The Republican Challenge

TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 2013

August 27, 2012 at 10:00 AM

The Republican Challenge

From Tampa, On Point dives into the Republican moment. The politics, the hurricane, and Mitt Romney’s big week.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, left, and convention CEO William Harris unveil the stage and podium for the 2012 Republican National Convention, Monday, Aug. 20, 2012, at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Fla. (AP)

It was all supposed to start today. Then came Isaac, the storm that pushed the Republican’s convention plans back a day in Tampa. But the challenge for the GOP and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan is the same this week: To make a case, while the spotlight is on, that breaks them out of their neck and neck challenge to Barack Obama.

It is seventy days now to election day. The country has a big decision to make. Isaac’s path is in a “cone of uncertainty,” say the weathermen. So is the GOP.

Up next, On Point from Tampa, Florida: the challenge this week for Mitt Romney.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Peter Baker, reporter for the New York Times.

Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner.

Margaret Talev, White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News.

Susan MacManus, professor of public administration and political science at the University of South Florida.

Highlights

After a summer of brutal attack ads, the Romney campaign is wounded going into the big party convention in Tampa. “He’s feeling a little on the defensive about his taxes, his economic plan, his business record,” said New York Times reporter Peter Baker, who has been traveling with the Romney campaign.

That’s led to a feeling of frustration in the Romney campaign, noted L.A. Times columnist Doyle McManus. The economy is in bad shape, and voters think that Romney would do a better job. Yet, the GOP candidate is neck-and-neck with the president in the polls. The key to changing that perception: “The Romney campaign has to present a positive economic plan,” McManus said.

One thing dragging down the candidate in the polling is personality. Romney has been reluctant to try to make voters like him, noted Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev. Doing that, as well as reaching out to women will be a priority in the coming days.

This pivot in messaging during the conventions marks a new phase in the campaign. Since the primaries, Romney’s challenge had been to win over Republicans. “They were skeptical of his conservative credentials. The selection of Rep. Paul Ryan resolved those doubts,” said the Washington Examiner’s Byron York.

Still, the GOP now has to show undecideds– the most sought-after voters– that Romney is a “credible alternative” to President Obama. “There are so many people who are not happy with the way that things are going,” said York. “But they don’t know all that much about Romney, they’re not sure that things are going to get better regardless of who is elected, and they think that Obama understands their problems a little more. Romney’s got to make up that gap.”

From Tom’s Reading List

Politico “Mitt’s moment is finally here. After slogging through the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire, scores of debates and months of being carpet-bombed by Obama campaign ads, Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan will soon get to the business of the fall campaign.”

New York Times “Mitt Romney arrives here this week to accept his nomination from the increasingly disparate coalition of factions known as the Republican Party, confronting the challenge of unifying them behind him and — should he win — exerting his own authority over a party that is in many ways still forging a post-Bush identity.”

WorriedfortheCountry

The next President of the United States: Mitt Romney

We can only hope! It is starting to look good!
- anamaria23
  
  What does Mitt Romney offer you to engender such excitement?
  - Mouse_2012
    
    I know right?
  - WorriedfortheCountry
    
    A problem solver who can turn around the corruption and bloat that is stinking up our Federal government.
    
    He has been successful in every endeavor — public and private.
    
    His only weakness is that he isn’t a natural politician (ie, he is good at lying or that phony ‘I feel your pain’ crap). However, he will roll up his sleeves and get the job done like he did everywhere else (including Governor of MA).
    - Mouse_2012
      
      The big dig was a smashing success, also mandated Romney Care
    - MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
      
      Do you honestly believe that he will cut taxes for himself in half and balance the budget?
      
      He made money as a vulture capitalist. His primary modus operandi was pillaging the lifelong work of the founders and workers of the companies that he bought, taking managment fees while adding debt to the companies until they collapsed leaving a smoking wreck behind. I’m not saying that was his intent, but that was his legacy, time after time.
      
      Dubya was a successful business man too… He just didn’t give up: he failed repeatedly until a sweetheart deal, using other people’s money to buy into a baseball team turned to gold. But Bush didn’t just leave a few companies in ruins, he left the country in ruins, vast debt which the Republicans blame Obama for, and tens of thousands of brave warriors with life long wounds and pain and suffering for it.
      
      Donald Trump – an unethical capitalist doingh is share to keep the ‘birther’ lie alive… Bankrupt three times (these were not small bankruptcies either).
      
      Yup we really need a successful businessmen like these.
      - Don_B1
        
        None, NONE, of the most successful presidents were businessmen. Most historians consider George H.W. Bush the net best after Harry Truman. But Truman should not be thought of as a businessman: he did not make anywhere near the fortune that either Bush did in business.
        
        And George H.W. Bush had built a successful career in politics, from the House of Representatives to C.I.A. Director, etc.
- JGC
  
  You can keeping hoping. Maybe do some praying, too. Me, I am continuing to make small donations to support my favorite candidates, and I am going to check on the progress of my absentee ballot request…
  - sickofthechit
    
    Don’t you mean “…absentee ballot requests…”?
    - JGC
      
      I only regret I have but one vote to give to the Democratic Party…
- Gregg Smith
  
  Only the die hard ideologues are still supporting the disaster of Obama.
Yar

Which party wants to cut the nation in half?
If they say take back the nation, which is code for US and them, is by definition divide and conquer.
Which party will govern the whole country.
King Solomon posed a similar question to women fighting over a baby of which was willing to cut their baby in half. This is where our nation is today, both parties seem ready to cut our nation in half. Negative campaigning and political polarization is leading us toward an ungovernable nation. �
The RNC is a big tent, they open the flap to all sorts of crazy ideologues. Birthers, regressive taxers, climate change deniers, theocracy desirers, Government hating libertarian seekers, women controllers, war mongers, gay haters, race baiters, corporate raiders… I am sure I still missed some. You can’t really blame them, they organize with what they have available. �
The DNC is organized around community, education, social services… so they have already captured a majority of citizens to start with.�
Polarization comes from defining party by who or what it isn’t. This might build the party, but it is also making our nation ungovernable. �
The party that refuses to divide is the party that I hope wins control of both congress and the presidency. I hope 100 percent of eligible voters show up to vote. We need a party with coattails. United we stand, divided we fall is my state’s motto. Ben Franklin said it best, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
- MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
  
  What I don’t get is why Republicans court these extremists, as if there is an alternative for them to got to? An independent HATE party would only be self defeating.
  - Don_B1
    
    They cast their future with the White South and had to successively adopt a more fundamental approach to religion and fiscal conservatism: the social conservatives for votes, first just by giving them totem points in the party documents and “dog-whistles” such as going to Philadelphia MS to open a campaign and now really pushing anti-abortion and even anti-conception planks, and second standing for fiscal austerity in the face of a recession (even Romney admitted that going over the fiscal cliff will put in the country in a severe recession and thus qualify the time span of 2008 to ?? as likely the GREATEST Depression this country has ever had).
Prairie_W

If I were the Great Media Dictator, I’d run endless clips over the next three days just showing Republicans’ behaviors in Congress — 2010 to present.
- sickofthechit
  
  2008 to present!
WorriedfortheCountry

Can Romney undo $500M in negative attack ads in a one hour infomercial?

Probably. He only needs to peel off 4-5% of the undecideds.
- Mouse_2012
  
  I watch some, the guy was so stiff I was going to email them as tell him to seek medical help if it lasted longer than 4 hours.
- Mike_Card
  
  You are SO right! No need for him to continue wetting his pants about his next promotion, he’s SURE to win, anyway. Go home, everyone–he’s in like Flynt!
http://mitchlabuda.com/ Mitch Labuda

The challenge seems to be, how do we move the country forward with backward looking ideals, meddling in social issues, constitutional marriage amendment, gas prices which are not controlled by the government, more wars over ideology.
margbi

Why do people believe that a President Romney would have it any easier with a fractious congress than President Obama has? I think that a President Romney would be so beholden to the TP’ers that he would make decisions based on what this small fraction of the country believes is correct. I foresee gridlock again if he is elected.
- Mouse_2012
  
  Romney has no balls, the real meaning of appeaser in chief.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joanie-Gentian/610374005 Joanie Gentian

If elected Romney would be third oldest ever at time of election, behind only Reagan and WH Harrison. Perhaps least qualified ever. When he gets as disinterested with the job as he did the Massachusetts governorship, well, there’s Mars, I suppose.
Mouse_2012

Romney is a hack and even his party knows this. So of course they going to be pulling out all the dirtiest tactics to try and get the guy elected.

In the end obama is going to when a close election(unless some major gaffe happens)
- Don_B1
  
  He is certainly acting like he wants to be Grover Norquist’s Chauncey Gardiner with enough digits to be able to hold a pen and sign whatever bills a Republican Congress deems desired.
  
  He will prove that Republicans do not care one whit for reducing the deficit, except when a Democrat is president, and only wants to allow the wealthiest to rape the environment for their profit without even a fig leaf to the rest of humanity, thus guaranteeing that worldwide the Earth suffers a huge catastrophe from Climate Change.
  
  Anyone who watched The Roc with Brian Williams last week saw a discussion of the (Mormon) Church of the Latter-Day Saints which showed how much they believe in a collective approach to helping EVERYONE do their best in life. How does Romney reconcile what is supposedly one of the mainstays of his life with the dog-eat-dog social Darwinism of the fiscal conservatives of today’s radical Republican Party?
Mouse_2012

So is sheldon adelson going to get a speaking spot? He has spent over 40 million $$? Or does the bribry payoff only happens if Mitt Gets elected?

Mitt sooo american he goes to Israel to fundraise with no media oversight.

What a brave men.

Mitt soo American he also pays a lower tax % than our socialist president.

Oh yea his birther joke was Golden nothing awkward or anything. Good thing he’s seeking the racist vote.
- Gregg Smith
  
  That’s sick.
  - Mouse_2012
    
    I know the teaparty is extremely sick. Good thing your not apart of them?
- Don_B1
  
  Tell me how Mitt Romney had income of $2.7 million from his holdings in the Cayman Islands and paid only $52,000 in U.S. income tax on that income (rhetorical)?
  
  All the calculations are not shown in his 1040 so no one other than he and his preparers (and maybe — ? — John McCain) know. Why did all the other 2008 Republican presidential candidates really dislike Romney the most? Why did McCain choose Palin over Romney for V.P.?
jefe68

The party of magical thinking has had the first day of their convention canceled due to Tropical Storm Isaac. How fitting that the storm has a biblical name.
- Gregg Smith
  
  Are there any religious Democrats? Evidently not.
  - Ray in VT
    
    There are plenty to be sure. I can’t think of one with any credibility within the party who goes around blaming natural disasters on gays in San Francisco or the debauchery of Mardi Gras. When it comes to movers and shakers who think that they know the will of God and how he dispenses his punishment via the natural world, the GOP definitely has a monopoly there.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Keep watching and reading what you do and that’s a pretty easy thing to ass-out-of-you-and-you.
  - jefe68
    
    Well if you want to believe in magical thinking and myths go right ahead. That’s your choice.
    I just don’t want government to be run by people who have little understanding of science or respect for it. I want smart people in government, not religious zealots and magical thinkers.
    When you have members of both parties making absurd comments based on stupidity it’s not very reassuring. From Akin’s lack of understanding how the female reproductive system works to Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) who actually thought that the Island of Guam would capsize if the amount of troops were increased on the island. He was also not aware that Guam was a territory of the US.
    I don’t know about you but some basic knowledge of science and geology should be required if these two rubes are an example of what’s in Congress.
    
    I’m not a Democrat for the record.
- J__o__h__n
  
  Has the Reverand Pat Robertson assigned blame yet?
MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

Focusing fear, hatred and anger to motivate people losing hope is what Hitler did in Germany during the 30’s. In contrast Roosevelt united the country behind hope.

I cannot compare Obama to Roosevelt, but the Republican party’s stated objective on day one was to make Obama fail.
�
Mitch McConnell “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” John Boehner expressed the same sentiment. Boehner and McConnell’s goal was to help America recover from the economic mess that they helped create, it was to stop a president elected to get us out of the economic mess of the Bush administration.

This is the Neocon Republican party: Victory at any price! The Republican party became the party of NO and sabotaged, undermined and eviscerated our recovery. Look at the stimulus package: money proposed to go into infrastructure projects that would actually put people back to work and help folks suffering was taken off the table and replaced with tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses. What followed? An increase in capital sitting on the sidelines and the wealthy got richer.

Republican policies put the US bus in the economic ditch and now some people actually believe that the same drunken clowns with the same economic theories that failed here and are failing around the world will some how magically work?

Fear and anger are the shortest paths to a bad decision.
- Gregg Smith
  
  So to listen to Democrats, Republicans want dirty air, dirty water, to throw grandma over a cliff, to let autistic children suffer so the rich can play, to put “ya’ll back in chains”, women to do without contraception and back ally abortions to be the norm.
  
  Hatred and anger indeed.
  - J__o__h__n
    
    They might not want dirty air or water but their policies of letting companies pollute result in that. The marketplace does not deal with these externalities. The GOP supports education cuts, has opposed Medicare since its inception, restriction of voting for minorities, and restricting abortions for rape victims. Your mythical Republican party is more reasonable than the real one. Be careful lest they call you a RINO.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      So the hate and ager is justified because Republicans really do want misery, gotcha.
      - J__o__h__n
        
        You missed my point. They don’t want misery on many issues but preventing it isn’t more important than tax cuts and cutting regulations. They probably do want misery for women, gays, and racial minorities.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I got your point, I disagree with your premise. The GOP wants to preserve Medicare, Head Start is a total failure, abortions are legal and the voting restrictions for minorities thing is just silly. Show an ID, it’s easy.
        
        We have big time problems and if any attempt to face the problems head on is ridiculously demonized then there is no debate. It’s better to just defeat your ilk at the ballot box… and we will.
      - J__o__h__n
        
        How are they preserving Medicare? Ryan’s voucher scheme?
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        I thought the word for Ryan’s plan was “Groupon”.
        
