I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

River_Rat

Trying to put a link to the New Yorker cover here:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/10/cover-story-mitt-romney-norman-rockwell-tattoos.html

QuinnCat

What I recall is that the fed government looked and looked for private investors and there was no money out there. (It was a fair amount of money....hundreds of billions.)  Maybe, and this is kam speculation, Romney wanted a managed bankruptcy and "loan guarantees" for those (laugh) non-existent private investors, so he and his pals could do another leverage buyout and if they lost, federal money would be there for him and his pals.  In the meantime, employee pensions could have been dissolved to pay off those non-existent private investors.

Romney's first LBO had him and his investor pals being paid off by FDIC insurance.  He is not a stranger to getting rich off of government guarantees. << This latter part is true...the other is my personal speculation.

In reality, there wasn't this kind of cash laying around to bailout this size of corporation(s).  Some of the units would have been liquidated and never to return.  All of the secondary suppliers and the multiplier effect would have caused an incredible amount of jobs to be lost.

Obama, and only Obama, saved the auto industry.  And, btw, much of the loan has been paid off because of rising stock prices.  What the government holds in stock is valued more than what they are owed.  It was a good call on Obama's part.

crazy4carrots

Kam -- Exactly right.  Unfortunately, the average joe six-pack really hasn't a clue about LBOs, and the type of business venture capitalists such as Bain engage in.  And I doubt if there is any way whatsoever that they can be educated......

I suspect that they simply think that if Romney is "smart" enough to become so extremely wealthy, then if he's running the government (which is actually supposed to work for the people, not investors), some of that "smart" will rub off on them.  Money doesn't just talk, it SCREAMS.

Enjoyful

BISCUIT....I responded to your PM!

Anonymous

Yeah, river rat - in appreciation,

here's Al Franken GOTV for Elizabeth Warren.  Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY6By68s_XI&feature=youtu.be   I love these people!

AnnNYC

PiP -- hope you have a wonderful wedding weekend!  Congratulations to your son!

And I loved your joke!  Alas, it's all too true...

Blue, your house looks beautiful (as always)!  Hope your leg is feeling better.

AnneW

Picking up something one of my FB friends said...I will no longer call "them" repugs or rethugs. I will call them REGRESSIVES because that's the opposite of Progressives, and that's what they are.

pupmom

Anne, that is the perfect description! I'm using it too.

Anonymous

PUNCHING THE LIKE button for Anne - count me in Regressives....perfect.

Hope you all could see enough of the New Yorker cover to get how funny (sad) it is - beautiful opening "The Talk of the Town" from The Editors : The Choice, Why we should re-elect President Obama.

QuinnCat

Sunflowers - deserves reprinting:

IllinoisLady

Foreign Policy Debate Devolves Into Conspiracy Theory Wanking:     from Raw Story

Topics: barack obama ♦ foreign policy ♦ Obama

 

The foreign policy debate is a hard one for me to write about, because I just generally object to the entire process. First of all, the Beltway media narrowly defines foreign policy as “Israel plus countries we’d be interested in bombing”, and that framework basically determines the debate. No mention of the economic issues in Europe, no real interest in the ongoing violence that our drug policies helped create in Mexico. Romney trotting out the right wing myth about an “apology tour” Obama supposedly went on took up more time than discussion about any trade policy. I didn’t learn much about Romney’s foreign policy ideas, but I did learn that he thinks that a man’s dick shrivels up and falls off if he ever dare utters an apology. (Fill in joke about how Ann Romney seems grim all the time.) Having an official national stance of “Fuck you, we regret nothing!” is particularly ridiculous in a country where half of it decided to start a war rather than give up slavery.

Not that Obama was “apologizing”, of course. Beyond just Romney tapping an apparent right wing allergy to ever admitting one was in the wrong (which goes a long way towards explaining the higher divorce rates in red states), Romney’s embarrassing insistence on chewing on events thatdidn’t actually happen during the debate proved once again that the monkeys have taken over the Republican zoo. “Apology tour” is basically Birtherism, dressed up in slightly nicer clothes. It’s part of a larger constellation of right wing myths and conspiracy theories that point to their belief that Obama is Not One of Us, and by One of Us, they don’t mean “Republicans”. There’s other notes on the Barack Obama Isn’t a “Real American” instrument: “Muslim”, “reparations”, “birth certificate”. All of these are elaborate ways to assert the idea that black Americans aren’t real Americans, but do so in a way that avoids coming right out and saying so. Obama has been seen as being a bit ornery (though less so than Romney) these past two debates, but considering the willingness of Romney to blow the dog whistle right in his face, I would say that Obama shows a remarkable amount of calm.

