Okay, I’ll say it. I think Obama was drunk and passed out the night of the Benghazi tragedy. Where was he for seven hours while we were under attack? No one has even asked. And yes, Hillary too. We see her knocking back drinks all the time. “Fainted” my eye. We have the Secret Service with hookers, lesbian sexual harassment at Homeland Security and Obama’s doctor who told him to cut back on his drinking. It’s party central, few are serious and the rest are incompetant.

This is my opinion based on speculation. You can bet the press would be asking these questions if Republicans were in charge.

this year I learned that Tom is even more in the tank for the Dems than I had thought.

Ashley Judd for Senate!

Let’s leave NRA out of the discussion.  They’ve demonstrated themselves to be so disconnected from a safe America there should be no seat at this table for them.

Every year is apocalyptic, full of crisis, political and economic distress yet we survive and life goes on.  Onto the new year.

.  Karen T’s comment on redistricting” is right on.   But it is up to “us” to stop the politicians from dong so, right?

.  Seems to me that both sides of the spectrum tend to denigrate the other sides point of view.  Not enough “respectful” disagreement then leading to working things out . . .

2012 will mark a breaking point for our current brand of conservatism. Global Warming now feels real, Gun Control is up for debate,the Republicans look like rape apologist, and a democratic President won a big victory. This year has been their death knell.

I think Time’s “Person of the year” should have been the person who took that video of Mitt Romney addressing supporters at the private fundraiser where his true colors were shown when he spoke candidly about “the 47%”.  That guy deserves a pat on the back.  

Jack Beatty thinks that regionalism has no ontological force in American politics? Wow: we are hearing his voice from the depths of New Hampshire courtesy of WBUR in Boston, speaking with a host anchored in Boston, speaking with one commentator who writes for the New York Times and another commentator who writes for the Washington Post. The Vaunted Northeast Corridor enjoys no preferred political status, per Jack Beatty: this is news, indeed. WBUR’s “Cognoscenti” assure us that they reside in the intellectual capital of the US: well, with Boston as intellectual capital, NYC as cultural and financial capital, and DC as political capital, I’d say the Vaunted Northeast Corridor’s hold on power is not under threat, at least as 2012 ends. I would not say that regionalism is a dead issue in American politics, however: far from it.

What Were You Thinking???

Three callers; three issues:

1.  Partisan Bickering & Fiscal Cliff
2.  Climate Change ==> +4 degrees C by 2050
3.  Mass Killings & NRA

Your choice was to spend your limited time on #1– even though the consequences of #2 means massive die-off of countless species, and very likely, near-term HUMAN EXTINCTION, perhaps by mid-century!

And sadly, THIS, folks, is the problem.  Scientific illiteracy abounds, and NPR apparently missed the vaccination.  Climate Change really IS the big issue of our (or any) time, and it gets swept away while we fiddle away with Gangnam Style, and Treyvon Martin…

Please people, wake up.

We can’t control guns, but dammit, we can stop Santa from writing “Peace” on sidewalks! This must be one of the things the female caller had in mind when she referred to the U.S. as “the greatest country in the world.”

http://occupyaustin.org/2012/12/freesanta-rally/

Can Texas be forced to secede?

Most important US political events in 2012 – the Republican primaries.

These circular firing squads/clown shows clearly showed that Republicans wanted ANYONE BUT Mr. Romney to be their nominee.  One supremely flawed fake after another rose in the polls – first Perry, then Cain, Gingrich and Santorum, until Romney’s vast money and organizational advantages finally won out.  After more than 20 Republican “debates.”

Mr. Romney had to spend an enormous amount of his money, leaving him unable to respond well to the Obama campaign’s relentless portrayal of Romney as an out-of-touch, uncaring, Wall Street-loving, job outsourcing plutocrat who favored only the wealthy.  Romney was unable to define himself to the general electorate during the post-primary, pre-convention period, and the Obama campaign was only too happy to fill in the blanks.

