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

If you can get me a job, I'll do your laundry.

Jackie, I love you posts here - you hit the nail on the head so well.

It's hilarious to have the Romney-Palins of the world make a statement about how dems want wealth redistribution. That's not only an attempt to distract attention from their own ideological vacuum, but also, the pot calling the kettle black.

The Reagan revolution and Bush years led to one of the worst redistribution and starkest differences between rich and poor since the guilded age. It has heralded a generation of law-breaking bankers and spineless administrations (reps. more than demos.) who fear that making Wall Street follow rules like the rest of us is somehow bad for America. Reagan-Bush has led to MORE for the rich and LESS for the poor. Obama has been spineless on Wall Street too, IMO. Sadly, the dems have bought into the "greed is good" line in some form. It doesn't help that a typical Wall Street career move is to work at government. But at least Obama favors reform and I am hoping he will help to level the playing field so that EVERYONE has to follow the law and so that we don't have a climate in which nurses are underpaid and incompetent CEOs get bonuses.  

This country prospered on the basic premise of equality of opportunity. It never meant that everyone would have the same money, but it did posit that we would all have the same opportunity. When you redistribute opportunity so as to create inequality --as the GOP has done since the Reagan era-- you redistribute wealth, hope and faith in the future.

A joke making the rounds:  Mr. Romney visits his tax accountant and asks "What am I writing off this year?"  The accountant replies "47% of the country".

Somehow, as a joke, that isn't very funny. 

This just shows the poverty of the Republican attacks this campaign season.  They rely on selective editing and misquoting to make Obama seem like something he is not.  The fact that they based an entire night on the selectively edited "You didn't build that" - and now the "redistribution" theme, which again is based on selectively editing out what Obama actually said.   This is the empty chair the Republicans are talking to - they continue to recreate the Obama that only they see, and try to make the rest of the country see him too.  But we see the empty chair.   

Great post Alexandria.  Then there is the huge lie about giving Governors waivers for welfare - which the Republican governors asked for!  They run an extremely dishonest campaign because the truth of the matter is they can't really find anything wrong.   It's the same thing they did to John Kerry.  They turned a hero into something less with the Swift Boat ads.  Yes, the Obama the rightwing has come to hate doesn't really exist and the sad part is they don't know it.  They believe their own lies.  Blame Karl Rove and the righwing echo chamber.

The sad thing is that there are real differences here that are not being discussed - and that the Republicans don't want to discuss, because their policy proposals are incredibly unpopular.  They want to end Medicare and Social Security as well as all the poverty programs, basically an Ayn Rand sort of government.  You either win or you die. That's in a way why the 47 percent tape is so damning - is really does reveal true feelings and beliefs on Romney's part and on the part of the wealthy backing him.

Alexandria - agreed. I said something similar in the previous page. The working poor are being scapegoated.

The reason why the right has run out of ideas, IMO, is because they have tilted so far right that there are no ideologically tenable positions that are compatible with a modern, 21st century democracy where they lie on the spectrum. The "left" today has assumed the mantle of where the right was about 30 years ago. Remember Nixon? He created the Environmental Protection Agency, and he was in favor of universal healthcare. Remember Reagan's tax margins?

We are governed by a center-right administration that still has to tackle the problems that could make the American empire fall, IMO: the over-reliance on money buying and selling (as opposed to making things), the loss in competitiveness, the lack of jobs, the economic stagnation and wage stagnation in too many parts of the country and the abysmal education system.

Obama has had to spend so much time these past four years doing something his republican predecessors might easily have agreed with --passing the healthcare law-- that he has run out of political steam to enact the few progressive policies he actually favors. Republicans have succeeded in stomping on his efforts to reform the banking system. I hope they realize that those no-solution tactics are what create a Mitt Romney.

I do have hope that once we get the election over and done with, and try to forget Mitt as one would a bad dream, he can feel enboldened to act.

We have a great president, and a lot of mediocre, small minded people who are jealous of that.

He spins ... he flips ... he flops.  Business as usual.

We just got back home from taking the dogs to the groomers.  They were so obviously disappointed that the car ride did not lead to the park that we are going to try to do that on the way home. 

This song has been coming to mind lately so I thought I'd share ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMiutrnur0c

Now must go vacuum and mop while the dogs are gone.  At least it will stay nice and clean for a couple of hours   Have a good day everybody!

ETA ... edited to give a thumbs up to what Athena said. 

Just got a call for an interview....  I sincerely doubt I'll get the job, but it's pleasing to be called in for an interview.    It's going to be one day next wee - don't know the day, yet.

congrats, gardengumby - "break a leg"!

OK - I'm going to expect to see y'all in my purse on the big day - it's a FOUR HOUR interview!!! 

