Death Watch Of A Party

I have just finished reading another analysis of why Mitt Romney lost the election. The author went into some detail about the “ground game,” the use of computers, the amount of money raised and how and when that money was spent. The author also discussed the advertisements and the Romney campaign’s failure to produce a sympathetic biography of Romney that would counter the negative characterizations of him. What the author said was true enough, but he totally missed the primary reasons Romney and other Republican candidates lost. First of all, Mitt Romney was the most inept Presidential candidate I have ever seen. He was totally wooden and openly disdainful of a large percentage of the voters. He was also a shameless and foolish liar. When he was caught lying, which was often, he simply repeated the lie as if it were true. No fluff piece touting Romney’s humanity or his compassion could have made him trustworthy or counteracted his obvious disdain for so many voters. Romney’s biggest problem, however, was the same problem that the entire Republican Party has. The Republicans and many of their backers are so out of touch with a majority of the people of this nation that they cannot even acknowledge that most of the voters disagree with them on a wide range of issues. Thus, we have idiot Republican Congressmen still holding middle class tax cuts hostage in an effort to get the Democrats to extend the outrageous tax cuts for the rich.

When asked why they are defying the will of the majority, the right wing idiots answer that they were also elected. What they fail to realize is that Gerrymandering created congressional districts that actually thwart the will of the majority. I am sorry, but it is very unlikely that the voters in Corn Hole Kansas or Cow Pie Texas accurately reflect the will of the people of Kansas or Texas let alone the will of the rest of the nation. Furthermore, it only takes one election to overturn the majority party and therefore cause a redistricting of congressional districts. What is very obvious is that Mitt Romney and his party were and still are out of touch with reality. When the only elections they can still win are in districts they have gerrymandered, they are in serious trouble.

In addition to being out of touch on social and economic issues, the Republicans are now in danger of being in the minority when it comes to reasonable gun control. If anything, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association is even more out of touch and inept than Mitt Romney. I think the NRA is so accustomed buying what they want from politicians that they view public opinion as being of no consequence. How else can one explain the tone deaf statements LaPierre recently made while representing the NRA’s absurd reaction to the tragedy in Newtown Connecticut What should be apparent to everyone is that the NRA is no longer an organization promoting gun safety and representing sportsmen and responsible gun owners. The NRA has sold its soul to the arms manufacturers, and it thinks the profits of those manufacturers should trump the importance of human life. The stupidity of LaPierre may very well be the thing that finally brings about some reasonable gun control legislation. Foolishly attacking President Obama and other Democrats only proved that political candidates can win in spite of the NRA’s best efforts to defeat them. I might add that most gun owners also favor at least some gun control legislation.

The GOP Lemmings

I have read that lemmings do not periodically hurl themselves off cliffs and into the sea. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing intentional about them going off the cliff when it happens. Lemmings occasionally head out in the wrong direction, and the ones that fall over the edge do so because they are pushed, which is to say they are goosed to death by the lemmings that can only see the assholes in front of them. The Republicans are acting much like lemmings. The party of the Grand Old Plutocrats has already suffered a hard fall by ignoring the polls showing they are out of touch with mainstream America on many of the social and economic issues. The Republicans who are smart enough to realize their party has drifted too far to the right also know that the fall they suffered during the last election was nothing compared to the one they will suffer if they keep heading in the same direction. Moving the party back to the center, however, is almost impossible because, like lemmings, rank and file Republicans will goose, prod and/or trample to death anyone who tries to change direction or stop short of the precipice.

Sadly, the Republicans are ignoring the results of the elections they just lost and the polls showing that the public will blame them for taking us over the fiscal cliff. They are foolishly threatening to raise taxes on the middle class unless the Democrats extend the budget busting Bush tax cuts for the rich. They are also telling the same lies they told about the debt ceiling when they caused the downgrading of America’s credit rating by threatening to make America default on its debts by not raising the debt ceiling. Now they indicate that they will threaten the full faith and credit of the United States again by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless the Democrats agree to drastic cuts to earned benefits programs such as Medicare. Well, here is a bit of reality for those destructive assholes. Any party that harms its country does so at its own peril. If the Republicans are so stupid and vicious that they will actually carry through with either of those threats, it will be a full generation before they will rise to the level of a viable national party again.

