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August 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Week In The News: Akin Stays In, Romney On Energy, Isaac Coming

With Bob Oakes in for Tom Ashbrook

Todd Akin stays in the race for the U.S. Senate. Wildfires burn on. Isaac heads toward the Republican Convention.  Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., speaks during a campaign rally at the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012, in West Chester, Pa. (AP)

Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., speaks during a campaign rally at the American Helicopter Museum & Education Center, Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012, in West Chester, Pa. (AP)

U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin tripped up big time as the abortion debate tumbles back into the campaign for the White House. A new culture war kicks off before  the Grand Old Party’s convention. Isaac may crash the party. The White House draws red lines for the conflict in Syria.

Prince Harry parties a little too hard in Vegas Lance Armstrong  falls. West Nile Virus, wildfires, drought — all spreading in the Lower 48.

This hour, On Point: Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

-Bob Oakes

 

Guests

Eleanor Clift, contributor to Newsweek magazine and the Daily Beast web site.

Walter Shapiro, covers politics for Yahoo News.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From The Reading List

Gawker “Mitt Romney’s $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income. Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.”

New York Times “The Romney-Ryan proposal to reshape Medicare by giving future beneficiaries fixed amounts of money to buy health coverage is deeply unpopular in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to new polls that found that more likely voters in each state trust President Obama to handle Medicare.”

Foreign Policy “For insurgents that are outgunned and lacking support, Syria’s rebels are a consistently cheerful lot. It’s not hard to see why: Here in the country’s northern Aleppo province, they have largely driven Syrian troops out of the countryside, and are forcefully challenging President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on the city of Aleppo.”

 
  • Mike_Card

    Hey!  How ’bout them Jets?

  • Wm_James_from_Missouri

    UK physicist Mark Oxborrow, Jonathan Breeze and Neil Alford created a MASER, ( like a LASER but it uses microwaves instead of light ), that is about a HUNDRED MILLION times more powerful than existing MASERS, says Nature Magazine, this week. Can’t say that I know much of anything worthwhile about MASERS but I do know that LASERS are used in many patented devices. It would seem that we may be seeing MASERS in more items that we use. There will probably be a shake up of sorts in the laser industry. Standard LASER makers will have to pull some rabbits out of some hats to stay competitive; that is good for consumers !
    _
    A number like a hundred million is incredible when talking about technological leaps ! Imagine being a hundred million times better looking ! ( I’ m talking about you, I’m already there : ) )
    _
    Many years from now people will have forgotten about Akin, Ryan and Romney but mankind will still be reaping the benefits of technology developed from these men. Kudos to these 3 wise men !

    • JGC

      “Kudos to these 3 wise men”:  is that kudos to Oxborrow, Breeze and Alford,  or to  Akin, Ryan and Romney?

      • Wm_James_from_Missouri

        The first 3 wise men bring gifts. The second group of wise men take away gifts : )

    • Michiganjf

      Do you really think we’ll have to wait “many years?”

    • WorriedfortheCountry

      Popcorn anyone?

    • Acnestes

      It’s so powerful it will actually thaw your frozen burrito BEFORE you even knew you wanted it!

    • AC

      i like the organ printing machines – how long can i live if i just keep replacing ‘parts’? maybe i’ll get around to using the other 90% of my dormant neurons :)

      • sickofthechit

         Please, wait til Cheny’s gone.

      • Don_B1

        The “meme” that humans only use 10% of their brains does NOT apply to their brain’s neurons; it applies to their ability to use those neurons to analyze problems and find creative solutions that are other than false illusions.

        It is exemplified in the Republican’s devotion to “supply-side” economics which has been empirically shown to be false; see:

        http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2012/08/01/11998/the-failure-of-supply-side-economics/

        It is also found their rejection of science as it has shown biological truths from evolution to the age of the universe and the earth not conforming to a strict reading of the “Bible.”

        It comes down to people retreating in the face of cognitive dissonance. And then they use fear-mongering to browbeat/bully the others around them into conforming to their ideas.

        They talk freedom but that is only freedom for them not anyone who disagrees with them. That is shown in their comments to the effect that anyone more liberal than Ron Paul deserves death.

    • Don_B1

      One of the first uses might be for transmission of energy, since a maser transmits coherent (all the waves are in synchronism, rather than random) so they do not disperse like “normal” light or radio waves, but remain “in focus.”

      The problem is that such beams of energy might do damage to unintended targets.

  • JGC

    Romney brings up his charitable donations to bolster the explanation of his meager 13% tax bill, and one assumes part of that is the minimum 10% tithe required by the Mormon Church.  From Bloomberg Businessweek, ” the Mormon Church only donates 0.7% of its annual income to charity; the United Methodist Church gives about 29%.” (Yes, you read that right: less than 1% of their annual income is donated by the Mormon Church to charity.)

    “…Until the 1990′s, wards -the Mormon equivalent of parishes-
    kept some donated member money locally to distribute for aid and activities as they saw fit.  Today all money is directly wired to Salt Lake City.” 

    It is extremely important to not only Romney the presidential candidate to keep his business dealings in the shade, but also to  Romney the Mormon bishop, to keep these finances secretive.

    • Mike_Card

      I’ll repeat my comment from last week:  Anyone who enjoyed the secrecy and paranoia of the Nixon administration will just LOVE a Romney presidency.  Hard to come up with a better reason to run away from him like a red-haired orphan.

      • sickofthechit

         Round here, we call them red-headed step-child.

        • Mike_Card

          Thanks; regional difference, I guess.

      • J__o__h__n

        I can’t believe that no one has made an issue that he bought his hard drives when he left his governorship.  If those were paper records, that would not have been allowed.  What is he hiding? 

        • DrewInGeorgia

          Said it before and I’ll say it again,
          Every Thing that he possibly can.

      • William

         Really? Obama is so open about his administration? His background?

        • Mike_Card

          If you don’t think you know enough about Obama, don’t vote for him–that’s what I’m thinking about Willard.  He don’t have to show, I don’t have to vote.  Easy as pie.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          “Obama’s background” is what reformed birthers are juuuust learning to ask about. Hack.

    • Sandstone3

      My feeling is Romney is only now saying he doesn’t want to release his taxes because of his donations to the Mormon church as a tactic to move away from Akin.  This was a topic the Dems were pushing prior to Akin’s comment.  He wants anything but Akin/rape/abortion.

      • JGC

        I am thinking, too, that this is sort of the Mormon version of Omertà,  a shutting down of any public discussion on Mormon finances.  There is a lot of secrecy and compartmentalization involved here, and they do not want the cleansing sunshine cast on their financial records.  And I realize that U.S. law does not require religions to open their books to the public, but still: if I gave 10% of my income to any organization, wouldn’t I want to know exactly how they spent it? And especially if it is considered charitable and exempt from federal taxes?

    • J__o__h__n

      Does he give 10% of his capital gains to the Mormon church or does he weasel them too? 

      • JGC

        If Mormon tithing means giving 10% of one’s income to the Church, and the Romneys reported earning $21-million in 2010, then can I extrapolate that the Romneys gave $2.1-million to the Mormon Church, and of that, the Mormon Church donated just 0.7%, or $14,700 to charity?

        • sickofthechit

           Actually they tithed only 7%.

    • Don_B1

      Romney could just give the amounts of his giving listed in his tax returns, leaving the recipients’ names blacked out (“redacted”) and quite possibly satisfy most people.

  • Michiganjf

    Well,

        since evangelical conservatives think hurricanes and tropical storms are God’s vengeance on the areas they hit (e.g.- Pat Robert’s claim about Hurricane Katrina), what do they have to say about the biblically named Isaac ruining the GOP convention?

    Nothing, no doubt.

    • sickofthechit

       Don’t forget their trouble in Minnesota, they had bad storms and McCain picked Palin!

  • Michiganjf

    Republican Todd Akin is on the House Science Commitee!!!!

    This is the kind of moron Republicans would have making health decisions for women in America (not to mention, FOR ALL OF US)!!!!!!!

    The Republican leadership in the House has put this idiot who thinks women can’t be impregnated by rape ON THE HOUSE COMMITEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY????!!!

    … AND WHAT IN THE WORLD IS “LEGITIMATE RAPE?”

    This is the future conservatives would give to America… Clueless morons making decisions about the direction of science AND HEALTH in our country!!!!!

    Just look up The Family Research Council!!! They STILL back Akin and have actually TRIED TO DEFEND HIS POSITION!!

    Huckabee and many evangelicals are also trying to defend the idiot Akin!

    Akin and his “science” advisor, “Dr.” Willke, have also been surrogates for BOTH Ryan and Romney in the anti-choice movement.

    People, WAKE UP!!!

    Republican evangelicals and conservatives are turning America into a backward, third world, theocratic country!!!!

    • margbi

      Have you ever read a SF story titled “The Marching Morons”? It posits the kind of future you’re writing about and it’s scary. 

    • MrNutso
    • Don_B1

      That Dr. John Willke is trained in obstetrics and pushes this “thesis” should be grounds for malpractice. His use of this groundless idea, a distortion of the theory that long-term stress can inhibit women from becoming pregnant even when they want a child, undoubtedly has been influential in a lot of people in the pro-life movement being able to reconcile making a raped woman carry the fetus to term at whatever emotional and economic cost. It allows them to look down at that woman as someone who “wanted” to be raped and this is God’s punishment.

    • JGC

      According to the Borowitz Report, due to the threat of Hurricane Isaac, the RNC is taking the unusual step of moving the Republican Convention from Tampa to the 17th-century…

      • sickofthechit

         Actually they were already in the 17th Century before they picked Tampa.

  • JGC

    Kirsten Kukowski, press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said today on the Diane Rehm Show there is a “misconception” about the absolute no abortion amendment in the party platform.  Todd Akin apologized for his “ill-conceived” choice of words.   Am I detecting a pattern here?

    • jimino

       Yes.  It’s called lying. 

    • Yar

      What about Romney and Ryan among others in the RNC asking Todd Akin to abort his bid for the Senate?

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      “Ill conceived choice of words”?

      If only Akin had the power to not conceive the wrong words the same way women have the power to not conceive with the wrong sperm.

  • WorriedfortheCountry

     North American energy independent by 2020.  I could live with that.

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       The end of wars for oil.

      • Yar

        Regardless of where fossil energy is located, it is finite, relying on fossil fuels starts wars.  It will still separate the have from the have-nots.  It is foolish to think we can keep our current levels of consumption and expect peace. What are you willing to change to end war? 

    • sickofthechit

       We can be energy independent today if we only consumed what we produced ourselves….could you live with that?

      • WorriedfortheCountry

        Isn’t that his proposal?
        *where ‘we’ is the US, Canada and Mexico.

        • sickofthechit

           Didn’t you know? He is planning an invasion of Canada and Mexico.  He has lots of Cousins in Mexico….and he sometimes seems a little Canadian (sorry Canada, just joking!) charles

      • Don_B1

        But his “energy independence” will NOT lower the cost of gasoline ONE CENT. But the cost of extraction will just RAISE the cost; see my post above.

        But renewable energy prices can be lower here and the cost is set by the cost of production here, which is rapidly decreasing, not the cost of energy elsewhere on earth.

        But Romney is doing the bidding of the fossil fuel companies which do not want that type of competition, which they do know they soon will not be able to beat.

    • J__o__h__n

      We already get most of our imported oil from Canada.  Oil prices are set by international demand. 

    • MrNutso

      What happens when the oil runs out?

    • Don_B1

      What Romney was not telling you is that the cost of oil is set globally so even producing all the oil we use will not lower the cost of gasoline one cent.

      Also he was not telling you the cost of that extraction. The extraction of tar-sands oil is extremely expensive in energy (half a barrel of oil has to be burned to heat the stone to liquify the oil enough to draw out a barrel of oil) and water, millions of gallons of which have to be heated and injected into the ground. That water then has to be treated before returning it to the environment, which is again expensive.

      The upshot is that oil for the Keystone Pipeline will be a loss-leader for some years until the cost of gasoline approaches or, more likely, greatly exceeds $7 to $10/gallon in today’s dollars.

      Expect to pay even more for Romney’s energy independence, because the current oil company production tax cutting will be DOUBLED for NO REDUCTION in gasoline costs from what the international market will set. If something were done to lower costs within the U.S., the oil companies would buy it and export it to other users at the higher cost.

    • DrewInGeorgia

      Yeah, I’m sure you could live with that. Your children and grandchildren might find it difficult to live with it especially if your so-called energy independence comes from Drill Baby Drill policies and practices.

  • Bruce94

    Was it Pat Robertson, Rick Santorum or Rick Perry I heard this week warning that if Hurricane Isaac hits Tampa and disrupts the GOP convention, it will be God punishing the craven conservatives within the GOP establishment for their downright “ugly treatment” of true believer, anti-choice champion and rising Republican star, Todd Akin? 

    Does this spell relief for the Dems and rift for the GOP–a rift between the faith-based intolerance of the so-called “values voters” bloc and a faith-based economics that blindly asserts job creation depends on even more tax cuts for the super rich? 

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       No, but Isaac might wash Joe Biden out to sea and help the Dems.

  • ToyYoda

    Are we going to talk about Lance Armstrong announcing that he’s not fighting doping allegations against him?  Can we do a show about it?

    I have friends who are avid cyclists and when I ask them about whether Lance Armstrong cheated, they look at me as if I’m an idiot, and respond “obviously.”  and then proceed to explain.

    Considering that Armstrong stakes his claim as a fierce competitor, it seems out of character to quit.  It seems -to me- the US Anti-Doping Agency most likely has a very strong case against Lance which he can’t defend.  And Lance knows it.  If that’s true, then Lance has much less to lose by quitting now, and playing the victim card.  

    Just look at the payoff matrix.  By choosing victim card or losing in court he will lose his endorsements either way.  But if he can sell the victim card, at least he keeps his legacy, but with a cloud of doubt.  If he gets dragged in court where details will be examined, he loses all his legacy.  Again, we are assuming Lance knows he will lose in court.

    Personally, I don’t care if players dope or not. I take that back. I much rather watch doped players and “Juice Leagues”. The almost comic physique and performance of these athletes makes sports more entertaining.

    Anyways, fascinating chess match.  Your thoughts?

    • LinRP

       Agree 100%. He always has been a lying doper.

      Someone said to me, “If Lance is doping and everyone is doping
      that still makes him the best cyclist of all time.” Weird logic that assumes the playing field was level because everyone was doing it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kevin-Kennedy/100001017944884 Kevin Kennedy

    Does anyone on the panel expect the hard-core libertarian and Tea Party segments of the Republican Party to cause trouble on the floor in Tampa? Or have they made their peace with Romney, now that Paul Ryan is on the ticket? Love the show, Kevin Kennedy, Potsdam, Germany.

  • AC

    If you listen to just Romney speaking about his energy program, he seems nervous. I don’t think even HE thinks it’s a good idea – very narrow and foolish…..
    He’d be terrible at sales

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       Maybe he was uncomfortable eliminating subsidies on $100K electric cars which only serve as toys for the rich.

      Seriously,  I think he was slightly distracted by the wind blowing over his chart vs. any sign of discomfort.

      • AC

        could be….but in all honesty, i do view it as very short sighted myself, so i may have been prejudiced and hoping he was smarter than his own sales pitch..

        • WorriedfortheCountry

          I’m not sure he is being short sighted.  He is in favor of alternatives.  He just doesn’t believe they should be scaled up until they are competitive.  That is the best approach for our fragile economy.

          3 million new energy jobs and $1T in new tax revenues that we need badly.

          Every study shows that prosperity (especially for the middle class) is tied to cheap energy.

          • sickofthechit

             If President Carter’s Energy initiatives had been allowed to go forward instead of being tossed aside by Ronald Raygun’s short-sightedness we wouldn’t need to be fracking (fracturing) the very earth we live on and draw our water from.  Nor would we need to destroy forests and mountains to get the black poison called coal.  Oh, I know, it is completely safe, just like Halliburton and BP were in the Gulf of Mexico.  The Republicans are so wrong on energy that they shouldn’t even have a seat at the table.  All they think of is in 1, 3, 5 and 10 year time-lines at most.  The Chinese have a 50, 100, 250 and 500 year time-frame they work from.  I have no children, and don’t plan to, yet I am still concerned for your children and your children’s children’s future.  Isn’t it about time you thought of them also?

