans throats while he had a majority in the House. Apparently that is called “leadership” whereas trying to work together is “weakness”.
    - notafeminista
      
      Well. All the people except the rich people. All the people except the white people. Okay to leave them out.
      - Fredlinskip
        
        Your remark indicates that you (and GOP) think that Obama
        admin is working against the interests of “white people”.
        
        I think your reply reinforces Dsheldon’s point, “…leaves me to believe the only real reason for their intolerance of Barack Obama is the color of his skin.”
        
        As far as working against the rich, it seems to me more about Obama MAY BE working against the deluded notion that our country can make progress in lowering our deficit in a climate where raising revenue to levels in line with times when our nation did better as a whole, is considered a sin.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    For the good of the country? Why would they do that, when they can spend four years to get him out of office? Isn’t that what they ALL campaigned on?
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  I don’t believe skin color has anything to do with it. In fact, I believe Mr. Obama is very likeable.
  
  There are 16 trillion reasons many people believe Mr. Obama doesn’t deserve a second term. Many believe he is in over his head and it is understandable because he really had no executive experience. That missing experience might have helped him conquer the crisis he inherited.
  - Gregg
    
    Bingo. Boiling it all down to race is shallow.
  - TFRX
    
    Perhaps Obama could have conquered this crisis if he didn’t fight a Senate placing a record number of holds and filibusters on all the little things that, now a Black Democrat was elected to the White House, is a Crisis!!1!11one!
    
    Or if the media didn’t tut-tut “both sides do it” and “if only Obama had compromised more” continually, amidst the overriding media narrative that Obama at 47% is as popular as GWBush was at 30%.
    
    Yes, executive experience would have prevented that.
- SomMom
  
  I agree with you, but Republicans should remember that although Democrats and many Independents HATED George W, he won re-election.
  - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
    
    Yes indeed. Something I will never understand, and can only be explained by the ignorance and stupidity of the American electorate.
    - Modavations
      
      hang em
    - Fredlinskip
      
      It was all about the “War on Terrorism”.
      
      We were in midst of America’s greatest bubble economy, so Americans had the luxury to focus on a very narrow “We’s bad, We’s Exceptional, and We’s gonna blow a bunch of A-rabs up” take on “reality”.
- notafeminista
  
  It is. I cannot possibly imagine any American disagreeing with a sitting President. Even more saddening is to think so poorly of the American public that the only reason they might disagree with anyone…is for the color of his/her skin. As though that individual had nothing else to offer but the color of his skin.
  
  One quibble however..this good man didn’t inherit anything. He applied for, and was accepted for, this job. One would hope that he had some inkling of what was going on prior to his acceptance. Even 3T here on this very forum has mentioned the challenges all incoming Presidents face. Can you imagine being Truman? Good heavens, the administration preceding him approved the fire bombing of Dresden and turned a good portion of Japan into radioactive rubble.
  
  I cannot imagine repeatedly re-electing a man so willing to contribute to mass destruction of millions. Literally.
  - Anonymous
    
    Little bit of history. Truman ordered the A bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was FDR’s vice president and succeeded him when FDR died in office in April of 1945. The other thing Dresden was joint British and US raid and was really a plan that originated in the British war office and was Churchill’ idea. You seem to have forgotten that the Germans fire bombed London way before Dresden. This does not excuse the raid, it was a pointless and horrific event. For some reason you left that part of the history out.
    - notafeminista
      
      You are correct. We’ll give them both kudos for killing millions of people. My error.
      - Ray in VT
        
        I know some World War II vets who were very happy with the atomic bomb. War creates no win situations. Given the total fanaticism with which the Japanese Imperial Army fought on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the bombs probably killed far less people than a land invasion would have.
      - Anonymous
        
        Ray, it’s useless. You make a comment and some people come back with absurd off subject retorts thinking that this is an answer. But how can one argue with someone who does not even know the basics of US history. It’s astonishing to me how many people know nothing about the history of the nation and are unable to parse how these eras effected the leaders and their decisions. I’m not a historian, nor do I read a lot on history and I’m astonished at the lack of knowledge people have. Then they have the nerve to make comments based on made up fantasies.
      - Anonymous
        
        What is it with people acting like they are in the 5th grade?
        It was war. It was an awful war.
        In war people die, my family died at the hands of nazis, 80% of my mothers family were gassed by them.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Give them CREDIT for SAVING MILLIONS of lives, Allied , Axis, AND mostly civillian!
    - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000753377770 Joachim Kriegel
      
      Correct. The American voters that tell us the Republicans make it better should remember that the cart was stuck in the dirt by BUSH and Co, that the house is ruled by Nasties like McConnel and Boehner, that do not have the American well being at heart but only their nasty politics. In a time when this country deserves that everybody gives it’s utmost to bring it back, their only agenda is to bring Obama out of the office. Get on Republicans, believe that Romney works for you when he really has only the 1% at the top on his agenda. What a guy, running for Governor in Massachusetts and insulting this state every bit since he left office. A guy that parks his money in hidden accounts in Switzerland and Cayman Islands, common with Money laundering. I hope that the IRS will schedule an audit to see if he has really declared these accounts and paid taxes on all his income. This guy who has dismantled companies for the benefits of his own pocket and pretends to have created jobs beside the low paid ones in Staples and Sports authority. Nobody is able to claim that this are middle class jobs, perhaps a second job to make it over the months. Romney and the other republican clowns are no competition for Obama, and while the country has slowly come to recovery, we can only hope to get another republican foul into office to jeopardize this gain.
      - Modavations
        
        What party is Corzine.Ma. is so corrupt guys are going to prison left and right for embezzling the Welfare Programs they oversee.Ma.is as close to Moscow as it gets.One party rule.The last three speakers of the House are in jail,or were disbarred.#4 is on his way.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Embezzling from ANY organization is a crime, and should be prosecuted! Regardless of political affiliation!
      - Modavations
        
        Welfare Agencies were what they embezzled.In Ma.we have a scandal de Jour.Last week they busted a joint in Lynn exchanging Crack for Food Stamps(debit card scam).
      - notafeminista
        
        Remind me again, which one was in bed with Franklin Raines? McConnell or Boehner? I can’t remember.
        Was it McConnell or Boehner decrying so-called “redlining”? No wait, wasn’t them we know Republicans are racist to the core.
    - Modavations
      
      keep spinnin
      - Anonymous
        
        Yeah, from the guy who thinks the nazis were socialist. Keep flipping the crap buddy. Are you aware of how foolish you sound?
      - Modavations
        
        National Workers Socialist Party.He was a genius naming his party NAZI to fool us 60 years in the future.And Stalin and Mao were just misunderstood
    - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
      
      FDR won 4 times, however I am not sure all were landslides.
  - BHA in Vermont
    
    “I cannot possibly imagine any American disagreeing with a sitting President. ”
    
    Oh PUULLLEEEAAASSSEEE.
    If the President lies to you, should you agree with him?
    
    The ONLY thing I agreed with GWB on was the need to get a good guest worker program in this country.
    - notafeminista
      
      Thanks BHA.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    The KNOWN attrocities of the Nazi and Japanese war machines were bad enough, that these measures were NEEDED to CONVINCE them that they were fighting a loosing war, that their leaders denied!
    MILLIONS more would have died on BOTH Allied ANY Axis sides, without these convincing measures!
    Dresden was also the suspected location of the Nazi Heavy Water Production, which was known to be needed to make a nuclear weapon!
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
  
  Indeed. And the dirty Republicans…as exampled by the likes of Granny Mitch McConnell have made it clear from day ONE, that their main objective is to destroy Obams…the welfare of the Nation be damned. Other than serving their own interests and those of their corporate masters I can think of no reason ANY Republican should be retained in office.
  
  How these lying hypocrites can be elected in their home States is a mystery to me.
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    What would be their platform? I will go to Washington and make it even more dysfunctional? I am going to Washington to make the president look ridiculous?
    - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
      
      No, not necessary, you have already made YOURSELF sound ridiculous enough.
  - Modavations
    
    hang em
    - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
      
      Why don’t you find some good interntet porn and occupy yourself in a manner more befitting your intellect?
  - Robert Long View
    
    MCConnell’s position betray his KY roots and the Code of the Mtn Man. I cite Malcolmn Gladwell: “Be a man and die like your daddy died.” paraphrased here. We all know the Hatfields & MCCoy’s: IF’n it’s worth fighten’ ‘n feudin’ fer, it’s worth die’n’ fer…. mentality.
- TFRX
  
  I mostly agree with your post, but I don’t count “Where’s the patriotism” as particularly on-point.
  