        Tomayto, tomayto, as they say.
      - William
        
        How does Obama’s taking 716 billion out of Medicare a “fix?”
      - sickofthechit
        
        The 716 billion is a negotiated reduction in fees charged, not benefits!
      - MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
        
        It is realized through reductions in waste and fraud among other means.
      - MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
        
        If your solutions are not based upon facts, there is no hope.
        
        From what you casually wrote about voter suppression, I’ll wager that you have not been reading or listening to anything other than propaganda from the Republican Machine.
      - Don_B1
        
        He IS part of the propaganda distributing Republican Machine. The only thing here that is wrong is that the term “propaganda” is not adequate to describe how perverse the lies are.
      - jefe68
        
        Well the regressive Paul Ryan sure does want to wish a whole lot of misery on some people, woman and gays for starters.
        
        Paul Ryan opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
        
        Mr. Ryan also co-sponsored, along with Representative Todd Akin of
        Missouri, a bill that would have narrowed the definition of rape to
        reduce the number of poor women who can get an abortion through Medicaid.
        
        Paul Ryan co-sponsored three dozen anti-abortion bills.
        
        Paul Ryan co-sponsored a bill last year to allow employers to decline coverage of birth control if it violated their moral or religious convictions, and his budget would end all government financing for Planned Parenthood while slashing spending on prenatal care and infant nutrition.
        
        Paul Ryan supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
        
        All of the above is in the GOP platform that Mitt Romney also endorses.
        
        Social extremism is on the march.
      - Don_B1
        
        The Republicans want one thing over all others: ever lower taxes on the wealthiest and they will throw anyone under the bus to get it.
  - Acnestes
    
    No, it’s not that sensible people perceive the Greedy Old Pigs as actually wanting grandma dead and the environment polluted. We perceive that they don’t care a fig about any of it, as long as they get theirs, which is evidently all they care about. If they were just soiling their own nest I wouldn’t care either, but in their arrogant self righteousness they’re soiling mine too. And you bet it ticks me off.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      Alrighty then.
    - Michiganjf
      
      Excellent!
      
      It’s laughable that any righty has the GALL to compare the racist, greed-based, mindless and utterly unfounded hate of many conservatives TO ANYTHING that comes from the left.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I would have thought you’d be too embarrassed to comment after the reconciliation thing.
      - Michiganjf
        
        Still braindead, eh?
      - Michiganjf
        
        Good God you’re thick!
        
        For the last time, genius, you’re confusing Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Care_and_Education_Reconciliation_Act_of_2010 .
        
        I realize, however, that the distinction and truth doesn’t matter to braindead Republicans, so keep deluding yourself with FAUX NEWS stupidities and made-up talking points!
      - Gregg Smith
        
        Do you even know what reconciliation is? You’re hilarious.
    - notafeminista
      
      Oh that is exactly what the Left perceives. There is a reason the French word for “left” is “gauche.”
      - Acnestes
        
        “Gauche” – so, you’re not saying that it’s wrong, just that it’s tactless to point it out? I can see why you’d think so.
      - Mike_Card
        
        And that has what to do with what?
  - notafeminista
    
    Not to mention the “storybook clean articulate black man”. (paraphrased)
    
    Only in America.
    - Don_B1
      
      People ARE forgiven for misspeaking when they have a long history of acting in ways that show where their heart is, that they stand for helping everyone achieve the best that they can in life.
      
      But Republicans have a long history of using social issues to divide and conquer and skim off at least 99% of the benefits generated by the work of everyone in this country.
  - MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
    
    Those are the logical results of most of their initiatives.
    
    When contraception and abortions are illegal, suffering and death will only increase. This has been proven time and time again.
    
    Refusing to learn from reality, Republicans push for unrealistic laws that will only make things worse. Incompetence or dark hidden agenda?
    
    66+% Republicans want tax cuts on the wealthy. 75% of Democrats want that too. How can refusing to raise taxes on the wealthy (and themselves) be anything but misrepresentation?
    
    Just like tax cuts for the rich, their continued acts of refusing to accept reality and fact force me to ask what is their true motivation?
- William
  
  Who is Obama? First he was a new and different political leader, then he was FDR, then he was the last Kennedy, then he was Clinton, then he was Reagan. Is Obama the guy that said “We are going to punish our enemies and reward our friends?” Is he the guy that promised the Russians a new deal after he got reelected? More bowing to foreign leaders? More apology tours?
  
  Which Obama are you supporting?
- sickofthechit
  
  You need to edit again. Your Paragraph about mitch and john reads wrong in the last sentence.
Michiganjf

The RNC Convention?

I see enough of twelfth century history on the History Channel.
65noname

you go government radio! Once again having as a guest a professional right wing spin artist and political hack like byron york under the guise of political analysis.

Don’t forget to do one of your ads claiming that only on government radio can you hear such unbiased, accurate analysis.

Don’t forget to do one of your ads for money claiming that only on government radio can you hear such a wide range of “honest” opinion (unless, of course, you listen to fox and rush limbough)

Still waiting for some left wing opinion spinners. Guess that’ll come someday.
- OnpointListener
  
  The right constantly threatens to cut funding for public radio. This is designed to control the media and it works.
  
  For the sake of appearing “unbiased”, many public radio programs must feel compelled to include at least one right wing hack in any discussion of politics or policy.
  
  Mr. Ashbrook might argue that the more “conservative” guest will be sufficiently challenged by the other guests, by Tom, and by listeners and that this will level the playing field.
  
  I strongly disagree with such a view. I can recall many instances where outright lies and “talking points” have been spouted on this program but have remained unchallenged. I think part of the dilemma is that OnPoint wants to keep the discussion “civil”. And as you note, maybe getting some of the slightly more radicals on the left on the program might help.
  
  I appreciate OnPoint and I think Tom does a great job. But I do get discouraged with some of the guests.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    Let NPR report what they want, let them be as biased as they are. Just don’t give them my money.
    - Mike_Card
      
      I feel the same way about organized religion.
    - sickofthechit
      
      I feel the same way about your wars.
  - notafeminista
    
    “The right constantly threatens to cut funding for public radio. This is designed to control the media and it works.” Never mind the outright incorrectness of that statement.
    
    How is it the Left with its penchant for compassion,civility, social justice and all generally good things and good things only for all of mankind is woefully incapable of communicating the simple beauty of its strong convictions that are so clearly the correct and superior positions for any one human to take throughout life effectively enough to not require revenues created through the force of law?
    - 65noname
      
      the point here is not whether the left is successful or not in convincing people. The point here is that politicians continues to threaten the funding unless government radio eliminates any neutral or positive view of things that the right dislikes, such as the idea that gay people are people. Or that women should be able to control their own bodies and health care
      - notafeminista
        
        And the Left can’t convince people of that without the force of law. Why is that?
      - 65noname
        
        and the right can’t get prevent women from exercising their right to choice without prohibiting it. Why is that? And the right can’t prevent people from exercising their right to marry whomever they love without prohibiting it. Why is that? And right wing bigots couldn ‘t prevent people of color from eating in resturants or using public rerstrooms without prohibiting it. Why is that?
      - notafeminista
        
        The people spoke in California. And the Left used the force of law to get their way.
      - notafeminista
        
        In fact, (and I ask because I honestly cannot remember and am too lazy to look) is there ONE instance of “same sex marriage rights” legality in one state that hasn’t been foisted upon the people by force of law?
      - 65noname
        
        No, actually the money of church groups spoke. But, yes, you’re right; constitutional rights trump bigoted local laws. Similar to the fact that the constitution trumped local attempts to prevent people of color from going to schools. Or to use public restroooms.
      - notafeminista
        
        Ah yes, the evil churches. And the Left, once again in a breathtaking display of maturity after having not gotten their way commenced to battering 67 year old women (hey that’s equality for you!) and put people out of business.
      - 65noname
        
        huh? I think that”battering is a crime
      - jefe68
        
        Force of law? That sums you up, force of law indeed.
      - notafeminista
        
        Ok I’ll bite. If someone breaks the law in this country, what happens?
      - Don_B1
        
        Unless they can’t be identified, they are arrested and the evidence from both sides is used to decide their guilt and if found guilty they are punished.
        
        But note that trials are not guaranteed to determine guilt; they are often more a debate than a search for truth.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Too many scared, uninformed people keep your kind of media on to simply remember what to be angry at.
      
      Note the lack of the word “journalism” in the above sentence.
      - notafeminista
        
        “My kind of media” ? – and for whom or what might you be dog-whistling?
        
        What’s worthy of noting is the irony.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        I can explain things to you, but I can’t understand things to you.
        
        And you use the word “dogwhistle” like you know what it means. Hack.
      - notafeminista
        
        Marginalize much?
    - OnpointListener
      
      We’ll stop using your tax dollars to pay for what is a “public” service when you stop using my tax dollars to pay for wars.
      - notafeminista
        
        You didn’t answer the question.
      - notafeminista
        
        A “public” service? How much taxpayer generated support does the HuffPo need? MSNBC? DailyKos? MoveOn.org? Oh wait….
        
        At least be honest in your assertions.
  - 65noname
    
    the problem is that guys like york, and other “guests” on government radio, is not simply that they are extreme right wingers, but that they are extreme spinners. Its one thing to have a range of opinion; its another thing to have people who are essentially p.r. people for a point of view and who have no respect ofr truth or accuracy.
    - Mouse_2012
      
      York’s a extremist with mannerism that hide it, but all one has to do is see how extreme the guy is,is to read what he writes.
  - 65noname
    
    the problem is that guys like york, and other “guests” on government radio, is not simply that they are extreme right wingers, but that they are extreme spinners. Its one thing to have a range of opinion; its another thing to have people who are essentially p.r. people for a point of view and who have no respect for truth or accuracy.
  - William
    
    Does NPR really need some 400 million dollars? Can’t they compromise and give up say, 200 million of that? How many kids lunches will 200 million dollars pay for? How many home health care providers will be funded with 200 million dollars?
    - OnpointListener
      
      William – In today’s media environment, where ownership is concentrated and where the goal of certain media outlets is to (1) purely to make profits without well established journalistic standards and/or (2) to control public opinion in order to create gains for their advertisers or sponsors — 400 million, if that is truly the amount of federal support, is well worth it.
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_bias
      - William
        
        NPR does not really need 400 million dollars..it is just icing on the cake…why not become more moderate..give up a little…set a good example for other companies to follow and get off the taxpayer back?
      - OnpointListener
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio
        Look at the section on funding and the links to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which provides grants to NPR. I think your figures are way way off….. are they from Fox News? :-p
        
        The small amount of federal funding that NPR receives helps NPR to produce its lead news programs creating a skeleton of programming that local stations purchase. Then private individuals, public and private institutions, and states donate money to the stations to help pay for the the programs.
        
        Its a win win considering the vast public service it provides.
        
        If you want to give taxpayers a break, call your representatives and ask them to support a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United…. that might help clean up the MASSIVE giveaways to big pharma, big oil, and the military industrial complex and might help us stay out of wars. Nothing like watching Mitt pandering to the Isrealis and our Republican Congress being hosted by groups there. Makes me SICK.
      - notafeminista
        
        Ok I will agree with you 100% on your first point.
        
        ABC’s coverage of the theater shooting in Colorado can be exhibit A.
        
        NBC’s “artful editing” of the Treyvon Martin story can be exhibit B.
    - OnpointListener
      
      I forgot to say after my last reply:
      
      I live in a rural area in upstate NY where there are many people who cannot afford cable TV and where we have NO radio stations that carry content other than music and local news.
      
      NPR is often a lifeline for news and information for people living in rural areas. Our local station serves a huge geographic area by having a central station and at least 10 feeder antennaes.
      
      It would be shortsighted and harmful to remove funding for NPR.
      - William
        
        Give up say 200 million? That won’t hurt.
    - Mike_Card
      
      You are so right! Just think, if each of the Fortune 500 corporations would agrees to contribute 400K apiece–chump change, as you say–there would be more kids’ lunches and home health care providers.
      
      The CEOs of those companies would never miss it, and their companies would get tax deductions, since it would be legitimate business expense.
    - Don_B1
      
      As ALWAYS with a statement from William, the facts show it to be totally false in implication and on its face.
      
      From Wikipedia:
      
      ” In 2010, NPR revenues totaled $180 million, with the bulk of revenues coming from programming fees, grants from foundations or business entities, contributions and sponsorships.[18] According to the 2009 financial statement, about 50% of NPR revenues come from the fees it charges member stations for programming and distribution charges.[18] Typically, NPR member stations receive funds through on-air pledge drives, corporate underwriting, state and local governments, educational institutions, and the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities.[18][24]While NPR does not receive any direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. This funding amounts to approximately 2% of NPR’s overall revenues.[18] ”
      
      The TOTAL expenditures of NPR are less than half of William’s false postulation and the preponderance of that comes from listeners and commercial underwriters who do that because they want to show their interest in the people of this country being informed of what is really happening in this country.
  - J__o__h__n
    
    I think right wing hack guests are useful during the Republican convention. They are otherwise often over-represented.
- Ray in VT
  
  I don’t care for some of Mr. York’s views, but sometimes I find myself in agreement with him. There’s going to be some partisan rep for the GOP on this show, just like there will be a partisan Democrat during their convention. I’d rather have York than Mona Charon, for instance.
  - 65noname
    
    I’d rather have honest commentators no matter what their political stripe.
    - Ray in VT
      
      I don’t think that you’ll get much agreement here on who is an honest broker. There are certainly some who I think are better than others, but good luck to anyone who can convince someone who is hard on the other side of the aisle that their guy is honest, unbiased, or well intentioned.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Don’t hold your breath.
  
  There is always a reason to have more Republicans on public radio.
  
  They’re in power. They’re challenging for power. They’ve changed their name (now the Tea Party). They’re asking the President for his birth certificate. They’re suing to spend a kajillion dollars anonymously.
  
  Note that this is not a series of commutative properties.
JGC

The Adelsons are en route to Tampa. Some link part of the motivation for the supersize contributions from Sheldon Adelson to not just his support for Israel, but to get a friend in charge who will squash the criminal investigations being done by the SEC and Dept. Justice concerning allegations of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by his Las Vegas Sands Macau organization.