 

Will it work? The entire Republican strategy has been to argue, usually implicitly but sometimes explicitly, that Americans elected Obama in an effort to prove that we’re hip enough to be down with a black President, but now that we’ve had our fun, it’s time to suck it up and return power to its rightful white owners. The hope is that by hinting around that narrative, some white voters who broke for Obama in 2008 will let their prejudices wear down their resolve to continue to support the better candidate, and cave in the booth for the white guy. Basically, an electoral white flight strategy: You know intellectually that black family that moved in next door is perfectly nice, but don’t you want to sell your house and move to the suburbs anyway, voters?

I remain cautiously optimistic that the strategy will fail. The problem with the strategy is that the public has had a chance to get to know Obama and his family in the past four years. It’s a lot harder to to stimulate subconscious prejudice if the person has a strong counter-narrative about the situation. To make the whole situation weirder, the dog whistles being blown here only make sense to people whose bigotries are far closer to the surface, who wouldn’t vote for Obama anyway. I don’t think the average white swing voter with subconscious prejudices but who tries to be fair really is tapped into the elaborate right wing fear that Obama is a secret radical subversive who gained power in service of toppling America as an act of revenge. Words like “reparations” and “apology tour” probably fall on deaf ears outside of those circles.

Still, I remain unnerved by the fact that it’s come to this: A supposed foreign policy debate used more time chewing over a conspiracy theory that is rooted in racialized paranoid right wing narratives than it did discussing very important nations that are enduring crisises that actually affect us, like Mexico or many countries in Europe. Again, even though I know it’s blasphemy to say so, this is just more evidence that dedicating half of the official debate time to foreign policy is just a stupid Beltway media trick that confuses more than enlightens. Foreign policy is important, don’t get me wrong. But the reality of foreign policy isn’t even being discussed. We didn’t even get to hear a list of the candidates’ favored suggestions for Secretary of State, which is the sort of thing that would actually make for a substantive foreign policy discussion. Instead, when the candidates weren’t being pressed into war-mongering, the discussion drifted back to coded culture war stuff, in no small part because that stuff actually matters more to voters.

And maybe it should! If we actually started to concentrate on domestic policy more, the Beltway belief that the President’s main job is running the American Empire would get less play, which in turn would allow for multiple ideas of what America could be as an international player—ideas beyond “big guns who shoot a lot”.

IllinoisLady

Oh what a regressive bunch.

Jackie

1Athena1

Republican candidates and their surrogates have a shamefully illustrious history of being totally ignorant of geography and world politics - and their number twos are often just as bad. Remember Dan Quayle who said people in Latin America speak "Latin."

Illiterate nincompoops.

Dumbya, too, was clueless. For a so-called party of hawks, the GOP does have a rather blind spot for where to shoot in the world. 

Some people just don't mind looking utterly, utterly stupid....incredible.

Blue - you are so dextrous. If I want anything artsy-craftsy, I have to buy it, sadly.

pupmom

They're hawks, unless it's their bodies on the line. Then they turn into the chicken variety.

QuinnCat

And bringing up Mali?  Was that suppose to impress somebody?

QuinnCat

Speaking of chickenhawks Yorkie...I am still sickened by Ann Romney comparing these two things:

Equating what Romney did in France:

To what the Chickenhawk avoided in Vietnam:

River_Rat

Sunflowers, love the Franken youtube - thanks!

pupmom

Kam, it really is sickening. But that's what the oligarchs do. Peons are supposed to go to war, fight and die so the privileged few can profit. What I can't believe is how many fools fall into this trap and do their bidding.

Belinda44

Love the New Yorker cover!

Seems like the tea party peeps are experiencing a bit of "tumult"

Mitt agreed with Obama last night on things he has publicly disagreed on. I love
how his base seems to be turning on him. I honestly don't think Mitt can keep
track of all the lies he tells.

-------------------------------------------------

And Bill O'Reilly.........

"Disappointed O’Reilly Slams Mitt: ‘Romney Didn’t Do Anything, Nothing’"

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/disappointed-oreilly-slams-mitt-romney-didnt-do-anything-nothing/

-------------------------------------------------

Glad one of Coulter's peers is finally speaking out against her.....

"Michelle Malkin Slams Coulter For Calling Obama ‘Retard’: ‘What A Stupid, Shallow Thing To Say’"

"Conservative firebrand Michelle Malkin slammed her fellow conservative columnist Ann Coulter last night after the latter called President Barack Obama a “retard” via Twitter.

Coulter’s controversial tweet came in response to the third and final presidential debate, praising Romney for his “decision to be kind and gentle to the retard,” i.e., the president.