  There are plenty of other more appropriate terms to paint their failings with rather than “non patriotic”.
- Rbrunelli3
  
  Believe it. They hated Obama before he was even elected. An idiot cousin of mine brags about hating him before it was “fashionable” to hate him. And despite the fact he’s under 50, he also still calls Asians “Orientals.”
  - Modavations
    
    Did we hate him when he had an approval rating of 70%.The animous is toward the policy
    - TFRX
      
      A non-insignificant group of righties were calling him KenyanUsurperCommunistFascist before Labor Day 2008. That’s hate, or having to whip up hate.
      
      Remember when McCain had to talk down that crazy lady (South Carolina?) who said “Obama’s a Muslim”. McCain had to be the sane one in the room.
      
      Someone wanna explain to Moda how every president comes into office with temporary, sky high approval ratings?
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Except ‘W’?
      - Modavations
        
        Bush Derangement Syndrome.Turn around,face the future.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        You claim you bought 1 MILLION 100 Watt incandescent light bulbs, and tell anyone else they should face the future?
      - TFRX
        
        No, especially GWBush.
        
        First, our mainstream press was saying “Give it up, Al” about Columbus Day 2000. They hated him and couldn’t believe he would win.
        
        Then, around Veterans Day 2000 our mainstream media, with a straight face, was saying “Al Gore should be grateful and accomodating if he wins.” And two seconds later they’d say “It’s gonna be a triumphant mandate if GW Bush is tallied the winner.”
        
        Yes, the majority who voted for Gore gave Shrub a fair shot. And Shrub blew it, bigtime.
      - Robert Long View
        
        The :”People are Corporations” Supreme CT gave us Bush2
      - Robert Long View
        
        she voted for Gingrich ’cause he knows how to walk the talk
    - Anonymous
      
      Republicans hated him even more back in the halcyon days of the economy on the brink of collapse and unemployment pushing 10%
  - Robert Long View
    
    Lee Atwater trained the Republican
    candidates, and the religious Christian Soldiers took up the cause and went to
    war to take back the Supreme CT. What
    would Jesus do? Don’t ask a
    Christian – they can’t see the forest for the trees.
    - Modavations
      
      Jesus was laissez Faire(No Terry Not Layzee Fairey).He said screw the Social Workers,I’ll teach you to fish
- Robert Long View
  
  Amen, i realized it in the Fall 2009 with the blow up over Obama going to address school children. He considered the Greater Good and backed down too. I think he would have inspired a lot of White kids with his presence. So, yeah Jimmy Carter is right, it is racial… .
Worried for the country(MA)

How about the millions the Obama superPAC has spent in FL going negative on one candidate; Romney. Is there any precedent for spending this kind of money in the other parties primary?
- Anonymous
  
  Did you support the Supreme Court ruling on corporations being people and money is free speech. If so you don’t have a leg to stand on in complaining about it.
  - Tim in Upstate NY
    
    Corporations are people, but are not subject to the laws of people…just like politicians.
    
    Neither should be considered people.
    - Modavations
      
      Even though 40% of Teamsters are Republicans the Unions give 100% to the Dems.Social Workers of the World Unite
    - Robert Long View
      
      unless your a public speaker living off unearned capital gain income — then INC is flesh and blud
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    I don’t remember Karl Rove on TV every Sunday railing about John Kerry in January of 2004.
    
    Axelrod is everywhere. Money is just part of it.
    
    Obama must really fear that Romney will get the nomination.
    - Modavations
      
      The lady who accused Cain lives in the apartment bldg of Herr Axelrod
      - Robert Long View
        
        is he tapping too
    - TFRX
      
      Karl Rove in particular, or the overwhelming GOP tilt of the Sunday yakfests in general?
      
      I don’t trust what you remember.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        GOP tilt? Now that is funny.
      - TFRX
        
        Newt was the most-common guest on MTP in 2009.
        
        John McCain can’t be gotten rid of on these panels.
        
        When you’re a Republican, and you’ve lost, the media just washes the losing-ness off the loser.
        
        You don’t know what you’re talking about.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        The ‘yakfests’ will have mostly GOP GUESTS when the only contested primary is GOP. In 2004, the GUESTS were all Dem.
        
        All the ‘yakfest’ hosts are liberal; even Chris Wallace on Fox. Back in 2004; at least we had Tim Russert. Russert was liberal but he was a professional who did tough interviews to both sides.
      - TFRX
        
        Chris Wallace is a liberal?
        
        No point throwing good sense at you.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        On further reflection; Chris Wallace may not be a liberal like his father but he is just as annoying.
      - Modavations
        
        ABC,CBS,NBC.
        Main commentators of the main Sunday News shows were Russet,Comrad Chris and Stephanopolus(?).All Dems.who worked for Dem.Pols.The 4th estate is the 5th column
    - Anonymous
      
      Oh please. You have to be kidding. Karl Rove wrote the book on this negative kind of campaigning. I guess you forgot the Swift Boat BS.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        Sigh! We are talking about taking on the front runner of the other side DURING the primary, not after.
        
        Was Bush trying to take out Howard Dean during the early primary states?
        
        Honestly, I had never heard Karl Rove’s involvement in the swift boat stuff. I thought it was from an independent group. I just did a quick search and Rove didn’t pop up.
      - Ray in VT
        
        I don’t know if Rove was involved or not. I don’t remember hearing so at the time. The main guy behind it, though, has had a beef with Kerry since the early 1970s.
      - Gregg
        
        It was a legitimate issue. Kerry was the one that made his service a focus. These soldiers had every right.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines are NOT soldiers. We resent this kind of inaccuracy!
      - TFRX
        
        It was not.
        
        Some lying shitesacks went after Kerry and the propaganda press whored the “issue” to a faretheewell.
        
        And the “mainstream media” said “ooh, opinions differ”.
        
        You really need to back away from the Foxholers.
      - Gregg
        
        So these honorable men made it all up? All of them?
      - Robert Long View
        
        hoodwinked
      - TFRX
        
        Let’s see: All the Navy was in on it except for these few men. One side is “honorable” and the other is not, by that dint.
        
        You’re slipping into hackdom. Either that or an extended A-Team-style fantasy.
        
        And our pu$$y mainstream press had to “cover the controversy”. Kerry’s facts were “one side of the story”.
      - Robert Long View
        
        Kerry was a Patriot, a soldier, a leader (he had his Own Brain) a social consciousness — i remember the 60′s
      - Anonymous
        
        Rove is the man who designed the negative take no prisoners campaign we are now seeing play out. Were have you been?
      - Robert Long View
        
        If Rove “the Brain” did leave his fingerprints on it he would be in vilolation of the law, no?
      - Robert Long View
        
        character assassination which T Boone Pickens bankrolled
  - Modavations
    
    What’s the difference between a Union and IBM.In case you haven’t noticed the unions are all for it now
    - Anonymous
      
      Are you aware that you sound like a 5th grade kid in playground when you answer with this kind of rhetorical nonsense.
      - Modavations
        
        Excellent.I’m only in second!!!
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Your spelling, grammar, and syntax errors SHOW that?
    - Cory on the Oder
      
      One is labor, the other is management.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Union MAKES the products that IBM and other Management PROFIT from!
      - Robert Long View
        
        venture capital job creators?
- Anonymous
  
  There is no precedent for any of the things we’re going to see from super PAC spending. We are in uncharted water, and it’s going to be rough sailing.
DKB

I find it hard to believe that the holy roller wing of the Republican party will accept Mitt as the nominee. I think the Mormon church is regarded as “anti-christian” despite all the PR that LDS HQ has been doing for years. I think we have to wait and see; Mitt doesn’t have it in the bag by a long shot.
- Robert Long View
  
  he’s about Supernatural Christian as Obama is Kenyan Muslim?
MarkVII88

Is anyone else out there questioning the motivations of Newt Gingrich in these primaries? Is he just looking feed his ego and “stick it” to the Republican establishment by dragging their slick and rich poster-boy down through the mud? Or is he trying to be a legitimate candidate who can truly beat Obama in November?
- Gregg
  
  Legit, there are a lot of Conservative who want to stick it to the establishment.
  - Modavations
    
    I’m in that camp
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      According to your comments, Barney Frank is one or the ‘establishment’ you want to stick it to?
      - Modavations
        
        And you wonder why you get bounced.Stalking and hysteria,stalking and hysteria young lady
  - Robert Long View
    
    Dick Armey, is he establishment?
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68
  
  Your user name is a Lincoln “Mark VII 1988″ model? do you still have the car?
- Steve
  
  Could he be the vaccination?
  