Thanks to his $42-billion casino empire, a $100-million insurance policy is just the price of doing business.
JGC

This is a chance, literally from the national stage, for Romney to show his leadership skills in the face of adversity. Am curious to see how it all rolls out. Romney had an interesting interview in Bloomberg Businessweek (Aug. 13-26, 2012 issue) where he replied to a question about the best part of working at Bain, the thing that got him excited to get to the office each morning:

“I’m not sure people would think of me in this light, but frankly what I enjoyed most about Bain & Company, the consulting firm, was the analytical process of solving tough problems…I love the thinking and the analyzing as much as anything. I also enjoyed working with a team of people to arrive at ideas and solutions, and also to see ideas and solutions implemented.”

Am curious to see how he performs his team building exercise in the face of a disruptive hurricane and the other chaotic forces gathering in Tampa, such as the Ron Paul delegation and the far right evangelicals.
- MrNutso
  
  He has already he’s not doing the touch feely thing to lay himself open like a piece of meat.
- sickofthechit
  
  The word vacuous came to mind when I read your comment. Not applied to you, but to Romney. He reminds of this chart my old boss gave me where it had seven or eight boxes each filled with nine or ten words. You could create a sentence by picking a word from each box and voila you would have “management speak” which never really said anything, but did sound impressive.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Doesn’t Dilbert’s boss do that with a dartboard?
Ray in VT

Is anyone here actually planning on watching or listening to the conventions? There’s a lot of pomp and rah-rah-rahing, but I’m guessing that many of those committed already know the platforms and won’t tune in, and most of the reporting and coverage suggests that there are relatively few undecided voters. Is anyone here actually undecided at this point?
- Gary Trees
  
  My only decision at this point is whether I stick to my convictions and ote for Jill Stein, or bite the bullet and vote for Obama. If a vote for Stein was not a de facto vote for Romney, it would be no contest.
  - BHA_in_Vermont
    
    As much as it is commendable to stick to one’s convictions, it is important to know when doing so is not in their best interest.
    
    That said, I don’t know if there are any polls that would show who members of ‘third’ parties would vote for if they didn’t vote for the person representing their party or if no member of their party was on the ballot.
    
    Would more than half of those who identify as Green Party members vote for Obama? Or for Romney?
    
    It is true that in our political system of 2 massive parties and some small ones, votes for any but the Big 2 are non votes. Their only effect is if they, as an aggregate, would have voted overwhelmingly for one of the Big 2 over the other if those were the only choices available.
- Mouse_2012
  
  Little here and there most likely. The media will highlight the insults,attacks and same plans wrapped up in a new package. Most the independent’s you will now see on CNN or the likes most likely alreadly made up there minds but will pretend not to.
  
  You hear how they blocked Ron Paul from speaking? The fear(yes Fear) was his delegates would nominate him and he would get to speak so the Romney Camp has been using any trick in the book to prevent many even from coming.
- Acnestes
  
  If anything is said of any actual value it will be summed up in about 45 seconds on the 11 o’clock news. Anyone’s time would probably be more profitably spent watching reruns of Jersey Shore.
  - Ray in VT
    
    I don’t see much in the value of watching the conventions, but I don’t think that I could rank them so low as the Jersey Shore. Trading one type of horror for another maybe.
    - Acnestes
      
      Jersey Shore is less likely to be depressing than the conventions. The characters in both are all pretty appalling, but one can comfort oneself that at least the ones on Jersey Shore aren’t likely to be in positions of influence or authority any time soon.
      - Ray in VT
        
        That is true about the relative positions of people to affect my life. However, at least if I tune into the conventions I won’t see people getting trashed in bars and then either vomiting, defecating or screwing some/anywhere.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        What, they’re not setting up the Wide Stance Cam in the airport men’s room?
      - Ray in VT
        
        Ah, good old Senator Craig. Did you ever hear Dennis Leary’s routine about that whole thing? It was pretty good.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        No, but I have a taste for Leary’s cathartic manner. I’ll have to seek it out.
      - Acnestes
        
        Well, true, they only televise what takes place on the actual convention floor so you won’t actually see it. . .
      - Ray in VT
        
        I did read a while back that the “adult” entertainment sector was expecting to do some very good business during the convention, and I read something last week that said that the ‘Porno Palin” was in town to do her “show”.
- BHA_in_Vermont
  
  Why start now?
  
  They are unimportant side shows. The “platform” was already built. They’ll have lots of raucous RAH RAH. People like Bachman will tell the choir how they will “take the country back”(wards). Speeches from all the right wingers.
  
  Then the Etch-a-Sketch will get a workout the day after it ends. They should have cancelled it and sent $100M+ money they would have spent to a good cause, like health centers, schools, etc.
  
  Oh, and other than the Bachman quote, change it to ‘left wingers’ and it applies to the Democratic convention as well. That much money could do some permanent good, rather than create a VERY short term job for some people.
  - Mike_Card
    
    Yeah, but those poor, poor local TV outlets just love the hell out of it, since the real estate developers stopped running ads for new condos.
  - Don_B1
    
    There is always the U.S. Open for tennis aficionados!
    
    But I would note that even most watchers, not to mention the general public, do NOT know what is in the parties’ platforms. What is sad is that they will not learn that from the convention coverage. What they WILL see and hear is all the spinning to cover over the true meaning of the platform planks that are even discussed.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

So, I wonder if anything is going to be said at the convention other than “go Republicans” and “Obama stinks”?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  “Said”, or “whistled”?
  
  We could start a time pool on when Mitt feels like he has to prove himself by making another birther joke.
Yar

Issac has already fundamentally changed the RNC convention. It is difficult to be anti-government in the middle of a disaster. When neighborhoods flood, and faces of women and children are on the screen, the party of “you’re on your own”, will participate in a moment of silence. Issac creates a kinder, gentler GOP, at least for the week.
- J__o__h__n
  
  They should opt out of any help from FEMA.
  - BHA_in_Vermont
    
    NPR reported this morning that FEMA is already in Florida to help deal with any Issac problems.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Make the GOP beg for it.
      
      Or let the private sector handle it.
      
      They made their rhetorical beds.
TomK_in_Boston

I’m grateful to God for sparing us at least one day of an infomercial for class warfare.
- sickofthechit
  
  They practice “Class Genocide” not Class Warfare. charles a. bowsher
JGC

Since abortion has been blasted to the front of the line, I saw an interesting Salon article by Justin Elliot of ProPublica of which maybe some of the On Point audience is not aware. (I know I was not.)

“In a 1994 Senate debate with Ted Kennedy, Mitt Romney revealed a startling chapter from his past: A close relative had died many years earlier in a botched illegal abortion, shaping Romney’s stance in favor of safe and legal access to abortion for all women. But in the many years since that revelation, even as Romney flipped his position and became an ardent opponent of legal abortion, the details of his young relative’s story, including even her name, have never been reported.

The relative he was referring to back in ’94, Salon has learned, was a Detroit woman named Ann Keenan. She was the sister of Romney’s brother-in-law and died at the age of 21 in 1963, a full decade before Roe v. Wade. While much of what happened remains murky, an investigation by Salon has uncovered never-reported details about her life and death, including: how she died (an infection),; that her grief-stricken parents asked for memorial donations to be made to Planned Parenthood; and that the family apparently wanted to keep the death quiet because Romney’s politically ambitious father, George, was then governor of Michigan.

With access to abortion increasingly restricted in many states and the possibility that a (Romney) victory in 2012 will tilt the balance of the Supreme Court against Roe v. Wade, Romney’s account of how a back-alley abortion touched his own family is more relevant than ever. The episode is a window into an era when obtaining an abortion meant the real risk of serious injury or death. It also represents a key part of Romney’s political journey on the issue of abortion, which has more than any other tarred him as a flip-flopper…”
Gary Trees

hmmm. it seems signing in on google makes it so I have no user information displayed. I’m Gary. I wrote that thing up there ^
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

It reminds me of 2004: a rich man with a long resume who hasn’t yet connected with the average voter running against an incumbent who has screwed up in many ways.
- sickofthechit
  
  Bush’s mistakes were epic. Obama’s biggest mistake was continuing to believe that he could get the Repugnicans in Congress to compromise. That mistake is not even close to bush’s fups.
  - http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
    
    That’s a matter of opinion, but I’d hardly call either of them a stunning success.
    - TomK_in_Boston
      
      There’s no comparison. Bush inherited a prosperous USA with a balanced budget and pissed it away with tax cuts, was clearin’ brush in crawford while the alarm bells were going off for 9/11, spun up a WMD scare to justify the disastrous, bloody budget busting invasion of iraq, and presided over the biggest economic crash since 1929! Obama inherited Bush’s disaster and has only made partial progress trying to fix it, because of his own buy-in to voodoo econ and opposition from the GoP who are more concerned with politics than the USA. No comparison whatsoever.
Mouse_2012

Doesn’t Mitt want European Corp tax rates?
- Ray in VT
  
  You know, I once told a former co-worker of mine that if I was making policy, then I would make a trade and give the GOP the corporate tax rates that they ask for, and they say that they want rates more in line with rates in places like Europe so that we can be more competitive. I would give them that. What I would take in exchange for that would be the individual taxes rates that mirror those of Europe.
  - Mouse_2012
    
    Don’t you find it interesting that the republicans attack Europe so much yet see nothing wrong with saying the U.S. should me more like Europe in regards to Corp taxes or like Mexico in regards to immigrantions?
    - Ray in VT
      
      Oh, I find hypocrisy to be one of the funniest things about humans. My Dad always complained about hypocrites, and his position was this: “I may not be in the first row in Church on Sunday, but I don’t spend the rest of the week being a hypocrite”.
Mouse_2012

“the vast left wing conspiracy”

Clearly this guy is objective,unbiased with a title like that.

Is it me or does York get introduced with a different title on Onpoint each time he’s on?
Matt Wade

Florida, a state overrun with destructive invasive species (pythons and wild pigs just to name a few) is the perfect location for the convention of a party that has been overrun by destructive, invasive Teabaggers.
- JGC
  
  Yeah, where is Governor Rick Scott, anyway?
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“They have to appeal more to women by selling them on them on the economy affecting them.” (Female guest–didn’t get which one)

Doesn’t Governor Transvaginal Ultrasound from Virginia have a speech?

How many gallons of Wite-Out is going to remove Paul Ryan’s name from co-sponsorship of bills with Todd “Forcible Rape” Akin?
Yar

“I am.” is a biblical reference.�
Exodus 3:14�
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
- http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
  
  And Popeye: I yam what I yam.
  - Ray in VT
    
    I thought that that was Descartes (obscure sci-fi reference).
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

I don’t care about liking the person, since I don’t run in high political circles. I care about what that person will do once in office.
- Ray in VT
  
  I’ve also never understood that “who would you rather have a beer with” sentiment. I don’t care if he likes NASCAR versus baseball. It is a part of selling the candidate as someone who is relatable and who understands people’s problems.
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  Right on Greg. I don’t give a damn what someone says, it’s what they do that concerns me.
Rex Henry

Romney told a guy that he cares about the people of Florida and that guy’s word is bond? That’s no different from a lawyer speaking for his client.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Florida should worry when Romney says “The waves are just the right height”.
sickofthechit

The Republicans essentially want us to return to the failed economic policies of the bush Administration. Are our memories that short? I hope and pray they aren’t! Charles A. Bowsher
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  Short memories aren’t our problem, it’s selective history and willful ignorance that are killing us.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“Mitt Romney isn’t exactly or isn’t yet Ronald Reagan”?

Can we get someone from outside the Beltway on this panel to snort once, uncontrollably, with the idea that Mitt Romney can “become” Ronald Reagan, the happy warrior, in ten weeks?
JGC

Avert your eyes, children! Congressmen Yoder and Quayle may celebrate the nomination by taking a (skinny)dip in Tampa Bay.
northeaster17

Obama is not a capitalist?
Call him out Tom
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Time to turn to the panel’s liberal guest.
  
  Oh, wait.
  
  And whichever guest is saying “The GOP doesn’t want to call Obama a socialist” really ought to get out more and see what the almighty, all-needed crazy-ass base of the right is saying and doing and cheering for.
  - Mouse_2012
    
    Think it was York(whoses not going to argue about that)
Mouse_2012

lol,

Jerry our resident on air Rightwinger.
Yar

Capitalism like Mitt Romney’s active/inactive role in Bain, that allows him to deduct 35% on losses but only pay 15% gains?
- J__o__h__n
  
  Including the three years when he was CEO in name and pay but claims wasn’t responsible for the job losses.
- StilllHere
  
  On $3k of income, please; and everyone else has the same right.
  - Mike_Card
    
    Everyone who can afford to pay $100K annually to a tax advisor, that is.
- http://www.facebook.com/jack.goldman2 Jack Goldman
  
  Exactly why Mitt can’t release more tax returns because they would show how little he paid in taxes.
jim_thompson

How does Romney and the campaign square with today’s Huffington Post article where it says Romney told the IRS in 2010(according to his returns)tat he was an “active participant” in Bain-to get the tax breaks-vs. what he has told the American people, that he wasn’t an active participant? The more you look-the more…kinda creepy he looks.

Jim in Fort Mill,Sc
J__o__h__n

Romney has this astonished tone when he speaks that is kind of disturbing.
- Thinkin5
  
  He strains his voice when he tries to put enthusiasm and passion into it. It’s phony. He’s a trickle down advocate and there’s nothing trickling down.
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  Every time I hear Romney Pontificating all I can think is: “Would you please stop preaching Reverend? That wasn’t in the Good Book and I’m sick of listening to your rhetoric.”
Thinkin5

We know who and what Mitt is. We’ve watched him duck and weave, flip and flop, and tell outright lies. He is what he is; an opportunist and a man who just wants to be president no matter what the cost.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  “no core” is the best description I’ve seen of Mr “abortion should be safe and legal”. His flipflopping is difficult to describe, it almost needs a whole new language. He is the master.
  
  If we were going to consider a financial con man to fix an economy wrecked by financial con men, I’d go for Bernie Madoff over Etchasketch: I think Bernie’s more honest.
Rex Henry

What about the obstructionists in the House preventing Obama from fulfilling his promises? Can Obama mention it without sounding like he’s whining? You know Romney’s not going to give thanks for all that help.
J__o__h__n

Has Romney insulted his Florida hosts yet? They didn’t have these weather problems when he ran the Olympics in Utah.
sickofthechit

Dear Margaret- Get your facts straight! Please don’t call it a trillion dollar stimulus. It was divided in three parts, one third tax cuts, one third to states to save teacher, firefighter and police jobs, and one third to actual stimulus.