Oh, Prosperity! Where is thy sting?

From 1954 through 1963 the top marginal income tax rate was 91%, the effective rate was about 87%. If the Republicans were right about all the horrible things that happen when you tax the “job creators,” the jobless rate should have gone through the roof and the economy should have spent the entire decade spinning in the toilet. But that did not happen. As the unemployment figures below seem to indicate, the ten years when those tax rates were in effect were prosperous years
1954 5.5%, 1956 4.1%, 1958 6.8%, 1960 5.5%, 1962 5.5%.

Notice the increase in the unemployment rate in 1958. What the Democrats called the Eisenhower recession took place during the years of 1958 and 1959. It should be noted that President Eisenhower did not respond to the recession by lowering the taxes of the wealthiest one percent of the population and the unemployment rate still dropped back down to 5.5.%. Today the wealthiest individuals pay a top marginal tax rate of 35% on earned income and 15% on capital gains. If taxes on the so called job creators are determinative we should have full employment right now. It is difficult to believe that anyone still thinks the rich cannot afford to pay the same tax rate they paid when Bill Clinton was President or that raising the top marginal rate to the level it was under Clinton will somehow stifle the growth of our economy.

Good news is bad news if you are a Republican. They are crying over the report showing the jobless rate dropping below 8%. They are acting as if a friend who has been saying wonderful things about them has suddenly turned on them, and they are responding in kind. Those public servants who objectively reported the unemployment figures the Republicans enjoyed citing are now being castigated as a bunch of dishonest partisans because the Republicans do not like what the last report shows. Well, the GOP cannot have it both ways, the reports are either accurate or they are not. Allowing either party to cherry pick the reports they like and disparage the ones they do not like would be absurd.

Sources:Top Marginal Rates and Unemployment .

Fighting Smoke

Mitt Romney is a bloviating bag of bullshit who lies about everything because he stands for nothing. There is no there there. He has no substance, no intellectual integrity anyone can grasp or depend on. If you are running against him, you cannot draw a clear distinction between your policies and his policies because he will tell each audience what he thinks that particular audience wants to hear, and he is very good at creating false choices. This makes it all too likely that you will spend most of your time fighting the smoke rather than the fire. I am afraid that is what President Obama did during the last debate.

President Obama must bear in mind that the polls indicate a close race. Since Mr. Romney's mendacity should be obvious to anyone paying attention, we can only conclude that a large percentage of the population does not want to believe the Nit-Mitt is really such a fraud. It is also obvious that any thoughtful person running against this liar must find a way to negate the lies. President Obama must become the prosecutor. He must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Romney is a liar and thereby force Mr. Romney into an honest discussion of the issues.

There was a brief moment during the debate when President Obama challenged a Romney lie. The moment occurred when Romney denied that he was proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. “I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut,” Romney said. What I've said is I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit.” Mr. Obama pointed out that during the past few weeks Mr. Romney was proposing a tax cut of $5 trillion. “I guess you didn't meant it,” President Obama added.

President Obama's reply was good as far as it went but more was needed to fully expose the deception. At that point Mr. Obama should have addressed the audience: “When Mr. Romney says he won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit it can only mean one of two things. He either means he will not give the tax cuts he has been promising or he is making a promise to us that he cannot keep in order to prevent us from demanding that he specifically name the programs he is going to slash.” It is at that point that he should have gone into the arithmetic argument.

Another thing that struck me about the debate is how often Romney said he cared about the middle class. That is when Mr. Obama should have brought up Mr. Romney's statement about 47% of the people thinking they are victims and refusing to take responsibility for their lives. He could also say that Romney would support job act if he really cared about creating jobs, and that he would tell Congress to pass an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the middle class if he cared about the middle class!