  The guy who airs the dirty laundry/objections early in the primaries thereby inocculating the chosen one from main election battles?
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

Romney will be the Republican Presidential candidate.
Remember Newt has no funds. Money is the main ingredient to win a Presidential election. I am not voting for him, I just want him to run against Obama. Mitt is the only NORMAL Republican candidate that is fit to serve the American people (if he win).
- http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
  
  It makes no difference who the Republican candidate is. They are all clowns and liars, appealing to a segment of the population who suffer from collective AMNESIA, and live is a world of myth and fantasy.
  - Modavations
    
    hang em
    - http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/3ETFGMQ3B7VD4AAMILBBEVMCWE JasonA
      
      Grow up.
- Robert Long View
  
  excellent choice!
JP

Republicans are right to be terrified of debating President Obama… he’ll tear them apart.

Obama will be a Titan against any of the Republican “mental infants…” no offense to toddlers.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000753377770 Joachim Kriegel

The mud fight shows the face of the republican party driven by greed and nasty statements. They remind me of the Torries in the UK which was called the nasty party because of the way they conducted themselves. Instead of working constructive, they have nasty people showing contempt for the office of president, lie and insult and expect the people to elect them to office. I am unable to understand how any old guy or a worker in Ohio can vote for any of the Republicans. They will have no mercy in closing their place of work and further outsource, they will have people go back to refusal by healthcare companies because of existing conditions and engage this country without any hesitation in further unpaid wars.
- Robert Long View
  
  Amen, Obama had the opportunity to break organized labor and he failed… a sin more grievous than his giving health care to the insurance industry… oh, and too friendly to Palestinians, etc
SomMom

I’m so glad I’m not a Republican! What a choice– a flip-flopping 1 percenter or Newt Gingrich…. who needs no adjectives.

But as a liberal Democrat, I think Romney would at least not ruin or embarrass our nation. And as a Mass. resident, I have no idea where he’ll stand on the issues once in office. He was no sooner governor than he started running for president and dissing his state and changing his positions on every social issue… Maybe he’ll flip back, who knows?
- TFRX
  
  I think Romney would at least not ruin or embarrass our nation
  
  Do you think Romney would stand up to the crazee in the House and Senate?
  - SomMom
    
    I was comparing Romney to Newt Gingrich.
    - TFRX
      
      Oops. Sorry about that.
      
      Still, I’d see Newt as cheerleading the crazee in Congress. I don’t see Romney as providing enough of an obstacle, given how much the GOP establishment backs him.
      
      And I’m not so curious that I want to elect Romney just to see how that would turn out.
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  What campaign promise did Romney break while governor?
  
  I can think of only one and that was his veto of embryonic stem cell
  research funding and even that wasn’t a direct campaign promise.
  
  Once he turned around the state’s fiscal crisis the democrats blocked him on every additional reform. They were clearly protecting their patronage havens in places like the MTA where MA has the highest paid toll collectors in the country and many of the employees are relatives and friends of democrat politicians.
Anonymous

Best part of the show so far:

Tom Ashbrook plays the clip from the disheartened Forida voter comparing Romney to past failed candidates, then asks the GOP hired gun, Kim, if that hurts to hear.

GOP Flack (paraphrased): “No. In the end of the day, the GOP candidate will win, whoever it is.”

Tom points out history: “But Dole couldn’t do it. McCain couldn’t do it. What makes you think Romney will be any different?”

GOP Flack: (Long, uncomfortable silence….)
- notafeminista
  
  You are referring to a voter as a flack?
  - Anonymous
    
    No. I was referring to the Republican strategist, trying to come up with reasons why her self-proclaimed boring GOP candidate (Vote for Steady Eddy! He promises not to excite you!) was somehow going to do much better than past boring (and losing) GOP candidates come election time. I think the silence said it all….
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  They said Reagan couldn’t beat Carter too. How’s that for history.
  - Anonymous
    
    But Reagan was a likable, inspiring character that could rouse voters left and right. Romney is proving to be the opposite. The farther ahead Romney gets, the lower GOP enthusiasm for their party and voter turnout becomes.
    
    This year, the base is hungry for red meat and anger at the establishment. “Steady Eddy” Romney is never going to deliver on those fronts, no matter how much acting coaching he gets and expensive consultants he hires….
    - Robert Long View
      
      Carter had a brokered convention, did he not?
  - Robert Long View
    
    Nice guys never win?
Brian

Of course Newt’s marital history matters because it is driven, as is most of his self-righteous behavior, by unresolved psychological issues. Newt was sold by his father for a few months unpaid alimony (please watch the Frontline documentary with Newt’s mother from several years ago). Obama certainly had a troubled childhood, but reading his autobiography makes it clear that he did the work to come to terms with it.
TFRX

“Businessmen know how to run things”, caller Jerry says.

Tom, no pushback to this? Our first MBA bidnessman president really didn’t have a lot of luck being a super-manager.
- Tncanoeguy
  
  Difference between managing a functional government and a business? I imagine they are someone different beasts.
  - TFRX
    
    For one, getting rid of poor customers with bad profit margins is an everyday function of a business. Governments don’t have that luxury.
    - Anonymous
      
      Maybe Mitt can apply the Bain principles to government and change that. You know, run government like a business, that is, for the massive profit of a select few.
      - Robert Long View
        
        fire ‘em all?
Anonymous

Is she seriously comparing Mitt to FDR?
- SomMom
  
  Mitt will never “share our pain” (Clinton, not FDR). If he really thinks $375K is “not much money,” I wonder if he realizes how many of us could easily live well for a year on 1/4 of that money (and that 1/4 is, I believe, well over 1.5 times the median income in Mass.)?
  - Worried for the country(MA)
    
    Maybe he won’t “feel our pain”; but if he can get the economy turned around and restore private sector job growth who will really care.
    - TFRX
      
      And he’ll do that because he’s different than GWBush how?
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        Bush was into deficit spending. Didn’t Cheney say: “deficits don’t matter”. How is that working for us?
      - TFRX
        
        And all those Republicans just shut their mouths and went along for the ride.
        
        While the press anoints every right-winger with the “fiscally conservative” birthrighteousness.
        
        Sounds like your fight is with them, not the left.
      - Robert Long View
        
        But, he had to buy a lot of guns & tanks
    - BHA in Vermont
      
      And his PLAN is???
      
      ALL grandiose talk and NO plan – at least to date.
      I don’t think he can force the “job creators” to create jobs just because he says to do so.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        He has the most detailed plan and he is being mocked for his 59 point plan. If you are interested go to his website and read it.
    - Robert Long View
      
      i don’t think he can build up the country, he can however, take a chainsaw to it… .
  - Robert Long View
    
    $375k for each of the 1% will be set for LIFE!
Tncanoeguy

I’m not sure that everyone aspires to wealth. Does money corrupt?
- Ellen Dibble
  
  I think money can detach people, give them preferences and precedences, privileges, connections, various benefits that actually disconnect the person from the rat race participation in which is the greatest human bond I know of. Religion is strong, but the need for food, clothing, and shelter is also powerful, and if you spend a few decades “knowing how the economy works,” meaning using the power of financial excess capacity, well, then, you may know how to manage excess, but you don’t know the rat race the way I know the rat race. I don’t call that advantage “corrupt” per se, but it is SO far from being a desirable state. To me, wanting to be “that” wealthy is like wanting to be a robot, and Romney sounds a bit robotic to me. I wish it were not so.
  - BHA in Vermont
    
    When you can straight faced say your speeches ONLY netted $375K, you are WAY outside understanding the problems of the “common man”.
    
    True, $375K IS small potatoes in his $21+ MILLION income last year but to us regular folks, it is MANY years of working 40+ hours a week.
    - Robert Long View
      
      what, over $100k in trust for the kids and no inheritance tax? sheeshhhh
      - Robert Long View
        
        $100 million trust for the kids
- Modavations
  
  I wanna be corrupted.Please let me be corrupted
  - Anonymous
    
    You’re already netting over $83,000 in cap gains a year, according to your prior posts about what you pay in taxes. That’s doing pretty well by almost anyone’s standards. I’ll leave the “let me be corrupted” alone. For now.
    - Modavations
      
      Are you one of these clairvoyants.I’ve got 10,000 of BoA that I bought at 10.I’m stuck 4,000.00
Rbrunell3

Roosevelt walked the walk, though. Romney drives to Canada with his dog on top of his car and doesn’t even admit making a mistake. Mitt Romney will never get it.
- Anonymous
  
  Not the best metaphor for FDR.
  - TFRX
    
    Yeah, and I didn’t even notice it the first go-around.
    
    If it were jawdropping deadpan, it would be right in Colbert’s wheelhouse.
- Modavations
  
  Dogs on roofs!!!!.Dogs on roofs.I’ll bet the dog had a blast and couldn’t wait to do it again.That’s right out of Move On.Reminds of the day during the Scott Brown election when every lefty I knew,all on the same day said,he’s pathetic, he posed for a nude photo.I’d pay $100 bucks not to see a nude photo of Martha Coakley
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68
    
    check my new comment about a car.
  - TFRX
    
    Nothing misogynistic about that, Foghorn.
    - Modavations
      
      you’re sweating son
      - TFRX
        
        Keep reminding people of an ignorant off-topic blowhard in love with the sound of his own voice, Foghorn.
        