They play Romney saying Obama tried and failed. Why hasn’t he done them? Because the Repugnicans in Congress blocked him at every turn for fear his policies would actually work!

Charles A. Bowsher
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“Getting turnout” says McManus (?), will be important for Obama.

Hey, the show is in Florida for days. Let’s spend some time detailing on Gov. Scott’s Block the Vote program.
sickofthechit

What pisses me off the most is callers like this one who think that a mess that took bush and the Repugnicans in congress 8 years to create could be cleaned up in three and a half years. Charles A. Bowsher
- Thinkin5
  
  The Repcons have been a giant anchor for the president to drag as he tries to pull the country out of the ditch. Instead of helping him and the country they are the road block. Extremely selfish of them!
StilllHere

Obama has proven himself unfit to govern, not just unable to. However, he’s great at excuse-making.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  Your comment has been placed on an anonymous hold, and will not appear for an up or down vote until 60% of the board approves.
  
  Most gobstopping obstructionist feces-flinging Congress in history. Look it up.
BHA_in_Vermont

So now Romney is “very proud” of the MA health care law.

“Look, I’m the guy that was able to get health care for all of the women and men in my state,”

Romney vetoed 8 sections of the law and all eight were over-ridden. Who is the leader? Not Romney, but now he is proud of it.

But he wants to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act because it …
Heck I don’t know the answer. Seems like it provides a level of health care for all in the USA. Why is that NOT good?

Obama NEEDS to explain the AHCA in a way everyone can easily understand. How long have we heard “they are against it but they are for the individual parts”?

Hire H Ross Perot to deliver the message with the style of charts he used when he ran for Pres. One chart, one point.

Publicize the “Pants on fire” politifact rating on the “the government will decide what care you get” line of BS. And on the “death panels” line of BS. Every time the “anti Obamacare” people put out another line of BS – REFUTE IT WITH THE FACTS. If you can’t then they are correct in their assessment and the voters can decide based on FACTS.
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

Aren’t we in a period in which all elections are going to be 50/50 until voting day, when a handful of voters will flip-flop?
sickofthechit

The wealthiest 20% own 88% or our countries wealth and they want more! Wake up America!
Charles A, Bowsher
Matt Wade

Alan Wolfe made this point in a 2006 article for the Washington Monthly entitled “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern:”

“If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government–indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government–is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.”

A Romney presidency would be like a Bush admin on steroids. A complete disaster for 95% of the nation.
Michiganjf

What a JOKE!!

Romney, the perennial pariah and last place finisher in the Republican Party, is now THE ALL-TIME BEST CANDIDATE REPUBLICANS HAVE EVER HAD THE HONOR TO OFFER UP TO AMERICA!!!!!

Hee Ho Ha Ha *cough*!

Old “anyone but Romney” is now the great savior Americans have been waiting for!
- Rex Henry
  
  This feels a lot like a backwards version of the 2004 Presidential Election
- Thinkin5
  
  Romney was just the last clown standing after the worst group of Rep. candidates in history. The right held their noses and let him in.
MadMarkTheCodeWarrior

Yea, we’ll cut taxes on the wealthy and reduce the deficit and things will improve! Where do you get those drugs?
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  The pharmacy and they’re perfectly legal. Shame someone can’t come up with a prescription med that imparts common sense.
bogosity1

Tom, when a caller says egregiously misleading things like Obama is not a capitalist and a disciple of Eugene Debs, you need to correct them and not allow these patent untruths to propagate. You show becomes a vehicle for right wing lies and distortions.

Obama is a centrist and a capitalist, an intelligent and compassionate capitalist, but one nonetheless. He accepts and works completely within the basic political economic framework of capitalism. Much to my dismay, Obama did NOTHING to support union rights to collective bargaining in Wisconsin and Ohio. He had and still has mostly Bush when it comes to economic advisers, and has done nothing to prosecute the Wall St. miscreants who crashed the economy.

Nevertheless, Obama is still strongly preferable to Romney (we will get military-industrial keynesianism coupled with slashing of social insurance programs if the Republicans take power). Romney is offering vague voodoo, trickle-down economic promises — why anyone thinks that Romney “knows how to fix the economy” is beyond me. I think that the plutocrats like things as they are — wages are stagnant and even declining, the stock market is back at 13k, and they are firmly in control.
- William
  
  If Obama is a “centrist” how come he can’t get a budget passed?
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    There’s a laundry list of economist-approved centrist policies which the GOP got scared of once President Obama said “That’s a good policy idea. Let’s talk about it.”
    
    You really think you’re fooling anyone?
    - William
      
      I think Obama said “I won” and that pretty much set his tone. He did set up that Simpson-Bowles commission, but then he rejected all their ideas. So the “centrist” label does not really stick to Obama.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        The combo of “William” and “I think someone said” approaches zero percent chance of reliability.
        
        The crumb of context-free “knowledge” strikes again.
        
        You really think you’re fooling anyone?
      - anamaria23
        
        William is a master of half truths. Truly unbelievable.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7QBIUWWKNO3EAZ7IRMP54NMHFE TimMCahill
    
    Because the Republicans have vowed to make him a one-term president and they’ve blocked/filibustered every attempt President Obama has made to pass one.
    - William
      
      But his own party voted down his last budget.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        Wasn’t his budget. Try to keep up; this isn’t Redstate. Hack.
  - sickofthechit
    
    Repugnicans in congress?
http://www.facebook.com/stewsburntmonkey David Stewart

So no one on the panel feels that Romney needs to actually produce some specifics on how he would handle the real issues affecting this country? It’s all about like-ability and nothing about actual governance?
- superfinehelios
  
  I agree. So he has business creds. So what! The last thing I want is someone running this country like an unfeeling, cold, profit-at all costs business!
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    If only it were that easy, if only a CEO would make a good governor.
    
    CEOs, “run gummint like a bidness” crap has been a fetish in our media for years, and it shows how incestuous and inbred our media is.
    
    Businesses are in the business of making money. They get out of markets, “fire” poor people, and stop making products all the time.
    
    Mitt, especially, has been “running things” for so long I am wondering about the last time someone told Mitt Romney, CEO, “no”.
Yar

The big lie is that low taxes creates jobs. High taxes actually creates jobs. Some of them are government jobs, but most are private sector jobs. Where would Walmart be without SNAP? Government spending creates jobs better than dollar for dollar. Tax cuts are much less effective at creating jobs if they do at all.
- notafeminista
  
  Yes because having more disposable income is always a bad thing.
- William
  
  If this was true, why did Obama extend the Bush tax cuts and he cut the Social Security tax for his own tax cut?
  - anamaria23
    
    President Obama extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the Repubs backing off their hostage taking ploy to cut unemployment benefits in the fresh recession with millions unemployed through no fault of their own. Rather like a Sophie’s Choice. No decent human being would have done otherwise and he has taken the hit for it.
    What would you have done?
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

Hand the keys to the White House to someone new? How about we keep those keys, since it belongs to us? The person who lives there is just a guest of the people and should bear that in mind the whole four years.
- sickofthechit
  
  Right out of “Dave” the movie. well done!
  - http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
    
    Never saw it.
    - sickofthechit
      
      Starred Kevin Klein with Sigourney Weaver and a great actor who just died.. Klein was a body double for the president and he runs a Temp agency. He proposes a full employment bill. In an address before Congress he says “I forgot you all elected me to do a job for you, and it was a temp job at that….”
      It is worth watching.
- Yar
  
  How many people simply hate to see another black person in public housing? Is that the code behind what you are saying? As for property management, I expect the man with two small girls will be a better occupant than a guy with 5 big boys and a sick wife. But we won’t talk in code, agreed?
  - http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
    
    Where do you get the idea that I’m talking in code? I don’t care what color the person is. I want the government officials and politicians in all branches and at all levels to remember line number one in all of their job descriptions: You work for the people.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      You, yourself, are not talking in code.
      
      But the GOP needs the “enthusiasm” (as Jeff Greenfield and a thousand gushing Beltway Inbred correspondents call it) of the racists, bigots, transvaginal intruders and gay/lesbian haters of the far right.
      
      (And don’t give us that “both sides” stuff. The far right is driving the GOP bus.)
      
      When it’s all about keeping people ignorant and riled up, the GOP wins.
      
      And our media corpse is doing a great job papering over the crazee and pretending anything there is about “informing” voters. Paul Ryan, he of a million fake numbers, is the sexy new “wonk” of the right thanks to (among other things) being pimped by the WSJ editorial page.
      - Mike_Card
        
        While we’re at it, I would appreciate hearing a bit more from the journalistas about Paul Ryan; something beyond, “He’s a real wonk who knows his budget numbers,” and,” He’s a P90X work-out fanatic,” and, “He has big ideas!”
        
        So far, what the press has given us is the equivalent of the college blind date: “She’s got a great personality, she makes her own clothes, and all the girls just love her!”
StilllHere

Obama squandered his advantage and the media’s love affair in his first two years. Voters woke up, but Obama can only try to shove stuff down Congress’ throat. As a result, a failed presidency by any measure!
- sickofthechit
  
  Actually in his first two years Obama tried to work with the Repugnicans in Congress but they thwarted him at every turn (record number of threatened filibusters). Please wake up.
jim_thompson

Tom, Please ask Byron York how does he expect Republicans to vote for Governor Romney, given the fact that Romney has denied ever voting for Ronald Reagan. Why that’s heresay in GOP circles.
Emilio Diaz

I’m an independent Latino who has supported both Democrats
and Republicans.

I actually left FL after 10 years to move to MA where I’ve
lived for the past 3 years.

How come no one is talking about the responsibility that
Republican governors have for the slow economic recovery? Rick Scott has done everything he wished for and it’s not working either. How is Obama responsible for the policy decisions made by these governors? Look at how well MA is progressing under a Democratic governor. I am so glad I left FL when I did.
AC

my mother in law yesterday told me she has been a life-long republican, but can no longer relate to them (she said it was Bush #2 that started her turn away) and doesn’t like Romney at all. My own mother loves him, but she’s not american and can’t vote….
- DrewInGeorgia
  
  Reagan did the trick for me, up to that point I respected and held many of the GOP ideals. I am not criticizing anyone who supports the Republican Party, however, I cannot comprehend how any rational person can continue to support them after Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. That’s just my view though.
  - AC
    
    really? I thought Bush I was supposed to be a nice man?
    - DrewInGeorgia
      
      As I said somewhere else on the board: I could care less what someone says, it is only what they do that concerns me.
      
      A nice man? I don’t know, that’s so subjective. My dislike for Bush Sr. is based on his actions and in-actions while in office and nothing more. Likeability is valueless in comparison with accountability in my mind.
    - J__o__h__n
      
      He delegated the nastiness to Lee Atwater.
      - AC
        
        i had to look Lee Atwater up. I think I was too young to really know Bush 1, I was reading a book on the Isreali/Palestenian history and it said Bush1 was very upset by the palestinian plight and was tough on Isreal’s behavior. It just made him seem really human and sweet….
      - J__o__h__n
        
        As far as Republicans go, he could have been much worse (except for giving us Clarence Thomas).
      - DrewInGeorgia
        
        That’s a pretty big exception.
      - J__o__h__n
        
        agreed
      - Mouse_2012
        
        Bush the 1st stood up to Yitzhak Shamir and at the time Clinton ran to the Right of Bush.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Slight tangent:
      
      “Brutus is an honorable man. All men are honorable men.”
    - Mouse_2012
      
      Me too.
      
      I meet him when I was a child mutiple times with my parents it wasn’t until 02 did I see how destructive the Republican Party is/was when his Son was in office.
    - Mike_Card
      
      Lee Atwater was Karl Rove’s partner in crime under Bush I; died of a brain tumor some time during the 90′s. Made a death bed confession that he wished he’d been more ethical in his professional (politics) dealings.
      
      Clinton played the sax on Arsenio, Atwater played the guitar at GOP rallies.
DrewInGeorgia

The first thirty minutes of the show: Romney is a good guy, Obama is a Socialist, Romney can fix the economy if given the chance because he’s a great businessman, Obama hasn’t accomplished anything while in office. What is this, Week In The News Redux?

What a load of manure. The whiners will complain that the show is focusing (beating up) on poor Mr. Romney while completely ignoring that OP’s coverage of late has been much closer to a Romney Marketing Campaign that a rational criticism of the man.

Great Job OP. Yes I’m being sarcastic.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

I’d love to see Congressional candidates run on a platform which includes cutting their wages, dissolving their pension program and kicking in what most people now pay for their healthcare plans – but it ain’t gonna happen.
sickofthechit

To the debt lady. If we have a 16 trillion dollar debt and Obama has added 5 trillion to it where does she think the other 11 trillion came from? I give you the Repugnicans in the Whitehouse and congress during the bush admin. How is that repugnicans aren’t to ashamed to even put up a candidate?
Thinkin5

The 1% can be hyper concerned about the debt to the detriment of a jobs initiative. The vast majority of this country have much more immediate needs and concerns. Day to day survival, rent to pay, mortages to pay, mouths to feed, health care. It’s not about our “grandchildren”, it’s about affording life right NOW for most of us. The wealthy seem to be blind to this reality.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  The 1% don’t care about the debt, they use it as a bogeyman to scare the 99% into letting them take even more of the wealth and income.
  
  Nobody concerned abt the big bad debt would be proposing tax cuts at the top. If you propose tax cuts at the top, your agenda is redistribution of wealth to the top, period. Come on, people. If you’re still drinking the trickle down Kool-Aid after 32 years of growing inequality you have a problem.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

The DebtIsTheBiggestCrisis11!!1!one! media drumbeat has had its effects on voters. Of course, it wasn’t a crisis until a black Democrat was elected to the White House.

“Government debt is like individual debt.”