This refuted and neutralized Romney’s main argument – that he was the best guy to fix the economy due to his business acumen.  In addition, in order to emerge as the final nominee, Mr. Romney had to pretend to be more and more “severely conservative.”  This circumstance, combined with his “No Apology” book, meant he couldn’t turn back to the middle until it was far too late.
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Of course, Mr. Romney and his campaign didn’t help themselves at all.  The list of the ways Romney and his campaign shot themselves in the foot is almost endless:

The London Olympics security “diss” and the trip to Israel.

The secretive tax returns.  Then when the issue seemed to be dying, Romney volunteers, out of the blue, “I never paid less than 13%.”  Then Romney needed his accountants to reverse-engineer his 2011 Fed. return to comply with that remark.

The complete lack of detail about his tax proposals.

The convention debacle, with no mention of the troops in Romney’s speech, and Clint Eastwood’s embarrassing ramble, which became the most memorable moment.

The “47%” remarks.

The exploitation of the deaths of Americans in Libya starting with his statement on 9/11.

In the end, voters saw through Mr. Romney’s pretense, and put him out of his misery.  Now he’s free to return to what he really is – a moderate Chamber of Commerce Republican.  And to amend his 2011 Federal tax return, to claim those charitable contributions.

When politicians of both parties create a scenario threatening the still-fragile US economic recovery, and then stubbornly refuse to anything about it, a campfire story comes to mind.

One evening, a man with size 13 boots walked through the edge of the campfire to fetch a beer.  Upon his return, another camper spied the blackened bottom of the man’s boots, then remarked “Wow!  Those are some big ash soles!”

Remember that promise that Obamacare would reduce premiums by $2,500?  I’ve just received notice that effective January 1, 2013, my health insurance premium will increase by 50%. 

On several shows recently you have had several people speak
for more gun control. I see this as a problem. Who is speaking about the real problem;
people control. I do not know of any gun killing a person without a human
pulling the trigger. People are attacking the tool, when they should be going after
the cause. One reason people are for more gun control is that it is a far easier
task to accomplish than people control. People would rather go after the low
hanging fruit (guns) than go after the much harder people control. I feel a lot
would be accomplished by recognizing that people should be responsible for their
actions without regard of their intent. If someone causes a person to die, it doesn’t
matter what their intent is. I am responsible for my actions. If I decide to
drink and drive and cause an accident, it is my fault. Saying I was drunk and
my host/bartender is at fault is ludicrous. Did the host/bartender MAKE me
drink? No, I choose to drink, therefore my fault. Responsibility, enough said.
 

Reply to Gregg Smith:
According to most recent data from Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgeries, the murder rate in the US is 20 times higher than the next 22 wealthiest countries combined.  Other data that I  read support around that number.  I read your link and will look for other data to support it’s premise.  It  speaks of up and down and doubling, but fails to say from what to what.  It mention automobile deaths as higher and we are working very hard to improve  car safety.
America is armed to the hilt, yet all the guns do not prevent the high rate of homicide by guns.
I respect that you want the same outcome as I but by different means.  What we are doing now is not working.
All most are asking for is limited access to assault weapons and tighter  background checks and shared database. Hardly unreasonable.

To the righties in denial about the ongoing redistribution of wealth to the top, here you are again:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/26/nyregion/the-new-gilded-age.html

I know the Party Line is that it’s fine for all that income to go to the top because “it’s not a zero sum game”. Nice try but sorry, that income is being redistributed from the rest of us, be it the income that once went to a worker and is now in the CEO bonus, or the profits the parasite romney types pocket when they destroy a company and devour the assets.

Two other points:

1. A popular righty Talking Point is “If you took all the income of the rich it wouldn’t make a dent in the deficit”. Putting aside the fact that this TP is dishonestly regurgitated when a modest tax hike is proposed and that nobody has ever proposed taking “all” of anything, it’s c**p. Total personal income is about $14 trillion/year, so with the 1% getting upwards of 20% of that they are getting about $3 trillion/year, which dwarfs anything being discussed and would blow away the deficit.