          • WorriedfortheCountry

             Didn’t Carter kill (or at least hamper) the development of the modern nuclear industry?  He certainly ran on that plank.

            The irony is nuclear is the only scalable and cost competitive carbon free power generation techology available today.  Imagine if we didn’t have 40 years of arrested development.

          • sickofthechit

             No imagination needed here. Thank goodness we have only saddled countless future generations with our nuclear waste from 40 years of arrested development, instead of 40 years of all out madness! charles

          • WorriedfortheCountry

             There are innovative solutions to the waste problem on the drawing board.  Like LFTR.  I agree nuclear is not ideal but what is?

          • sickofthechit

             For 5,000 to 10,000 years, sure.

          • MrNutso

            The nuclear industry killed itself by not acknowledging that the plants weren’t foolproof and that accidents could happen.  Starkly obvious after Japans tsunami.  In addition, utilities failed to figure out how to cover the cost of the plants without scalping rate payers.

            That said, many plants operate efficiently with outstanding records.  Those that do should be copied and used as a template for future construction.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            I’d ask you to guess again, but that’s a waste of pixels.

          • WorriedfortheCountry

             Also wasn’t the Carter synfuel program a dud?  A complete dud and waste of $billions?

          • sickofthechit

             The Synfuel program was a dud because Raygun gutted all Department of Energy Programs begun under Carter as soon as he arrived at the Whitehouse. charles

          • J__o__h__n

            So we shouldn’t sponsor developing industries but should continue to shower oil companies with subsidies?

        • Don_B1

          AC, WorriedfortheCountry has a limited if not nonexistent understanding of the steps in bringing a new technology to full use:

          1) Discover a fact of basic science and a potential way to use it.

          2) Research the effectiveness of how to use the scientific theory as it could be implemented in something that could be practically built.

          3) Build a demonstration unit and check it for how well it works.

          4) Find the money to build a larger unit and start early production units.

          5) Use the money that comes in when the early production units deliver as promised to build full production units.

          It is Step 4) where the available money is often not available in the private sector because it is a high risk step with no guaranteed returns. EVERY source of energy has had government support to get through this “development valley” and oil, gas and coal have received orders of magnitude MORE government support in their development than sustainable energy has even dreamt of.

          That this country, and the world — note that Germany is extending its coal production subsidies — is still subsidizing fossil fuel companies, which are making the most profits of almost all companies in the world, is grotesque.

          And those subsidies are NOT reducing the costs of energy by even ONE CENT.

    • J__o__h__n

      His poor salesmanship calls into question his business acumen.  What kind of CEO would pick someone like Romney to be their brand ambassador?

      • Don_B1

        Romney was in the private equity business. In that realm, you look at numbers about a company, evaluate its performance and decide to buy it, rework it and then sell it. The private equity firm does not have to please a customer in the usual sense.

        Note that Romney almost did not get Bain off the ground as he had difficulty getting initial investors until he had established a record of returns on investment. He had to go to some rather seedy people, at least from a strict fundamentalist “Christian” viewpoint.

        He is totally different from previous “businessmen in politics” who had to establish personal relationships with people of totally different life experiences and Mr. Romney has not shown that capability, but it surely will his ability to govern. Note that he was able to pass his “signature” healthcare in Massachusetts because the Democrats in the legislature could see the growing costs and knew something had to be done and, like most Democrats, were willing to work to achieve something. But on other issues he did not try very hard and just went off to start working on his campaign for the presidency, disparaging Massachusetts as he went.

        See the article in Slate on this aspect of Romney’s character from a month or so ago.

  • sickofthechit

    You want North American Energy independence?  How about if we only consume what we produce here?  Instant “Energy Independence”.  We can do that starting tomorrow.  Maybe if all the people who really don’t need Hummers, Humvees, Huge SUV’s (Stupid User Vehicles), and Dually Pickups were willing to downsize, 2% of the world’s population wouldn’t burn 20% of the world’s energy. We need to adopt 50 year, 100 year and 500 year timelines into our planning and consumption.  That is why renewables and sustainable energies are the future.  Dirty tar-sands and fracking the earth? no thanks! Charles A. Bowsher

  • sickofthechit

    Romney is not really patriotic enough to be the GOP Presidential Candidate.  He believes in financially supporting the Mormon Church more than he does the United States of America. It’s time Religion’s, all Religions lose their tax exempt status.  We can’t afford them anymore, they are all becoming to political, and they are competing with free enterprise on an uneven playing field.   Charles A. Bowsher

    • AC

      ? religion has always been political, hasn’t it?

  • Sandstone3

    Corporate America will NOT get into the hiring mode until the Bush Tax Cuts, Sequestering & the budget ceiling have been dealt with once and for all. There will be no spending or hiring.  As it is, corporate America hires on a contract basis only for the most part to avoid the actual commitment to staff.  And related benefits.

    • JGC

      That is true, but there also seems to be a corporate worldwide “deer frozen in the headlights” syndrome going on, not just in America.   Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney (the Canadian version of Bernanke) took a “rare swing” at corporate Canada the other day,  “accusing companies of sitting on huge piles of dead money” that should be  deployed to invest in expansion, otherwise return it to the shareholders. 

      “Statistics Canada numbers show Canadian non-financial corporations with a cash hoard of $526-billion at the end of 1st qtr 2012, an increase of 43% since the (Canadian) recession ended in 2009.”  (from the Globe and Mail)

      • Sandstone3

        True that.  Europe is another debacle.  But does that mean that we/congress should stand like deers in the headlights because the rest of the global economy?  Another thing about gvt putting pressure on corp America to part with its money – they’re blaming the private sector for not doing something (hiring) that they are also not doing (setting tax policy).  You (generic ‘you’ not specific!) can’t just point fingers without also looking at yourself. 

      • Sandstone3

        True that!  Add the European debacle in there too.  But does the global econmy provide for a free pass?  It’s curious to consider that the gvt is criticizing the private sector for not doing something (hiring) that they are also not doing (setting policy).  Sometimes you need to look at yourself as you are criticizing others.

      • Sandstone3

        Sorry for the multiple posts!  I’m  not liking the verification process

    • Don_B1

      There is ONE big reason that business is not spending: they do not see customers to buy their products and thus they do not see a return on their investment.

      Given that, there is new “uncertainty” out there in the form of the coming Financial Cliff that Republicans have vowed to use to cut spending on the poor and not raise any “new” revenue, just like they did with the debt ceiling which economists have estimated cost the economy several billion dollars. In a $15 trillion economy that may not be a real big deal, but it also took away from maybe an improvement in the economy. Of course, that is just what the Republican doctor ordered.

  • sickofthechit

    The Romney Ryan “Plan for Medicare” to the extent that it relies on vouchers, either now or in the future is one of the most callous and cynical proposals I have ever heard.  A large portion of my father’s last years (8+) were spent in the ever denser fog of Alzhiemers Disease.  It is nothing short of cruel and callous to propose a Medicare Plan that would burden him or someone similarly situated with having to make a yearly decision which “private plan” looked best from one year to the next.  It iis especially troubling that someone like Ryan whose own grandmother suffered from Alzheimers would propose such an absurd thing.  Was he not around?  This doesn’t even address the reality that Medical Inflation has consistently outpaced typical inflation year in year out for decades.  So in 6 to 8 years the “Voucher” is worth half it’s original value.  Care to guess what happens next? Charles A. Bowsher 

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       You do understand that the premium support is optional and is supported by Democrats going back to Clinton’s team?

      The demonization of any reform to a system that everyone agrees needs reform is a cynical political move during an election cycle.  Even Obama chastised people for Mediscare tactics — until his election was on the line.

      • JGC

        Is the premium support (aka “voucher”) truly optional for everyone, meaning do the 52-year and younger folks have the option of choosing either premium supports or staying with the original Medicare system?  Where is the site to find the Ryan/Romney Medicare Plan?

        As an aside, the term “premium support” is to replace the former term “voucher”, to obfuscate intentions or perceptions through a change in the language.  People intuitively like the idea of themselves being on “support” (although the undeserving Other should not be on the same support.) Maybe Ryan and Romney should embrace their Inner Voucher and say it boldly, instead of wrapping it in the soft baby bunting of “premium support”, much like the Democrats have embraced the formerly derogative word “ObamaCare”.

        • WorriedfortheCountry

           You do understand the difference between premium support and voucher.

          Premium support is the model used by most private employers who provide health insurance options to their employees.  It is also the model for all Federal workers.

          • JGC

            There was a discussion on the Tampa Bay Times Politifact. They mentioned the origins of voucher vs. premium support.  The history of the so-called “dreaded v-word” also came up in the education debates, where a Republican operative boasted of having changed the term from the frightening “voucher” to the more acceptable “opportunity scholarship”.  Just words, I guess…

          • WorriedfortheCountry

             Clinton health expert, Alice Rivllin, has eloquently explained the difference.

            It isn’t wordsmithing.

          • Mike_Card

            The difference is that voucher is one word and premium support is two.  And that is the only difference.

          • JGC

            Wait a minute, are you really sure they are the same? Would you prefer a voucher (as in I.O.U) from the Ryan/romney government, or a premium support – which conjures up feelings of premium (top of the line!) and support (I feel very cozy and comfortable with my new Medicare changes thanks to Ryan/romney)?

          • Mike_Card

            The Romney campaign made a tactical decision to refer to it as “premium support” rather than “voucher,” because they focus grouped the terms and found less resistance among the elcetorate to the term “premium support.”

          • Don_B1

            Democrats agreed that Medicare, and the whole healthcare system needed “fixing,” but they never agreed that the Ryan approach even came close to fixing it. All the Ryan “Plan” does is transfer the growing costs to the patients and their families, simply capping the government’s share of the costs. It does NOTHING, repeat, NOTHING, to slow the growth in costs; it just tells people that if you are not rich you won’t get the care you need.

            Talk about death panels? Do you want to authorize families lacking the money to pay for care, to have their Alzheimer’s afflicted parents “put out of their misery?” Somehow I at least hope that would not fly.

      • sickofthechit

         What you need to watch out for is that the first year they offer the option establishes the level  that those choosing the Medicare Option will receive from that point forward.  Those choosing the Medicare Option will not see an increase in their voucher which matches the increase in the cost going forward.  Otherwise why change it? The only way to achieve the savings they claim is to shift costs to future Seniors.

      • Mouse_2012

        Much like the ACA was supported by republicans going back to the Clinton era?

        The demonization of any reform to a system that everyone agrees needs reform is a cynical political move during an election cycle.

  • Ed75

    The Democratic Party seems to have as its core principles: raise taxes, same-sex marriage, and abortion on demand (federally funded or by tax dollars). Everything else they will negotiate.

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       Principles?

      Like the Obama campaign trying to claim that they’ve created more jobs than Reagan?  And accusing Romney of being a felon or not paying any taxes for 10 years when they know these things are patently false.

      Like Wasserman-Schultz called out for misquoting the LA Times by Anderson Cooper and refusing to retract it ‘because the ends justify the means’.

      • sickofthechit

        How many jobs were being lost monthly in the year preceding Obama’s inauguration?  This was the worst economic downturn in our nation’s history since the great depression.  So the jobs are coming back, the problem is corporate america is so greedy they are willing to sit on the sidelines with more than three trillion dollars in cash in the hopes that if they can just hold out a little longer, Obama won’t be re-elected.  Then they will be able to get back to business as usual which has seen a Genocide of the Middle Class at the hands of tax policies so skewed (favorable) to the rich that the wealthiest 20% now own 88% (and rising) of our countries wealth.  Kind of a tough game to decide to play in if you aren’t one of those 20%. 

        So, how many jobs did Raygun create in his first three and a half years in office?  That is the number you need to come up with to really have a discussion.

        As for Romney’s taxes, where there is smoke there is fire.  He knows revealing his “taxes” will hurt worse than hiding them.  My question for you is, what can be worse than Cayman Island Tax Shelters, Swiss Bank Accounts, IRA’s that balloon from $50,000 to $20,000,000 in the span of just a few years!?

        He is certainly not as proud of how he “…paid all the taxes he was legally required to pay” as he is of his “stellar” business career and his “saving” the winter Olympics.  Otherwise he would be showing off his or his accountants tax acumen.  This ruse that “he is a very private person” is hogwash.  It might do you good to learn a little more about what this guy was doing in the 80′s and 90′s and how Bain decided who they could profit from.  Who they could profit from was their first and only real Maxim.  One key was, did the target company have an over-funded Defined Benefit Pension Plan?  If yes, then the amount of the over-funding was considered to be available to Bain as an asset because they didn’t really care about any pension enhancements for current or future or employees.  Bain wanted the cash.  Add that to the debt they piled on and wow! the payoffs could be nothing short of miraculous! As long as your moral code included getting rich as its main tenet, no problem.

        Charles A. Bowsher

        • Don_B1

          Note that Romney “saved” the Olympics with the not-so-trivial “donation” of over $1 billion by the U.S. taxpayer (from the U.S. Treasury, just for those who need to be told explicitly).

          • Don_B1

            I should have added that Romney also in his private equity “restructuring” of companies took out his profit immediately leaving the company with a pile of debt and often an underfunded employee retirement or healthcare fund. When that debt load was unpayable in an economic downturn, the companies declared bankruptcy leaving the employees to get reduced benefits sometimes fully or at least partially paid for by the U.S. Government.

            Don’t you wish YOU could get the government to finance your capital gains that you put in your 401K to avoid even paying taxes on until some date in the distant future if ever.

        • TinaWrites

          YES!  People need to look underneath the Romney “business events” and see what his Real Motives, Real Tactics, etc., were!  Hearing how private equity firms worked  was shocking when the NY Times first published a piece about Bain that included information that many Americans were learning for the first time.  Unfortunately, now, tons of people have already “mis-digested” that information, and again say, “oh, Romney, he’s a great businessman”, as if his “greatness” will never touch THEM!  Too much optimism in this deluded country!!!

    • jimino

      Since taxes have gone down, there is no same sex marriage act at the federal level and federal funding for abortion is non existent, your conclusion can only be explained by ignorance and bias.  Which qualifies you as a typical so-called conservative.

    • Yar

      Would you rather your tax dollars go to fight war or support education?
      Ed, America needs to be politically degaussed.  Why is it you support rights of an infant over the rights of their mother?  That is your issue, isn’t it?  Do you think a woman who finds herself pregnant deserves choice?  Are you willing to provide economic support for children and mothers? Are you willing to pay for life long care for individuals with disabilities?  Your preferred candidate wants to end all support for these social programs.  I don’t get where demanding a woman carry a child to term even in cases of rape or incest is the morally right thing to do.  Jesus said “‘it would have been better if Judas had never been born.” What did he mean?  I don’t understand your point of view.  It seems to be motivated by hate of those who end pregnancy, and not love of our fellow citizens.  I would rather support a loving society, and not force people into relationships they don’t want.  I don’t hate you Ed, I feel sorry that you don’t see God’s love.  The disciples skinny dipped in the Galilee, and most likely Jesus did too.Come on in, the water is fine.   Please don’t be a Judas.

      • sickofthechit

         Actually, if Jesus said “It would have been better if Judas had never been born”  isn’t that his way of saying that life begins at birth?  Otherwise he would have said “It would have been better if Judas had never been conceived”…..I’m just saying.  charles a. bowsher

      • Don_B1

        Actually, it is the equivalent of the Taliban movement where a woman who gets pregnant by anyone other than her husband, “wanted” to have the sex and it is God’s punishment that she became pregnant and thus the pregnancy must be carried to term.

        The costs of raising that child, mongoloid, autistic, cystic fibrosis, etc., is the continuing punishment of God for some sin that the woman “must” have committed. If the woman suffers medical trauma in the delivery of a still-born or misformed fetus resulting in the loss of the ability to have subsequent children, just more punishment from God.

    • J__o__h__n

      The Hyde amendment prevents use of federal money for abortions.  Also, gays don’t have abortions so why do you oppose their marriages? 

      • Mouse_2012

        doesn’t the hyde amendment make it harder than before to get any federal money for anything to do with abortion or abortion related.