        It looks so good on you.
      - Modavations
        
        ignorant,blowhard,foghorn.This guys 50 to 60 years old.By the end of the day there will be 50 of these screeds
  - Rburnelli3
    
    cf. Gail Colllins.
    
    Funnier than you.
  - Anonymous
    
    Yeah, the dog was sick and had diarrhea.
    Romney stopped the car and hosed off the dog at a a rest stop and then put the poor thing back on the car roof in it’s cage. I’m a dog owner and all I have to say is that’s pretty cruel treatment for man’s best friend. To me this says a lot about the mans character, or lack there of.
    - notafeminista
      
      Bet you’re pro-choice though.
      - TFRX
        
        I’ll bet you’re one pregnancy scare away from secretly being pro-choice.
      - Modavations
        
        Challenge this guy to an arm wrestle.I’ll give two to one on you.Those are fighting words son
  - Just Thinking
    
    You are just spewing nonsense! The dog was sick. Romney showed no compassion – but then he is not a man of compassion. People did not scream about Scott Brown posing nude, they screamed about the double standards – you know, the same type Sarah Palin put towards Brittany Spears’s 16 year old sister having a child out of wedlock – that was just “slutty,” but Palin’s 16 year old unwed daughter giving birth was a “Christian act.”
    - Modavations
      
      I’m on intimate terms with that dog myself.He said he loved it.Ever see the smile on a dog’s face as he sticks his head out the window
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        GUPPY!! Moda’s meds, QUICK!! He’s on intimate terms with Romney’s dog? Like the intimate terms he claims with Barney Frank? Will Moda marry the dog, or Barney Frank?
      - Robert Long View
        
        it’s lonely at the top, in a 55 MPH head wind!
Still Here

I think we’ve learned community organizers are not capable of governing. Send this one back to his community!
- Cory on the Oder
  
  But retired actors, peanut farmers, and spiled draft dodging rich kids are?
  - Cory on the Oder
    
    sorry- “spoiled”.
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      Could have been both?
- Robert Long View
  
  code talk?
Anonymous

WBUR don’t end On Point early – the funeral didn’t start yet and we have already heard these Mayor White tributes for days.
Ellen Dibble

Running for president to avenge a loss in re one’s father (Romney with his father’s run for president; Bush II with his father’s failure to go all the way to Baghdad, or maybe it was the threat to his father’s life…) — not a good reason for running for president.
A rule of thumb, Romney says would we blame him for paying the least taxes possible. But when one is a governor, then one puts the interests of the state first. And Obama, I think he understood there were interests besides his own long before he ran for president.
- Gregg
  
  Have you read Obama’s book? His father had a chip on his shoulder that seems to have been passed down.
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    I’ve read some from his books. I think one might say that it takes a chip on the shoulder for someone to cross the ocean, angle for the credentials an American education can bequeath, and then angle for whatever advantage it gives a man to have a child by an American woman, if that was intended. Anyone who tries to get into Harvard, clear chip on the shoulder. Anyone who tries to become a super model or a movie star, clear chip on the shoulder. �
    And then Obama? Also a real go-getter. Not from the get-go, but once the ball got rolling. I think he began to figure out that his distinctive background and perspective gave him distinctive capabilities, and found the energy to take that on board. I don’t actually call that a chip. Ambition, a real red letter demerit in America.
    - Gregg
      
      I was actually referring to his views on (and experiences with) Colonialism and how it shaped his opinion of America which was anything but positive. I don’t really make that big a deal about it but in the context you raised with Bush and Romney, it’s a least as valid.
      
      I admire the qualities you mention.
      - Gregg
        
        I was actually referring to his views…
        
        “His” meaning Obama’s father.
      - Anonymous
        
        He barely knew his father. Should we judge Mitt based on his father’s brainwashing?
      - Gregg
        
        Not really.
      - Robert Long View
        
        Home-schooled,duh?
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        How do you think the Kenyan’s view of colonialism affected Obama? Obama’s foreign policy doesn’t seem to me to be vengeful, if that’s what you mean.
      - Gregg
        
        First let me say I am getting a little over my head and did not mean to make an issue of this other than to give context to your comment. I believe we are all shaped by our parents but at some point we are responsible as adults for our own views. So, my opinion here is really to disagree with your premise and not to explain Obama.
        
        Having said that, I dug up an interview with Dinesh D’Souza who wrote a book about it. I did not read the book but I do remember several interviews from when it came out. It’s just an interesting theory that makes at least as much sense to me as any father complex Bush or Romney has. That’s all.
        
        http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/248714/dinesh-dsouza-anti-colonial-business-interview
      - Ellen Dibble
        
        Oh, I see. Thanks.
- TFRX
  
  Romney says would we blame him for paying the least taxes possible.
  
  There are many ways for someone with Romney’s wealth and income to play this to appeal to ordinary middle class folk. It’s amazing that he hasn’t stumbled on a single one of them.
  
  Perhaps that’s proof that there’s no more “noblesse oblige” on the right any longer.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  It is either that or to create some sort of ego satisfying legacy.
  - Ellen Dibble
    
    Or to satisfy the hungry ghost of one’s father; I never rule that out.
- Robert Long View
  
  Mission Accomplished! San Diego Bay May 2003. sheeesh
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68

I will vote President Obama to continue for another 4 years to clean up the mess of the Republican party.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68
  
  Modavation check out the Kia Forte it has an air defuser on the rear bumper that looks like an Evo X. I also recommend that car to you. cheap and fast w/ good sound system.
  - Modavations
    
    I went and checked the Honda Accord.It’s a little bigger then I want,but I can get a 2-door.28,000ish
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68
      
      Accord is good but you will hear a road noise when you open your rear windows. 28 thou is too much buy a cheaper one. You live in Massachusetts anyways the salt will eat the under carriage within 4 years of your purchased
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_C2STBLZJK4VKQBV27DVQX3I6CU FAX68
      
      Mitsubishi Ralliart is better and good on snow the same price with the Accord
      - Modavations
        
        Thanks Bro,I have every intention of asking your opinion when the time comes.
Scott B, Jamestown NY

FDR clearly got the struggles of people that were effected by the Great Depression, and use government, directly and indirectly, to create jobs for many people with things like the Nation Recovery Act to the TVA. He also started Social Security, and the wealthiest were taxed at a rate 3x what it is today, and let’s not for that there was also a War Tax enacted when the US entered WWII.

Romney seems to be the antithesis of FDR. He has no sense of the common man. $10,000 bets, his belief that Americans wouldn’t want a [millionaire] President that paid one dime more than what he owes in taxes, lower taxes on the richest 1%…
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  Maybe you should vote for Newt since Newt’s favorite president of the 20th century is FDR.
  - TFRX
    
    That’s you’re best? Time to take a break.
  - Tribalguitars
    
    I like how the Republican, and those on the Right, cherry-pick their beliefs about their leaders and inspirations. They tout Reagan, but don’t hold to many of his beliefs, like a hedge fund manager should be taxed at a rate higher than a bus driver. They beat on Saul Alinsky, but use many of his ideas and tactics, and even hand out his writings at rally’s under re-written titles. They forget the Nixon started the EPA, and Teddy Roosevelt enacted laws to protect the people from big business and monopolies and started the FDA.
    - Worried for the country(MA)
      
      Scott, my comment was tongue in cheek and I apologize for any offense.
      
      I do think the carried interest (fees earned on others capital risk) should be taxed as regular income but if they have earned gains on their own risked capital it should be capital gains.
      
      Nixon was a disaster. He instituted price and wage controls.
      - Robert Long View
        
        the original sound bite: “i am not a crook!”
- Steve
  
  FDR was the antithesis of FDR early in his career
  - Anonymous
    
    True, he was originally a republican.
    - Modavations
      
      You mean like Abraham Lincoln who emanciptaed the slaves from the Dem.Plantation owners
      - Anonymous
        
        No, more like his cousin Theodore Roosevelt. I think he was in the GOP for about 5 minutes and switched early in his life. I could be wrong on this as I’m having trouble finding any documentation.
        I think he joined the GOP because his family were mostly Republicans.
  - Modavations
    
    We have presidential term limits because of the man
    - Cory on the Oder
      
      Yeah, what a scourge…
Steven

My question as I listen to the conversation about presidential campaigning is how important is the office of president really? Will that much be different if Gingrich or Romney become president.. Or for that matter if Obama remains president. I know what the normal answer is, but I’d love to see some insider info laying out how much real ability a president has to change government or our lives.
- Gregg
  
  Yea, there’s a difference. The Senate matters too.
Tina

The one caller was right: this whole thing is being discussed like a popularity contest. MEANWHILE, Romney says things like, “Obamacare: I’ll repeal it!”. Are any of the Republicans aware that Obamacare protects you from being excluded from health insurance if you have a pre-existing medical condition; Obamacare will let each of us have access to health insurance that our status as individuals may not, and our joblessness will not; Obamacare helps our kids who just graduated from high school or college stay on family health insurance plans. IS LIFE SO ‘HIGH SCHOOL’ THAT PEOPLE ARE MORE INTERESTED IN POPULARITY ISSUES THAN ON SIGNIFICANT ISSUES LIKE GETTING HEALTH SCREENING TESTS, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE, MEDICAL CARE??!!! I’ll TELL you WHICH Republicans are aware of these benefits of Obamacare: those who want to squash it because they want more and more profit from the health insurance industry for themselves, and/or for their shareholders!