The Rummy Fact Checker

The most frequent mispronunciation of Mitt Rmomney's surname is "Rummy." The mispronunciation is fitting because Mr. Romney has to be drunk on his butt if he acutually believes the American people are going to swallow what he and his party are serving up. Mr. Romney and his surrogates boldly assert that all major news organizations have a liberal bias. Now that the polls show Mr. Romney losing he and his surrogates are saying that all of the pollsters, including the ones working for right wing mouthpeices such as Fox News, also have a liberal bias. According to Mr. Romney the only one we can trust to tell us the truth is Mitt Romney. This frothy brew of paranoia is one of the two products Mr. Romney is consistently peddling. The other product he consistently peddles is the failed theory of trickle down economics. The problem for Mr. Romney is that anyone with more than a beer soaked peanut for a brain will ask some simple questions: Who is more likley to be telling us the truth; is it the man who says he is the only one we can trust or is it the man man who encourages us to consult independant sources to verify the veracity of the statements being made? In logic what Mr. Romney is doing is called poisoning the well.

Ah, but never fear, Republicans! Mitt Romney says he has an advantage over Mr. Obama in the debates becaus Mr. Obama does not tell the truth. To prove his point Mr. Romney is going to take his magic mirror to the debates. He is going to show us that the image in the mirror, the image Mr. Romney is always fighting, is not merely a projection or reflection of him self. No sir, that image is Mr. Obama and the very essence of everything Mr. Romney opposes. But not so fast. "Everything" might be overstating it. There might be something about the image, some feature that people like. Being a reasonable man, Mr. Romney is always willing to make an exception for the right audience. After all, he can and usually does withdraw those exceptions for the sake of consistency. One must be consistent, you know. And what are you going to believe, your cheating eyes and memory or Mitt Romney.

Shallow End Of The IQ Pool

The pundits say that elections are decided by the low information, undecided voters who cast their ballots based on their impressions and feelings rather than intelligent discussions of the issues or the facts. This works to the advantage of the Republican Party because they have been fishing for votes in the shallow end of the IQ pool for at least four years. The Republicans correctly concluded that if voters are going to blame the party of the President for a lagging economy it is in the interests of the Republican Party to keep the economy from picking up any positive momentum. As Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, said, the goal of Republican Party is to make President Obama a one term President. In order to keep President Obama from dealing with the Bush recession the Republicans set out to make the government as dysfunctional as possible. The obstructionist tool they employed at first was the filibuster in the Senate. Mitch McConnell actually brags about how the Republican’s use of the filibuster requires the Democrats to get a super majority of sixty votes to pass anything. Furthermore, in 2010 the voters made the government even more dysfunctional by giving the Republican Party control of the House of Representatives.

Since gaining control of the House of Representatives the Republicans have exacerbated our economic problems by rejecting all of the increases in government spending that both parties have traditionally used to pull us out of economic slumps. Instead of doing what has always worked in the past the Republicans insist on imposing on us the same sort of austerity programs that have increased unemployment in Europe and caused so much pain there. By holding the approval of a federal budget hostage to steep cuts in federal spending the Republican House of Representatives has forced the government to lay off workers, dumping those workers onto the private market at a time when there are not enough private jobs available as it is. Furthermore the Republicans refuse to pass the American Jobs Act, which would provide the states with funds to help them keep policemen, firemen, and teachers on the job, and which would greatly improve our roads, bridges, schools, etc. while providing much needed employment for construction workers. Make no mistake about it; it is the Republicans who have made this a do nothing Congress. Rather than working on legislation to create jobs they have passed 31 bills to try to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act; they have also de-funded Planned Parenthood, passed anti-choice bills, and attacked birth control. Alright, maybe I am being a bit to bombastic, but, given the obstructionist tactics of the Republicans, blaming President Obama for not getting us out to the mess George W. Bush and the Republicans got us into makes Mitt Romney a bloviating bag of bullshit! As Bill Clinton so aptly said, all Mitt Romney and the Republicans are offering are the failed policies of George W. Bush on steroids.