      • Don_B1

        Lesbians could and do undergo In-Vitro Fertilization and that is another aspect that is in line for legal prohibition.

    • jefe68

      Ah yes, more disillusion thinking from the regressive right.

  • J__o__h__n

    What will Pat Robertson say when the hurricane hits the Republican convention?  Ed? 

    • JGC

      If the hurricane comes to Tampa, I think the religious right portion of the Republican Party will say God was displeased at their abandonment of Brother Akin in his hour of need.  However, if it does not come to Tampa, they will take credit that “God approves their message”.  

    • Acnestes

      He’ll say that God is unhappy because they’re not fanatic enough.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        Talibangelicalism never fails, it can only be failed.

  • Gregg Smith

    “I think he’s been a great leader but I don’t want my daughter near him.” -Clair McCaskill referring to Bill Clinton in 2006
    This is your keynote speaker. 

    • Mouse_2012

      twit twit twit.

      You hear Huck defending Akin?

    • jefe68

      Wow, Bill Clinton is a womanizer. Who cares, well I guess all the Puritans do, which I take it your one. This is a lame comment and shows how low your maturity level is.
      That of a 14 year old boy.

      • William

         I thought Bill was accused of raping some woman? Is he a womanizer or a suspected rapist?

        • J__o__h__n

          Was he convicted?  Was he even formally charged? 

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            William heard it and that’s good enough for him.

            “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It’s irresponsible not to.”

    • Mike_Card

      Keynoter is Mayor Julian Castro, of San Antonio.

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

    Livestrong? Pssh. More like Liestrong.

    • Mouse_2012

       All Athletes at that level take something it just matters if it’s legal or not at the time. My buddy is hardcore about punishing anyone that is found doping yet can’t see the irony that he himself takes mutiple pills,drinks,etc that improves his Physical form more than what he would get if he just worked out and ate Healthy(which he does) 

  • Coastghost

    Did the memo somehow never arrive there? Someone please
    alert the WBUR newsroom that Jack Beatty is NOT your resident “news analyst”. In
    her post “NPR introduces new Ethics Handbook, appoints standards and practices
    editor” written for the Poynter Institute and dated 24 February 2012, Mallary
    Jean Tenore claimed matter-of-factly that NPR no longer has “news analysts”.
    Surely WBUR doesn’t want to quibble with the Poynter Institute, whose
    reputation as guardian of journalistic ethics you are slighting by retaining
    the esteemed Mr. Beatty’s studio title.

    • Mouse_2012

      NPR doesn’t even follow it’s own ethic rules(See Dina Temple Rason) So why should WBUR?

  • JGC

    From Jacqueline Murray, a professor of history at the University of Guelph, Ontario:

    “The medieval roots of Mr. Akin’s comments lie in the belief that a woman needed to experience sexual pleasure just as much as a man in order for conception to occur. The corollary is that without female pleasure, no conception would occur. Thus, according to the 12th-century philosopher William of Conches, ‘prostitutes who have sexual relations for money alone, and who take no pleasure during the sex act, do not conceive.’  They would, however, get pregnant from sex with a lover.”

    Comment from Senator Vitter, please?

    • sickofthechit

       Wish they were right, there would be a lot less little republicans in the world….

  • MrNutso
  • Coastghost

    Well, Americans (the bulk of whom do not live in the vaunted Northeast Corridor), we’re in for a full-throated hour of enlightened opinionation with today’s panelists! We can anticipate being told that the voters of Missouri have no good reason to expect that they can elect or even vote for any candidate who egregiously mis-speaks and has his psyche raked and ransacked in order to sell more copies of the NYT and WaPo, enlightened righteous indignation being what it is. We will NOT hear any comparison of US Senate candidate Todd Akin’s verbal gaffe with the words or deeds of US Senate candidate Ted Kennedy, whose Chappaquiddick faux pas of course never imperiled his Senate candidacy (but then, the enlightened voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were never seriously obliged to abide by any opinionations emanating from the sovereign state of Missouri).

    • J__o__h__n

      It wasn’t a gaffe.  He meant to say “forcible” instead of “legitimate” which is just as objectionable.  Denying abortion to rape victims is an extreme position which is shared by Paul Ryan.

      • Don_B1

        Actually, I think Mike Huckabee steered the “conversation” in that direction to make gaffe seem to fall into the “mainstream” of the Republican bills that want to redefine rape.

        But they want to hide the “legitimacy” aspect so people might not recognize that Mr. Akin’s “gaffe” was what he really believes at least as a way to deny abortion to girls under 18 who are raped but because the law will use the easier path of statutory rape to put the criminal away. Thus the girl, who probably was raped by force, will not be able to get an abortion. Since most older men (over 18) are quite likely the girl’s mother’s boyfriend, force could well be the prominent feature of those rapes.

    • jefe68

      Oh please, this comment is so pathetic.
      Ted Kennedy had a long and decent career and by the way the reason he was so loved in Massachusetts was he got things done and if you called his office they would respond, sometimes it would be the senator himself on the phone.  The man, like most men had a lot of faults.
      However he was a brilliant politician who at least knew the difference between faith and science. Something Akin clearly has a problem with. This is not about a gaff, it’s about Akin’ draconian ideas about woman. Plus he seems to be a very good example of an uneducated fool.

      • William

         Is there any truth to the rumor that Ted Kennedy was working with the old Soviet Union against Reagan? At least that is what Forbes Mag. reported.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          Hey, as long as we’re making crap up: Any truth to the rumor that I heard about William driving a windowless van around playgrounds offering candy to schoolkids?

          • William

             Per Ed Klein (Newsweek) Ted used to like to hear Chappaquiddick jokes. Ted was certainly an odd person.  Why do you think he was that way?

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            You like making stuff up on your home planet, don’t you?

          • William

             Prove me wrong…spend a minute on youtube and listen to the NPR show with Ed Klein talking about the late Ted Kennedy and his sense of humor. Even the host was stunned when she heard what Ed said about Ted.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            You’re the one putting shite out about Ted Kennedy and the Soviet Union, and now ask me for proof?

            Hardeefekkinghar.

          • Mike_Card

            He understood that he’d been elected to represent the interests of ignorant fools, as well as Democratic supporters.

          • William

             He led a charmed life appealing to people that were Liberals first.

          • Mike_Card

            If you already have the answer you want, don’t ask the question.

    • StilllHere

      Great comment, thanks for sharing!

  • Mouse_2012

    How funny that the British Press can barely cover the whole Harry event thing :P .

  • Mouse_2012

    Norway killer is finally labelled a terrorist in Norway yet oddly enough the prosecutors wants to fight this label and him being sane.

    Also shooting at the empire state building

  • Mouse_2012

    Also,

    Week in the news NPR refuses to call Breivik a terrorist because he’s not muslims and is white(my view but sure others see this as well).

    Whose betting that Norway will now start profiling white males between the age of 20-40 years old at airports?

    • AC

      where is the line for a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘lunatic’? wait, i’ve just confused myself – i mean a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘lone sociopath’?
      I always assumed ‘terrorist’ implies there is group support for the behavior, a continuation, or a shared duty to react on an ideology….?

      • Mouse_2012

        But there is a group support for his actions/behaviors. Even the shooting happen Glenn beck refered to the children shoot as modern day nazi’s

  • Mouse_2012

    Kudos to Onpoint for managing to get invited to the RNC. you guys are moving up

  • Michiganjf

    Lance Armstrong and all sports doping, the wealthy, politicians (mostly Republicans)… everyone’s getting in trouble lately for lying and cheating.

    This is a good thing!

    If we can reverse the cultural damage the yuppie generation did to America and reverse the “greed is good” mentality that anything is fair play if it gets you ahead, we’ll ALL be better off!

    … especially, because it will likely mean the END of the Republican party, if Americans culturally turn against lying and cheating!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    Romney on energy – drill, baby, drill. Exactly what we heard 4 years ago.

    • Duras

      We are really repeating history.  If we had stayed with Carter’s energy initiative, we would be much better off today.  Indeed, the German’s energy plan (which was Carter’s model) is why Germany has the best energy efficency in the world today.  It sucks that republicans just can’t let us get on with the future.

  • http://twitter.com/en_b ian berry

    Akin just clarified rape is bad, not that women did not actually have a way to shut a resulting pregnancy down.
    Shameful.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      He actually said “forced” rape is bad, because he apparently thinks that there is rape that is not actually forced. Rape is rape.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

    Just in case you were wondering….apparently these folks want to criminalize women who get an abortion due to the fact that they were raped. In other words, it’s not enough that you are assaulted and physically and mentally injured…if you choose not to carry your rapist’s child…they want to put you in jail or give you the death penalty, depending upon the state. 

    I can see the Florida Aquarium staff rolling their eyes in disgust now…particularly the well educated ones…like the science staff. Every time I see a new report…these people repulse me more and more in a guttural sense. Even if I’m not surprised they exist at all. They are so far from godly, if hell really exists, I could see them on a direct decent.

    Now, you at least know why an African American male president was elected before a female president of any color…women are considered second class citizens, mentally deficient, and worthy of enslavement. Apparently, we still have to win the civil rights battle we thought we had already won.

    http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/08/texmessage-rick-perry-louie-gohmert-to-be-honored-as-pro-life-heroes/

    • AlexisJanos

      Yes, we women need to win the civil rights battle still.  We still need to promote a society that protects the most vulnerable among us…the prenatal girls (and boys).  When our girls are allowed to be born, then we women will have won our equality.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

        Have you adopted any foster children? My sister has adopted three. All with special needs MS, CP, and a shaken baby who has no sense of pain and a reduced mental ability due to it’s parents slamming his brain against his skull (she’s a registered nurse). If she hadn’t fallen in love with them and adopted them…they would still be in foster care because no one wants to adopt “defective” children. Gil, would likely be dead as he was dwindling when she saw his picture on the website and decided she wanted him. Chris…one lb when born to a teen mother…he was the size of a hamburger. I love the republicans who say more babies, then cut the funding to foster care programs, food programs, and women’s support programs who predominantly take care of those kids…because those kids are lazy and taking advantage of “my tax money.” They’re hypocrites and fools.

        • AlexisJanos

          Yes, I have adopted two children and am thankful every day their mothers and fathers chose to give them life.  Your sister deserves to be thanked, praised, and supported for the sacrifices she makes to give her three children a loving home.  Again, I believe we need to promote a society that protects the most vulnerable among us.

          • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

            Good for you. So, do you believe that women should have a right to choose not to conceive (ie. birth control)? Just curious…because that is NOT killing babies…it’s preventing conception. And, in sex education?because that prevents them as well (look at the difference between Tennessee and Massachusetts teen birth rates/sex education statistics for evidence on this). And education for women? Because that has proven to help also (the more educated you are, the more likely you will have a job before you get pregnant; and be more successful in providing your children with opportunities in life). All the evidence indicates that these programs prevent pregnancy and reduce the number of abortions nationwide, while also reducing healthcare costs. Why don’t republicans support them? I’m seriously curious about this…because it doesn’t make sense.

          • AlexisJanos

            Women do have a right to choose not to conceive.  The method they choose is a very personal decision, but they should understand that some methods do allow a conception to occur.  Science shows us condoms, other barrier methods, and sterilizations do not allow for a conception to occur.  Hormonal methods (Birth control pills, depo, etc) and IUDs on the other hand are quite different.  In many cases, pills prevent an egg from being released.  But, if an egg does get released the pill has other means.  The pill has already caused the woman’s body to thicken its cervical mucus and this creates a hostile environment for sperm.  If the sperm still makes it to the egg and conception occurs, the pill has also unnaturally thinned the lining of the uterus.  The conceived zygote (some already consider this to be a person) tries to implant in the uterus, but there’s not enough nourishment there for the pregnancy to be sustained. The IUD acts similarly in that enough copper is released in the uterus to make it hostile to the conceived zygote.  This information is not discussed much in doctor’s offices, but it’s also not hidden.  Read the package insert that comes with the pills (or do a web search).
            It’s right there.  I’ve heard that a woman on the pill has on average two conceptions every year (wish I had the reference quickly available to cite).  She generally doesn’t notice anything unusual, other than perhaps a late
            period.  So, if you believe, as I do, that human life begins at conception, these birth control methods are not acceptable.

            I’m supportive of sex education, provided it is presented in a respectful manner that is age appropriate and encourages them to wait rather than explore.  I really prefer parents do the educating since they would know what is appropriate for their child.  But, the reality being what it is I realize it may need to be done in the schools.

            Education for women?
            Of course I support that.  I’ve got an engineering degree and two master’s degrees.  My mother was college educated.  My sisters both have degrees.  Knowledge is power.  It has made a huge impact on our lives.

            Empowering women to make the best choices for themselves is key.  Encouraging society to embrace all life is the next step.  We don’t live in an ideal world.  Things happen that are out of our control,
            comfort zone, and plans.  We can try to make the best decisions going forward, respecting the human dignity in all of
            us.

  • WorriedfortheCountry

    Apparently nut job, Todd Akin, trumps the increase in jobless claims or record high gas prices in this weeks news.

    Why?

    • Davesix6

      Your absolutely right, of course it’s because Akin is yet another distraction the media and Obama campaign can use.
      Neither care about the people of this country

      Remember Obama said “the private sector is doing fine”.

      • anamaria23

        The private sector  is doing fine-stock market up, corporations holding onto billions waiting for the Repubs to come back in office. 

      • Duras

        Look at the numbers.  The private sector is indeed doing more than fine.  Capital and supply are at huge highs.  Demand, lack of consumerism, is making the economy limp along. 

    • Mouse_2012

      If Romney won, gase prices would spike with all the threats he’s making towards Iran and if such attacked occurred.

  • John Drinane

    Question, there are really doctors that think women’s body’s can “shut that whole thing down”? Just because of stress?

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      No. Several doctors spoke up and discussed his comments since they were made. I think he pulled that out of his imaginary doctor…or, he heard what he wanted to hear not understanding the science. 

      • TinaWrites

        And I think I have this right:  Akin is the head of the Science Committee!!!

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

          TinaWrites…what does that mean. Do you mean “He thinks he has this right because he’s on the Science committee.”

          • Mike_Card

            It has more to do with his divinity degree than it does with any House committee.

          • TinaWrites

            Ann, I didn’t have time to look up whether or not Akin is the head of the Science Committee of the House of Representatives, as I thought I’d heard.  I thought I’d ask the question, so that IF it were true, a discussion could ensue about that fact, because it would represent, to me, another “yikes!!!”.  

    • jefe68

      No, and if you know of one who does I bet they are into bleeding patients and reading the bodily humors.

    • Mike_Card

      A few years ago, there were doctors arguing in favor of intelligent design and the notion that the earth is no more 8800 years old; that people roamed the earth with dinosaurs.

  • MrNutso

    Not Tea Party, The Republican Party.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    I think it’s interesting how quiet the media has been on West Nile virus – the number of deaths are jumping and I haven’t heard much of anything of what the survivors went through.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      WBUR had two reports on West Nile (including one yesterday), and channel 7 and 4 have done some coverage. I’m not surprised that other news channels generally…it is related to disease vectors and climate change (which no one wants to talk about in mainstream news). 

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/ANBFOGDPZTAKFZYWTWBC45EPQI john

    So is an Akin win a referendum by the people of Missouri on his statements?

    • MrNutso

      An Akin win would tell me 2 things, one there is sufficient support of his views in Missouri (certainly he has gourps publicly agreeing with what he said), and two, that Missourians may not like others telling them who to vote for (he may be an idiot, but he’s our idiot) ala the continual reelection of senate greats like Jesse Helms.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/ANBFOGDPZTAKFZYWTWBC45EPQI john

        Agree or disagree he has enough motivation to defy his own party and take it to the people, nuts.

      • Mike_Card

        They seem to like their preacher/politicians in that part of the country.  Remember Ashcroft?

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      I guess part of that depends on whether Missouri is a closed-primary state. (Are only R’s allowed to vote in the R’s primary?)

      Considering how much coverage this has received, I’m surprised it’s not at least a footnote in every article that’s a half-minute long.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/ANBFOGDPZTAKFZYWTWBC45EPQI john

        Wonder what the polling reads, not really being done i suppose.