I just found out yesterday that the chemotherapy medicine that my doctor PREFERRED to give me (because it is safer than alternatives that are available; and because it is very effective) is one of those drugs that are virtually unavailable due to the PROFIT MOTIVES of the drug manufacturers. The manufacturers are not making these drugs because they cannot make enough money doing so. These are not drugs for rare cases of cancer: these are well-received drugs that are very effective. For anyone who thinks that “the free market” and corporations are the entities to trust, rather than government, look carefully and deeply at this situation I’m describing! Obama’s government is only ineffective in some ways because the corporation-backed Republicans have been blocking him and his policies and suggestions. Corporations want to make PROFITS: profits in the middle of health care only mean higher costs and therefore more people excluded. Public-servant delivered administration of the insurance aspects of health care, based on vetted rules and regulations, is far less expensive.
- Cory on the Oder
  
  I think it important to note that the drug companies would still make money for your preferred medicine, just not AS MUCH if they make others instead. It is what is wrong with applying the profit motive to medicine.
Anonymous

Wait, did you not recently claim that you were in congress with the right?
Scott B, Jamestown NY

Survey after survey shows that the great majority people like what’s in “Obamacare” (80% of insurance premiums must be for medical care, kids can stay on parent’s policies until they’re 26, no more “cherry picking” and throwing people off the rolls for pre-existing conditons, et al) they just don’t want to pay for it. Many also, wrongly, think that the government is trying to come between them and their doctors and health care providers and we’re headed towards what they label as “socialism” (another thing they get wrong at its definition).
- TFRX
  
  We are still dealing with the RascalBaggers shouting themselves hoarse to Get Gummint out of their Medicare.
  
  Let’s not forget that, or the media’s “ooh, policy is hard!” framing shite about it.
  - Modavations
    
    Private Accounts(for those who want them),competition across state lines,Tort Reform.
    
    rascal baggers,gummint,ooh policy is hard,framing shite.This innanity will be repeated 50 times today.What’s pitiful is this guy is 50 to 60 years old.He’s not a college kid
    - TFRX
      
      Tort reform is for crap. Ask anyone in McAllen TX about its wonders in bringing down the cost of HC.
      
      Private accounts are cherrypicked, so nobody wants the people remaining, so “reasonable fiscal conservatives” whine that “it’s too expensive” when the remainder go in the public pools.
      
      You’re not even maintaining your own slipshod standards.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        They offer private accounts to state workers in Indiana as an option. They are very popular and have resulted in lower of overall health care costs.
        
        The overall effect is the state saved money and the customer saved money.
        
        I believe Whole Foods offers something similar to their employees.
      - JP
        
        Yeah,
        Whole Foods offers us $1800 per year for our PWA account.
        
        … Our insurance deductible is now $6000/year.
        
        That only leaves us $4200 per year short on the deductible alone… real great.
        
        Every year premium prices and our deductible go up, with the company warning us yearly that we’ll have to make do with less.
        
        At this rate, in a few years our insurance coverage will be worthless AND far too expensive.
        
        This is happenning everywhere, and Whole foods just made the Fortune 500 best places to work again… if this is the best, I’d hate to see the rest!
        
        We’re all lucky President Obama has worked to improve Health Care in our country, which private enterprise is driving into the ground…
        
        …what we should have, however, and what Republicans made it impossible for Obama to strive for, is a single payer system… it’s the only way to control the beast, cover everyone, and get the burden OUT from under American business, making us competitive again!
      - TFRX
        
        I wondered why Worried didn’t link to anything. And now I know.
        
        As an aside, how do WF benefits compare to working in other supermarkets, if you have such experience?
        
        (Supermarkets and other retail don’t directly compare, for my opinion, as non-food-market stores reinvent their product lines regularly. Supermarkets, though, have a smaller window on that.)
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        Here is the link:
        
        http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204251404574342170072865070.html
        
        Nirvana? No. But it is a proven way to lower costs because it makes the customer care about costs as part of the calculus.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        And here is the link to the Indiana story. The customers are voting with their feet.
        http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104576122172835584158.html
      - Scott B, Jamestown NY
        
        Medical accounts are fine, but I was making $9hr and between mortgage, utilities, having to eat to live, clothe myself and the family, pay for my vehicle (payment, insurance, gas, repairs…) exactly where was I supposed to find the $65,000+ that my cancer diagnosis and treatments cost? I’m all for accounts. Hell, let them stash a million dollars tax free, but for the 99% of us working way to hard for way too little, beyond an office visits, some headache meds and a box of bandaids, those accounts aren’t a big help.
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        The model for both Indiana and WF included catastrophic coverage.
        
        I was recently told by my PC doc to have a standard diagnostic specialist visit. He gave me a list of a dozen doctors. Half did the test in the hospital and the other half did it in the office. My PC said they were all high quality. I picked one but cost was not a factor because they all cost the same to me; a $50 copay.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Lucky you!
      - Worried for the country(MA)
        
        True.
      - Modavations
        
        Newt said 800 billion in preventative testing is because of the fear of law suit.Trial Lawyers are 100% in the Dems.pocket.Dr.Berman said on this show that the waste,fraud,etc,. in Medicare could be 130bill per year.Medicare goes broke in about 6-10 years.When asked if Dems.would cut entitlements Harry Reid said screw.When asked about a Budget Harry Reid said screw
      - Ray in VT
        
        Yes, yes. We’ve seen this before. Do you keep a bunch of canned comments in a Word file or something so you can just cut and paste when you don’t have anything new to say?
      - Modavations
        
        yes
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        WHICH Republican ‘conservative’, has seriously fought fraud, waste, and abuse, in the companies that have supported them financially? NO MORALS?
      - Modavations
        
        I have no party.I vote for the man
      - Robert Long View
        
        Tort Reform would save about 2 or 3% of U.S medical costs.
    - Cory on the Oder
      
      What do Taiwan, India, Japan, and China all have in common? Universal national healthcare.
      
      I guess all 4 are euopean socialist welfare states
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        If you went to Boston College?
      - Modavations
        
        This is exactly why you got bounced.Stalking dude,stallking
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Then you would have been FOREVER BANNED, months ago!
      - Scott B, Jamestown NY
        
        I like that the the 5 or 6 countries that don’t have some kind of health care for everyone are all dictatorships and/or communist. That Chin, Viet Nam, and Cuba have health care for their people, and we don’t, is at best, shameful. If all Americas could provide for themselves we wouldn’t have medicaid, medicare, soc sec, food stamps. LI HEAP…
      - Modavations
        
        The Premier of New Foundland went to Miami for his heart operation.Fidel went to Spain and Spain had to fly in the Brits.My hippy pal in Halifax says it breaks his heart what has happened to Canadian Medicine.Lord Moncton was horrified when he saw his mom in a hospital hall way,lying in pee.My mate in Jaipur went for a gall stone operation and awoke with his joint sown onto his forehead.That one is “J”TerryTT.All Europeans making 100,000.00 per annum pay 50% tax rates.I pay 28% Fed and 6% Ma.
    - Scott B, Jamestown NY
      
      Private accounts for those that can afford them (not really viable for those of us in the 99%) , and insurance over state lines (as long as they all meet criteria to actually pay and not just show up for having insurance so no one gets penalized for not having insurace), I’ll go with.
      
      Tort reform I gotta say “No” on, as it seems another ploy to keep more money in the hands of those with even more money. Saying that “If this, then you only get that” as a defacto standard, and not as an individual case, doesn’t work as one size does not fit all, and doesn’t stop bad practices from the people that really need to be stopped.
      It’s really easy to tell someone else that $X is all some tragedy is worth; but is, say, a $250,000 total payout really going to cover the bills of someone that will need specialized and/or long term care? Is it going to stop the one’s at fault if they’re clearly liable if they’re just going to get a monetary slap on the wrist?
    - Robert Long View
      
      unemployed, no health insurance?
  - Robert Long View
    
    They rode a bus (probably Dick Armey funded) thru NC in 2009 & rallys with signs “Hands Off My Medicare.” NC “Right to Work” Labor Secy was on the bus!
- BHA in Vermont
  
  The problem is how to get that information out to the “anything that Obama does is BAD BAD BAD and must be thrown out” voters.
  