2. Another TP is that inequality is fine, so long as the masses have cell phones and burgers. More dumb and dumber. The income share of the 1% was over 23% twice, in 1928 and 2007. Disastrous economic crashes followed in both cases. Inequality is toxic to the economy.

One can understand Republicans, especially those in the House, not wanting to vote for higher taxes on anyone, regardless of whether it’s actually good for the country.  Their biggest worry is not the country’s welfare, but rather their next election in 2014.  They don’t worry whether they will lose to a Democrat, since their seats are generally well-gerrymandered and safe; they worry about being “primaried” by someone even further to the right, by a TEA party zealot for instance.

This means it’s much more likely now that no deal will be made until after the next Congress convenes.  Speaker Boehner will get re-elected, not due his popularity, but because there are no real alternative candidates.  Then the first bill introduced will be to CUT taxes on 98% of taxpayers.  This will also allow the Republicans to adhere to the letter of the Norquist pledge, if not the spirit.

This is what I predicted about 5 months ago:

“It seems obvious that during this severe, continued economic downturn, the U.S. govt. cannot simply cut spending OR simply increase taxes.  It has to do some of both.  There is NO way the debt can be eliminated without increased revenues (taxes) AND reduced spending.

Unfortunately, our current hyper-partisan politics won’t allow even the most reasonable and moderate Republicans to vote for anything that could be called a tax increase.  Grover Norquist has extracted extortionist promises from virtually every Republican in Congress, threatening to run them out of office if they ever vote for increased taxes.

It’s unlikely that any Congressional action will happen until this changes.  But there may be a tricky way out of this by letting the tax cuts expire on January 1, 2013, then passing a middle class tax cut on January 2, 2013.  This would allow Republicans to adhere to the letter of their Norquist promise to not VOTE to increase taxes. 

The current economy is very fragile.  Severely cutting Federal spending will likely push us back into recession.  Increasing taxes on all taxpayers is likely to have a similar result.  We need to pick and choose strategically among both spending cuts AND tax increases.

However, long-term, the only thing that will get us out of this mess is economic growth.  We should look at all government actions in this light, encouraging growth as much as possible.”

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/08/02/david-wessel#comment-607585801

TomK_in_Boston (apologies for the indirectly DISQUSted reply) – It’s unsurprising that a party whose Presidential candidate was a private-equity (PE) financier would want to walk away from what are essentially debt obligations owed to current and future Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries.  After all, one feature of PE companies is their tendency to declare bankruptcy and simply flee when things go poorly for troubled companies in their portfolios.

Rather than selling other assets in their portfolios to infuse cash, or defer and forego fees and dividends from the failing company, PE companies simply leave.  Even worse, they often first pile on debt, pay THEMSELVES dividends and fees, THEN scoot.  As another poster is wont to say “That’s a feature not a bug” of the PE game.

A recent Wall Street Journal online article said the following (edited for brevity):

“Private-equity firms are adding debt to the companies they own in order to fund payouts to themselves, a controversial practice now reaching a record pace.

“In these deals, known as “dividend recapitalizations,” private-equity-owned companies raise cash by issuing debt. The proceeds are distributed in the form of dividends to buyout groups.

“Debt issued to fund private-equity dividends has topped $54 billion this year. That is already higher than the record $40.5 billion reached in all of 2010, when credit markets reopened after the crisis.

“Critics say the dividends, which are disclosed in offering documents, saddle a company with debt, potentially burdening its operations, while reducing a private-equity firm’s investment exposure.”

Source:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444592704578064672995070116.html

We’ve been told that Social Security and Medicare are in danger of going bankrupt.  So what have Republicans proposed?  Do they want to raise new revenues or reallocate funds sufficient to meet these promises and obligations?  Nope.  Instead they propose Medicare vouchers, and raising the age for Social Security eligibility.

Which is not in the least bit surprising.  I’m not saying this is good or bad, but simply that it’s not at all shocking.  Republicans are just doing what they’re familiar with.