  • J__o__h__n

    The Republicans oppose forcible rape as it is a form of birth control. 

  • hypocracy1

    Bachmann says Tropical Storm Isaac hits Tampa because God is angry with the GOP.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      She’s going to be there to receive an award for her belief that raped women should be forced to keep the unwanted pregnancy or punished for not keeping them…read my other post. It’s ridiculous. 

  • DrewInGeorgia

    Week In The News (WITN)

    WITN: Akin Stays In, Romney On Energy, Isaac Coming

    WITN: Romney-Ryan, Immigration, New Galaxy

    WITN: Truth Battles, Temple Shooting, Mars Landing

    WITN: Romney Abroad, Tea Party Win, Olympic Gold

    WITN: Romney Abroad, Penn State Sanctioned, Olympics Gear Up

    WITN: Campaign Barbs, Killer Drought, Syria Blast

    WITN: Taxes, Romney And The NAACP, Minimum Wage In Scranton

    What’s wrong with this picture?

    • Mike_Card

      More cowbell!!

  • Mouse_2012

    Also worth noting the rulling that guns can now be carried on Colorado collage grounds (as long as there concealed). I’m sure all the Bars around the school just love this thought.

  • BHA_in_Vermont

    Romney thinks there should be no subsidies for solar and wind, they should stand on their own merits. Yet he doesn’t seem to mind the big tax breaks the oil, gas and coal companies get even though they have been highly profitable for decades.

    He dumps on Obama for supporting new technology with gov backed loans but says the govt should invest in new technology development.

    Two faced and clearly so.

    • Wm_James_from_Missouri

      _Nix drive through restaurants. How lazy can people be ?
      _ Convert to lighter colored roofs in the areas of country that gets a lot of sun.
      _ If I had the time I could probably list a 1000 energy saving ideas that would make the US energy independent. There is no energy shortage but there is an intelligence shortage !

      • stillin

         If it doesn’t make a ton of money for someone, they don’t want it, they’ll find a way to get rid of it. A lady in Az. my sister knows says her husband had a machine, that cured the common cold, ( from Austria he was) and since these people were both fighting cancer, they didn’t want a basic cold ever. She says the government had her husband killed and that she has the machine and uses it! This is what she said. It’s a battery operated kind of stress thing…you gotta wonder. If you had this little machine, and it could cure the common cold…you wouldn’t need alka seltzer plus, or tylenol or anything would you? A lot of big money makers would be pissed, and broke. So I have to think, maybe.

  • StilllHere

    Got it Jack, we are free to kill babies.

    • Mouse_2012

      you still can’t club seals yet :P

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      Submitted without comment.

  • Mouse_2012

    Romney camp made a deal with the Ron Paul bots ( not really a deal but attempts to ban them failed) not to mess up the RNC on monday.

    • MrNutso

      The impending storm has moved the roll call for nomination is being moved to Monday when there is limited TV coverage.  This is a double bonus, because hopefully any Ron Paul antics won’t be covered.  Good thing there’s no way to record the proceedings to be replayed in the future.

      • Mouse_2012

        What I read is Romney Camp attempted to ban all the delegates for Ron Paul for the mere fear that they could nominate Ron Paul at the event and than tried to boot Paul speech that they eariler agreed on. Now with the internal backlash there trying to make a deal that some can come(just not enough to do the above)

        Interesting what you said and sounds like something the Romney Camp would do.

  • Mouse_2012

    Romney lies and flip flops all the time. Good thing our media has adopted the fake “fair and balance” so it’s doesn’t really matter if he changes his view day after day

  • WorriedfortheCountry

    10:26 and they are still talking about Akin.

    Incredible.
     

    • JGC

      Definitely incredible.  I am waiting for them to start discussing the Gawker’s cache of Romney confidential documents.

    • hypocracy1

      Akin is still running for Congress.

      Incredible.

      • DrewInGeorgia

        Not that incredible really, he probably figures if someone like Mo Brooks can be elected as a representative his chances aren’t that bad.

    • DrewInGeorgia

      I suppose the recent Week In The News shows when Romney is the focus of discussion until almost forty minutes into the show is more to your liking?

      • Mouse_2012

        No he complain about that too

      • StilllHere

        Well it’s usually talking about his hair, never policy; while Obama gets a free media pass like 4 years ago.  Only the media’s love of Obama hasn’t cooled in the last 4 years, the rest of the country is so much smarter now.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          You got that bassackwards. President Obama is more popular with voters than the media, as the latter need to keep people riled up (your media diet) or tuned in (other mainstreamers), says the Pew surveys.

          Since the beginning of the year, not a single week has gone by in which Obama got better coverage than Romney.

          When Romney was the fourth-place piece of whitebread all the right-wing was mild about, Romney was gettingn better coverage than the President.

  • StilllHere

    Polls have continually shown that the voting public cares more about jobs and the economy than any other single issue, and yet it’s a footnote in these Friday discussions. 

    China’s economy appears to be slowing significantly, and when it comes to real growth that’s all the global economy has going for it.

    The Washington Post notes today that multinational corporations, small firms, banks and wealthy investors are moving large amounts of capital out of the euro into other currencies, raising the possibility of runaway capital flight from the eurozone, analysts said. The risk has reached the point that European regulators are openly discussing ways to restrict the flow of funds if Greece or another country pulls out of the eurozone.

  • WorriedfortheCountry

    Any coverage here of the Obama campaign’s outlandish claim the the so called Obama ‘recovery’ created more jobs than the Reagan recovery?

    • Mouse_2012

      As much as the outlandish claim (that romney got pants on fire for saying) about Obama and welfare.

      • DrewInGeorgia

        Romney also got Four Pinocchios.

  • Davesix6

    Is an unborn child not entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness?
    Shouldn’t we give the benifit of any doubt as to when life begins to the defensless unborn baby?

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      Someone wanna introduce this fellow to the word “fetus”?

      • jefe68

        Waste of time, science does not enter this kind of mindset.

    • jefe68

      OK, then you pay for the child’s upbringing and education.
      If you want to make the “pursuit of happiness” a center pillar of your philosophy then you should back it up with the means for the child to pursue such said happiness.

  • Jason Hoffman

    When anti-abortion legislation carves out an exception for victims of rape and incest, isn’t that just the responsible legislators’ way of saying “We’re not really concerned about the welfare or personhood of the fetus-what we really want to do is make sure that women who enjoy or agree to sex have to pay a consequence for doing so?”

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      Actually, that is the “compromise” position, designed to take care of mushy middle people who think there is some common ground with the anti-science nuts, and it is a bit ingenious.

      What the exceptions for rape/incest also say is “Women have to prove to the government that they’re victims before we let them choose abortion.” That really peels away ideas like medical privacy and doctor-patient medical autonomy. That really speaks to the idea of not trusting women with their own bodies and their own doctors.

      On the flipside, all I can imagine is a platform plank to keep ED drugs out of the hands of males unless they proved they were using them only for the marriage bed.

  • WorriedfortheCountry

    Now Jack is doing Axelrod’s bidding by talking about the ‘Ryan’ Medicare without any discussion of the bipartisan changes Ryan put out there a year ago.  Jack’s criticism is obsolete.
     

    • Mouse_2012

      Ryan made if even more vague after it was shown to do nothing it was claiming to do. The Vagueness of it was to make it harder for others to properly judge it and allow Ryan to once again lie

  • Duras

    Anybody see on Fox News that the right wing is still trying to make Clinton look like he’s actually a republican?

    I’m sick of them trying to make Bush look like a closet tax and spend liberal, while trying to make Clinton look like a republican. How stupid does the average republican have to be before they realize the obvious truth of the matter?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    There is no government money for abortion – that argument is a red herring.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      “Government hasn’t funded abortion since as far back as the Hyde Amendment.”

      This appears to be a common misconception in conservatives. They get the information, apparently, from the same place as Akin’s faux doctors did. ;)

  • Davesix6

    The federal government funds Planned Parenthood, Planned Parenthood is the number one provider of abortions on demand.
    To deny that the Federal Government funds abortion is an attempt at a shrewd use of symantics, and dishonest bookeeping.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      Except for the fact that you have no real evidence of that and the money from grants has to be tracked religiously and reported to the granting agency (no matter who they are). 

      • OnPointComments

        If Planned Parenthood has $500 million dollars of nongovernment funds that it is using to provide services other than abortions, and the government gives it $500 million dollars for nonabortion services, the government has freed up the nongovernment funds to be used to provide abortions.  It’s just as Davesix6 said, it’s nothing but semantics and bookkeeping

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          It’s a policy designed to assuage pro-lifers, and they were. Until they weren’t.

          At some point people who like their medical science with…science, have learned to stop trying to “compromise” with folks like you.

          • OnPointComments

            It’s a policy designed to fund abortions while saying you’re not funding abortions.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            Your ignorance is amusing, right up until the point it’s boring.

  • AC

    what’s this work place shooting in the empire state bldg all about?

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       Latest report is a simple robbery.

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       Latest in now a workplace shooting.

    • StilllHere

      And in New York, with some of the toughest gun laws in the country.  I believe he went nuts on sugar after drinking a 32oz Slurpee in Jersey.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        Believe whatever you want.

        But the evidence shows good guys with plenty of guns–cops. And it’s all over in 15 seconds.

        Life doesn’t happen preplanned in slo-mo like some goddamned movie like gun enthusiasts enthuse about. Nine people were hit, all by cops. Even well-trained cops have trouble
        controlling their fire.

  • MrNutso

    Akin will stay in the race as long as it looks like he has a chance to win.  I also think that if he tries to get off the ballot, the Democrats will try to prevent it.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      Yup. Any Dem, Independent or Green Party member looks like gold compared to him after that comment. Of course. That’s politics.

  • Bruce94

    Let’s be clear who the “craven, GOP establishment conservatives,” who threw Akin under the bus, are.  These are the liars whose narcissism and cynicism allow them to shamelessly misrepresent their opponent’s position(s) as well as their own position(s) in order to confuse the public and to conceal their real agenda, record or beliefs. 

    For example, the Romney dog-and-pony show currently on tour, enabled by a cabal of eccentric billionaires, saturates the airwaves with totally bogus claims that Obama “raided Medicare” or “weakened the Welfare work requirement.”

    For Ryan’s part, this “bold budget hawk” can be seen running as fast as he can from his record as a no-exceptions, anti-choice zealot and a fiscal conservative in-name-only who supported 90% of deficit spending under Bush, and whose politically “courageous” proposals include cutting taxes for the super rich and undercutting middle and working class families, who were devastated by the Bush House of Cards economy that stooges in Congress like Ryan helped to facilitate.

    • William

       But Obama did take 716 billion out of Medicare. That is a fact that Obama admitted himself in an interview and he would block any attempt to restore that money to Medicare.

      • Mike_Card

        It’s accounting; same as Ryan, same amount.  You can continue to plug your ears and sing the song, but both sides moved the same amount of money.  One to save from private insurance expenditures, the other to reimburse Medicare.  It’s the same money:  one is the debit, the other is the credit.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        Another context-free crumb of “information” from WilliamWorld.

  • WorriedfortheCountry

     Anyone see Anderson Cooper call out Debbie Wasserman-Schults for her lies in one of his ‘keeping them honest’ segments?  It was embarrassing for DWS and the Dems.

    She isn’t a very good spokes person for the Dems.

  • Davesix6

    What is rape? If a woman has sex willingly, never says no, then has second thoughts later and regrets it, is the man guilty of rape?
    According to the sexist femanist the man is guilty under these circumstances.
    That’s not right!

    • jefe68

      Wow, you’re a real peach.

    • Mike_Card

      Ask Mike Tyson.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/ANBFOGDPZTAKFZYWTWBC45EPQI john

    How stupid is it to make the complete elimination of abortion as the keynote legislation presented at the convention. Is the party after all of the recent events really going to make this bill the highlight of their message this weekend? I just see this as political suicide and further alienation of women. The leadership is arranging chairs on the deck at this point. 

  • Coastghost

    Well, Eleanor and Walter, exactly what is the nature of “statutory” rape, then? Often enough, perfectly consensual (e. g., when a public school teacher seduces a student), but the law draws lines simply because of the age of consent. –so no, not all rape IS “forcible”, at least not in the pedestrian sense of “forcible”. (Id est, Letourneau was convicted of rape on the basis of her preying upon an adolescent, not because she “forced” him.)  

  • DrewInGeorgia

    On Bob Edward’s Weekend this past Saturday Bob had Anthony Baxter on interviewing him about his film “You’ve Been Trumped”. It was a good interview and definitely worth the listen, unfortunately pod-casts are no longer available at the site for some reason. Read up on “You’ve Been Trumped” and answer me this: Should Akin’s remark or Trump’s direct backing be more damaging to the Romney campaign?

  • Davesix6

    If the Ryan plan is unpopular it is because the media has been using the destorted democrat party line verbatum to misrepresent it.

    • J__o__h__n

      We wouldn’t want the verbatum to be destorted. 

      • Mike_Card

        When that happens, it makes me so mad I could just spit!

    • jimino

      Please identify just ONE “tax loophole” the so-called “plan” proposes to close.  You can’t because it doesn’t identify them.  But without them, it makes no sense whatsoever.  Anyone seeing his proposal as a “plan” is unbelievably gullible.

  • Davesix6

    Hey Bob, are we gonna talk about “the economy stupid”?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

    Wow…it says a lot that most voters can’t respond to an 80-word question. So much for public education.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      Nah, I’ll go with “badly worded question”. This isn’t about every eye and tee being precisely spelled out and footnoted, like writing a piece of legislation.

      Heck, many the poll questions out there are for crap, and they’re only 15-20 words long.

      And some of our pollsters (hello, Rasmussen) are great at having their thumb on the scale.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

        Yah. I received a survey from the Republican Party once. I was completely appalled at the survey questions because they were “leading” you to give them the answer they wanted. Because both my husband and I have written and studied surveys, we could see where questions could be formulated to be more neutral and unbiased.  I filled it out, but they probably didn’t like my responses because if I didn’t agree totally with their question, I disagreed. I was not impressed with the survey writers…it made me seriously question survey and poll legitimacy. I’m sure my survey ended up in the circular file. 

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          That sounds like a push-poll, as distinguished from a genuine poll. But I don’t have to tell you that, seeing as you’re from a family of survey-writers.

          Bad poll questions should be covered more before Fox News, Matt Drudge and such make them into “It’s out there, we have to cover it” crap from our Beltway inbreds.

  • TinaWrites

    Voters need to know:

    Percentage of Operating Expenses for Administrative Costs For MEDICARE:  3%

    Percentage ofOperating Expenses for Administrative Costs For PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES:  15-20%

    How can people fall for the idea of getting rid of Medicare??!!

    • dawoada

      You should say up to 15-20%.  My nonprofit insurance is less than 10% and the government has hidden costs in its 3% from other departments.

      • jimino

        Your “nonprofit” insurance?  Please enlighten the rest of us where such an entity exists and is available>

        • dawoada

          Independent Health Association in Western New York.

    • TinaWrites

      Thanks, Dawoada, I will take what you suggested seriously.  I tried to Reply to you directly, but Discus (which I’m new to; I used to post As Guest) wouldn’t give me the Reply Box under YOUR post.

      Anyway, the difference in administrative savings is great enough that it is surprising (IF you forget about their hypocrisy) that the Republicans would support the most costly option.  Hmmm….Maybe all this talk about taking down medical costs is just a smoke screen for getting More Of The Market for Private Industry and Business?!!

    • OnPointComments

      From the Heritage Foundation:  The appropriate measure is administrative cost per person, and by that standard Medicare is more expensive than private health plans. This point stands unrefuted.  In 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453. In the years from 2000 to 2005, Medicare’s administrative costs per beneficiary were consistently higher than that for private insurance, ranging from 5 to 48 percent higher, depending on the year.  Contrary to the claims of public plan advocates, moving millions of Americans from private insurance to a Medicare-like program will result in program administrative costs that are higher per person and higher, not lower, for the nation as a whole.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        You lost a pile of us at “Heritage Foundation”.

        Thanks for not wasting our time by burying it at the end.

        • OnPointComments

          I anticipated losing everyone who worships at the altars of MSNBC, Moveon.org, DailyKos, Huffington, or the other purveyors of false and misleading misinformation.