The biggest problem this country has right now is getting the low information voter to pay enough attention to realize what the Republicans are doing. The idiots in the mainstream media are not helping any. A perfect case in point is the controversy over Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Here we have Mitt Romney touting his experience as CEO of Bain Capital and claiming that that experience would make him a better President than President Obama is. Yet when it is correctly pointed out that Bain shut down American businesses and exported American jobs to other countries Mitt Romney suddenly wants to deny any responsibility for what Bain Capital did. He claims he did not make any decisions or have any knowledge of what Bain was doing after 1999. The problem is that the papers Bain Capital filed with the SEC named Mitt Romney as the CEO, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and sole shareholder of Bain for the years of 2000, 2001 and 2002. Furthermore, those papers were signed by Mitt Romney, and Bain Capital paid him a base salary of $100,000 during each year from 2000 through 2002. In spite of the fact that any court in the land would hold the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and sole shareholder of a corporation responsible for the actions of that corporation, several independent fact checkers are saying the Democrats should not hold Romney responsible for Bain Capital’s exportation of American Jobs. What those fact checkers are basing that opinion on is nothing more than Mr. Romney’s denial. The mainstream media is also lending Mr. Romney some credibility by repeating his denial without comment. Both the fact checkers and the mainstream media are ignoring the fact that Mitt Romney knew or should have known what Bain was doing. As the CEO, Chairman of the Board, and sole shareholder of Bain a lack of knowledge on his part would be gross negligence, and the $100,00 dollars he received would have been unearned. The credibility the fact checkers and media are giving to Mt. Romney is even more unreasonable given the fact that he is a proven liar. He does not merely exaggerate or spin, he tells demonstrably proven falsehoods constantly. There are even blogs such as Daily Kos that are trying to document and count all of Romney’s lies, and it is a full time job.

The one thing no one seems willing to give to Romney is a way out of producing his tax returns. Mr. Romney’s bank account in Switzerland and his business interests in Barbados and the Cayman Islands raise serious questions about tax avoidance. I am not going to speculate about the legality of what Mr. Romney may be doing or whether he avoided paying taxes for ten years. What I do say is that those records would reveal something he does not want us to know. Saying that producing his tax records would only give his opponents more to use against him is a sorry excuse that any politician could use; it screams that he has more to hide than the candidates who have produced theirs. Even the mainstream media is saying that Romney should produce more tax returns, and that makes it an issue that will even play in the shallow end of the IQ pool.

Unfortunately my computer crashed and was down for a week. They Republican convention has now started, and it already reveals an entire party embracing a pack of lies. First Rick Insanetorum repeated the lie that President Obama is eliminating the work requirement for collecting welfare. Every independent fact checker has called this a blatant falsehood, as has Bill Clinton who is credited with establishing the work requirement, as has every newspaper that looked into it. There is also the slogan on the wall, “We Built It.” This slogan is also based upon a Romney lie. He took President Obama totally out of context, and lied about what President Obama really said. Then there is the debt counter. It seems to blame President Obama for the entire national debt regardless of the facts. George W. Bush actually turned a surplus into the largest debt in our history. The fact is that the number of government employees has actually decreased under President Obama.  Furthermore all of the bail out money and stimulus money combined did not increase the deficit as much as it was increased by the Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.

Supreme Courting

Is the Supreme Court courting us? What are we to make of this? Just when we thought the most politicized Supreme Court in modern history was incapable of rendering an impartial decision on anything it ruled that Arizona’s immigration law is unconstitutional and that the Affordable Health Care Act and its individual mandate are constitutional. What is even more remarkable is the fact that it was Chief Justice Roberts who wrote the majority opinion in the health care case. How could this be? Justice Roberts usually pulls matters into the ideological chasm rather than out of it. So why did he do it? People who know him say he was concerned about the court’s reputation and the perception that it has become too political. Frankly, this is a bit like saying that a man who just went on a killing spree also helped an old lady cross the street because he is concerned about the perception that our society has become too violent and uncaring. This is, after all, the Bush v. Gore court. This is the Citizens United court. This is the court that also reaffirmed Citizens United by ruling as unconstitutional the campaign financing laws Montana passed decades ago to combat the corruption that was so rampant before those laws were put in place. This is the same court that said corporations are people with all of the rights of people, whereas Labor unions are not people and do not have the same rights as people or corporations. It does not take much knowledge to realize which interests and which political party this court favors.