  I don’t like the mandate part of the plan only because I want Single Payer health care. NO ONE should have to stay with a job only because they can’t afford health insurance or wouldn’t be able to get it due to preexisting conditions.
  
  SP doesn’t need to be the GOLDEN plan, but it should cover all the basics, as MediCare does, for ALL legal residents of this country. We, as a country, are already more than paying for that cost with the current system.
  
  The FOR PROFIT health insurance companies can still do great business with supplemental plans for those who can afford it.
Still Here

America’s stature has been sinking the last three years, time for a change I hope.
- TFRX
  
  Yep, and it all started on election day 2008. Or inauguration day 2009. Opinions differ.
  
  Better trolling, please.
  - Gregg
    
    Actually, it was on election day 2006 and inauguration day 2007 when things went South.
    - Ray in VT
      
      I would put the date a bit further back, at least to November 2000.
      - Cory on the Oder
        
        Ooh, ooh! I say 1980!
      - Squanto
        
        1607 Jamestown
      - Gregg
        
        Here are two indicators that disagree.
        
        Deficits
        
        Unemployment Rate
      - Ray in VT
        
        Heritage, come on Gregg. I’m interested in the CBO, OMB or GAO workups on the budget numbers, but I can do without the partisan commentary of a group like the Heritage Foundation.
        
        The Congress and Clinton got us back on the right track in the late 1990s, and then the budget got blown up under Bush. People malign tax and spend Democrats, but I’ll take one of those over a tax cut and spend Republican any day.
        
        Would you also credit President Clinton with the massive decline in unemployment from 1993-2000? Are you also suggesting that that weakness in the economy and the subsequent financial sector collapse was due to the Democrats winning the House of Representatives in November of 2006? I hope not. Anyways, I’m going home to go to bed now. Later.
      - Gregg
        
        Ray, I was going to ask you not to shoot the messenger as everyone does with this chart but I did not want to insult you. Please do not read the commentary as it is an aside but do read the souses under the chart. They are the CBO and OMB numbers.
        
        I find the spreadsheet of OMB to be a little easier to read. As stated, they used table 1.1. Here’s the link.
        
        http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals
        
        Look at the data, make a graph and it will be identical to the heritage graphic. I’ve done it, it’s true. I was trying to save you some time. The fact that deficits began to grow (big time) after the turnover is a matter of record. It’s undeniable but I suppose you could say it was a coincidence. The unemployment rate shows the same thing starting in 2007. Again, it might be merely a coincidence but my response had a basis.
        
        As to Clinton, certainly. Why wouldn’t I? Would you share that credit (as he does) with Newt and the historical takeover in 1994? Do you give any credit to the tech bubble?
      - Gregg
        
        Just to be clear, the buck stops with Bush until Jan. 2009. He did his share of damage and it was his fault for losing Congress.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Thank you! I do recognize problems with Obama, but MOST that are attributed to him, started BEFORE he took office, and blaming him for them, is WRONG!
      - Ray in VT
        
        Hi Gregg. I should know better than to shoot the messenger, but I do dislike Heritage and Cato quite a bit. Anyhoo, I did check out the OMB data, although not via the link that you provided. The info that I found contained lines of numbers and percentages, which I preferred, except that they were listed sideways.
        
        Did you see this resource:
        
        http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist.pdf
        
        It’s a big one, but there are some nice breakdowns for the relevant years starting on page 75. Social Security and Medicare payments look to make up a big part of the jump in 2007 following a narrowing of the gap in 2006. I don’t think that it is news to anyone that those entitlement programs are growing at an unsustainable pace and that something needs to be done about their growth. It also didn’t help that federal receipts tanked in 2008. Some of these increasing entitlement costs are probably due to the baby boomers hitting retirement, and that problem is only going to get worse. So I wouldn’t say that it was coincidence. I would say that it is probably in part demographic.
        
        On a personal level there is not a lot that I would like to give Newt credit for. I just don’t like him. However, that having been said, despite the great differences between Congress and the White House in the 1990s, I do think that they were often able to find enough common ground in order to get things done.
        
        The tech bubble was one of those things that couldn’t be seen coming, which is why I would agree with whoever (was it you?) that commented on the ridiculous nature of some of these long term numbers. Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the subject, and now I’m heading back off line again. Have a good night.
      - Robert Long View
        
        How about immigration/amnesty to help with the demographic profile? IS Newt like, Romney, pro self-deportation of the North American migrants?
      - Modavations
        
        Move on,come on Mean Streets
      - Robert Long View
        
        Reagan was an actor, but GWBush was the real thing. CEO Extraordinaire!
      - Robert Long View
        
        Fair & Balanced, no doubt
      - Gregg
        
        I guess so, if that’s what you call the CBO, OMB and Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
      - Robert Long View
        
        Republican Governmental Accounting:
        Reagan and Catsup is a vegetable. yeah they been cookin the books ever since… Clinton was the maestro.
      - Gregg
        
        Alrighty then.
      - Robert Long View
        
        agin us er fer us. padner
    - Anonymous
      
      Yes, nothing that happened before those dates had anything to do with it. Would you also blame the fire department for the fact that your house got burned down by an arsonist? You didn’t drink from the same cup as “Still Here” by any chance, did you?
    - Fredlinskip
      
      Election days 1980 and 2000 come to mind.
      
      I find it interesting that had it not been for Monica Lewinsky or Nader, W would never been elected, there would be no (2nd) Iraq War, and likely nations of the world and divisions in our own country would have rallied together instead have been driven apart as W & co so adeptly orchestrated.
      �
      Perhaps Monica should one day be honored as the most influential person of the century.
      - Gregg
        
        First, if you credit Monica with having that much power then it makes Clinton look even worse. He’s a big boy.
        
        A much stronger case can be made to say Clinton would not have been elected without Perot. He was put into office with 43% of the vote. Nader’s numbers can’t touch Perot’s. Funny, you didn’t mention it. Over 5 million more people voted for Bush than voted for Clinton.
        
        Just sayin’….
      - Modavations
        
        Gen.G(no Terry my hysterical woman,he’s not a real general)next to Ronaldus Magnus,Billy C. was my favorite President.Of course this wasn’t until Newt and the boys read him the riot act.
      - Gregg
        
        Man, I wish I could get everybody to call me that. They won’t.
      - Terry Tree Tree
        
        Why would you want a title that you aren’t?
        If you are what you say, a sucessful musician, a participant in a program to help children, and a horse-farmer, what more do you need, to feel significant?�
        A millitary title of high order? WHY?
      - Gregg
        
        The full title is “General G commander of the great liberated middle States”.
        
        How can you not like that?
- Anonymous
  
  You’re like a modern-day Rip van Winkle, having drank some mysterious brew that appears to have wiped out all memory prior to January, 2009. Welcome back! You missed a lot of stuff.
Tina

TOM AND STAFF: For some reason, today, the comments from Tom and from the Guests were all rolling together on top of one another. Usually, this is NOT the case on this show; and it was disturbing that it was like this today because I could not hear ANY of those overlapped comments. I’m wondering, are more guests calling in on cell phones instead of on land lines, perhaps land lines that were at the guest’s closest public radio station in the past? It just seems like a change in technology MIGHT be impacting the quality of the discussion in a regretfully negative way. (Many cell phones seem to result in conversational “collisions” because if there is any lag time between a speaker’s sentences, the other person hears that space in time as a signal to talk, when, in fact, the first speaker was not really finished speaking yet. This happens A LOT with cell phones, but NOT with land lines. Perhaps this is what was happening today?) IF a change in technology is the cause of this problem, can the guests be made aware to wait until Tom asks for their comment, or something like that? Or, maybe you need to find out what KIND of cell phones they have, or which company provides their phone service: then, maybe some guests will have to come into a station instead of using their own phones (IF that is what is going on). I lost so much of today’s show because of this situation. Also, today some guests sounded like they were talking in the background of the same room with other guests — again, out of range and overlapped enough that they couldn’t be heard. All this is new to my ears. Please HELP because I LOVE your show! THANKS!
- Tina
  
  I should add: altho this extreme overlapping was something I heard today, I DO think that thru out NPR (the only talk radio that I listen to), I’ve been hearing more and more guests whose voices sound “smeared”. I’ve taken to thinking that this is, again, possibly explained by the guest speaking on a cell phone rather than on a land line. Possibly.
  - Scott B, Jamestow NY
    
    The show’s screeners should emphasize that callers should turn OFF (not down, not move away from) their radio or whatever it is that they’re listening to NPR on. I once heard a caller that was calling from his smartphone while they were listening to NPR on it. Well, “heard” wouldn’t exactly be the best way to describe it…
    
    Also, some callers should clearly stop driving and/or roll up a car window; and others should not be doing their dishes or operating other devices.
  - Modavations
    
    The problem mdam is that you only use you”LEFT” ear.
    - Modavations
      
      madam
Margarita Assael

You want a “man who is like the people”? How about an occupy-er who craps on the sidewalk and is a failure??? I want a successful business man to head my country!!! Who wants a loser??????
- Anonymous
  
  I hadn’t heard about that candidate. Who did this?
  - Robert Long View
    
    let me guess a community organizer???
- Just Thinking
  
  It’s hard not to be successful when your daddy’s rich and all the doors are open to you…give me a break. It’s not like he pulled himself up from his boots straps from poverty from riches! Hand me a few million and set me off to a day of hard work and I guarantee you that I would be as, if not more successfu,l than him. I also think I would start companies that helped Americans earn a living rather than line my already rich friends pockets…
  - Still Here
    
    I doubt it. You haven’t accomplished anything, perhaps because of your poor understanding of how the world works.
- Anonymous
  
  Name one person who is running for any office in the country anywhere that fits your vile description.
  