Tom, I saw this crap coming when I read the guest list. Can we get at least an economist to talk about this? The best thing for the debt in 2018 is 2 % more of GDP right now.
- OnPointComments
  
  “Of course, it wasn’t a crisis until a black Democrat was elected to the White House.” Really? Do you remember this: “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents — number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back — $30,000 for every man, woman and child.” Candidate Obama, July, 3, 2008.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Before the economy blew up in late 2008.
    
    Do try to keep up.
    - OnPointComments
      
      Sorry, I misunderstood. It’s not “Of course, it wasn’t a crisis until a black Democrat was elected to the White House,” it’s “Of course, it isn’t a crisis because a black Democrat was elected to the White House.” Okay. Got it.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7QBIUWWKNO3EAZ7IRMP54NMHFE TimMCahill

Interesting comment from a listener about the debt/deficit being a primary concern of the Republican base. The irony is, Ryan’s budget doesn’t address the issue of the deficit at all and doesn’t even balance the budget until 2030 or sometime around there.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

On cutting taxes – we’ve done it over and over. When do these mythical benefits start to kick in, instead of things getting worse and the Republicans saying the next tax cut will be the one that pays off?
Matt Wade

Paul Krugman on the debt:

Nobody Cares About the DeficitDave Weigel makes a good point: there’s a huge inconsistency between the way Republicans are responding to the new CBO report on the fiscal cliff and everything they’ve been saying for the past two years.What the CBO says is that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire and the sequester to kick in would hit the economy hard next year — because it would lead to a sharp fall in the deficit while the economy is still depressed. It’s pure Keynesianism, the same point that all of us anti-austerians have been making for years. If the right was at all consistent, it would be denouncing the CBO report for failing to take into account the impact of a lower deficit in deterring the invisible bond vigilantes and encouraging the confidence fairy.But whaddya know: suddenly the deficit is not an issue.Of course, it has been obvious all along that the whole deficit-hawk pose was insincere, that it was all about using the deficit as a club with which to smash the social safety net. But now we have a graphic demonstration.
bogosity1

Conservative rhetoric about limited government is just that — rhetoric. When they get power, they steer government spending to their own ends. If he gets elected, Romney will ramp up military spending (and creating a war to justify it is not out of the realm of possibility).

The mistake here is to believe that conservatives are sincere about their libertarian rhetoric. They only adopt this rhetoric when dealing with social safety nets, and not with military spending, which consumes now over $700 billion per year, comparable to the spending of the rest of the world combined.

We need to address how deeply dishonest most conservative politicians are about their motives and their ultimate goals.

(I am not a Ron Paul, supporter, but he is the most honest of the lot — but even he is no thoroughgoing libertarian, as his anti-reproductive freedom stance shows clearly.)
Michiganjf

What’s Doyle talking about???!!!

If the election is about economic issues, AMERICANS SHOULD DEFINITELY VOTE FOR OBAMA!!!!

Hasn’t he been paying attention to what Republicans have done to our economy, not to mention the disparity in incomes that resulted from Republican trickle-down???!!

… and Romney will double-down on those failed policies!!!!

Americans should be TERRIFIED about what further damage Romney and Republicans might do to the economy!!!
- Call_Me_Missouri
  
  Yeah the lack of Trickling Down their “Trickle Down” policies have yielded have been abhorrent!
j0byers

The republican mantra is to deregulate everything. Capitalism needs to be regulated. A look at the past 100 hundred years proves this being a major reason why we have had recessions and depressions when left unchecked. Regulations are the only thing that protects the average person. Romney just wants to de-regulate or keep the non-regulatory rules in place. This just leads to monopolies and abuse.
TinaWrites

Even when told how Private Equity Firms work, too many Americans think that Romney’s business skills will bring them jobs!Even when he is backed by major corporate CEO’s, who have been outsourcing jobs for years and years, too many Americans think that Romney’s business ideas will bring them jobs!

(Yet! Just now, a caller is saying that he will vote for the candidate who can “fix” things — I’m afraid I only heard that part of his comment. But you can see that a phrase like that — “I want the candidate who can fix things” can get you (and the whole country!) into real trouble if you haven’t been able to figure out what is really going on. Are we really voting based on cute phrases????????????!!!!!!!!)
http://www.facebook.com/jack.goldman2 Jack Goldman

There is something biblical about this convention being hit by a Hurricane named Isaac. Mitt not only has to harnes those desparate groups of disgruntled Republicans (most of whom would rather vote for someone else) but he also has to contend with the absence of deep south Governors who don’t dare miss the Hurricane’s path to their state.
Maggie Luttrell

I think what is missing from this conversation is the “young voter’s voice.” As someone who is 25, I have seen and experienced the struggle of employers hiring recent college grads, but as a young woman who is pro-choice and want the government out of my reproductive choices, I am truly struggling on who to vote for come November.
- J__o__h__n
  
  What is the evidence that Mitt’s trickle down economic policies will lead to job growth?
  - TomK_in_Boston
    
    Huh? The evidence is that they lead to nothing but redistribution of wealth and income to the top.
    
    Does anyone not get it yet? Mitt’s agenda is to grab more for himself and his fellow oligarchs. Trickle down is camouflage to fool the 99%.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  One party is trying all sorts of things to keep young citizens who voted in 2008 from making the same mistake again.
  
  I don’t mean “mistake” as in voting for Obama. I mean, voting at all.
  
  And ask your older friends who’ve been in the workforce for a dozen more years if the Bush recovery in the last decade happened to them, or just on TV.
- JGC
  
  Please see my post earlier today concerning the mysterious Ann Keenan, Mitt Romney’s sister-in-law who died of a botched abortion in 1963. This is the kind of compartmentalization of compassion we can expect if we have President Romney making nominations for the Supreme Court.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    That’s the thing: If there’s a twenty-something Romney bride who wants an abortion without the government (or goverment-approved religious representative) in her transvaginal, there’s a jet waiting to take her to Norway.
    
    The rest of American women? There’s the alley, go in back.
- sickofthechit
  
  Dear Maggie, glad your vote is still available. I would call your attention to the fact that the wealth in this country has shifted in recent years from the richest 20% owning 80% or our wealth to now owning 88% of our countries wealth thanks to Republican policies. They will not be content until they own it all. That is why they are willing to spend billions to fool the American public this election cycle. The middle class has all but disappeared thanks to the economic policies of the Republicans. I call it Class Genocide. They thwart unions who help get worker protections, they rail against environmental regulations that give us clean air and water and they try to legislate morality on issues that are none of their business. The Democrats are not without their faults, but if you want to live in a more open society, one that encourages the individual I would pick them every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I will admit to voting Republican in the last statewide election because the Ag Commissioner the Dems put up was a Marketing person with no AG experience, while the Repubs candidate was a farmer and a legislator who was chair of the Ag Committee and he had a lot of great ideas.
  
  When reading or listening don’t be fooled by numbers. “Averages” can be manipulated and are not to be relied on solely. If the speaker is not willing or able to speak in terms of the “Median” then beware. The median is usually more important because it is the number where half of the subjects are above and half are below. The old saying goes, “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Taking a statistics course in college or studying on your own (say via online at the Kahn Academy) would be time will spent. Don’t get all your news or views from one source. Listen or watch NPR, BBC, Faux “News” (they call it Fox), MSNBC, Rush, Charlie Rose (he does great in depth interviews), North of Center (a local Lexington, KY Publication that has some amazing stuff), etc, etc. Good Luck!
  
  On the issue of Health Care I give you one this. We in the U.S. spend more per capita (per person) than any other nation on earth. We have more than 40,000,000 Americans without health care and we have worse results (higher infant mortality, more diseases per capita, and lesser longevity) than the other Industrialized nations who provide health care for all their citizens (and in my case {on vacation in Ireland} they even treated me so well and cheaply I was ashamed of our own system). The Dems tried and made a good first effort, but until we have Universal Health Care we are throwing away health care dollars on Insurance Company overhead and salesman commissions which contribute nothing to anyone’s health.
  
  I would suggest you get hold of some voter guides for various civic and other organizations such as AARP, Sierra Club, and here in Kentucky we have Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. You are smart enough to discern rhetoric from real substance. It is not easy being civic minded and responsible, but it is worth it. Charles A. Bowsher
anchasen

Mr. Romney would like us to forget his record as governor. I am a resident of MA, specifically Western MA and while he was governor here (and I lived here during his term) he managed to totally forget the low-middle class people of this area. He almost never visited, closed the governor’s office in this part of the state and neglected to share any of the possible job development benefits he focused on in the eastern part of the state. I would assume that he would continue to ignore the low and middle class as well as the very poor in this country if he were to become president.
- Call_Me_Missouri
  
  Not to mention the fact that he only did two good things during his four year term…
  
  1. He balanced two tough budgets in a row without raising the core income tax rate… Though he increased EVERY SINGLE FEE/FINE/PENALTY that goes to the state government.
  
  2. He signed the Health Care Law (which is a bad bill if you lose your job and as a result your health care… nothing like kicking you with a tax penalty when you’ve lost most of your monthly salary. Thanks for nothing!)
  
  Other than that, what did he do with the other two years?
  
  He didn’t get the Turnpike Authority merged in with the Highway Department. This is a prime example of Mitt’s inability to *really* work with other people to get something meaningful done for the state.
sickofthechit

How can we make things better? By not voting for any republicans at any level.
- Call_Me_Missouri
  
  I agree!
  
  The most important thing we can do this year is kick out incumbent House Republicans by the truck load.
- bogosity1
  
  A vote for Scott Brown is a vote for national Republicans — Brown is a Republican, tea party enabler.
  
  Earlier one might have hoped that moderate Republicans would have had some moderating effect on the party, but this has not come to pass — the whole Republican party is now far beyond any redemption, and electing moderate Republicans in New England is not going to reverse this trend.
  
  The best thing that Republicans could do for our country would be to disband and start over as a sober right-centre, party of political and economic reform, shorn of racist, fundamentalist, gun nut, and jingoist elements. They need to go back to their roots.
http://profile.yahoo.com/QMDZ3LH5U2B4GAT7J2HS4TCP6E Jim

If people think we should start cutting government spending to target government debt, i think these people got it all wrong.

Whatever growth we have now is all sustained by government intervention. If we decide to start cutting these government spending, then we will without a doubt go into a serious recession, perhaps a depression.

Now, i am not implying that government spending is good. but now is not the time to cut it. I believe citizens watching their spending and cutting personal expense do not translate to government cutting as well.

Without government spending… the GDP will be negative for many, many quarters.

So, I don’t know what Romney and especially Ryan uttering when they say cutting government spending will get the economy running again. in fact it will bring the economy into a screeching halt.

I do think Government should apply spending more heavily to innovation and research. Only high growth can bring our debt in check and perhaps reduce it, not cutting taxes, not cutting government spending, and definitely not increasing military spending.
- William
  
  I think Ryan’s budget still has 2 percent growth in spending so it’s not much of a cut. But if the solution to restoring growth is government spending why has it failed to deliver? Bush was a big spender and now Obama has set new record levels in spending. Is government spending actually helping or hurting since government has to either tax or borrow to get it’s money.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Bush was a big spender during a five-year expansion. Didn’t submit a balanced budget. Ran two wars off the books. And every True Believer like you couldn’t be heard for crap.
    
    At this point in the business cycle? I’ll take economists words over yours. It has delivered.
    - William
      
      I never supported Bush’s spending plans or his drug plan for all Seniors. He was pandering to the left and the media and they still hated him. But if you did not like his spending plans you really must despise Obama for his massive spending too?
      - Mike_Card
        
        That’s the most uninformed statement about macroeconomics I’ve ever heard.
- Call_Me_Missouri
  
  Amen Brother Jim. You are preaching from my hymnal today.
- TinaWrites
  
  You say this so well, and yet, sadly, the President is NOT figuring out how to explain this – over and over and over again – to the American people!!! He needs to not start playing a dirty game like the Republicans, but give people a “professorial” economics lesson. But, he got shamed out of being “elitist, academic” early on, and now he is afraid to do what he probably does BEST, if he’d only let himself do it. Now, there may not be enough time left.
  
  Eleanor Roosevelt used to come onto the TV when I was very little (maybe 6 yo!), and she would talk to us about “helping the starving children of the world” (her exact words). She did it with great earnestness, and Little Me, I HEARD her! There is no reason why more serious lectures cannot be delivered via television, altho today’s media market is so bent towards entertainment, and a lot of it gross entertainment at that, that it would be harder. Altho…. it might be easier to do than one would think. The serious, intelligent voice speaking, telling us how things work! THAT is what President Obama should be doing – over and over and over — and quickly!
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    When even “straight down the middle” NPR fails to put any significant number of economists on when talking about the economy (see the debt ceiling “crisis” coverage), it’s a good thought but will go nowhere.
    
    Our media uberlords have it in their heads that Paul Ryan has “solutions” in his budget and has “worked the numbers”. This is what every knowledge-based* public servant is up against. (When any Republican wants to apply to readmission, let me know.)
    
    And it’s a well-known fact that President Obama is more popular with voters than with our Beltway Inbreds, the people who drive coverage and create memes and make narratives into which a stray fact here or there may be covered.
    - TinaWrites
      
      I wish-wish-wish that what you just said weren’t true, but, I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head. Thank you for the well-considered response!
      - TinaWrites
        
        posted in wrong place!
    - TinaWrites
      
      I forgot to say that various economists DO come on as guests to different NPR shows including OnPoint, and so I keep anticipating hearing them at important junctions when what I hear as falsehoods are flooding the media, or when it seems like there MUST be an explanation (other than the pablum-like answers which you so clearly call the “memes” and “narratives”!) for how far apart the two parties are on issues. But then I remember that the economists mainly come on when they have a new book out. I wonder if it’s that NPR doesn’t ask them to participate at other times, or if they are not available? Thanks!
- Thinkin5
  
  A big part of the unemployment number is made up of laid off fed. and local government workers. Hypocritical of the Repcons to laud the layoffs and rant against the high unemployment number. You can’t have it both ways, especially since the private sector is sitting their behind and not being “job creators”! I advocate tying any continued or future tax cuts to job creation. No real jobs no tax break!
StilllHere

Obama has no private sector experience and therefore sees the public sector as the solution to every problem. This is why he has made no progress addressing the economic weakness and has made things so much worse for so many.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  You’ve been placed on anonymous hold. Sixty is the new fifty-one.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman

We’ve come to an age where the success of America’s 1% is no longer tied to the success of the US middle class. And in many cases now our progress is detrimental to theirs.