Anyone who thinks that ideological and political considerations will not continue to drive this court is being far too optimistic. Justice Scalia demonstrated that all too well. His comments regarding the federal government’s authority over immigration and Arizona’s outrageous immigration laws ignored and misstated many of the facts, and he launched a very partisan attack on President Obama. Such bombastic and partisan statements have traditionally been considered beneath the dignity of the court, but that is of little concern to Justice Scalia. Unfortunately the petulant statements he is so prone to making often seem to reflect what the other three “conservative” justices are actually thinking. In almost every instance Chief Justice Roberts has voted with the other three Republican appointed Justices. What probably made the Affordable Health Care Case different for Justice Roberts is the fact that it did not decide an election, restrict the rights of corporations, or restrict the use of money to influence elections or government policies. In other words, it did not decrease the rule of money!

The politicization of this court is particularly egregious because the apparent conflicts of interest make so many of its decisions suspect. For instance, the two justices, Scalia and Thomas, who should have recused themselves from the Affordable Health Care Case actually voted in a manner favorable to the interests that should have caused them to recuse themselves. Furthermore, a very brief search on the inter net will reveal many more examples of when Justice Scalia and particularly Justice Thomas ignored the rule of avoiding even the appearance of bias and refused to recuse themselves from cases in which it appeared they had conflicts of interest. If Chief Justice Roberts is really concerned about the reputation of the Supreme Court he should speak out against the frequent violations of this very fundamental rule of judicial ethics and he should call out the Justices are committing such violations. No court that tolerates the violation of judicial standards and the rules of judicial ethics can or should command the respect of the citizens of this nation of laws. In an earlier post I said the Health Care Case should be considered the last straw, and Justice Thomas should be impeached if he does not recuse himself from that case. He did not recuse himself, and I stand by my statement. Justice Scalia’s behavior is as odious and damaging to the court’s reputation as is the behavior of Justice Thomas, but the case that be made against Justice Scalia for impeachable offences is not as strong as the case that can be made against Justice Thomas. To they who fear the precedent of impeaching a Supreme Court Justice I say we had better fear the decisions of unethical justices who are allowed to stay on the court for life.

Dangerous Absurdities

If you believe what Mitt Romney is saying about the Affordable Health Care Act (Obama Care) you will have to conclude that “Romney Care” greatly increased taxes, created a huge deficit to the state budget, killed jobs and destroyed the small businesses in Massachusetts. It would be illogical to conclude anything else since the differences between Romney Care and the Affordable Health Care Act are so slight. The contention that such a program implemented by a state would somehow have a different impact on that state than a similar federal program would have on the nation is too absurd to even consider. I think Mr. Romney’s opponents in the primary did a good job of pointing out his hypocrisy regarding this issue. In truth though, the entire Republican Party is being hypocritical about health care. The only reason Republicans oppose “Obama Care” is because it was proposed by President Obama. Now the Republicans are crying great crocodile tears over the fact that a court they thought they owned ruled that the Affordable Health Care Act and the individual mandate it contains are constitutional.

Ah, but this is not the end of it. The ruling does not mean the health care act is desirable. Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the majority decision, admitted that. He also threw the Republicans another bone by saying he based his ruling about the mandate on the federal government’s power to tax. Oh, happy days! This is the favorite issue of greedy old plutocrats. The slightest whiff of anything that could be considered a tax has them baying like hounds. “It’s a tax,” they howl, “an evil, job killing, Norquist defying tax! No one likes taxes, and God knows you don’t want to defy Grover Norquist!” The problem is that it was Mitt Romney who provided the best answer to the contention that the individual mandate is an undesirable tax. Mr. Romney did so by asking why responsible people who have health insurance should have to pay for the expensive treatment of people who depend on the emergency rooms for health care. Mr. Romney said it was only fair to make those irresponsible people buy health insurance so the rest of us will not have to pay for the medical care they receive. Even a Democrat has to admit that Mr. Romney raised a compelling argument. Mr. Romney should stick to that argument and defend his health care act. He should but he will not. Like other Republicans, Mitt Romney is putting his interests and those of his party ahead of the interests of this nation.