          • StilllHere

            So true!

      • sickofthechit

         Other problem with the comparison is that Medicare is covering a completely different demographic than your private sector HC provider.

  • TribalGuitars

    The “natural ability” for women’s bodies to prevent rape is a myth. 

    What does happen is when a woman is with a sexual partner that she views as a desirable partner  (be it a good provider and/or someone she thinks would pass along good genes to any offspring) there is a physiological response  where the cervix will descend into the vagina where the semen will pool, to try to give sperm a better chance in fertilizing an egg.  There’s video for those going, “Huh?”, if you want to find it.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    “Seismic study” – meaning the government is going to spend a lot of money to look for oil for private companies.

  • StilllHere

    Energy exploration is a boon to US workers and consumers, Jack. Sub-$2 natural gas is a universal appeal.

    • WorriedfortheCountry

       Romney’s energy plan adds 3M jobs and adds $1T in new tax revenue.  We need both of these things ASAP.

      • jefe68

        Wow, 3 million jobs. From where exactly?
        I’m all for job growth, but Romney makes this statement and you believe him without even one ounce of evidence as to how this will be done.

        The Keystone pipeline would only employ ate best about 15 thousand more or less and they would mostly be Canadians. After the project was finished it would employ about 7000 people or less.

        It’s going to take a lot of Keystone projects to get 3 million people working.

        Romney, like most republicans seem to believe in magical thinking, all they have to do is say it and it’s true.

        • WorriedfortheCountry

          Citigroup had already done an independent analysis showing the creation of between 2.6M and 3.6M new jobs.

          And these are good paying jobs — not burger flippers.

          • StilllHere

            But they’re not stand-around union jobs, so they’re not good enough.

          • DrewInGeorgia

            You and Worried are hilarious.

          • StilllHere

            Almost as funny as your ignorance.

          • DrewInGeorgia

            “Citigroup had already done an independent analysis”

            You could’ve stopped right there.
            Independent Internal Analysis. lmao

          • Mouse_2012

            Only if Romney plan took in certian factors in Citigroups report, but as noted on NPR and others many of those factors are not included in Romney’s Plan

          • Mike_Card

            Like Dubya’s.

          • StilllHere

            Like Obama’s, try to keep up.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        The combination of you and quoting Mitt Romney’s numbers really brings out the skeptic in me.

      • Mike_Card

        So…all of a sudden, the government CAN create jobs.  And the calculations of the numbers of jobs and the tax revenues are in Willard’s 2011 federal income tax return, I’ll bet.

        • StilllHere

          By getting out of the way.

  • LookBehindTheRoteComment

    If the government is going to force all women to carry all fetuses to term, that is a massive unfunded mandate. If every woman loses her rights at the moment of conception within, the government should be picking up paying for excellent prenatal care for every woman, for the benefit of the baby-to-be’s health. THEN, since it required all these extra babies to be born, it better be prepared to fund the feeding, education and training for them all. Talk about a population boom and stress on schools, housing, food supply….

    • OnPointComments

      Is it your belief that personal responsibility doesn’t figure into the equation at all?

      • LookBehindTheRoteComment

         No MAN responsibility is part of the platform. When it is, get back to us ladies.

        • OnPointComments

          I don’t know of anyone who believes that a man doesn’t have an obligation to support the children he fathers.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            In that case, you have to pull your head out of the sand.

        • notafeminista

          And abortion holds men responsible for what precisely?

      • JGC

        Couldn’t personal responsibility also include making the choice to terminate a pregnancy?

  • dawoada

    Consensual sex with an underage girl IS rape but is NOT forcible.  Have any studies been made to determine if pregnancy results more from consensual rape than forcible rape?  if so, Akin is partially correct.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      There is a lot of research out there. Studies also indicate that many rapes occur through spousal abuse, relatives and doping. In the Ryan/Akin legislation, unless the girl was under 18, all of these would likely not be considered rape because the victim 1) new the perpetrator or was related to them and 2) if they are over 18 and drugged (campus gang rapes or when a woman is slipped a micky at the bar…so to speak), those would also not be considered rape because they consider this technically not forced (no battering)…she was drugged and either heavily sedated or out cold. It’s sick.

    • Mike_Card

      “Consensual sex with an underage girl” is a non sequiter.  Anyone under the age of consent cannot give consent; that’s what it MEANS.

    • jefe68

      OK, you need to read a biology book and then really try to study the chapter on reproduction in mammals and in particular the human species.

      Magical thinking is not how a woman’s reproductive system works.

  • rich4321

    Akin should be a Nobel prize winning laureate. In two words he had explained the origin of Jesus. God did a legitimate rape on Virgin Mary because he was misinformed that it would not lead to an unwanted pregnancy, well, God was wrong and there we have Jesus!

  • Davesix6

    The only energy policy that Obama seems to have is one where our dollars are wasted on pie in the sky so called “green energy” that has been a bust for every nation that has “invested” in it.

    • OnPointComments

      The green energy “investment” fulfilled its primary purpose:  payback for campaign fund-raising bundlers and buying the support of radical environmentalists.

    • Mike_Card

      Tell that to the Europeans.

      • jefe68

        and the Chinese who are now the words largest producers of solar panels.

  • MrNutso

    Why are views of the candidates on other topics not important. Do they not give us insight into there thought processes and how they may address other issues.  

    The problem of digesting a campaign down to one topic is that governing is more than just the economy.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

    One thing I’m getting tired of is the failed economy drum – given the state of global economics and where we were 4 years ago, we’re actually doing very well. The only economic “problem” we’re seeing now is they can no longer disguise how they sold out the US middle class.

    • jimino

      Anyone paying attention will see this play out at their convention as the Republican Governor of Florida touts his state’s recovery while his party’s convention complains of the exact opposite as the centerpiece of its campaign.  Of course, irrationality has never been an obstacle with the so-called conservatives who now run that party.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        The GOP’s already got banners ready for the “We built this”. Funny things, they’ll be hoisting them in a taxpayer-funded public arena.

        • J__o__h__n

          I hope FEMA doesn’t have to help them at their convention.

    • Michiganjf

      Very true!

         Technology has put so many out of work, as has corporate short-sightedness which decided to bank a future on Asia instead of the most sophisticated consumer society that has ever or will ever exist- the U.S.A.

      … and on top of all the short-sightedness and corportate stupidity, Republicans have done everything they can to tank the economy as long as Obama is president.

      All things considered, we’re doing AMAZINGLY well!

      … hard to sell to those long out of work, unfortunately, as the truth is little consolation.

      What those out of work need to understand, however, is that the policies of Republicans and idiot, short-term gain CEOs (banking ONLY on the stock options they’ll unload every year), are what put us in this mess, and they’ll put us right back, even deeper, if they get hold of the reins again!

    • Michiganjf

      Great segment today on Here and Now about this very topic… what are the REAL causes behind job loss in America?

      Hint: it sure ain’t President Obama!

    • AC

      conflicting info; this article says small business is GROWING – & bankruptcy for small business is at the lowest @ since 2007; this was before the currnt President’s admin, no? the only problem is the jobs themselves don’t grow because most small businesses can run themselves efficiently – you just don’t need the staff you used to……
      http://openforum.com/articles/small-business-bankruptcies-decline-for-fourth-quarter-in-a-row

  • Davesix6

    Eleanor you say Romney is pandering to the “libertarian right” in his energy policy that encourages using all sources of energy.

    Of course you, Obama and the left wing dems, are pandering to the far left extremest, damn the economy full stop ahead, enviromental nut jobs.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

      Funny – Obama basically just continued all the policies of the Bush administration.

      It’s not that Obama is on the left – it’s that so many have moved so far to the right that everything appears to be far left  to them.

  • DrewInGeorgia

    Romney says to Open It All Up and Drill Baby Drill and that we’ll be energy independent by 2020. At what expense to the rest of us? Huge Short Term Profits with deferred long term costs that Mr. Romney won’t have to face during his lifetime. Why does this sound familiar?

    • sickofthechit

       Don’t the Mormons believe in the 2nd coming of Christ, real soon?  Why should he care?

      • DrewInGeorgia

        I think the mentality you’re pointing out is one of the primary contributors to our Current State of Affairs in almost every aspect. Many organized religions (not just Judeo-Christian) and belief structures recognize an Ultimate Reckoning of some sort. Somehow each believes that followers of its particular brand are the ones who will ultimately transcend the results of Humankind’s self-destruction. Funny thing is, if most followers dropped the “I am forgiven” or “I can do penance” cop-outs and adopted an “I am responsible for my actions” and an “I am my brother’s and sister’s keeper” mindset we could probably pretty realistically solve the problems we’re struggling with.

      • J__o__h__n

        Or is the third?  Don’t forget that he want to America already. 

        • Ray in VT

          I recall a survey from a few years ago where 25%-33% of Americans surveyed said that they thought that Jesus would come back within their lifetime.

  • MrNutso

    What about Republican obstruction to every Presidential initiative to improve the economy.  The blame for our poor economy rests with the Republican party who’s number one priority was making Obama a one term President.

  • StilllHere

    $500 billion of stimulus … Jack, you are incredible.  Let’s just let the Treasury department run the presses at night when no one’s looking.

  • BHA_in_Vermont

    Romney’s “oil independence” plan also has a serious hole in it.  It is about MONEY. Unless he plans to nationalize the oil and gas companies, they are going to sell to the highest bidder.

    He of all people should particularly understand this.

    The other gaping hole in his plan is the fact that he is not addressing the substantial decrease in energy use required by the study he is using in order to achieve USA energy independence.

    • MrNutso

      We would need legislation that says fossil fuels extracted in the US must stay in the US.

      • sickofthechit

         Tar sands are not extracted in the U.S. unless Romney invades Canada…. or buys it…

    • Mouse_2012

      Notice he omitted that such oil would go to the world market(not just for U.S. Consumption )

      • BHA_in_Vermont

         That was the intent of the first paragraph, guess I wasn’t clear. If China wants it, they will buy it.

        • Mouse_2012

          I meant romney not you.

      • jimino

        To one making their money form the deployment of capital, the world IS their market.  It’s only labor that is limited by geography and boundaries. Shipping oil to China, for example, is essential to many “American” companies whose labor and production facilities are located there.

  • TinaWrites

    The Republicans do NOT want to stop our Energy Dependence!!!  What they want is to OPEN UP MARKETS FOR THEIR SUPPORTERS:  

    Still dependent on oil?  GOOD for Republican donors, in this case, the oil men.  

    Need to go to war to assure oil supplies for the U.S.?  GOOD for Republican donors, in THIS case, the armaments dealers.

    The Republicans could CARE LESS about what our energy dependence does for us politically and socio-politically.  They could CARE LESS about Global Warming.  What they CARE ABOUT is Opening Up Markets for THEIR industries (no matter how old-fashioned), and then having “shared monopolies” of those Markets.
      

    • Yar

      Tina, you got it right.  Just like when they pulled up the rails for streetcars. The XL pipeline is intended to carry crude to the gulf where it can easily be exported, instead of building a refinery in the tar sands where the oil is and using waste heat from the refining process to assist in extraction.  A pipe of crude is like an interstate with no exits in your state.

    • William

      Actually, it is a matter of national security and money. We have more than enough domestic oil, coal, hydro-electric, nuke power to get us away from the Middle East oil sources. Why keep sending people money that want to kill us? In some foolish belief that wind/solar power is ever going to provide cheap, reliable power?

  • LookBehindTheRoteComment

    Oil is finite. What happens when we use it up BEFORE getting off it?

    • DrewInGeorgia

      *We (people) are finite as well so I’m sure it will probably all work itself out. In the mean time let’s continue to fill our bank accounts and our gas tanks and Let The Good Times Roll!*

      I added the *snark* marks to avoid confusion.

  • StilllHere

    We’ve had two years of Obama’s supposed readiness to deal, and he’s accomplished nothing because he can’t let go of his “I won” mentality that consumed his first two years.

    • MrNutso

      So winning is meaningless?

      • StilllHere

        Of course not, but when you ram stuff through without any opposition input, don’t be surprised when the tide turns, as it did.

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      Your comment has been put on anonymous hold and will not appear until 60% of the board approves.

      Seriously, bub, your unbalanced media diet is showing.

    • jimino

      You mean the two years he tried to negotiate with the party that publicly announced their only goal as his defeat?  I would say Obama was the worst winner I ever saw.

      • Gregg Smith

        Democrats supported Bush 100%, right?

        • Duras

          I would say around 2% of the time.  His daylight savings policy was good.

        • jimino

          Is that supposed to be some attempt at debate or discussion?  It’s not.

          • jefe68

            This chap does not debate, he pontificates.

          • Gregg Smith

            No, I’m pointing out Obama isn’t the first President to have a divided Congress.

  • TinaWrites

    This week, NPR interviewed a woman who was a U.S. small business owner.  She intends to keep her employees to 47 in number because going up to 50, with “Obamacare” in place,  would have a different impact on the health insurance requirements on her business.  She really shocked me, however, with her complete cluelessness about the mega-issues we are confronted with in this election, meaning, the major differences between what the President is saying and what would happen under a Romney/Ryan leadership.  I am one who thinks that President Obama caved way too much, way too often; nevertheless, the amount of shifting to the Right that Romney/Ryan would assure, is positively frightening.

    The cluelessness that I heard included stuff like this:  the woman — with 47 employees — said that she really identified with candidate Romney.  He was a businessman like she is, and Obama is not, so she knew that Romney possessed values and understandings similar to hers!!!  In other words, I think I was hearing that she had no clue whatsoever about the difference between her nuts and bolts business (I never heard what it was exactly) and the Financial Capitalism that Romney practices!  Sure, his practice is not “pure” financial capitalism — there are some basic business efficiency principles, etc., that he brings into the picture — but, basically, he is using money (and DEBT) to make money!!!  That is entirely different from trying to make money by making the most innovative, or best quality product out there in your field.  The quality of the product can be seen as an unnecessary aspect of Romney’s kind of Capitalism.  

    Really, I think I heard that Romney knew how to pump right into whatever self-esteem (or, low-level narcissism) that this terribly ill-informed woman had.  She actually seemed to identify with Romney, and will vote “herself” into the White House by voting for Romney!!!

    I KNOW that I have heard callers on this show say somewhat the same thing that she said.  Romney’s ruthless level of operation is probably AS FAR AWAY FROM how these callers operate their businesses as the Socialism that they seem to fear so completely!  

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

      This woman may well be a plant. The right has several “not gonna hire” hacks out there, and NPR “news reporting” shows little skepticism for right-wing pimped people pretending to be RealAmericans(TM).

      One would think that some lesson was learned from Joe The Plumber’s Little Helper.

      • TinaWrites

        Thanks, TF!  Good point!

      • Michiganjf

        Again, very true!

        NPR was called out just a month or two ago for having interviewed one of these righty hacks a few times… indeed, righties had been running him around for interviews with many news outlets!

    • J__o__h__n

      If she were a business person like Romney, she would be down to 13 workers. 

      • TinaWrites

        Funny!  Well, sadly funny!

    • StilllHere

      She’s so clueless she’s created livelihoods for 47 families.  How about you?  Zero, I’m guessing.  She’s in the trenches everyday contributing in real ways to this country and you and your elitest attitude have nothing but scorn.  YOU are what’s wrong with this country!

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        Keep making an ass out of you and…you.

        You seem to assume (some would say “project”) a lot of things onto Tina. Want to tell us all about Tina’s tax-dodging next, or how Tina’s s a greedy louse who wants her Social Security?

        • StilllHere

          Same game Tina plays or did you not bother to read her pointless diatribe. 

        • TinaWrites

          Thanks, TF!  Actually, my Social Security DOES help because, as I’ve written here before, my cancer came back metastatically, and dealing with that IS like already having a full-time job!  

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            (Geez, I didn’t even remember about you and your cancer. I have a couple friends with some cancer in remission and they have told me they’ve become much more aware of healthcare w.r.t. money since the onset. Best to you.)