We’re on our own – and where ever its more profitable they are working against us.
Matt Wade

This is how Romney made his fortune, the same way the Mob makes theirs. It’s called a “bust-out”.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/bain-capital-tony-soprano_n_1542249.html
- bogosity1
  
  Huffington also reported a few weeks ago that Bain Capital started out using money from rich Central American right wingers in El Salvador who were tied to the Arena party and their squads that killed tens of thousands of people there.
  
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html
  
  In stark contrast with his father, Romney has no scruples, whatsoever.
  
  Despite his calm persona, the man is evil.
Thinkin5

I’ve been visiting vacation places around MA this summer. Every place is filled with tourists and people spending their money. Looks like a lot of people are doing well enough to go on vacation and spend money. Remember; over 90% of this country is employed! The glass is more than half full. That said, there are areas of this country where people desperately need jobs and retraining of skills. Let’s help them and not demonize them.
superfinehelios

I know that when business is good everyone wins. But when business is BAD only the business elite win. Mitt running the country will be bad business. Let him play down his stint as Governor. It just shows he’s not proud of what he’s done there. Let him play up his business credit…it just shows that he plans on outsourcing/replacing the poor/sick/old to create a country of automaton republican followers.
TomK_in_Boston

Neil Armstrong was a great American, may he rest in peace.

I wonder if the rightys who pay lip service to his passing stop and think that he was a “gvt employee” participating in a massive big gub’mint project. The moon project shows that we are at our best with our unique American public-private partnership.

I saw the idiot mary matlin on meet the press sun, and she said re the moon landing that unlike liberals, conservatives believe anything is possible, and she once wanted to be an astronaut. WTF??? Did she think ayn rand would take her to the moon? It’s a government project, mary. It was funded by our taxes.
- notafeminista
  
  Guess Richard Branson is going to do it now.�
  �
  - TomK_in_Boston
    
    That’s the way the American system works, the government does the basic research or takes on some huge challenge, and it paves the way for the private sector to follow up.
    
    No Apollo project, no virgin galactic. No DARPA, no internet. No gvt funding of watson and crick, no genentech and genzyme, etc.
    - notafeminista
      
      Oh malarkey. There was no politician ever in the Congress that said hmmm we need to harness the power of (fill in the blank) and let’s fund it to the tune of X dollars. Not one of the ideas you listed originated with the government. In academia, private labs and garages sure. Some of those folks just happened to end up working for the government.
      - TomK_in_Boston
        
        Right, the Apollo project didn’t originate with the gvt. Try that on hate radio, they’ll love you, unless you get the faction that thinks it was faked.
        
        I referred to gvt funding of Watson and Crick. Watson had a gvt fellowship to visit crick’s UK-gvt funded lab. No gvt funding, no double helix. The followup basic research was all done with NIH funding. The funding originated with the gvt, not the ideas.
        
        The primary driver of the internet was the gvt agency DARPA.
      - Michiganjf
        
        What an idiot!
        
        … and JFK didn’t make a promise 8 years before Apollo 11 that the U.S. would land a man safely on the moon by the end of the decade.
        
        No, NASA and the space program weren’t originally big gub’ment ideas.
        
        Read a book, bonehead.
Matt Wade

And let’s not forget that Romney is a making up lies about Obama “gutting” welfare reform. He’s playing the race card to turn working class whites against minorities and the poor. Very dangerous game.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  He spent a whole month lying about how the President said business owners didn’t build their businesses, when any English speaker knows he said they didn’t build the infrastructure that supports their businesses.
  
  They are 100% on board with the Big Lie: make it big enough and say it often enough, and it becomes accepted.
  - Ray in VT
    
    Did you hear how Governor Romney said last week that big business was doing fine and that it could handle the regulations on it? When the President said something about how the private sector was doing fine, he got excoriated. Has there been any similar response to Mr. Romney’s comments?
    - TomK_in_Boston
      
      They bash the ACA and say the President has no plan for health care. They bash him for attempting to control medicare costs by reducing overpayments to providers (the $730 bil they scream about) and say he has no plan for medicare, while they propose to “save” medicare by turning it into a Groupon.
bogosity1

Somehow, we need to deal with the sociopolitical l rift that has been created by the politics of division. The Tea Party was created and amplified by large amounts of money from right wing plutocrats. The Right, with its obstructionist scorched earth politics, is making the country ungovernable, and it is their obstructions that prevent adequate macroeconomic responses to the current economic depression.

If we cannot solve this social problem, then America will fast lose its economy and leading role in the world. History teaches us that societies in which there is constant internal squabbling lose control of their destinies.
- Thinkin5
  
  Talk to Grover Norquist. He thinks he’s king and he’s got the GOP by the short hairs. More transparency about where his pile of money comes from would be helpful. The rah rah Constitution faux fans on the right use that as a cover whilst they take away the power of 1 person 1 vote.
Call_Me_Missouri

Someone really needs to do a show that explicitly looks into Mitt Romney’s time as Governor of Massachusetts.

This notion that somehow Mitt’s time as a Businessman has any bearing on his ability to work with a Senate and House is incorrect and Mitt does not have a proven record of working *with* competing ideas, motivations well.

Can we spend an hour this week taking a much harder and detailed look at Mitt’s time as Governor?
- J__o__h__n
  
  Of course there is a limit to how much they can look into it as he bought his hard drives. This makes his tax returns look transparent in comparison.
  - Call_Me_Missouri
    
    I understand your point and the hard drive incident is a travesty.
    
    But, don’t you think the Tom Finneran (former Speaker of the House) has some “spare time” to spend on the phone with OnPoint discussing how well Mitt worked with other people? I mean, now that he’s been disbarred and all.
    There is some interesting information on Mitt’s time as Governor here…
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governorship_of_Mitt_
    Romney
    
    … but I’d still like some of the former members of the House and Senate to come forward and talk about their time while Mitt was in office.
  - Thinkin5
    
    The records from the Olympics disappeared or were destroyed too! Why is Mitt always covering his tracks and saying that he doesn’t want to talk about this, that, his history at Bain, Mass., Olympics, taxes..etc. He wants people to vote for his face?!
Matt Wade

I don’t think this race is even close right now. The media needs this race to be close to generate ratings. if you look at the Electoral college the path to a Romney victory is very very difficult. If he loses either Ohio or Florida, then he has to win VA, NC, NH, CO, NM, PA, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Its the equivalent of hitting a straight flush on the river.
- J__o__h__n
  
  I wish they would only cite polls in the swing states instead of meaningless national ones.
  - sickofthechit
    
    I wish we would abolish the electoral college so candidates would actually come to my state (KY). At least we have the VP debate. I guess that is some consolation…
    - notafeminista
      
      Hey! And then NY and California can assure that in every election going forward after said abolishment that KY will have NO effect whatsoever.
Thinkin5

I hope that Mass. votes for Elizabeth Warren for senator. We need her straight talk and attention to the mission. Scott Brown doesn’t vote the way his rhetoric implies. Read up on his voting record. Brown says his “voting record should be off-limits”!!! Seriously Scott???!!
- jefe68
  
  Scott Brown said his voting record should be off limits?
  Sorry but I’m not voting on Brown’s ability to look good in a pickup truck.
  - brettearle
    
    Glad that you feel that way–and I mean that, sincerely.
    
    Unfortunately, most voters vote with their eye and their pocketbooks and not by studying the issues.
    
    Warren is much less likable, personally, than Brown.
    
    What’s more, my guess is that:
    
    –too many voters aren’t convinced by Democratic
       economic policy this time around, even in
       Massachusetts
    
    –too many voters will see Brown–perhaps
       inaccurately–as a Moderate
    
    –and, even more importantly, perhaps, so far
       Warren has been inept in getting her positions
       and platform across.
    
    Maybe the debates will change that–but I
    doubt that it will be enough.
    - Thinkin5
      
      You wouldn’t think holding Wall St. accountable would be a hard sell but apparently Repubs think we need another crash. I just don’t get it. Voting against your own interest and your own future financial stability it a Repcon habit.
      - brettearle
        
        Thinkin5–
        
        You may not agree–but the fault is with the Democratic party in Massachusetts:
        
        They do not survey the contemporary political ethos clearly enough:
        
        If you choose a weak candidate, you will lose.
        
        Being a Democrat, in Massachusetts, no longer assures your viability.
        
        Elizabeth Warren is NOT a strong candidate.
- OnPointComments
  
  President Obama has Fauxcahontas Cherokee Princess Warren to thank for the “If you have a business, you didn’t build that” fiasco that he plagiarized from her. She is your typical sanctimonious hypocritical limousine liberal who is perfectly willing to establish rules for the masses that, of course, don’t apply to her. She doesn’t think “the rich” pay enough taxes, yet she opts for the lower rate on her own MA tax return; she demands that Scott Brown release more of his tax returns until it’s pointed out that he has released more years than she has, then she backs down but doesn’t offer to release more of her own IRS filings; she uses a fantasy Cherokee Indian ancestry to promote herself as a minority and profit from the ruse. She expresses her disdain for individual achievement and praise for all things government, and given the opportunity, will be a member of the political class who want to craft a society that guarantees equal outcomes, not equal opportunity.
  - Thinkin5
    
    You project your idea of what you think Warren says. She doesn’t “disdain for individual achievement”. This is straight from Brown’s mouth:
    Brown said in a radio interview:
    “Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been
    either discussing issues, meeting on issues, in secret meetings — with
    kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military
    leaders — talking, voting, working on issues every single day.” Delusions of grandeur.
notafeminista

To sickofthechit below:

“The 716 billion is a negotiated reduction in fees charged, not benefits!”

Just where and how do you think the fees come from in the first place? From someone charging for a good or service provided.

Cut the fees and it will cut the goods or services provided.
- sickofthechit
  
  Actually, if a hospital is charging $500 on a room per day and they agree to only charge $400 then that is a $100 reduction in their fee. A $400 room is still a room, a $400 Colonscopy is still a Colonoscopy
  
  We need Universal Health Care. Medicare is the most efficient health care delivery vehicle we have. It has the lowest overhead costs while covering our most health challenged population.
  - notafeminista
    
    It is a $100 reduction in the fee. Where do you think the $500 goes? It pays (in part) to help keep the hospital operational. If there is less revenue from room fees (your example) then something else in the hospital will go away for lack of funding. Maybe a doctor or a nurse or a anesthetist or a clerk or a janitor or a cook (or maybe all of the above) will have to take a pay cut. Maybe no more private rooms. Maybe surgeries only done on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. Less money for services provided means less services.
    - sickofthechit
      
      Maybe they squeezed out excessive charges through forced efficiencies? Maybe you need to realize that the fed gov is so powerful it actually is charged less than you and I would be because the hospital realizes they will be able to collect all their fees from the gov. while you an I might take six months or more to pay and require numerous phone calls and notices in the process.
      - notafeminista
        
        Really. Is that where the thinking being permitted to default on a student loan if it’s not been paid off in 20 years comes from?
      - sickofthechit
        
        I paid my loans in full. At 7% interest. I don’t think loans should be forgiven, especially if the money went for off-campus living and parties.
      - notafeminista
        
        Maybe you could explain that to President Obama.
      - notafeminista
        
        Oh n by the by…you’ll need someone to help enforce all those efficiencies. Maybe we could pay them with the $716 billion…………….? Oh wait…
    - jimino
      
      We spend more of our GDP and two-an-a-half times what the average developed country spends on health care, and you don’t think there’s any waste? Where I live, hospitals are literally palatial, which is totally inconsistent with an entity in financial hurt.
      - notafeminista
        
        I don’t know of a hospital claiming financial hurt except PERHAPS those in very rural areas. It was not the medical industry demanding financial support from the federal government.
        
        You tell me, you are the hospital administrator. Where do you cut $300,000 in the next 30 days? Go.
    - jefe68
      
      People are already denied health care under our dysfunctional market based system. Other nations have national health care and they pay less and cover more people. Now one has to wonder why that is and how we are rated 37th in the world for health care.
      It’s amazing how blind people are to the dysfunctional system based on their ideology. Silly really.
      - notafeminista
        
        I agree it is silly and a bit sad to see that one is incapable of seeing what will happen when that 716 billion goes away. If it actually does.
- brettearle
  
  Not necessarily.
  
  The Medicare Advantage Programs are being targeted for where waste is. That’s where the problems have reportedly been.
  
  Waste can often–though not always–be defined by a desire to reap unnecessary or unfair profit–or else deceptive profit.
  
  ACA is designed to eventually implement cost controls or slowed rate of cost increases.
  
  The elimination of waste will, theoretically, dovetail, therefore, with the economic strategies of ACA.
  
  Additionally, the “716 billion” pumped out of Medicare and reinserted in ACA will also be used, at least in part, for elder services.
  - sickofthechit
    
    Thank you.
    - brettearle
      
      I accept your thanks–and then we can both “pay it forward” by thanking the President.
      - notafeminista
        
        Read your history. FDR, Nixon and the city of NY all tried wage and/or price control, all with notable failure.
  - notafeminista
    
    Your waste is someone else’s paycheck. Or MRI. Or diabetic-friendly meal.
    
    So, again using the room example, in a 100 bed hospital, in one day $100 less per bed is a $10,000 loss in revenues to that hospital. In one day. In 7 days, a $70,000 loss. In 30 days, a $300,000 loss.
    
    So. You are the hospital administrator. Where do you cut $300,000?
    - J__o__h__n
      
      “Your waste is someone else’s paycheck.” — unless it is a government worker, someone on unemployment or welfare.
      - notafeminista
        
        Just to keep in the overall theme of things, I generally don’t want to pay for a failure. Have a field day with that comment.
    - brettearle
      
      Your theories, viewpoints, and analyses are based on unbidden entrepreneurship–as if capitalism should be preserved, at all costs, at all rates, at all capacities for profits.
      
      The hackneyed subtext for your formula is likely to be that anyone who opposes your theory must be the insipid cliche of Right Wing Media: a Socialist or Communist.
      
      This is utter nonsense.
      