  One more little issue that you seem to be confused about, running a nation is not like running a corporation. I’m not sure where this idea comes from but it’s very misguided.
  - Modavations
    
    I can’t wait for the ads between S.Brown and the mother,the inventor,the guru of the OWS movement.By the way she’s only worth 15 million.She feels their pain
    - Anonymous
      
      Both Brown and Warren have agreed to not use negative campaign tactics or superpacs.
      More 5th grade antics by a 60 year old.
  - Robert Long View
    
    If u don’t like ‘em, u just fire ‘em, Bossman!
- Fredlinskip
  
  Personally I would prefer someone who more closely represents the values, worth, and dignity of all our citizens- not someone whose sole intent seems to be mostly about ensuring the well-being of a small percentile at the top
  at the expense of the rest of the nation.
  
  That’s my opinion- you’re certainly entitled to your own.
Buddhaclown

This show reminds me of On Point shows during the 2008 Hillary vs Obama primary. It was obvious the bias of this show was in favor of Obama. Perhaps it isn’t fair to blame it on the show, the media in general probably held that bias and that was just being reflected in your guests.

Now, of course, it is the exact same thing over! Once again, commentators always seem to have some subtle praise to lavish over Romney and not so subtle criticism of Gingrich every chance they get. Being a liberal, I could care less about either of these men and particularly have negative memories of Gingrich. Yet even to me the pro-Romney anti-Gingrich bias is painfully obvious.
- Robert Long View
  
  At least the tag line is not “Fair & Balanced,” eh?
Buddhaclown

Conservatives believe there should be winners and losers, haves and have nots, and some people should have everything and others nothing. Every conservative I’ve ever known believes this to one degree or another. It is no wonder, then, that the economic divide is becoming so huge in our society because for the past 30-40 years we’ve essentially bought into the conservative ideology for more reasons worth going into.

The greatest transformation that can happen in our society today is if we move away from this competitive philosophy of conservatism toward a more cooperative philosophy of liberalism. That is what voting for Obama is essentially about, what it has always been about. It was never about him ending the wars, or about him undoing the patriot act, or about him punishing corporate America . . . it was always fundamentally about moving us away from the ideology of every man for himself, toward we are all in this together. The first election just set us up for the real election — and it has been a real struggle just to get this far — which is this upcoming one . . . the one in which we choose whether we believe America is about winners and losers, or about We The People.
- Robert Long View
  
  conservatives, Jesus and Bro-Thee-Lee-Love, eh???
Modavations

During the primary analysis poltico said ,while waiting for results from the Panhandle…..We’re waiting for the Cracker Vote.That was not a “J” Terry.Do you know wHAT A Cracker is Terry.Just an other example of Dem.Bias and rascism.
- TFRX
  
  For anyone who just said “Wait, Politico is left-wing”, join the club.
  - Anonymous
    
    To moda anyone who or any (news) organization that strays from his idea of right wing is on the demon left and that includes socialist, fascist, communist, and any ist. I guess one could add Fauvist…
- Anonymous
  
  Isn’t “cracker” what people living in Miami call those living in the panhandle?
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Saltine (known to British as a bisquit), or one that spent their time in an old country store, eating saltines from the barrel?
  - Robert Long View
    
    no pickled pig feet
    - Terry Tree Tree
      
      They would have had to PAY for pickled pig feet?
- Robert Long View
  
  Gentry
Robert Long View

Anybody but Bush? I thot is was MCCain/Palen in 2008? Talk about partisan politics. Americans better wake up and smell the coffee!
http://profiles.google.com/felix.scotfl2 Felix Scott

Mitt is going to be a combination of great wealth and power should he become president. This is really scary. Conservatism is a belief in mean spiritedness and selfishness. All for me and none for you is a fundamental part of this wicked philosophy. Lord help us!
http://profiles.google.com/felix.scotfl2 Felix Scott

MItt says he likes to fire people. Donald Trump likes to fire people as well. Hate radio says that Barack Obama uses the teleprompter all the time and can’t think on his feet. That is a lie and typical of the kind of visceral hatred rhetoric that they spew on hate radio. They fear his ability to debate and improvise, and feel that Romney can’t debate as well as the incumbent.
- Robert Long View
  
  at least the hate mongers are not luke warm, eh? now Trump, that’s a Big time mogul in the mode of Leona Helmsley? Big people, Braggados. Ever dog has his day and a Big dawg has a trust fund w/ no inheritance tax… .
Tacoolman

two comments – How can America accept someone with the wealth of Romney as President given his comments today – just beyond me. Also, no one on NPR has asked the question on how the economy is going to accept 80,000 military cuts into our job force – how is this acceptable?
- Gregg
  
  You say “wealth” like it’s a bad thing.
  - Robert Long View
    
    u believe in the religion of prosperity or u agnostic?
    - Gregg
      
      I just think wealth can be a good thing, that’s all. I’m not religious about it.
      - Robert Long View
        
        as opposed to Ayn Rand, well her spirit finally lives in peace, in Kain Tuck some say
- Robert Long View
  
  they come home to get work, or medication… .
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  George Washington was the wealthiest president by far in real terms.
  
  Why is wealth bad? Since Romney’s wealth was self made it is one indicator of success.
  - Tim E
    
    To me, the issue is whether the elected president, whoever he is, will push for further deregulation of the finance industry, leading to more economic havoc, or for the kind of sensible regulation that was the norm between the Great Depression and the more recent bubbles. If Romney’s wealth would dispose him to favor his own super rich crowd, at the expense of, for example, tens of millions of families who lose their homes after Wall Street has its reckless way, then his wealth would be a negative. Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with it, to my mind.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_I3XALUGVERGXOCKYB2LHR3PGOM EricR

The obvious Romney “failure to connect” has a much more simple explanation than Ashbrook and his guests seemed to want to talk about. Romney is a sociopath. Really, he has all the characteristics. Most adults have pretty good social radar. Instinctively, they have that warning signal that tells them not to trust this man. Since the process is subconscious, they can’t say precisely why that connection is not being made, but it is there.
- Worried for the country(MA)
  
  Eric I think you got it. Maybe Romney is actually the long lost Jack the Ripper. You solved it.
http://profiles.google.com/felix.scotfl2 Felix Scott

Romney is a good liar. I did not pick up on Mitt’s sociopath diagnosis. He does demonstrate many of those characteristics. A con man with money is very formidable. Maybe that is why many people don’t trust him. I am going to look for it now.
- Modavations
  
  Dude,you’re gonna fit right in .What level of Bush Derangement Syndrome do you rate yourself.Our resident hysterical Women Terry TT rates himself 12 on a scale of 1 to 10.
  - Terry Tree Tree
    
    Which parts of Moda’s comment indicates a ‘B.C. education’?
Modavations

I’m 60 and have never heard a news agency use the word “Cracker”.I’ve heard Jesse,or Al lose their grip and call White Guys Crackers.
Modavations

My congratulations to the newest Right To Work State,Indiana.Another in the column of liberated States.All of Europe is Free.Mexico and Canada are free.Only the coasts remain occupied.Even NPR is buckling.Canada quits Kyoto.Even Spain says no mas subvenciones para las empresas “verdes”.
- Robert Long View
  
  “Person-hood amendment” up next, or will the wedge be “sanctity of marriage”
Drewjkelly

When I see above picture and topic title, I can’t help thinking:

“To infinity… And beyond!”
- Robert Long View
  
  a vulture capitalist on the moon, i think Poe wrote a short story about that trip — he never came back too!
Fredlinskip

excuse this comment (trying to rejigger my name back to what it’s supposed to be
- Robert Long View
  
  Here is a hoot:�
  “The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall” (1835) by Edgar Allen Poe. The Stratosphere and Beyond — i believe is was a hoax at the time, too.
Fredlinskip

One more try to sse if Tom will allow me to post under proper identity
- Terry Tree Tree
  
  Welcome back!
Tim E

If it comes down to a choice between Obama and Romney, we’re not doing that badly. I have to believe that some of the things that are coming out of Romney’s mouth in the campaign are because he has to pander to the Republican base. And some of the things Obama will say to pander to the Democratic base will be coming out of the side of his mouth, too. But there isn’t a make-or-break difference between Obama and Romney, in terms of what they are likely actually to do. Pity the US with a President Gingrich, though.
- Anonymous
  
  I don’t disagree entirely, just mostly! Why? Because a significant Republican win — House, Senate, White House — would set in concrete the damage Republicans have done and would continue to do, making our lives even worse.
  