The remark garnered the expected criticism from liberal Twitter users and celebrities, including Christina Applegate, but outspoken conservative Malkin also joined the choir: “@AnnCoulter calls President Obama a ‘retard.’ What a stupid, shallow thing to say, Ann,” she tweeted.

Malkin’s website Twitchy also went after Coulter for the tweet, headlining an article “Groan: Ann Coulter calls President Obama a ‘retard’” and emphasizing within the text that, even though she is a conservative, “she sure doesn’t speak for us.”"

Belinda44

Apologies if this was already posted.  The Salt Lake Tribune endorses Obama!!!!!

"Tribune endorsement: Too Many Mitts"

"Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?"

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55019844-82/romney-obama-state-president.html.csp

Belinda44

Enjoyful

Coulter likes attention any way she can get it. I don't think she minds if it's at the expense of the less fortunate.

1Athena1

Rachel Maddow nails it whe she says Romney is just phoning it in. His and the GOPs arrogance will get their just desserts come election day. The American voter is stupid - especially the undecided one. Really stupid. BUT NOT THAT STUPID!

pip57

Thanks AnnNYC.   I am sooooo excited.

IllinoisLady

I now see another newspaper endorsing Obama.  Eye-opening how many are endorsing him.  Of course, that being said, Mitty's quest to appease and appeal to nearly everyone but the 47 % has I'm sure just as much to do with it as anything.  Sure it has been said now hundreds of time....who did he think would not notice that he is someone who panders and really isn't very good at it.  It is getting down to the wire and while some may have waited to see how things might change, it would seem that those who don't wish to end up being permanently aligned with Romney are going to take this opportunity to shake the dust off their feet and move away from him. 

Getting ready to go settle in and watch all my favorite NBC'ers.  Long day on the one hand, but on the other a very satisfying one as there are no more debates to get apprehensive about now. 

Jackie

pip57

Does anyone know what this is about?

Gloria Allred's 'October surprise:' The celebrity attorney 'heads to court in Massachusetts to unseal Romney's sworn testimony in prior case'

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222204/Gloria-Allreds-October-surprise-The-celebrity-attorney-heads-court-Massachusetts-unseal-Romneys-sworn-testimony-prior-case.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

pip57

And, apparently Trump is going to "announce" that the Obama's had divorce papers drawn up in 2000.  Although this is not mentioned much, it is not new news.  I would think that this would not be the smartest move Trump could make.  It only shows the president as more human (repubs think HE is robotic) and that he is ready and willing to work on issues. Committment.  I thought that was a good thing.  

http://thegrio.com/2012/10/23/trumps-announcement-rumored-to-be-revelation-of-obama-divorce-papers/

Am I wrong?  Would this be a big deal in the US?

Wabbit

Trump just wants to get his name in the news.  I can't imagine why anybody would care.  None of our business and they have obviously worked out whatever issues they had.  How many times has Trump been divorced by the way? 

Gloria Allred is as bad as Trump.  Can't imagine she has anything more than tabloid level gossip either. 

Meanwhile in Indiana our Teabag Senate candidate said tonight that women should not be allowed to terminate a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.  Because the whole thing would be part of God's plan says he.

Any woman who can not figure out by now that these creeps are the American version of the Taliban is not paying attention.   I'm just waiting for them to decide that the rapist's 'punishment' should be having to marry his victim.  Fuming here ...   http://www.wthr.com/story/19897228/donnelly-mourdock-keep-up-attacks-in-2nd-debate

CherrylH

WR, some of these assholes believe the rapist should have visitation rights if the woman takes the pregnancy to term. Where's a good lighting bolt when you need one.

As for Trump, I'm really surprised he didn't find evidence that Obama fathered 18 children out of wedlock with white teenage virgins living in Mississippi.

RetiredLibby

*yawn* BFD if there are divorce papers -- Saint Ronnie was divorced from Jane Wyman and he is the Regressive (thanks AnneW) idol.  Who gives a crap?  And, as WR said, clearly the President and his wife worked it out.  (I love calling him "the President," knowing how it rankles some!). 

Gloria Allred is also a sensation-seeker.  I cannot imagine she was able to dig anything up that the opposition research team couldn't find! And really, no matter what she releases, it won't make a difference in the election.  The 15 "undecided" voters in the country are going to close their eyes and pick randomly.  The other allegedly undecided voters have either really made up their minds or aren't going to vote.  What continues to mystify me is why any woman would vote for the Regressives.  Just like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.  "Please, do take away these pesky rights -- they make my widdle head hurt!" 

L