          • TinaWrites

            Thanks very much, TF!!  Tell your friends to make sure they still go to their oncologist or possibly radiologist even if they’ve passed some “landmark number of years” (usually 5 or 10) to see what is available for evaluation of their status.  I was 10 years out when it came back!  ANY unusual symptoms the person is feeling should be evaluated by a doctor, not just by the “intuition” of the person who assumes they are a “former” patient.  They shouldn’t live in fear, but they will want to be their own best advocate. 

            IF they get bad news, once the doctor’s preliminary plan is proposed, the friend should very quickly go to a financial adviser to assess whether or not they have enough in health care savings.  A trip to the doctor’s case manager might help your friend(s) prepare for asking the right questions of the financial/retirement adviser.  New medicines are coming along a lot, but there MAY be some medications that can be expected given the general way of treating each specific kind of cancer.  Knowing how much those tests, treatments, and meds might cost will help with the financial projections.  And, even Medicare makes people “choose” between supplemental plans.  Your friends’ assessments of which plans are best for them, may change radically.  It IS unbelievable how expensive some aspects of cancer are; and there are certain “odd” exceptions to what is covered:  for instance, certain “injectables” don’t count as “chemotherapy”  to some health insurance companies, even tho the injectables are necessary to combat LARGE side effects of chemo (like your immune system plummeting dangerously):  and, if you don’t have them injected, you may be INeligible for chemo – so, they ARE part of the chemotherapy process and physiological environment of the cancer patient on chemo.  Yet, you MAY need to pay for these products and procedures out-of-pocket.  This is just one example.  Mainly, I’m saying that the financial decisions your friends make about health insurance coverage AND in other aspects of their lives(!), even if they think they are essentially operating in a financially wise way, may have to change in a MUCH MORE RADICAL way than they might ever have considered before!  

            Another shocker with some forms of metastatic cancer, especially those forms that are eligible for a host of new treatments, to the point that they are considered, in some ways, to be a “chronic illness”!! :  patients may feel so grateful that they act with even greater generosity toward others in need…. only to find out that a treatment option starts to fail, and the new one requires gigantic, here-to-fore not witnessed by the patient, out-of-pocket expenditures!

            Once again, thanks!      

          • TinaWrites

            Sorry that it has taken me so very long to write back to you!  I often get an idea for a post, and go to town with it, but I overextend myself and have no stamina for follow thru.  Now that we can no longer post “as Guest”s, I get notifications of replies to my posts thru Disqus in email, which is sometimes too much for me.  I hope you will get a notice from Disqus so that you see this:  Thank you very much for your kind wishes!  And my best wishes for your friends’ health, too!  

      • J__o__h__n

        What livelihoods – jobs without health benefits?

        • OnPointComments

          Where do you propose that the business owner get the money to fund health benefits for her 47 employees?  Do you think the employees would (or should) take a cut in pay to fund the added benefits?

      • TinaWrites

        I’m hardly elitist:  I’m left of the Democrats, preferring the Social Democracies of the Scandinavian countries.  I have worked, several times, as an independent contractor (an H.R. and tax designation, pretty much), but I spent most of my working life working in the Non-Profits where people work for less money than in Private Business, but where you can often have fantastic, interesting challenges you get to work on, and where the monies made get plowed back into the institution.  I really like that model, and, once you adjust yourself to knowing you’ll make less, but enough, you usually get to have a job that is very holistic.  Perhaps that model would be great for health care, especially plowing the money back into the institution:  like money for research, for patient care, etc., rather than plowing it into profit and squeezing the business for profit!  (I do NOT know anything about non-profit health care businesses:  I’d have to learn about them.  But it certainly seems to me that IF Medicare is to be supplemented by Private Business Options, that they should be NON-profit businesses, rather than FOR-profit businesses.  The cost of health care is NOT going to go down if a “profit must be made!!”).  Also, I wish I knew more about profit-sharing.  I don’t know enough to even comment on it, but if it means that the employees get some of the profit, THAT seems great to me, and it seems like it would work with any theories about “incentive” that are circulated, especially by Republicans.  

        • StilllHere

          It’s your attitude that is elitest and it’s clear your elitism has no basis.  You’re a follower rather than a leader who couldn’t cut it in the for-profit world. Holistic sounds like cop-out for uncompetitive skill base. 

          While it sounds nice, your view of non-profits is incredibly simplistic.  Not-profits can pay huge salaries.  Look at the pay for CEOs of Planned Parenthood, NOW and Red Cross.  I’m not buying some fake altruism that leads some to non-profits.
          Medicare is supplemented by private insurance, its called Medicare Advantage. 

          • TinaWrites

            Wow.  Your shot-gun nastiness is extremely energizing!  HOW do you get that I’m a “follower” rather than a “leader”?  Among other activities, I’ve started education programs that have brought disinterested and at-risk kids into an environment that energized them enough that most of them totally changed their sense of what they were capable of — to the point of real change.  That is to say, unmotivated kids who never considered college after high school, applied themselves to the remaining years of high school and got into college.  Kids who were motivated, but somewhat despondently aimless, learned that in pointing themselves in the direction of my classes, that they had truly been intuitive about their own interests and strengths.  They went on to major in professions that were the outgrowth of our classes together.  I know this, because I received grateful letters from kids, or ran into thrilled parents.  

            I also, in other jobs, expanded my sense of my job description’s scope with such creativity and commitment that I was able to be invaluable enough to the workplace that I could speak up on behalf of an under-represented community within that workplace, and not lose my job.  

            I have had any number of letters to the editor published in our statewide daily newspaper, speaking out against the underlying racism of certain editorial statements.  Sorry, but a “follower” wouldn’t have bothered with those letters.  

            I’ve testified at town-wide meetings about the financial consideration that must be paid to evaluate the status of many local seniors; of those with illness or disability in their immediate family; and of those with low income, in regard to certain proposed town projects.  I’ve spoken out several times on the federal record about the major environmental impact of a planned (now “dead”) project that was backed by people with a lot of political and financial power.  Again:  is that being a “follower”?  

            I don’t usually let myself know how proud I am of some of my own efforts:  so, thanks for giving me the opportunity to make me feel good about myself!  That was a treat!  Really!

          • StilllHere

            What’s clear is you have no standing on which to call someone else “clueless,” much less a business person who lives in the real world.  

          • TinaWrites

            I’m new to posting thru Disqus instead of as a Guest, so I’m having trouble getting postings and replies to line up.  Even tho I think that Disqus tries to make that happen, the program is operating unevenly.  I say that, because, I cannot easily find the two posts from OnPoint listeners who heard the same interview.  One post-er mentioned the exact moment on air that caused me to say the woman being interviewed was “clueless”, and the person agreed with me.  I think several people did.  It’s been several days now, too, but I think it was that the woman declared that she believed in the same values as Romney and disapproved of Obama’s values and principles.  When asked to clarify, she could not.  It wasn’t that she preferred to keep those thoughts private, she just was “clueless” as to what the candidates’ values were and what implications these principles had for the country.  But she was adamant.

            By the way, the “real world” is NOT only defined by the for-profit business world.  I defy to you say that there is anything “unreal” about the world of working with children, especially those with a wide range of school challenges.  Or, that people trying to protect our environment are out working in LaLa Land.  And, I dare say that the many medical challenges my own family has faced are amongst the most “real world” of situations, and it has been my experience that the “business” world just went into “duck and cover” when it came to understanding the demands put on both the ill employee and the employee with major family medical conditions —  that is, in all but ONE exemplary situation where the corporation DID rise to the occasion over the long haul, and beautifully (altho, right now, they have a very psychologically damaging campaign that they have been waging to increase young people’s emotional dependence on them!).  It CAN be done — bringing business into “the real world” — and with a lot of fight, I think there is NOW (after I could have used it) a Family Leave program from the federal government, but getting that was, I think, difficult (I was less able to keep up with the facts of political jousting on issues at that time).

            I still think it is interesting that you think I have “no standing”. Oh!  Are you, perhaps, a “job creator” and, as such, do you think that the ONLY Americans who can possibly “have standing” are business owners?  Boy, that sounds just like the way our Founders set things up:  only male, landed gentry could vote?  They got the poorer, often landless Whites, to resent the economic “power” (not!) of the slaves (because slavery took away their jobs — YET:  WHO owned and defended the Slave Economy but the Landed Gentry?  It was THEY who didn’t hire the landless White struggling to live nearby!)!  This resentment led to EASY enlistment of the poor Whites into the militias who had to do the work of chasing Runaway Slaves (who didn’t belong to THEM, but belonged to… the only people “with standing”:  the Planters, whose “businesses” must have been hard to run:  runaways, the threats of slave insurrections, etc.)  Wow!  Are we going back to THAT set of ideas?  Are we already there?  I only throw all this at you because you are so relentlessly nasty.  Your attitude seems to go down really, really deep.      

        • Wm_James_from_Missouri

          Tina, I think you might consider looking into Mutual Companies, Credit Unions, and Co-operatives.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_company

          • TinaWrites

            Thank you!  I will!

      • jefe68

        I would say it’s people like yourself that are what is wrong with this country. A fine example of the boorish lout complete with bullying name calling.
        As well as extolling the virtues of being an uneducated rube.

    • DrewInGeorgia

      I was flabbergasted listening to the woman you mention. It was Self Destruction of Long Term Self-Interest on display. Was this the same woman that said she liked Romney’s morals and values but not Obama’s, but once asked she basically didn’t really know anything specific about either?

      The “I’m a greedy business owner and I want a greedy business owner looking out for me (entitlement)!” mindset kills me. And the rest of us too come to think of it.

      • Michiganjf

        I heard her too, and it was pretty easy to understand where she gets all her “infirmation,” [sic]… a Faux News junkie.

        • stillin

           I am really glad I DIDN’T hear her, or this show. After reading all the above posts, I am really glad I missed it, and her.

      • TinaWrites

        Yes!  It was that same woman!  I don’t know that I thought she sounded greedy — I’d have to listen again — more out to bash the Affordable Care Act in the most subtle way possible, and clueless, and not very curious about those areas she knew nothing about.  MAYBE she’s had a drink of the Cool-Aid and is mainly trying to subscribe to all its ingredients:  maybe it’s less about individually exercising her curiosity and MORE about subscribing to a list of beliefs?   And, I think the comment, above, is possibly accurate:  she MIGHT have been a Plant who was not as Independent as we might think?  

    • Gregg Smith

      We have been saying all along that Obamacare was a job killer. Why do you think they gave 1000+ exemptions?

      • TinaWrites

        A lot of people will be able to go entrepreneurial once they have access to health care!  There will be so many energized business start-ups in NEW fields and neglected fields, that it will be great for both the economy AND our society.  Maybe some Republicans will keep their employees under 50 in number to “prove a point” THEY believe in, but their competitors’ businesses, and brand new businesses, will be chugging along with employees who can focus more because they are not stressed out about health issues, and who will be healthier because their health care has more preventive measures built into it and they have taken advantage of that.  

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

          Funny how very few righties fess up to knowing folks who stay in a job for the healthcare rather than playing “HMO roulette” any more than absolutely necessary.

    • Mike_Card
      • Duras

        She said she doesn’t know how Obamacare will effect her business because it hasn’t been implemented yet, and then she turns around and talks about how the law will effect her business. 

        Clue: a responsible business owner reads the effing law.

        • StilllHere

          She’ll get to it after Pelosi reads it.

          • Duras

            I don’t cheerlead for political parties unlike you.  Pelosi is stupid for not reading it.  And most politicians don’t read the bill, by the way.  I call it stupid when I see that it is stupid regardless of political affiliation.

      • TinaWrites

        Thank you for this link!

        • Mike_Card

          You’re more than welcome.

    • jefe68

      If I’m not mistaken she owned a restaurant.
      If she thinks she has something in common with Mitt Romney, well she’s very much mistaken. This speaks more to the issues of being misinformed about who Mitt Romney is and what he did when he was in busniess.
      There is a huge difference between Bain Capital and a small restaurant or any other small busniess.
      The sad thing is she did not come across as being very clued up on anything really. What I read in this person was bit grandiose and absurd. The photo of her was reminded me of some character right out a Hunter S. Thompson book. Boy do I miss his wit.

      • TinaWrites

        Thanks for saying that so well!

    • Duras

      I have worked for liberal and conservative business owners.  I have had conservative business owners treat employees beautifully.  But all the business owners who want to exploit labor as much as possible were invariably outspoken republicans. 

      I find it to be disingenuous to say Obamacare will kill jobs, when I have seen businesses buy low level employees healthcare at today’s rates, let alone the rates they will be when Obamacare forces insurence companies to drop them.   

  • jimino

    Way too much “inside baseball” by your journalist guests.  If they really want to do the job of journalism, they would ask every candidate who supports the “life begins at fertilization” just how long they propose sending women who get an abortion, and those health care providers who aid them, to prison for being murderers.  THAT is the journalistic issue.  The rest is pontificating and prognosticating.

    • Gregg Smith

      Please tell me what it is that does begin at fertilization? Is it death?

      • J__o__h__n

        ethanol

      • Mike_Card

        Todd Akin is the expert; ask him what HE thinks.

        • Gregg Smith

          Akin is clearly confused. Jimino appears quite certain life does not begin at conception. It’s a simple question.

          • Ray in VT

            Growth and development begins at fertilization, certainly.  Should we call that life?  Maybe.

            I think that many are opposed to saying that it does because if it is life, or in the words of some of the “personhood” legislation, fully human and enshrined with full rights at that moment, then what would an intentional termination of that condition be?

            I think that some prefer to use implantation as a marker, as something like 30% of fertilized eggs don’t implant.

          • Gregg Smith

            Newt is in the implantation camp. I can see that. Really, the only right that matters is the right to life. The fetus requires no enshrinement of full rights. We can have an honest debate about when it’s acceptable to take that life. We can have a philosophical discussion about potential and when that life passes the threshold of our thoughtful choosing. But it seems to me impossible to argue it i not a life. The “personhood” movement (maybe an over statement) is stating the obvious. 

          • Mike_Card

            I’ll agree that it’s a short question, clearly stated.  But unless I’ve missed a whole bunch, the answer would address the fundamental human question.  The arena of legislative politics will never furnish an answer with any substance. 

          • jimino

            Are you talking about “life begins at conception” like “angels on the head of a pin” or like miscarriages at 3 days are the same as the death of your 4-year old child?

            It’s a simple question.

          • Gregg Smith

            No, actually that’s a complicated question. Please answer mine? What is it?

          • jimino

            I’m simply asking you to clarify your question.  Are you talking metaphysically or legally?  Is a “person”, subject to all the rights and obligations you and I have, created at fertilization.  THAT is the issue. 

          • Gregg Smith

            I am asking you to tell me what begins at conception. If it’s not life then what is it? You say it is not a life. Apply whatever legal term or political philosophy you choose, it’s still a life. 

            It’s pretty clear we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But if you want to say otherwise, redefine or limit that right then there is a process. Have at it, make the case but deal with the nub. Admit you believe it’s acceptable to take a life under certain circumstances. Anything less is a copout.

          • jimino

            You honestly believe those words were intended by their writers to apply to a week old fertilized egg?

            You and others will call it whatever you want to meet your ends.  When y’all are ready to live with the logical legally enforceable conclusions of your terminolgy, get back to me.

          • Gregg Smith

            It’s a simple question.

          • jefe68

            Given that healthy eggs and sperm are active with cells one could say that they are alive. The question does life begin at conception is open to debate. This is one of those questions designed to make the argument that abortion is killing a life. If that’s the case then the average adolescent boy is committing genocide with regularity.

    • skeptic150

      There is no consensus among scientists, theologians, philosophers, physicians, lay people, etc., that I am aware of, as to the definition of a human life and when it begins.  How is it that the Republican Party became the entity that should decide this matter for the rest of us?

  • Bruce94

    Was it Pat Robertson or Rick Perry who warned us earlier this week that if Hurricane Isaac hits Tampa and disrupts the GOP Convention, it will be God punishing the craven conservatives comprising the GOP establishment for their downright “ugly treatment” of true believer, anti-choice champion and rising Republican star, Todd Akin?

    I see a possible rift appearing between the faith-based intolerance of those who cling to their Guns & God and try to pray away the Gay AND the faith-based economics of those who cling blindly to the patently false creed that says the super rich need more tax cuts to create jobs, the banks need more self-regulation to thrive, and the corporate elites need more globalization without the rule of law. 