      The figures you quote are losses of income for men and women who are normally accustomed to making much more money more than minimum wage.
      
      Do me a favor:
      
      Preserve your radical, stubborn, and dogmatic belief in the capitalistic ethic–no matter what–and watch the system go into the River Styx along with all the other managers and health professionals….who are capable of living far below the lifestyle, with which they are accustomed.
      - notafeminista
        
        Where do you cut $300,000?
        
        Carry on all you wish about my politics but you are dodging the real issue. The healthcare industry is about to experience a $716 billion dollar loss (over time). Where do you want that 716 billion to come from?
        
        Do you honestly think cancer patients, HIV patients, the very elderly, the very young or the very compromised are going to be at their local healthcare facility bartering for goods and services with their produce and livestock?
      - notafeminista
        
        “The figures you quote are losses of income for men and women who are normally accustomed to making much more money more than minimum wage.”
        
        How very right you are – take your average RN for example. Has an advanced, specialized education, (is most likely female), and works long hours (sometimes 12 or more) each day on her/his feet dealing with sick, cranky patients, grieving family members and doctors with God-complexes. How badly do you want to tell that person she (or he) she does not deserve more than minimum wage?
        
        Keep in mind the working man and the compromised are the ones the Left claims to champion.
    - sickofthechit
      
      From HCA’s dividend.
    - hennorama
      
      The health care industry is responding to the ACA and is already squeezing costs out of their systems. The trend is more vertical integration, with hospital groups AND insurers buying up physician groups. Costs will be wrung out through greater efficiencies and a push to greater productivity.
      
      Hospitals seem motivated to buy access to physicians, to ensure they have a supply of providers for their system.
      
      Insurers seem to want to ensure that their members will have continued easy access to primary care providers.
      
      Both hopsitals and insurers foresee a shortage of physicians. Demand for primary care will spike, since the ACA will give millions of previously uninsured people access to health care.
      
      There are other trends to lower costs, with the the so-called “Docs in a box” retail clinics being one, and the greater use of physician assistants being another.
  - notafeminista
    
    Medicare IS an elder service. The way you make it sound nothing is going to be reduced, but instead just moved around, which is probably more accurately the case.
William

You should limit your comments to the subject at and and keep your potty mouth off the air.
William

Do you ever post anything intelligent? I mean, you seem to limit yourself to insults. It is easy to attack someone you don’t agree with.
A_M_E_R_I_C_A_N

Just be clear about the state of the country one year before Obama was elected.We were fighting two wars and receiving tax refunds and tax deductions.Nobody was sacrificing.The surplus was squandered to the point of deficit long before Mr. Obama was elected.
The road to bank failure was paved by blind faith and lack of regulation to prevent the dream weavers from knowingly or inadvertently convincing a good portion of honest and hard working people that they are going to be fine with this sub-prime adjustable rate bomb strapped to their children’s head. G.W.Bush was an unwitting puppet and maybe some wanted to believe.

The bail outs saved this nation from a protracted recession. Believe it. look at the E.U. They can never hope to mitigate this kind of problem.We need to add “Socialist” programs to our capitalist democracy.We need to compromise to flourish.We can’t allow ether party to be to party of NO!Wake up to the extremist Tea party.No one in this country, that isn’t homeless, has gotten by without the United States government

Most people know more about pop culture history and ,sports history, than they know about the truth of the Collapse or the effects of the financial stimulus.

I dont believe Mit Romney can help America.I believe just wants to be President be cause -Hey why not? He doesn’t care about the nation. Can you say hostile take over and liquidation.
- notafeminista
  
  Interesting article in a recent Forbes says GM probably on the brink of bankruptcy again.
  - Duras
    
    GM was up 4.26% last quarter.
    - notafeminista
      
      Guess we’ll just have to be patient.
      - Duras
        
        Or perhaps you may want to try more empirically guided media sources.
      - notafeminista
        
        Oh please, you mean sources of which you approve.
      - Duras
        
        If you don’t approve of the AP, NPR, BBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, NYT, The New Yorker, Washington Post, PBS News, Politifact, Al Jezeera, then you are pretty much shutting out the world and running to conservative echo chambers.
        
        Sorry, but there are legitimate sources.
      - jefe68
        
        So you want GM to fail? Is this your agenda?
Bruce94

How interesting that the GOP convention is held under the cloud of Hurricane Isaac and on the eve of the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Timing is everything they say, and what better time than now to recall one of the basic tenets of the Republican faithful: “Govt. IS the problem” handed down from the patron Saint of small govt., Ronald Reagan, who not only increased the size of the Fed. govt., but also exploded the national debt.

Like Reagan, Bush II ran as a fiscal conservative and then governed as the Prodigal Son. Unlike Reagan, however, Bush managed to encapsulate the GOP’s governing philosophy in one dramatic moment when he famously said “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”–once again proving the tenet that “Govt. IS the problem…just elect Republicans , and we’ll prove it” (as has been pointed out by others on this forum).

The natural disaster (much of which was man-made) that was Katrina actually foreshadowed the economic disaster following the sub-prime mortgage debacle. The destruction of New Orleans and the evaporation of the life-savings of millions of Americans practically overnight were both stunning events. Both demonstrated the cumulative effects of years of inadequate regulatory oversight, of infrastructure neglect, or resource mismanagement, and woefully deficient emergency response planning–indicative of a culture of incompetence bordering on malfeasance.

1,200 deaths, the displacement of 200,000 residents, and the loss of $200 billion in property damage are what you get when you adopt the growthmania philosophy of the laissez-faire, “free” market ideologues on display this week at the GOP convention–the same philosophy at the core of the Fed’s feeble response to Katrina as well as the lack of social investment to maintain the City’s levee system and to protect the coastal environment which had heretofore served as a hurricane buffer zone among its other vital functions.
- notafeminista
  
  Right, because natural disasters are the product of a free market economy.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    The disaster was thanks to Shrub’s FEMA. The storm was bad, the levee failure worse. And when they swung into action, it was first and foremost on the PR front against the Democrats who were mayor of NOrleans and gov of La.
    
    We should have all figured out then that the GOP simply had lost interest in governance by that point.
hennorama

Romney is a nice guy, quite successful in making himself and his partners rich (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Bland and unexciting, he’s willing to say and do just about anything to get elected. His (public) opinions have changed on many topics, including abortion, gun control, immigration, privatizing Social Security, campaign spending limits, gay rights, TARP, and even his greatest governing accomplishment – Romneycare.

Seems difficult to know what he actually believes, and to trust what he says.

His greatest attribute seems to be that he was successful in business. This is not exactly an inspiring thing.

Perhaps after he loses, he can become Secretary of Commerce?
- JGC
  
  On the Diane Rehm Show today, the Romney tax issue came up (again). The particular issue was “What was Romney thinking when he sent his money to Switzerland and the Cayman Islands?” He was pointedly asked on Fox last weekend why did he do this, and Romney’s reply was that he paid the exact same tax (whether it was here in the U.S. or overseas), implying it was not personally advantageous to him. So why do it then? Why go to the trouble, especially when you have plans to run for President? If Romney is not personally benefitting from the financial gymnastics, who is? Rehm said she has heard, but only as speculation, that it has something to do with the Mormon Church. When she asked her panel about this, they all had nothing to say. A collective shrug. It’s a rare day when a professional analyst/bloviator has absolutely nothing to say on a given topic, let alone an entire panel.
  
  P.S. I would nominate him as Ambassador to the Cayman Islands.
  - hennorama
    
    Well … obviously, no one can challenge Romney’s assertions that he paid the same tax, since he won’t release his tax returns. As to the Mormon connection – this too cannot be checked without more info, which is not likely to be provided, either.
    
    Romney’s advisors seem clueless as to how to handle this. The guy’s been running for President for the past 5 or 6 years, so you’d think they’d have come up with an answer for this issue. Not releasing the returns keeps the issue alive, adding to the “what’s he hiding/can we trust him?” narrative.
    
    Not smart.
    
    The only thing one can credibly conclude is that there’s something so embarrassing in these returns that showing them to the American people would effectively disqualify him from the race.
    - brettearle
      
      You likely `almost’ have it right.
      
      It might not disqualify him–BUT IT COULD DAMAGE HIM IRREVERSIBLY.
      
      THE DEMOCRATS NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO POUND THE MESSAGE HOME–CALLING FOR TRANSPARENCY–WITHOUT CREATING A BACKLASH AMID THE ELECTORATE…..WHEREBY THE VOTERS BEGIN TO SCREAM,
      
      “Quit piling it on.”
      
      But the Democrats, in Washington, need to labor on with a demand for transparency.
      
      OTHERWISE, ROMNEY’S GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT.
      - notafeminista
        
        Be nice if they practice what they preached.
Dee

The Republicans should be in Rehab …..not in Florida http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/opinion/27herbert.html
Duras

Anybody look at the voting demographics? …Are the republicans the party of white land owners or what?

I guees, they got the uneducated white demographic as well. Lord and serf. Creator of jobs and peon who votes against his economic interests.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  In the civil war the poor bubbas fought for the plantation owners.
  
  I’m just amazed that some voters still can’t see through the scam after 32 years of wealth redistribution to the top. How naive can you be?
  
  I mean, a romney type preaches at you along the lines of “OMG! The BIG Bad Deficit! We’re gonna be Greece! ….Let’s cut taxes on the rich!”
  
  There’s a rather shocking disconnect between the statement of the problem and the conclusion, isn’t there? It seems to me that the average 5′th grader could figure out that the con man’s agenda was really cutting taxes on himself. Seems to me that anyone who could fall for such a con would be getting scammed left and right in the real world.
  
  I have a simple rule: if you want to cut taxes at the top, especially considering that the oligarchs are ALREADY paying the lowest rates since 1929, STFU about the deficit. You are disqualified from using the words debt or deficit, unless it is to admit that your plan will increase them.
  - Duras
    
    I think the core of their propaganda has been expressed by Ryan the last few weeks: “Republicans are the party for equal opportunity, not equal results.”
    
    This feeds into the lie that democrats want to tax “hard working Americans” (white people) and “hand over your money to the lazy” (black people). But in reality, democrats have never tried to increase Welfare remotely near the level of lifting people out of poverty let alone leveling out inequality through Welfare. But democrats are the party of equal opportunity, of trying to give people an equal starting line.
    
    The republicans rather cut taxes on the top, and cut scholarships and raise tuition, and they still think (or at least try to make it look like) the boy who grew up on food stamps had the same opportunity as Mitt Romney, let alone the fact that Obama’s starting line being much further behind Romney’s starting line.
    
    I wish people would wake up and vote for tax hikes on the increasing wealth of the one percent to reduce the deficits, reduce tuition costs and increase scholarship opportunities, make public employment around 20% to 25% of the economy and increase public employee wages to increase demand and force private market wages to become more competitive. And none of this is radical, and it is not outside the economic policies of America’s most successful times. Whereas republican budgets wants to destroy the New Deal and take us back to the Gilded Age. People were shot dead in the streets trying to unionize, and the wage ratios have regressed to the same level as it was before the Great Depression. It’s amazing that when the generation of Great Depression starts to die off, America started to lose, one-by-one, the policy they fought for.
    - TomK_in_Boston
      
      You’re right, a standard propaganda line is that the libs want equal results. It is another lie. I want the non-priveliged to have as much opportunity as a romney type to succeed or fail.
      
      The GoP is not for equal opportunity. They stand for inherited privilege. They are dominated by people who “were born on 3′rd base and think they hit a triple.”
      
      When we had high taxes in the 50s the middle class was moving up every year and our economic mobility was the wonder of the world. After 30 years of voodoo econ, I’ve seen studies showing that we have less econ mobility than the UK.
      
      In the USA, if you are a romney you are going to a great school and making a lot of $ even if you are a drooling idiot, and if you are a hard working genius from a bad neighborhood you are probably going to jail.
      
      Yes, the agenda is a return to 1900, and we’re going to have to fight all those battles again that we though the “greatest generation” had won for good, if we don’t stop them now.
    - notafeminista
      
      Because the smart people know that even if you taxed the entire American population eligible or not at the rate of 100% it wouldn’t reduce the debt significantly. It is odd to see a demographic who believes otherwise that life is a zero sum game to think that anyone with more money than they has an endless supply of money.
      - Duras
        
        Oh spare me…as if I have never heard that standard republican line about “even if you tax the rich 100%” crap.
        
        Listen, we had a surplus before the Bush Tax Cuts, 2 wars, pill program…we had a smaller defense budget, and smaller homeland security budget.
        
        Look at the leading drivers of the deficits! Obamacare targets the fraud in medicare. Obamacare also reduces the deficits by a $100B (not including the elimination of fraud in medicare). Moreover, the economic multiplier on infrastructure spending over the last 30 years has been 1:1.8. Get real! We don’t have to destroy the New Deal before we raise a single tax dollar on the top. Quit being religious about the taxes on the top; it’s not a big deal.
      - notafeminista
        
        This surplus of which you speak, it was created by taxing the wealthy?
      - Duras
        
        Well, a large percentage of the budget derived from a 39% tax rate on the rich. 2/3s of the Bush Tax Cuts benefited the top, and the Bush Tax Cuts are currently the leading driver of the deficits….
        �
        We can balance the budget in a few years instead of 40 years from now like Ryan wants to do. The problem is is that republicans want to decrease revenue and spend a lot of money on things that don’t help the economy like the military and foriegn conflicts. The military is one socialist institution the republicans don’t mind dumping money into, but god forbid we stop trying to build other country and pay our teachers decient wages and reduce classroom sizes, keep our universities from becoming trade schools, have enough police officers to patrol our more troubled communities. Not to mention, all the things I just spoke of put money back into the American economy.
        
        Think of it in terms of putting money into the economy instead of overseas operations and ballooning bank accounts that are at home and abroad. Whose policy causes more money to flow through our economy?
      - MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
        
        Did Dubya teach you how to do math? Perhaps while he was on one of his vacations working hard to set the record as the most vacationing president in American history. You know the president who pushed for all those tax cuts for the wealthy, got us into two unfunded wars, slept peacefully as deregulation created the worst economic meltdown since the great depression. Yeah I like Republican math: Mission Accomplished!
      - Duras
        
        The more I read your comment into relation of mine, the more stupid you sound.
        