There does not appear anything Mitt Romney and the Republican Party will not do in an effort to discredit and defeat President Obama. When the Republicans gained control of the House of Representatives Congressman Issa became the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and he promptly announced that he would conduct a hundred investigations of the Obama administration. Inquisition anyone? One of those, so called, investigations was of the fictional “gun walking” scandal. It was alleged that the ATF purposely sold guns to intermediaries in a failed attempt to trace those guns to the Mexican drug cartels. In an article published in Fortune Magazine, however, Katherine Eban states that the ATF never intentionally let guns fall into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. How does she know this? She did what Congressman Issa should have done; she asked people who were in a position to know what ATF agents in Arizona did. The fact that Congressman Issa never even bothered to question the ATF agents in Arizona indicates he had absolutely no interest in uncovering the facts about what really happened. Mr. Issa was far more interested in demanding documents the Justice department could not or should not produce. What is painfully obvious is that Congressman Issa was conducting an inquisition with the intent of holding Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. Grand Inquisitor Issa even went so far as to repeat the dark fantasy told by the NRA. This scurrilous NRA lie asserts that President Obama wanted guns to fall into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels so that he could use the gun violence as an excuse for restricting guns in this country. I suppose George W. Bush also wanted to ban guns in this country when his administration set up “Wide Receiver” in an effort to trace guns going to Mexican drug cartels.

The Republicans have now set a new and dangerous precedent by holding Attorney General Holder in Contempt of Congress for not producing documents he could not legally produce and for not producing other document that fall under the executive privileged cited by so may presidents, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. By holding the Attorney General in contempt the Republicans are acting as though there will be no tomorrow. They are acting as though any political gain they achieve by setting such a dangerous precedent will be a permanent gain. The problem for them is that reality has a way of asserting itself no matter how much they might want deny it, and the reality is that the same bad precedents they are setting in an effort to gain an unfair advantage on the Democrats can and very likely will be used against them in one form or another when the Democrats regain control of the House. Furthermore, the NRA’s ludicrous conspiracy theory and the outrageous attempt to destroy Mr. Holder are drawing attention to how badly we need to tighten our gun ownership laws. As Ms. Eban pointed out in her article, the reason the ATF agents could not arrest the intermediaries buying guns for the drug cartels is because prosecutors said our gun laws were so permissive they could not successfully prosecute the intermediaries. Wouldn’t it be wonderfully ironic if the NRA’s lies about the “gun walking” scandal actually accomplished what the NRA is falsely accusing President Obama of trying to do?

The Etch-a-lie Candidate

There are lies, damn lies, statistics and Romney lies. A businessman who will say or do anything to make a profit is not unusual, nor is a politician who will say or do anything to get elected. Legally we even have a category of permitted lies called puffing. Romney’s lies about starting Bain Capital and Staples are examples of political puffing or exaggeration. The problem with Romney is that he does not content himself with puffing or even spinning. What puts him in a rare category of liars is his apparent ability to convince himself that whatever he wants people to believe must be true no matter how absurd it may be. A perfect example of this is the credit he is trying to take for the survival of the U.S. Auto industry. Everyone who has studied the reemergence of the Auto industry agrees that the restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler would have failed without the funds President Obama provided for that purpose. Instead of supporting those loans, Mitt Romney wrote an op-ed in which he railed against what he called the bail outs and said, in essence, that we should let Detroit go bankrupt. What is so delusional about Romney’s contention that the policies he advocated saved the auto industry is the fact that anyone can look up the op-ed in which he advocated a laissez faire government policy that would have let GM and Chrysler die.