    Todd Akin–a useful tool for understanding the new GOP brand.

    GOP = Galactically Obtuse Party

  • Davesix6

    Obamas economic policies (obamanomics) are now the failed policies of the past!

    Polls show clearly that the majority of probable voters trust Romney more than Obama to straighten out the economy.

    Part of the trust is based on Romney pledging to end opressive regulations that have been generated by this adminastration.
    And I’m not talking about “Wall Street regulations”.

    Why does the left feel as though we need every aspect of our lives regulated? I simply don’t understand it.

    • Michiganjf

      Another clueless hack repeating Republican LIES.

      Snap out of it!

      … oh wait… same hack, posting with a different name.

      • Gregg Smith

        You claimed Obamacare was not passed with reconciliation. You have no standing to call anyone clueless.

        • Michiganjf

          Again, braindead Fox Robot-o-tron… NO RECONCILIATION WAS NEEDED!!

          YOU DON”T NEED IT WITH 60 VOTES, AND ACA PASSED WITH SIXTY VOTES!

          BRAINDEAD FOX ROBOT-O-TRON!!

          • Gregg Smith

            One day you’ll look back on all of this and laugh. In the mean time you are doubling down on silly.

        • Michiganjf

          From the ACA Wikipedia page:

          “Passage in the Senate was temporarily blocked by a filibuster threat by Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, who sided with the Republican minority. Nelson’s support for the bill was won after it was amended to offer a higher rate of Medicaid reimbursement for Nebraska.[123] The compromise was derisively referred to as the “Cornhusker Kickback”[158] (and was later repealed by the reconciliation bill). On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two Independents voting for, all but one Republican voting against and one senator (Jim Bunning, R-Ky.) not voting.”

          • Michiganjf

            It was the Cornhusker Kickback which was REPEALED using reconciliation!!!!!

            ACA passed WITHOUT reconciliation and WITH one Republican AND one past Republican who was driven out of your party by FOX ROBOT-O-TRONS like you!!

          • Gregg Smith

            Have you wondered why no one else has defended you or piled on to me.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            Because you suffer from the Dunning-Kreuger effect?

          • Gregg Smith

            I don’t know what that is. Do you believe Democrats did not use reconciliation too pass Obamacare?

          • Gregg Smith

            I know it’s hard. Politics is complicated when you don’t watch Fox 24/7/365. It also helps to have a Rush shrine in the basement. Oh well, your loss.

            In addition to the “Cornhusker Kickback” there was also the “Louisiana Purchase” and the meaningless singing statement for Stupek and his crew. Bribes everywhere. So, Nelson’s payoff was repealed by what? 

            …repealed by the reconciliation bill.

            What reconciliation bill?

            The Senate bill you refer to was but just one version that was, for lack of a better word, unreconciled. It’s all a big hairy complicated process. It was passed Dec. 24, 2009. Ask yourself this smarty pants, why did Scott Brown’s victory matter? He wasn’t sworn in until Feb. 4, 2010. No, the 60 votes wiki is referring to is a vote on the way to the vote. 

        • Michiganjf

          Try learning instead of repeating braindead, FAUX NEWS spew!

    • J__o__h__n

      Let us start with deregulating spelling. 

    • http://profile.yahoo.com/2UMZUUIKIXXJ6V4BQYLMD5UWTA roddy

      I’m not so sure about “every aspect of our lives” eg. sex lives (liberals are um, liberal about that!)

      I think it is because of historical experience. Have you heard of many regulations that are imposed before the need arises. Simple examples; Freon/CFC regulations came after the hole in the ozone layer was observed. Health warnings on cigarettes came after it was known that smoking causes lung cancer. Ingredient lists on food came after people had expressed a desire to know what they were eating and to curtail illness borne out of poor food prep standards. Banking regulations came in the 1920s after the banks had proved ill-equipped for “self-regulation”.The point is that regulations are rarely entirely pro-actively preventative and some people (most democrats and liberals) would like for this to be the case as history has shown that watching warnings and thinking ahead can be useful to everyone. 

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

        Roddy, I’m a little offended by your liberals are liberal about that comment. I’m a liberal…and was never “liberal in my sex life.” I was raised Catholic (no longer) and on a career track (ie. I wanted a career more than a man), and I didn’t meet someone WORTH it until later in life. Everyone was a looser. And that says more than you know. I don’t appreciate the stereotype that all liberals are loose…and I don’t think any of my liberal friends would either. 

        Other than that…I agree on prevention and environmental preparedness. We’re always cleaning up the messes, instead of preventing them. And businesses have never been proven to self-regulate. $ wins.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/2UMZUUIKIXXJ6V4BQYLMD5UWTA roddy

          apologies, Ann. Have a lovely weekend.

          • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

            You too. ;)

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/2UMZUUIKIXXJ6V4BQYLMD5UWTA roddy

          It also is not a reference about being loose or not. It simple means that liberals generally aren’t bothered by that stuff… see the LGBT issue for example. Again, sorry for the misunderstanding…. to quote a missouri senator “I used the wrong words”!

          All the best to you.

    • skeptic150

      Regulations are necessary when our natural resources are not used properly, when people are abused or taken advantage of, when our safety is jeopardized, etc. The problem is the Republicans deny climate change in the face of overwhelming evidence, they care more about short term profits than sustainability, would deregulate industries that would harm us and/or our environment, etc.
      But I guess regulating women’s reproductive choices is ok.

    • Duras

      Jesus always said, let the moneychangers do what they want and make women take utrasounds against their will.

    • Duras

      Would BP have been better off with more regulations and oversight?

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/2UMZUUIKIXXJ6V4BQYLMD5UWTA roddy

    I’m sorry… but in the last 4 weeks there has been Aurora, Milwaukee Sikh Temple, Texas A&M campus, Chicago (19 people shot in 30mins last night), Empire State Building (again)…… who is in control here? As Bill Hicks said “wake up america, your politicians (and lobbyists) are in complete control”….. and they don’t want to talk about guns….

    • stillin

       People are going postal for a reason, they are reflecting for us what so many feel, disenfranchised with their lives,but at some point, that turns to rage. A kind of buried rage. I think it will continue, it’s already getting almost common, not saying it’s right, just hey, the culture stresses people over time, and yea, some will freak. It’s fracking people, instead of rocks.

      • TinaWrites

        We have far more violence than countries of similar economic-development status.  (There are statistics, but I don’t have them.)  

    • JGC

      The Globe and Mail printed a letter after the Sikh temple murders, that stuck with me.  It said, in part:

      “A Second Amendment memorial should be established in Washington in the spirit of the Vietnam Memorial.  Each year those killed as a result of firearms could be added and the nation could pay its proper respects…These deaths are the price of the Second Amendment, a price American society is willing to pay. But these victims should be recognized as people who have given their lives for their country.” 

      That was from Bill Gillies, in Ontario. I wonder what the NRA would have to say about this, about turning the victims of gun violence into patriotic heroes of Second Amendment rights.

  • apaddler

    Up here in New Hampshire, Frank Szabo (the Republican candidate for sheriff) has now apologized for saying he wouldn’t rule out the use of deadly force to halt an abortion.
    He originally said that he’d use deadly force to prevent abortions and that a sheriff should do everything in his power to prevent someone from performing an abortion.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

      He should go to jail for threatening people’s lives. It’s not illegal to get an abortion (Roe v. Wade) Wouldn’t that legally be a threat of use force law: “Threat is a communicated intent to inflict or impose harm or damage or loss or injury on another or on another’s property and that might diminish a person’s freedom to act voluntarily or with lawful consent. Threat of use force is something to do which causes another person to act against a person’s will. To use a threat of force or to intimidate or interfere with something that would cause another person of ordinary sensibilities to be fearful of bodily harm if that person did not comply.”

  • skeptic150

    I hope Akin’s comments help people realize some of the major ideological problems with the Republican party – just read their platform. His comments accurately reflect the mindset of the Republican Party when it comes to abortion. But it’s also pretty clear in their platform that their positions on women’s rights/privileges, marriage, climate change, evolution, education, etc., ultimately, would lead to forcing their Christian beliefs on all of us.

  • apaddler

    Up here in New Hampshire, Frank Szabo (the Republican candidate for sheriff) has now apologized for saying he wouldn’t rule out the use of deadly force to halt an abortion.
    He originally said that he’d use deadly force to prevent abortions and that a sheriff should do everything in his power to prevent someone from performing an abortion.

    • jefe68

      I read that he would still arrest doctors for murder if he found out they performed an abortion in his district.
      The man’s a fanatic and he wants to be sheriff?

  • Coastghost

    Thought experiment: in order to think of how feeble and laughable Obama’s performance as CEO-in-Chief has been, think for two moments at least of a President Romney two years or more into his term: “Well, you know what shape the economy was in when I was elected, if only my predecessor blah blah blah blah blah . . .” Obama has led no economic recovery because Obama does not lead: which is to say at least in part, doling out hundreds of millions in tax revenues to a domestic US solar panel industry that cannot begin to compete with the full-throttled state capitalism the Chinese have been practicing shows us the extreme sophistication of Obama’s insight into economics and industrial policy; or to say that nixing approval of the Keystone pipeline to preserve his environmentalist credentials will not in the long run contribute to clean(er) air, since Obama’s threats to release millions of barrels from the strategic petroleum reserves to nudge pump prices down just fractionally (at just the right moment prior to the election) would lead to release of even more carbon vapor into our sunny skies. –The US economy in the second half of 2012 IS “Obama’s economy”, for which he deserves and has earned all the credit that he has heretofore assigned to his predecessor(s) in the Oval Office. 

    • J__o__h__n

      What is a CEO-in-Chief?  Two chiefs in one title. 

      The economy is slowly improving.  Bush left a mess and the Republican Congress has not been cooperative.  Obama wasted time trying to compromise with them and the stimulus should have been bigger. 

      The Republican state of Nebraska didn’t want the pipeline going through their water supply. 

      • Coastghost

        If Obama is legitimately serious about opposing what he seems to see as anthropogenic climate change (aka global warming), why then did he throw a lifeline to GM and Chrysler? Their automotive products will only contribute further to the problem for years and decades to come. Children and small tots permitted to be born in the 22nd century could well find themselves inhaling atmospheric carbon exactly because Obama decided to opt for political advantage and ignore his environmentalist loyaties. How unconscionable of Obama to put his immediate interests above those of our threatened posterity. The man should have his environmentalist Nobel Prize revoked.

        • jimino

          You may be smart but your intellectual dishonesty is breathtaking.

          • Coastghost

            Thank you. I’ve learned a lot from listening to NPR programming over the years.

        • J__o__h__n

          He raised fuel efficiency standards (which Romney would overturn).  Reversing decades of creating a car dependant society can’t be done in four years and we will need cars which thanks to Obama will be built here. 

      • Duras

        Obama quoted Reagan verbatim in a speech about taxing capital gains at the same rate as labor.  Of course, Obama did not mention Reagan’s name once during the speech and republicans argued consciously against Obama and unconsciously against Saint Reagan.  If you think for one moment that anybody can lead an autocratic political party besides the oil billionaires and bankers that fill their pockets, you are mistaken.

        • Duras

          Sorry, meant to reply to coastghost.

    • jefe68

      First off presidents are not CEO’s. And the fact that you would dismiss the previous 8 tears of the Bush administration in regards to economic terms shows that you are not interested in this subject as it pertains to our economy. The economy has nothing to do with your  agenda, it’s a just a cynical pretense to forward your regressive ideology.

      • Gregg Smith

        Is it possible for you to debate a point without getting nasty and personal?

        • Mike_Card

          You may (probably do) disagree, but it looks to me like jefe has responded to coast in kind.

          • Gregg Smith

            But Coast did not refer to Jeffe and it was Jeffe who responded to Coast. Rather than debate the point, Jeffe makes Coast the issue. His entire comment is a personal attack that leaves Coastghost’s most excellent analysis unchallenged. 

          • Mike_Card

            Don’t know.  This thread has probably degenerated into personal quibbling, like it always seems to.  The notion of who has what job and how do they do it seems to be pretty far adrift from the stated topics.  Hard to mine any learning from this conversation.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000464095829 Ann Greaney-Williams

    Has anyone seen this: http://youtu.be/cO1F7EcGFAc :)

    • sickofthechit

       It might be more enticing to look at if you gave at least a brief description.

  • hennorama

    Willard and Ann Romney’s income in 2010 was at least (depending on your definition of “income”) $21,646,507, and they donated $1.525,000 to the Mormon Church.  My calculator says this is just over 7%, not the magical 10% they crow about.  Am I missing something here?

    (You can see all 203 pages of the Romney’s 2010 return online quite easily).

    Also, what’s up with Romney conflating taxes and charitable contibutions?  He says ” … every year I’ve paid at least 13 percent and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.”

    Does he think taxes are a form of charity, or does he think tithing and gifts to charity a form of taxation?  What is going on in his head?

    And now, Romney says that he won’t release more tax returns because he doesn’t want to his religious contributions to be made public.  What a joke!  He crows about how much he contributes, then says (according to Parade magazine) “It’s a very personal thing between ourselves and our commitment to our God and to our church.”

    Yet another example of Romney trying to have it both ways.

    • JGC

      Apparently, the earnings held within the Romney IRA do not need to be tithed at this time.  When they one day begin pulling out their IRA earnings, that will be the time they make the tithe to the Mormon Church. (I got my info from a Reuters/Univ. of Tampa dissection of the Romney/Mormon finances) And since somewhat knowledgeable people figure the Romney IRA holdings to be in the $20-million to $100-million range, the Mormon prophets must be salivating at these profits yet to come their way…

      • J__o__h__n

        Couldn’t he get a Roth tithe?

        • JGC

          And now that I think of it, are the Romneys also careful to structure their investment income in a way so as to avoid paying the tithe to the Mormon Church, in the same way that they play Extreme Accounting to avoid U.S. taxes? Just curious.  

      • hennorama

        The figures I used ($21,646,507 min. income and $1,525,000 contribution to the LDS church) include only the REPORTABLE income. IRA earnings, unrealized capital gains, etc. are not reported until there are either IRA distributions or sales of capital property.

        • JGC

          Well then, I have no idea…

        • StilllHere

          What about IRA losses?  Losses aren’t reported either until sale, such a conspiracy!

          • Mike_Card

            IRA’s are pre-tax money.  There are no gains or losses to report.  Everything you take out is taxed.  Try to keep up.

          • StilllHere

            Roth, SEP, Simple, … gee, maybe you need to keep up.  I hope you don’t do your own taxes, but it’s likely you’re just another parasite on our society.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            You forgot to call him a “young buck driving his Cadillac to the welfare office so he can buy t-bone steaks with our tax dollars”.

          • Mike_Card

            You never know.  That 20k every month almost covers the freight for the place in Telluride.

          • hennorama

            Were you trying to make an actual point here, or merely trying to be sarcastic?  We all know that a reduction in the value of an IRA is not a reportable event.

            One can claim a “loss” on your traditional IRA if you liquidate and distribute all of your traditional IRAs, and your tax basis is greater that the proceeds.  However, the loss is reported only as a miscellaneous itemized deduction, subject to a 2% of AGI test.  Pretty rare, and seldom worth very much.

            Roth IRAs are calculated separately.

    • OnPointComments

      From Forbes magazine 05/17/2012:  “All told, we have accounted for nearly $18 million of charitable giving by Mitt Romney to date, roughly 8% of what we currently estimate his net worth to be and three times Obama’s net worth. Yet it is very likely that we are undercounting Romney’s total lifetime giving by many millions, as any exhaustive log of Romney’s pre-2010 out of pocket donations is locked away in the presidential candidate’s historical tax returns.”

      • hennorama

        My comment was not about the Romney’s cumulative generosity, but rather the fact that their 2010 tax return reflects that they did NOT give the expected 10% of their income to the Mormon (LDS) Church.  Plus, they seem to repeatedly want to say “Look how generous we are” and then also say “We don’t want to make our church contributions public.”

        Again, trying to have it both ways.