When exactly was it that compromise and cooperation became dirty words, anyway?  I would have thought that people would see how far backward President Obama was willing to bend to attempt to make things happen - but the party of "NO!" simply would not work with him in any way.  They were hired to run the government, not run us all into the ground simply so they could say "He made promises that he didn't fulfill."  To be honest, I got pretty fed up with his attempt to come to a consensus by starting the mediation process from the middle and then moving to the right, but at least he would move and attempt to get something happening for the good of the country - not just for the good of his party.

Although I cannot abide Romney, I really don't think he is a bad person - I just think that he has a minus zero idea of what real people go through, how we live and survive each day.  He has never had to scurry to make ends meet or decide which bill you're going to pay this paycheck and which one you'll pay next paycheck - if you are lucky enough to have a job.  I've been lucky and a very hard worker, and I've never been without employment, but there are a lot of people who aren't that lucky.  He doesn't know those people who are down on their luck, who cannot find a job for love nor money (but they have none of that anyway, so it really doesn't matter).  They don't see themselves as victims wanting a hand-out.  But they sure would appreciate a hand-up, and that's what Obama and the Democrats offer.  

Ayn Rand saw the makers and the takers.  The takers were bad, bad, bad.  Makers were good.  The fact that the Republican candidate for VP sees life so simplistically is a sad commentary, not only on him, but also on the people who believe him to be the golden child of our future.  It really is scary business. 

People who don't think Romney was talking about them, or about their parents or grandparents when he was talking about the 47% who don't pay income tax are living in a self-induced/media induced illusion. They say "I don't see myself as a victim - he's not talking about ME!" But he is. The thing is that HE sees anyone who needs government assistance (even after they paid into social security all their life and deserve to receive it) - HE sees them as victims, as takers, as useless and a drain on society. It's not how you or I or our parents or grandparents view ourselves, it's how we are viewed by the 1%, and they view us as nothing.  I liked what Congressman Grayson said when he talked about the Republican plan for healthcare - their plan is that if you get sick, you should die quick.  So accurate, and so apt for this latest and on-going attempt to dismantle the American safety net - shredded as it is. 

GGumby -

Bring one helluva purse and we'll all climb in!

Obama fundraiser idea - a wind-up Romney doll that physically spins, walks back, and flip-flops.  If mechanics don't lend themselves to flip-flop, the toy can WEAR the flip-flops.  I got a chuckle thinking about it.  Of course, Obama probably won't need it now since he can just run clips of Romney opening his mouth.  Swear to God, I am embarrassed to be a Republican but I have hopes they'll turn things around in the next millennium.

Biopsy scheduled for Saturday.  To steal a line from "Tropic Thunder" - Here we go again.  Again.

Beautiful day here in Maryland - hope you all have the same!

Scoot, a Republican for Obama 

Scoot - sent you a PM.

Athena:  what you said!!

      Don't forget the Kennedys as rich people who sympathize with the poor and the middle class.

Garden:  Hoping for good things from the interview!

 On my job interview: pretty pessimistic - not just because I haven't heard a week later.  It was an odd sequence of things.  I did this job as a per deim until I got bc, no paid days off, no vacation, no health insurance, and no disability.  After my double masectomy - and my doc said i wasn't cleared to go back to schlepping boxes of docs to court- I took extra time off.  In the meantime, my job - not just the per deim work but a staff postion with benefits - went to someone else who frankly wasn't as good at it as I was. When i was ready to go back,  my bos said she'd put my name in, but then I didn't hear anything for months and months.  Finally, nine months later, my boss called me and said she needed someone per diem, two weeks after I'd paid for malpractice insurance to do my own practice.  I said no thanks.  I was polite, told her how much I'd liked the job, yada yada, but said if I wasn't going to be staff, I'd prefer my own practice where I had the possibility of more income.  I didn't tell her how angry I was at how I'd been treated after bc. 

So anyway, last month, a friend whom I practiced with and with whom I was having lunch told me about staff positions - with benefits - in New Brunswick.  I sent out a letter, and within less than a week, I got an interview.  At the end of that interview, with an assistant director, she told me she was approving me for the position and would send my resume to a different field office for the new manager to approve me or not. Two days later, the manager called and set up the interview.  I drove there only to find out that my interview with her had been cancelled, but that I had to go back and meet with the woman I'd interviewed with earlier plus the Director.  The interview with the two of them did not go well; it seemed almost like a hostile cross examination.  I don't want to go over the questions, but I was thinking during the interview, ok, I'm not getting this job. At the end, the Director told me how very many attorneys were looking for jobs these days, and that he could let me know within a week.  It is a week today.  I don't understand why I was called back in after initial approval.  But anyway, with each stage ofthis process, I heard within days that they wanted to interview me etc.  The Director knows if he can hire or not.  so frankly, at thispoint, I'm expecting eventually to get a nice letter about how many qualified good candidates there were, andI'm qualified, but they decided on someone else.  Someone younger than 60 without a history of BC - although that won't be in the letter.

That was long-winded and depressing.  I'm going back to writing my novel.  

alexandria ... ummm ... all those things they can't discriminate because of ... but do.  It sucks ... sorry (((hugs)))