The more outrageous the policy or action is the more outrageous is the lie Romney uses to defend it. The Republican Party’s war on women is an example of this. Everyone who has fact checked it has labeled as a lie Mr. Romney’s statement that 92% of the jobs lost during President Obama’s term have been lost by women. The truth is that women hold a disproportionate number of the teaching, nursing, and government jobs. It is the Republican controlled House of Representatives that has and is preventing President Obama from providing the states with funds to keep teachers and other government workers on the job, and it is the Republican governors and state legislators that are making the most drastic cuts to education and local government. So in addition to the Republican Party’s attacks on Planned Parenthood, birth control, and any woman who seeks an abortion, we can also add the Republican Party’s attacks on jobs held by women. Gee, I wonder why women think the Republican Party is waging a war on them.

Trying to list all of Romney’s lies is nearly impossible. I cannot think of a single thing Romney has said about the economy or President Obama’s handling of the economy that is true, Not One Thing! President Obama did not cause the deficit. George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and two wars turned a surplus into a deficit and continue to add to the deficit to this very day. The stimulus did create jobs and the American jobs act would create even more jobs while greatly improving our roads and bridges if the Republicans would pass it. Mr. Romney obviously wants us to forget that the economy crashed under Republican rule. The job growth rate under George W. Bush was the lowest it had been since WWII, and that was before the crash. Contrary to Romney’s untruthful contention, private sector jobs have been added to the economy during each of the last 26 months. That the recovery from Bush’s recession is not progressing as quickly as it should be is due to Republican filibusters and other obstructions the Republicans in the House have been using in an effort to make President Obama fail. Mitt Romney's lies about the economy are an attempt to get the voters to blame Mr. Obama for the Republican Party's failed policies.

Pardon me for putting this in the vernacular, but Mitt Romney is a walking bag of bullshit! You need to carefully examine everything from him for the economic equivalent of E. Coli. Bear in mind that he openly supports the Ryan plan, which would further enrich the rich, add to the deficit, and prove deadly to many of our most vulnerable citizens.

Nothing To Offer

The season in which mastodon bellows at mastodon, across the primeval swamp of reactionary politics is almost over. The oligopoly is asserting its will. Although a few rogues are still holding out, the pachyderms are falling in line. That they are not exactly singing songs of joy as they fall in line is to be expected. All they have to unite them is their hatred of President Obama. In order to vilify him they have resorted to vilifying the government and disparaging the vital role government must play in an industrialized economy. They are actually arguing that this great nation can no longer afford to invest in its infrastructure, its educational system, health care, or science, even though those investments are a necessary requirement for economic growth. Since they say government as the problem they have no positive programs to offer. Many of them are even using the term “moderate” as an insult because moderates believe a government should actually govern. This has left the Republicans with no one who can sing a siren song to the mugwumps, who sit on the fence with their mugs on one side and their wumps on the other side. The problem is that the independent voters who actually decide the outcome of national elections are moderate fence sitters. This has placed the oligopoly in a difficult position. The best they have to offer is Mitt Romney. He would do away with those pesky regulations that make members of the oligopoly behave responsibly, but he is not very appealing to the voters. He is not trusted by the base of the Republican Party because he once embraced moderate policies, and he is not trusted by moderates because he had to embrace the radical policies of the nihilistic Republican base in order to win the primaries.

Nit-Mitt Romney is the quintessential representative of the one percent. He is the businessman who will say anything and do anything to sell his product. He will now try to market himself as the “new and improved” candidate. Forget this nonsense about birth control and health care, he will say. I never said I was against birth control and health care, particularly women’s health care. I love my wife, I provide her and the rest of my family with the best health care money can buy. Just because my health care law in Massachusetts mandates insurance coverage for everyone does not mean I think everyone should be forced to buy health care coverage; it is only the people in Massachusetts who deserve such a universal health care plan. I am not against industry, either. When I said I would “let Detroit go bankrupt” I was not saying I did not like cars. I own lots of cars, and I really love them. The people who say I am not sensitive about unemployment just because I am wealthy are also dead wrong. I understand the pain of losing your job. Some of my best friends were forced to resign from prestigious positions, and the millions of dollars they received as golden parachutes did not make up for the pain of having to resign. Believe me, this is no way to treat a job producer!