        • OnPointComments

          It’s like the tax return thing.  If Romney made 20 years of tax returns public tomorrow, and you could see that he had given away a substantial portion of his fortune, would your mine change?  My guess is that it wouldn’t.  You’d nitpick and say if you subtract this and add that, then it doesn’t come out to this percentage that I think it should be, and if it does come to the percentage, you’ll change to some other criteria.  No one who is demanding to see his tax returns can be swayed to support him by anything that is in them; they simply think that it is a source of ammunition to attack him further.

  • JGC

    For a moment there when I read “Romney says to Open It All Up” I thought he was finally capitulating and moving to release his tax returns.  Dang…

  • JGC

    It seems like sports world justice has been delivered to Lance Armstrong and Joe Paterno, in the eradication of their titles. 

  • Mouse_2012

    Any one catch this?

    “I realized that there is a part of covering Congress, if you’re doing daily coverage, that is actually sort of colluding with the politicians themselves because so much of what I was doing was actually recording and playing what they say or repeating what they say,” Seabrook told Politico. “And I feel like the real story of Congress right now is very much removed from any of that, from the sort of theater of the policy debate in Congress, and it has become such a complete theater that none of it is real…. I feel like I am, as a reporter in the Capitol, lied to every day, all day. There is so little genuine discussion going on with the reporters…. To me, as a reporter, everything is spin.”from Andrea Seabrookhttp://www.fair.org/blog/

  • J__o__h__n

    Since Lance Armstrong was sponsored by the post office, can we prosecute him for mail fraud?

    • Mike_Card

      Was it Peter Sagal who mused about where Lance’s titles would come to rest?  That by the time they worked their way thru all the drug-infested contestants, there would finally be a 78-yr old Floridian on a golf cart?

    • JGC

      I really don’t want to deliver any more problems on the doorstep of our poor postal service…

  • jefe68

    In all presidential elections there are embellishments, a lot of exaggerations, the distortion of facts, and half-truths. It’s part of the dirty game called politics. However, Mitt Romney has now taken this to a new level, or shall I say the lowest level. He just lies, and then lies more and when confronted with the facts that clearly show he’s lying, he dismisses them. The level of this man’s audacity is quite astounding. The question is why? Because it seems a lot of Americans are believing his tales of woe. It also speaks to the unbridled and unhinged use of money to keep these lies fermenting. The idea of a campaign that is based on out right lies and using these as the center of a campaign strategy seems pretty cynical. It’s the height of cynicism in my opinion that a man with this much contempt for our democratic system thinks he should be president of the United States.

    • Zenplatypus

       Yes, the system was infinitely better served when we elected a narcissistic tyro with a messiah complex.

      • jefe68

        Do you have a comprehension issue?
        I was not talking about the entire system, just Romney. I also mentioned how dysfunctional the process is. And yet you see fit to post a comment devoid of any substance.

        • Zenplatypus

          I suppose this is the stuff of substantive critique:

          “He just lies, and then lies more and when confronted with the facts that clearly show he’s lying, he dismisses them.”

          Please post more! I can’t wait. Hugs and kisses…

    • Coastghost

      –in stark contrast to the incumbent, who began spinning his own embellished tales once he began work on his autobiographical fable. Of course, that Obama composed narratives amply fortified with misrepresentations (even though his editorial practice at the Harvard Law Review should well have inoculated him from stooping to such behavior) is NOT to be believed, insofar as NPR continues to suppress treatment of the issue: unless and until NPR tells us plainly and repeatedly what Maraniss has reported in stunning detail, NPR partisans will give only scant credence to the notion that Obama lied to the American people to get his job. (If Obama did such a poor job researching his own “autobiography”, his incompetence as a researcher and fact-checker disqualifies him from serving as President for a second dismal term, arguably.) Maybe the inglorious story of Obama’s quasi-fictional account will finally emerge during the upcoming Presidential debates.

      • jimino

        Just pretend it’s like “tax cuts increase revenue” or “supply side economics leads to job creation” or “they have weapons of mass destruction” or” the Iraq war will cost no more than 30 billion” or “the Iraqis will welcome us with flowers and open arms” or “W really did report for duty” or “the Ryan-Romney budget will decrease the federal deficit” or . . .

        You will feel a lot better.

      • jefe68

        Did I not state in the first sentence that all presidential elections there are embellishments, a lot of exaggerations, the distortion of facts, and half-truths? You really so misguided and blinded by your ideology that all you can do is answer with some lame anti Obama tirade?

  • dawoada

    It would seem to be a reasonable assumption that pregnancy is less likely in forcible rape than in consensual sex: less penetration, a less favorable environment for sperm without lubrication,etc.  Maybe it isn’t so crazy for Akin to think that.

    • jefe68

      You can’t be serious. This is your comment?
      Are you that clueless about biology?

    • Michele

       How do you know the particulars between the two, might I ask?  Why would you even post a comment like that?  Think…about…it….

  • Michele

    To Bob in Hartford: I am pro-choice and I don’t expect the Federal government to fund abortions.  I expect that women have the right to do what they CHOOSE to do with their own biology. PERIOD.

  • harverdphd

    So basically we’re right where we were a week, month, year, 2 years, 3 years ago. 

  • harverdphd

     Will you leave the country if he wins, like Baldwin did?

    oh

  • JGC

    Disqus problem…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cacimbo-Smith/1142235495 Cacimbo Smith

    Cost of food and gas is up, up, up.
    Wages down, down, down – if you can find work.

    Yet all the democrats want to talk about is abortion and contraception. I suspect that complete disconnect will cost them the election. 

    • countrysidestump

      Couldn’t agree more :->  It is truly amazing what the Dems want to talk about vs. the Repubs…..Seems the Dems are really reaching for anything, and just don’t have any substace….while the GOP is focused on the real issues facing America and not distractions.

      • jefe68

        while the GOP is focused on the real issues facing America and not distractions.

        Yeah, such as abortion and conception.
        You two are hilarious.

        • countrysidestump

          Who the heck keeps bringing up these issues of abortion? The Dems!! and then they try too make hay with it….also the Big “War on Women”….wow…it’s laughable….even my wife thinks the war on women is a joke! This is all trumped up stuff so the sheeple will get distracted and forget about the ecomomy and jobs.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cacimbo-Smith/1142235495 Cacimbo Smith

    Pathetic. None of these “brilliant” reporters has heard of statutory rape.  When (the ages vary by state) an 18yr old male and a 15 yr old female happily engage in intercourse despite the fact the female can not legally consent. Hopefully this was feigned stupidity.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Cacimbo-Smith/1142235495 Cacimbo Smith

    The show today was so far left it makes Bill Maher sound like a centrist.

    • Duras

      If you don’t have an argument against what you percieve as flawed journalism, than you don’t have a problem “liberal bias,” you have a problem with reality.

  • JGC

    Voting time is nigh, and not just in the U.S. but in other parts of the world.  We have an important Canadian provincial election coming in the next week in Quebec; here is how I am verified in Quebec for voting purposes:  if I wish, on my Canadian (federal) tax return I can check off that I wish to be on the electoral list. Then I am notified by mail when any election in my jurisdiction is coming up, including the place of voting for my sector and the dates and times for voting.  I present myself there, and with me I must present valid identification, which includes a driver’s license or Medicare card or passport, or certain government, military or First Nations I.D.s.  Then I vote.

    I am also preparing to vote in the U.S. for the presidential election. As a U.S. taxpayer and citizen, I still retain a  window of voting privileges, and that includes voting for the President and my state senators and the local representative in my last jurisdiction.  I just sent in my request for my absentee ballot to my county elections board, with certain identification information included.  If everything proceeds like other elections, I will be getting an absentee ballot within the next few weeks.  

    There is no huge difficulty having to show appropriate I.D. in Canada.  Probably not in the U.S. either, but I do take exception to the blatantly unethical (illegal?)  tactics of the Ohio Republican party to restrict voting hours in urban districts while expanding them in the rural districts.  

  • JGC

    Apple über alles!

  • Coastghost

    The fit rebuke to President Obama is a modest recasting of W. J. Clinton’s rebuke to President Bush twenty years ago: “IT’S THE ECONOMY, GENIUS!” (it’s been “the economy” the whole time Obama’s been in office, but has he noticed?)

    • TomK_in_Boston

      I agree that President Obama should be/have been borrowing and spending like crazy to get the economy going, instead of acting like an old-time moderate republican. I had hoped for the new FDR and I got someone to the right of Gerald Ford. OTOH, the righty congress came right out and said their #1 objective was to make him a one term president and to hell with the USA, so it’s not entirely his fault.

      I really hate voting for the lesser of 2 evils yet again, but when the choice is Rockefeller republican Obama vs global thermonuclear class warfare from the right, there ain’t much choice.

      • Gregg Smith

        Just remember election day is on Wednesday this  cycle.

  • TomK_in_Boston

    Can anyone really want the RR boys in charge? Medicare Groupons? More tax cuts for the super rich? Is that trickle down smoke still working for you after 32 years of failure?

    If that’s not enough, Mitt “no core” Etchasketch brings the term flipflopper to a whole new level. Compare the 2012 model with the 1994 model below, and decide if you’d believe this man when he says he has a great plan for the USA:

     1994 – Debate with Sen. Ted Kennedy”I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country,”Romney said at the time. “I have since the time my mom took that position since she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe vs. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it and I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice. And my personal beliefs, like the personal beliefs of other people, should not be brought into a political campaign.”Kennedy responded, “I am pro-choice, my opponent is multiple choice.”Romney asked for rebuttal time and said, “I have my own beliefs and those beliefs are very dear to me. One of them is that I do not impose my beliefs on other people. Many, many years ago I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me that passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have committed to the belief that we can believe as we want but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter and you will not see me wavering on that or be a multiple choice.”

  • Gregg Smith

    Wow, Dinesh D’Souza’s movie, 2016, is #3. That’s amazing. My guess is many here have never even heard of it. It’s not like NPR or the MSM are going to amplify it the way they did Michael Moore’s bilge.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfLsSg9wZlE&feature=player_embedded

  • Coastghost

    I don’t thank God every day that I am not a journalist, but
    I’ve done it often enough that by now the Almighty knows clearly where I stand
    on the matter. I am not a bit less thankful today, though, a week after the
    eruption of the Akin teapot tempest. In this dismal circumstance our
    self-appointed gatekeepers of truth have shown themselves to a man and a woman
    to be the partisan hacks we once suspected and now know them to be. Our
    highbrow sophisticates scribbling in the vaunted Northeast Corridor know full well
    (in the confines of their own company) that the locution “legitimate theater”
    can usefully distinguish a stage performance of Shakespeare from a vaudeville
    or a musical revue, a striptease or a performance projected onto a screen. They
    know well that the word “legitimate” permits the perfectly legitimate meanings
    of “actual” and “genuine”, “authentic” (“neither spurious nor false”, as my
    Webster’s Ninth Collegiate reminds former book editor me). For aiding and
    abetting the selective horror that erupted last week, NPR and its MSM
    fraternity merit little less than shame, loathing, and disgust: Todd Akin did
    not intentionally misspeak so much as he was intentionally misheard, no matter how convenient a target he made himself otherwise.

  • Duras

    Romney makes a birther joke to what ends? 

    He was interviewing for CBS and said he has always said Obama was born in America … apparently he needs a racist joke to excite the republican base. 

    Anybody ever read the Star-Belly Sneaches book by Dr. Suess.  The republicans are like the guy who makes money off of racism; instead of making money, republicans get votes.

    • OnPointComments

      Was President Obama racist when he joked about his own birth certificate?  For years news reports have stated that President Obama and his inner circle are notoriously thin-skinned, and this incident certainly proves that the reports are correct.

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

        “News reports”?

        You can’t even link to a tired-ass Drudge “meme” in which Mark Halperin and Cokie Roberts say “everybody knows”?

        • OnPointComments

          Type “Obama thin-skinned” into an Internet search engine and see how many hits you get.  I got about 300,000, and none that I saw referenced the Drudge Report.

      • Duras

        No, because he was making fun of the birther movement and the republicans and Fox News journalist you instigated it. 

        And the birtherism is classical racism of establishing otherness and alienating what is not known to be “traditional.”   It is obvious that the birthers’ primary rationale for thinking that Obama was not a U.S. citizen (even thought he underwent an FBI background check) was name and compexion. 

        It is flat out racism, and if you think Obama has been “thin-skinned,” I’m suprised Obama and other democrats didn’t come out call the republican base and their politicians down right bigots.

    • Gregg Smith

      That’s sick. First it’s just a joke. But say it wasn’t, lets assume Romney is a full-fledged birther. How do you get to birtherism to racism. It’s stupid. It’s hideous. It’s shallow. It’s sick.

      • JGC

        Two part answer:

        1.) I agree it was a joke. However, humor of the self-deprecating variety often succeeds over a joke at the expense of someone else (Example: Nancy Reagan and her Second Hand Rose performance).  Maybe people think of Romney as having an even and genial sort of personality, so when he says something biting or mean-spirited, it comes off as false and shocking.  Can’t wait to see how he handles the Al Smith dinner this autumn…

        2.)  How do you get from birtherism to racism?  All I know is nobody ever demanded (in my living memory) to see a candidate’s birth certificate until Obama was elected President. But you know what? Maybe starting for the candidates in the 2016 election, it should be a requirement that all candidates open up their birth records, their high school  and college records, their military records, their complete tax records, their criminal background checks, their Facebook pages and their FICA scores and any other document the rest of us are judged upon when we apply for a job or a loan or the chance to vote.  But then who would be left standing to run for office?

        • Gregg Smith

          I don’t think the Constitution requires good grades, military service, or even that you pay your taxes. You can’t be a felon and I’m sure background checks are done. 

          The racism charge is hideous, shallow and sick.      

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

            Your side can’t win without racists. It doesn’t matter tha you don’t admit it; we know it without your agreement.

      • Duras

        Name any evidence the birthers were going on besides name and complexion! 

  • hennorama

    Based on his 2010 tax return, it is clear that Romney is charitable.  My point is that he says he tithes 10% to his church, but did not do so in 2010.

    He also conflates taxes and charity, which is nonsense.  He uses his church contributions, which are essentially REQUIRED to maintain his status in the Mormon hierarchy, to lower his taxes.  It seems odd to crow about this as some unusual attribute.

    After repeatedly publicly discussing his contributions, he then says that his contributions to his church are a private matter, using this as yet another excuse to not release his tax returns.

    Again, trying to have it both ways, saying “Look how charitable I am,” and “I can’t talk about my charity, since it’s a private matter.”

    It seems clear that Romney’s political calculus is that something in his tax returns is so embarrassing or smarmy that having the American public know about it would essentially disqualify him from being electable.  Otherwise, he would release the returns and put this issue to bed.

    The Obama campaign and its surrogates will continue to pound on this for the next ten weeks.

    • Gregg Smith

      If you are going to use charitable giving as a factor in choosing a President the you have to consider Obama’s tendencies. 

      http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/08/17/romney-charitable-giving-outpaced-obamas/

    • JGC

      We could really use a Mormon expert to provide some commentary and enlightenment.  I think, but do not know, that there is a problem with divulging insider information on the Mormon faith.  It is a faith that puts family up front, and not just the earthly family, but the celestial family in the outer reaches of time and universe. If a person does something to get the Mormon hierarchy cranky, that person may find himself ex-communicated from the Mormon family, and shut off for all eternity from their greater family.  No small thing, if you are a true believer. But also convenient if you don’t want to divulge the secrets in your taxes and charitable giving to the public who might vote for you.

  • JGC

    Aahh, Rep. Ben Quayle…the potatoe does not fall far from the potatoe vine…

    • Gregg Smith

      Oiho.

      • JGC

        Oi vey!

    • ExcellentNews

      Potatoes come from McDonalds Corp, you liberal commie… :)

  • ExcellentNews

    Well, what Mr. Akin meant to say is this -  “if the woman did not ENJOY the rape, she can shut down her ovaries and will not conceive”. So, logically, we need to outlaw abortion and contraception in all cases, period. This is a well-known fact, and several Doctors in Divinity and Astrology have advised the GOP about it.

    In final analysis, we should not be too hard on our GOP senators. We all know they get easily confused when there are too many words. So, let’s stick with simple slogans like “Take Back America”, “Better Future” and “Thank you for the money, Mr. CEO”.

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May 22, 2013
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A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., Monday, May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP)

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