        Do you realize how low taxes are on the rich in relation to G20 averages and American history?
        
        What you are basically saying is that you don’t care about equal opportunity, you don’t care about our universities…you would rather people have smaller windows of opportunity so someone who clearly doesn’t need a tax break can have a tax break.
        
        What is wrong with you? Do you realize that you are voting against the economic interests of 99% of America, i.e., America?
        
        It is radical to say no to tax hikes on the rich when they are enjoying record low tax rates. And it is even more radical to think that the rich are currently being overtaxed and they deserve another tax break. It’s nuts! Do you have any idea what would happen to the country? Have you read history?
        
        Do we really have to let our public institutions fall apart so the rich can have another tax break? Read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, for crying out loud, and learn what Capitalism actually is!
      - notafeminista
        
        Really, you should have stopped at the first paragraph. You need to think people who don’t agree with you are stupid. The rest is just smoke.
      - Duras
        
        You and conservatives alike need to stop making arguments in a vacuum and give historical and global examples of where your policies are working in the world and where they have worked in the past.
        
        Tax cuts for the top worked in 1981 when taxes on the top were 70% before hand: where in history have tax cuts for the top worked when the tax rates were already at 35%?
        
        All that smoke you refer to is the filling in of a historical and global context. Arguing in a vacuum can be persuasive but it has not referent to reality, and it makes your arguments look like smoke. History beats your politics. Deal with it and be intellectually honest with yourself.
- Dee
  
  Lincoln should have let the South go–as some people
  
  predicted it would have eventually fallen as opposition�
  to slavery was wide spread….
  
  (The way it is today against the Zionist Regime in�
  Israel and on Capital Hill. It’s a situation that is not�
  sustainable and will continue to lose support…)
  
  Still, I have often wished the Northeast & the MidWest�
  were a part of Canada than the South….Yet, this is�
  often the trouble with narrow mindness and oppress-
  minds. People don’t realize how they are being mani-
  pilated for the white racist /capitalist state. Dee
  - brettearle
    
    Ladies and Gentlemen, there goes Dee, again, with her Zionist Regime crap.
    
    She just can’t get it out of any argument, whatsoever.
    
    If you talked about popcorn or about table tennis, she’d find a way to include it in, now…..wouldn’t….she?
    
    Yes, sireeee. Her mind is cemented with the absolutes of,
    
    good vs evil
    bad vs good
    us vs them
    
    You see that ladies gentlemen?, She knows exactly who’s been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes.
    
    She…..is……just…..like…..Santa Claus….now, isn’t she?
    
    How wonderful it is to have such a radically distorted view injected into our objective discourse!
    
    Way to go, Dee, that’s the way to pollute the dialogue….
    
    Yessirreee….
    - StilllHere
      
      A. She’s got a point.
      B. You’re one to talk about polluting, see above and below.
      - brettearle
        
        A. There are very few disputes
             where only one side is at fault.
        
        B. There are very few one-sided
             views, who recognize this point
             of reality and intellectual
             integrity
        
        C. You’re one not to talk…largely
             because if you agree with her,
             you have cultural, ethnic,
             historical, and political blinders
             on.
        
        Good luck with your pathological myopia.
  - Duras
    
    First off, people were being murdered, raped, children were being sold away from their mothers, people’s legs would be cut off for trying to escape. If you think slavery would have worked itself out, you need to go to a library. Second, in 1877 there was a close election like Bush v. Gore, and the economic elites got together and made a deal that they would let Hayes be president if union troops left the South. This made the South regress into an economic system that was not far off from slavery. The “wide spead opposition” came in the cultural revolution of the 1960s. People didn’t know how bad black people had it until King peacefully walked down streets as people beat them. Thankfully, there were journalist to capture the bigots in action and show the nation how unjust things were.
    
    Capitalism was just fine after FDR, and no one cared about how much the top got taxed. Since Reagan, taxes on the top have become a religion for the right wing. Why? Before Reagan capitalism was about market competition and a growing awareness for one’s neighbor. Since Reagan, corporation after corporation have conglomerated, monopolizing the marktes, and now we have an illusion of choice in the market place while the right wing preaches human competition even while socioeconomic backgrounds increasingly have disparate economic opportunities. That is not capitalim; that is Social Darwinism. Learn the difference. Seriously, learn the difference. It’s crucial, learn the difference.
    
    Capitalism, even the Lazze Fair Capitalism of Adam Smith, still recognizes a social contract and a responsibility to maintain public institutions.
Mouse_2012

Republicans are extremely dishonest, but so are the democrats when it comes down to winning or lossing. See the lies they say about the ACA like how it’s not a Phama give away.

Or see the lies the WH told about how drone attacks didn’t kill civilians. But can’t really give the full blame because the public tends to be uninformed or chooses not to spend the time getting informed and rather rely on flashy and simple sound bites and of course the media who fears being called liberal and will give the fake “fair and balance” when such shouldn’t apply or Sterographing the Government line
- notafeminista
  
  Say, speaking of dishonesty, has Ms Cutter and the Obama campaign decided if they know the poor fellow from MO who lost his wife to cancer?
  - brettearle
    
    You mean the poor fellow, from MO–whose life was unexpectedly uprooted, by Vulture Capitalism–who could not take advantage of COBRA, who had no medical insurance recourse, and who was left with no choice, but to leave things, unfortunately, up to chance?
    
    You mean that one?
    - notafeminista
      
      I do mean that one – the one the Obama campaign lied about and whose wife worked what? another 2-3 years at a job that had employer provided health care.
      
      Indeed that is the one.
      - brettearle
        
        Maybe Soptic’s wife left her job–not because of her shoulder injury, which therefore left her without insurance….and wherein, her husband’s health insurance SURE would have come in handy to have averted a stage 4 cancer progression….
        
        Maybe she left her job–because T. Boone Pickens hired her to go to the Mekong Delta to troll through the swamp looking for evidence of John Kerry’s cowardice and looking for evidence of John Kerry’s war crimes.
        
        Yeah, maybe that’s why she left her job.
        
        Why don’t you throw in some coin so that one of them there Gee-Oh-Pee campaign groups can produce an AD–on this matter?
      - notafeminista
        
        You are more than welcome to provide substance from the source of your choosing refuting my statements.
Dee

How one man said Bain took “everything away from us”�
and another man said ” Romney’s decision set the mill
up for failure” Read the article …..

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2012/06/05/how_1_mill_thrived_1_failed_after_bain_invested/?page=2
- WorriedfortheCountry
  
  Does the Globe have anyone left that isn’t suspended for ethics violations?
TomK_in_Boston

Anyone read the latest about Etchasketch’s con games?

He claims most of his income in the 15% special bracket for financial manipulators who do no real work, but he has some regular income in the 35% bracket. By claiming that he is an “active” Bane participant, he gets to apply deductions to the 35% income that would not apply if he was “passive”. So, Etchasketch, who says he is not active in Bane when they destroy more jobs than usual, but says he is active in Bane when he wants to be a MA resident, now also wants to be “active” when it gets him the best tax break.

Presidential material?
- brettearle
  
  Would that not underscore Mitt’s technically false document report to the SEC….and further secure him–at least theoretically or technically–as a white collar felon?
- OnPointComments
  
  You shouldn’t get your tax advice from the Huffington Post or the DailyKos.
  
  “Active” and “passive” are defined in the tax code and do not have the meaning that would be ascribed to the terms based on a dictionary definition. The tax code states that trading partnerships (e.g., investment & hedge funds) are excluded from the definition of passive loss, and that the trade and business expenses are nonpassive. It’s not up to the person filing the tax return to decide into which category the expenses belong because the tax code has already made that decision for you.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LFDX7IMX6GLBZSS67S5ZTT47HM Janet

Reaffirm principles as a caring community, a place of fairness and the American dream. OOPS I don’t think the GOP cares about anyone besides the 1%.
- countrysidestump
  
  Explain BHO likeness toward the muslim faith. Sounds like you should visit the muslim countries first then come back too the USA and tell us their is a war on women here in the USA….I bet you change your view!
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LFDX7IMX6GLBZSS67S5ZTT47HM Janet

A: You will not appeal to women!
B. We don’t care if he is a “family man.” He can go home to his Mormon family and be warm and fuzzy all he wants.
TomK_in_Boston

From TeaOP platform:

“The first step is to move the two programs [Medicare and Medicaid] away from their current unsustainable defined-benefit entitlement model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution model”Look no further if you want to see a declaration of class warfare. If you’re not very rich, you should not vote for these people.

If anyone still needs translation from righty-speak, “a fiscally sound defined-contribution model” means whatever they can easily provide without taxing the rich and with a blank check to the military-industrial complex. If it’s $10 or a bottle of aspirin/yr, no problem, you can’t get any more “fiscally sound” than paying out nothing.

This is a perfect analogy to “destroying the village in order to save it”. Hey kids, the RR boys are gonna “save” medicare for you – by turning it into a Groupon that won’t pay for a private policy. Nice “save”, huh?

Doesn’t this remind you of what has already happened with pensions? To slightly change the TeaOP platform statement, didn’t we “move away from the current unsustainable defined-benefit pension model to a fiscally sound defined-contribution 401(k) model”? Hey America, how’s that working out for you?
- Gregg Smith
  
  Okay, you don’t agree with the proposal. What’s the Democrat plan to rescue Medicare from certain doom? Is demonizing Romney a plan? Is doing nothing a plan?
- MadMarkTheCodeWarrior
  
  We can start by raising taxes and contribution limits to apply to capital gains and billionaires. Oh, but wait, Grover Norquist has a PAC gun to the head of so many republicans who signed the no tax pledge. Even though 70 PERCENT of Americans want taxes increased on the likes of Mitt.
MordecaiCarroll

Paul Ryan: “Mitt Romney is the exact kind of leader we need for this exact time”.

In the aftermath of an economic meltdown in which an under-regulated Wall Street came dangerously close to blowing up the economy of the entire world, we’re supposed to believe that Mitt Romney is “the exact kind of leader we need”? Mitt Romney, who wants to decrease regulation on businesses, despite the fact that it was a lack of regulation that brought the world economy to the brink of collapse in 2008? Mitt Romney, whose company Bain practiced a “heads I win, tails you lose” brand of capitalism similar in spirit to the Too Big To fail Banks? Really? He’s going to save us all? By lowering taxes on the wealthy “job creators”? That approach was tried for several years under Bush and it didn’t work.

Barack Obama has by no means been great when it comes to economic policy, and I would argue that krugman’s assertion that the stimulus should have been larger is right. That being said, an obstructionist congress ( in particular, Mitch McConnell, whose stated number one priority was not creating jobs, but rather making sure that Obama was a one-term president) didn’t make things particularly easy for him.

Obama has in some ways been disappointing, but Mitt Romney is not the solution. People like Romney are in fact a large part of the problem.
- brettearle
  
  Obama has been disappointing–because THE CONGRESS WOULDN’T LET HIM LEAD.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    That’s like saying Patton would have been a great leader but the soldiers wouldn’t listen to him. What do you think leadership means?
    - brettearle
      
      Mr. Smith, you speak with your pre-programmed, and propagnadistic, tongue–because you know, and knew, the Fix Is In.
      
      Quoth, Mitch McConnell, after the mid-term elections,
      
      “We will now devote all our energies to making sure that Barack Obama is defeated in 2012…..”,
      
      RATHER THAN, AS A PRIORITY, TO DEVOTE CONGRESS’ ENERGIES TO THE WORK OF THE NATION AND FOR ITS PEOPLE…..
      
      As usual, Mr. Smith, your political bias has an ugly, ugly stench to it.
      
      Why don’t you deliver Grover Norquist his Wall Street Journal, in the morning, while you crawl on all fours, carrying the paper, between your teeth?
      - Gregg Smith
        
        Of course job one is defeating this disaster. It’s obvious, so what?
      - countrysidestump
        
        We don’t want America to be “fundamentally changed”. Plain and simple….This POTUS had divided us….rich vs. poor(millionaires/billionaires), white vs. black (put you’all back in chains VP biden statement), young vs. old (mediscare), men vs. women (war on women) I mean this is out of control..BHO was suppose to be the uniter? looks as if he’s the igniter….starting fires all over!
    - J__o__h__n
      
      Patton could order soldiers. He didn’t lead an independent equal branch (especially one that had a majority leader who stated that their most important job wasn’t to win the war but to undermine him).
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
      
      Yep. Soldiers gotta follow orders. Otherwise it’s called insubordination or mutiny.
      
      Look it up.
JohnGraff

“Romney cares about people (provided those ‘people’ are corporations).”
donniethebrasco

I’m so glad that NPR has exposed that Romney killed Leona Anderson in 1968.

He was probably driving fast and drunk, just like all of those Morons.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1137639169 Jennifer Read
  
  Mitt’s a creep, but I don’t think he does or has ever drunk (and I do).
- JGC
  
  Leola Anderson. I don’t think there is anything nefarious going on, from what I read in the NYT account in 2007. Just bad luck. Especially for Leola.
JGC

Hurricane Isaac Downsizes Republican Convention…hearing numerous analysts say that this will probably become the template for future conventions, from 4 day extravaganzas down to possibly just 2 days. I am sure that will extend to the Democratic Party, as well. Not so good for the future convention cities, though.
J__o__h__n

One of the guests mentioned the need to convince voters to change horses. Rafalca?
J__o__h__n

Was there a different evening show Monday and if so where can I find the audio?
ExcellentNews

Listening to Romoney opening speech, I have to make a small correction to what he really meant. He really said “We are not going to be Europe anymore. We are going to become like the banana oligarchies of the Third World”. That’s what the GOP policies mean.
J__o__h__n

This set looks like “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” Such a paltry sum won’t excite the base.

ONPOINT

TODAY

South Texas, The Border And Immigration Reform

Jun 19, 2013

17 Comments

As the Senate debate over immigration heats up, we go to South Texas, the new front line in the battle over illegal border crossings.

Sir Ken Robinson On Discovering Your Passions

Jun 19, 2013

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Sir Ken Robinson, who gave the most watched TED Talk ever, tells us how to find what really makes us tick, and get the most out of life and work.

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