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

David Frum, a conservative, tweeted:

If you're not running for president of all the country, you won't be elected president of any of it. 

You hear that Mr. Romney! 

But conversely, Romney's foreign policy advisor Dan Senor, while born in NY state, also grew up in Canada, and Jon Stewart has just made pure mincemeat of him!  If "y'all" aren't watching The Daily Show tonight, be sure to catch it on the net tomorrow.  Devastating!

Ducky, if he wants to lose, then for the first time ever, I agree with him!!!

'Morning, everyone. I woke up with a semi sick feeling today about Romney. It just is not good for the political landscape to have such a vacuum. Historically, that sort of void leads to extremism and possibly violence. Sorry for sounding alarmist.

Anyway, here is what old style conservative David Brooks had to say about Romney, whose ideas he calls libertarian:

This comment suggests a few things. First, it suggests that he really doesn't know much about the country he inhabits. Who are these freeloaders? Is it the Iraq war veteran who goes to the V.A.? Is it the student getting a loan to go to college? Is it the retiree on Social Security or Medicare?

It suggests that Romney doesn't know much about the culture of America. Yes, the entitlement state has expanded, but America remains one of the hardest-working nations on earth. Americans work longer hours than just about anyone else. Americans believe in work more than almost any other people. Ninety-two percent say that hard work is the key to success, according to a 2009 Pew Research Survey.

It says that Romney doesn't know much about the political culture. Americans haven't become childlike worshipers of big government. On the contrary, trust in government has declined. The number of people who think government spending promotes social mobility has fallen.

The people who receive the disproportionate share of government spending are not big-government lovers. They are Republicans. They are senior citizens. They are white men with high school degrees. As Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution has noted, the people who have benefited from the entitlements explosion are middle-class workers, more so than the dependent poor.

Romney's comments also reveal that he has lost any sense of the social compact. In 1987, during Ronald Reagan's second term, 62 percent of Republicans believed that the government has a responsibility to help those who can't help themselves. Now, according to the Pew Research Center, only 40 percent of Republicans believe that.

The Republican Party, and apparently Mitt Romney, too, has shifted over toward a much more hyperindividualistic and atomistic social view - from the Reaganesque language of common citizenship to the libertarian language of makers and takers. There's no way the country will trust the Republican Party to reform the welfare state if that party doesn't have a basic commitment to provide a safety net for those who suffer for no fault of their own.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=1&hp

SusieQ - believe  it ain't "socialism" - that's a "dog whistle" - SCARE WORD, used by those who want a return to the Plutocracy FDR managed to rise above - and create a VIABLE MIDDLE CLASS in the action.  Honest, the word is truly used as a cover, for, well, racism, classism - for a start.

Ducky - love the "breakfast"...lol, lol..more tee, hees..ain't it the truth

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/real-romney-is-a-sneering-plutocrat.html

Favorite reporting this am - "I used inelegant words" - yeah, right, inelegant.  Millions of hard working people working several jobs at minimum wage, renting so not getting a HUGE "GOVERNMENT HANDOUT" in mortgage deduction, expecting the fairness of HELP in providing basic services for their families....

Oh, yeah, just inelegant words - Willard is ENTITLED to keep his massive wealth OFF SHORE to avoid paying US taxes, and defends it cuz "it's legal" - well, so is SNAP, and the few other programs still left...

rant over,

Happy Today all...

And one more - a good explanation of why this matters from Ezra Klein of the WaPo:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/17/romneys-theory-of-the-taker-class-and-why-it-matters/?hpid=z2

Important cutline:  "Part of the reason so many Americans don't pay federal income taxes is that Republicans have passed a series of very large tax cuts that wiped out the income-tax liability for many Americans. ... Some of those tax cuts for the poor were there to make the tax cuts for the rich more politically palatable. "Do you think we wanted to include a welfare payment to people who don't pay taxes and call it a tax cut?" A top Bush administration official once asked me. "No. But that's what we needed to do to get it done." " 

So, people who get government benefits, including Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, Romney considers you a "taker."  Never mind you have been a "maker" and a "giver" all your life, and you earned those benefits. 