  Stable economy and debt replaced by surplus? Dems tend to do a lot better. Supreme Court? What a mess already, and it would get worse. Peace and honorable relationships with neighbors around the world? Fuggedabahdit! Civil rights and personal freedom? All gone.
  
  The Republican party should be under wraps in a way not dissimilar to how we handle the criminally insane: keep them under lock and key until they return to their role as partners in supporting our original values, including civility, and respect for democratic process.
  - Tim E
    
    I don’t disagree (although the ‘lock and key’ comment can only be tongue-in-cheek). But in terms of the president himself, Obama’s finance staff will continue to be Wall Street insiders, Guantanamo will continue to hold men without charge or trial indefinitely, even newly arrested US citizens, as authorized by Obama’s signature of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Obama has done some great things, and has tried to do some great things but been blocked by the House, but it’s not clear to me that Romney would do only bad things, either. As you mention, though, the worst thing about Romney would be that he would be a Republican president, with, presumably, at least one Republican majority on the Hill.
    - Anonymous
      
      I’m very sympathetic and in agreement with much of what you say, Tim. But we don’t have a choice between Romney (probably) and Mr. or Ms. Ideal Candidate. We have Mr. Imperfect who — to make things worse — has been up against what John Nichols calls a “meticulous” effort to drag America to the right. Just having Obama in the White House with one foot in the center right and the other farther to the left is what we’ve got — hey! Obama is who we elected! (If we weren’t listening to him carefully during the campaign, that’s our problem. And many of us weren’t. You probably were. I was — and further warned by some of his inauguration speech.)
      
      I don’t think Romney would do only bad things either. But when he’s bad, he’s very, very bad. Remember: we don’t even know the half of it! And most of the people on his Republican team are appalling.
      - Tim E
        
        Prairie, full disclosure here: I have never voted for a Democratic president, and I haven’t voted for a Republican president since 2000. The last decade saw a sea change in my attitude toward the GOP, on whose rhetoric my parents gummed my teeth. I secretly wanted Obama to win in 2008, but I couldn’t hold my nose tight enough to exclude the stink of the Democratic party–not that the Republican party doesn’t smell like a rotting corpse.
        
        While I loathe the Republicans’ obstructionism and deregulatory agenda, they are not as protectionistic as the Democratic impulse. They are also not beholden to the unions, whose motives are self-serving rather than serving of the people. I’m a free-trade kind of guy, and that makes me leery of Democratic rhetoric, but I also favor reasonable regulation, especially of the finance industry, so I don’t favor either the Republican deregulatory agenda or the Democratic not-so-covert complicity in it.
        
        For the record was are one or two “very, very bad” things that Romney has done? Bain? I agree, if it was truly vulturistic, but it depends on his specific portfolio there, and do we really know, beyond the partisan sound bytes, what he did at Bain? More relevantly, what is something “very, very bad” he has done as a public, elected official? I’d be remiss to defend him necessarily, but of the whole GOP primary field this time around he and Huntsman seemed to be the most moderate, despite Romney’s nauseous base-ear-tickling bombast.
      - Anonymous
        
        I left the Democratic party (it left me) around the same time after life-long membership, left being my politics. You and I should probably stick to specifics, not parties, which is what you’ve done …beautifully. I disagree with you on some, but recognize that we could have a really interesting conversation about each point of disagreement.
        
        Not, however, in these little boxes!!
        
        Romney? There’s no there there!
        
        Neo-conservatism? Didja see that Obama praised Robert Kagan? Oh well.
      - Tim E
        
        It’s been a pleasure. Yes, I gather it would be a nice discussion. My box is even smaller now than yours was. By the time it’s
        
        O
        b
        a
        m
        a
        
        you might will have provided just the nudge I need.
      - Tim E
        
        PS – I agree that the risk with Obama is lower. There is no chance that he is susceptible to neo-conservatism, but that’s an open question for me about Romney. Obama’s policies are generally center left, and that’s where I seem most comfortable these days, even though on some fiscal issues center right is adequate, if not slightly better.
  - Dan Cooper
    
    Take a look at the graph in the New York Times two sundays ago showing household income relative to national debt per household. All I can say is until you see what has happened since President Obama was elected in a graphic like that you can’t imagine how wrong your debt/surplus comment is. And as far as civil rights go, I think your President just signed the lifetime imprisonment of Americans and others without trial into law. You might not be aware of it because he did it on New Years Eve in hopes you wouldn’t notice. The truth is President Obama has run a third Bush term, the last thing he was elected to do.
    
    http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/01/20/opinion/sunday/debt-graphic.html?ref=sunday
    - Anonymous
      
      Dan — I don’t think it’ll do the slightest good to point out that Obama isn’t responsible for that debt per household figure (saw the graphic). The “homeland security” decision is appalling but not near as appalling as what the Republican party gave us pre-Obama and what it has in store for us if it becomes the majority party. You want that? Not me!
      - Dan Cooper
        
        Of course the bed was made by the Bush administration – there’s no doubt. The point, when you listen to the President’s election speeches, is that the entire reason he was chosen was as the anti-Bush, and he hasn’t been able to deliver at all. He is Bush’s protege in effect, and that’s disgusting. He talks about what he will accomplish and change in the next term as if he weren’t in office now, and hadn’t gone back on near every promise he made. His talk is useless, he’s a well intentioned man and a proven failure. And in fact the homeland security decision is worse than what the Republicans did. The Republicans violated American law. President Obama has incorporated evil into the law, stating that he knows it is wrong as he signs it. He lacks the character and strength for the job.
      - Anonymous
        
        In all honesty, Dan, that strikes me as sour and ill-informed.
      - Dan Cooper
        
        Indeed. The truth, at this point, is sour and the information ill. Turns out hope was audacious, to a fault.
      - Anonymous
        
        Lovely response, Dan!
        
        You are right, We’re all ill-informed — sometimes, I’m pretty sure, by choice. The burden of the whole truth and nothing but is heavy, isn’t it.
WoodTimothy

Looking
for DVD Movie
films

Technology has
brought us from Beta to VHS and
today to are
you afraid of the dark dvd movies. With each
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photos became clearer,
the sound more defined with
an improved experience overall. However, nothing has matched the
quantity DVD movies. With crystal
clear images, incomparable sounds and loads
of added features, DVD movies really
are a hit.Gone is
the time if
your movie rental was
only television.
At
present, a doug
dvd rental includes don’t
just the
movie, and
also deleted scenes, cast interviews, commentary and
infrequently a
documentary on
how the film was
made. Video store rentals are,
but let’s
say you
don’t have a
neighborhood rental store? Not
a problem. Several well
known retailers offer online rentals, therefore
a
movie store is
already merely
close
this article. For a monthly
fee, online rental companies will
assist you to establish
a wish set
of A DIFFERENT
WORLD DVD movies that
you’d like to
discover. They will
point see
a movie from
the list and, while
you watch it, its
returned so
they could earn another selection on
your list. This process continues
with
no additional cost in
the customer. The only thing you
send for is
known as a monthly membership fee. So, be
it online and
in person, youtube
videos store can
be a terrific spot
for their rent Hollywood’s latest hit movies.If
you
want to purchase
a video, your
choices are equally unlimited. Virtually every shop
comes
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give you DVD movies on
the market. The new releases are
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priced than
these so, for
everybody who is with
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On
a monthly basis, motion
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video catalog and selection card. Be certain
to look
at the selection card carefully given
that you may
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it back within
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4 weeks it
is automatically pumped
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client unless they indicate they
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sea of DVD movies are
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away.

ONPOINT

TODAY

Week In The News: IRS And AP, Military Sex Abuse, Angelina Jolie

May 17, 2013

556 Comments

IRS and AP scandals. White House damage control. More military sex abuse. Angelina Jolie. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

How Great Quotes Shaped Our World

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Great quotations. What makes them? And how they shape our language and our view of the world

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