L

Standing up on hind legs to also shrug shoulders. This atheist finds all religions scary, frankly. It all comes down to the devil you know....

Agreeing with scoot - you can find those "fundmentalist" words in every "religion" - usually pulled out to SCARE - basically, I'm IMPRESSED with the way most seem to "take care of their own" -just wish the "circle" would be expanded...

but then, have always been at odds with "reality"

Thanks HL - good reading....and again, what Sandy says...

And another one.  There is a LOT of analysis out there about the 47% ... and for those who advocate destroying the social safety net, you should learn who you want to hurt before you do that:  the elderly, our troops, the unemployed, students, and people who don't make a living wage.  All of those people have undoubtedly paid into the tax system at one point -- yes, dammit, they ARE entitled to help.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/the-47-who-they-are-where-they-live-how-they-vote-and-why-they-matter/262506/

Important cutline from this article:  "The 47% aren't lucky ducks cheating the system. They're mostly poor  working families getting pilloried by the political party that wrote the rules they're following. If the 47% are the monster here, then Republicans helped play the role of Dr. Frankenstein. "Non-payers" have grown in the last 30 years because of marginal tax rate cuts and credits like the EITC passed under Republican presidents and continued by both parties in Congress."

I think these words from Jonathan Chait's article are SO IMPORTANT

"Some pundits have likened Romney’s comments to Barack Obama’s 2008 monologue, also secretly recorded at a fund-raiser, about his difficulties with white working class voters in rural Pennsylvania. But the spirit of Obama’s remarks was precisely the opposite of Romney’s. While Obama couched his beliefs in condescending sociological analysis about how poor small town residents vote on the basis of guns and religion rather than economics, the thrust of Obama’s argument was that he believed his policies would help them, and to urge his supporters to make common cause with them:

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you'll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you'll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I'd be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you're doing what you're doing.

Obama was aspiring to become president of all of America, even that part most hostile to him, in the belief that what they shared mattered more than what divided them. Romney genuinely seems to conceive of the lowest-earning half of the population as implacably hostile parasites."  Jonathan Chait, the New York Magazine

Seeking common ground, INCLUSION...heart, empathy, compassion, understanding....thank you President Obama.I hope more and more people will read those words IN CONTEXT, notjust the few words taken and sometimes used "against" the President, instead of showing all the qualities we respect and admire in his work.

It just keeps getting bad. The video also contained comments Romney made about the Middle East, in which he basically said there was nothing one could do. So I suppose his four-year plan is to sit in the oval office with arms crossed:

In a new video posted by Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, Mr. Romney says the Middle East peace process is "likely to remain an unsolved problem."

Mr. Romney has sought to cast himself as a turnaround expert, a fixer who can fashion success from the wreckage of a failing company, Olympics, or economy. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he can be heard saying in the video posted to the Mother Jones Web site on Tuesday morning, is a case where "we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.

He later added,"I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues "And I say, ‘There's just no way.' "

More here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/us/politics/in-leaked-video-romney-says-middle-east-peace-process-likely-to-remain-unsolved-problem.html?_r=1

ETA: Sorry about the harsh bold.

Now that Romney has handed the President another term, I sure hope Obama can get some important things done. Maybe his landslide win will have coattails and sweep out some of the teabaggies.

Oh those debates......there is so much material for them.  But I too think it is sad that we are reduced to the level of even being able to consider the 'other side' this election.  I had this rather wild thought last night....one of those things that springs un-bidden by me....wonder just which R. made sure that video became available. 

I am a part of that 47% but I do Mr. R still pay taxes and thanks to all those sweet Republican years we are still a working household here.  At age 73 and 67....we can't retire.  I am one of your lazy, shiftless, in need of handouts people.  And just as soon as I get home from work....I'm going to go find something that is free to me...if I'm not too tired.  Terrible rant and I should be ashamed of myself.  What utter disrespect.

Jackie

p.s.  I too have had many Mormon friends and classmates.  No complaints really....in fact, I would have to say that they displayed better behaviors over all them some.  Not my cup of tea though.