What the Republicans and Mitt Romney are about to find out is that Mitt Romney is who he is, and the Republican Party is what it has sadly become. There are no do overs in politics! When you constantly shake off the images on the Etch A Sketch what people will remember is the blank Etch A Sketch because they are smart enough to know that any new images you try to create are as fleeting as the ones you erased. The only way we have of assessing what kind of President Mr. Romney would be is to look at his Party. Both the radical economic policies and social policies of the Republican Party are out of step with the majority of the people of this nation. The American public wants an equitable tax system that requires the wealthy to pay their fair share. They do not want to continue enriching the rich at the expense of safety nets such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Unemployment insurance. They do not want to continue rewarding companies for exporting jobs. They want to reward the companies that are creating jobs here. They do not want a government that imposes a moral view on them that they do not share. They want insurance coverage that makes health care and birth control more affordable. They want real choices that allow them to follow their own consciences and make their own decisions, and they want a government that lives up to its responsibilities in regard to providing an economic climate that offers opportunities to all rather than just a few.

The disparity in wealth between the top two percent and everyone else is greater than it has been since the nineteen twenties. The economic policies of the Republican Party will only increase that disparity. In doing so it will destroy the engine of prosperity that was created when the rise of the middle class provided the greatest market on earth. I think the high unemployment and the decreasing wealth of the middle class at a time when the rich are getting much richer is finally beginning to make people understand that trickle down does not work. Even people who do not understand the consequences of the Republican Party’s economic policies are smart enough to reject a political party that wants to interfere with their reproductive choices. This is why the Democrats will probably win the next election by a wide margin.

Injustice For All

Most of the pundits are expressing optimism in the ability of the U. S. Supreme Court to render a fair and impartial decision in the Affordable Health Care case. Optimism is an attractive trait when it does not ignore reality. In this instance the optimism is misplaced. We now have the most politicized and unethical Supreme Court in modern history. Regardless of the outcome of this case there will always be a very understandable suspicion as to the motives of the Justices hearing it. The rules of judicial ethics require all judges to avoid even the appearance of partiality or conflicts of interest. Justices Scalia and Thomas appear to have a conflict of interest that should cause them to recuse themselves form hearing this case. I will go even further and say that the activities of both Justice Thomas and his wife create a conflict that goes beyond mere appearance. The fact that both of those injustices are hearing and helping to decide this case is a travesty. Justice Thomas should be removed from the court and Justice Scalia should be investigated. When the highest court in the land does not adhere to the most fundamental rules of ethics there can be no justice! We must remedy this situation by restoring the integrity of the court and its reputation.

Killing Trayvon Martin

The fact that this young man was killed and the circumstances of that homicide should be disturbing to all of us. I do not doubt for a moment that race was involved, but this is not strictly a racial issue. This homicide strikes at the very heart and soul of our society, our sense of justice, fairness, and basic decency. When you have the NRA and the Republican Party preying on paranoia they are inviting violence. Do we really want a society in which the fastest gun rules the streets? Do we really want laws that allow killers to escape justice by merely claiming they were defending themselves without having to offer any evidence that they were threatened? We cannot have a society in which a police officer or a private individual can act as the judge, jury, and executioner. We are either a society of just laws that protect all of us or we are not!

He Is Not Kidding

Rick Santorum does not believe the separation of church and state should be absolute. He also thinks the only legitimate form of birth control is celibacy. Now he says he would crack down on pornography. One can only imagine what he would consider pornographic. My guess is that it would be nearly everything. He wants children to be home schooled in order to protect them from sex education and science. Thinking and questioning are dangerous, don't you know? If I called him a dinosaur turd he would probably think I am admitting that dinosaurs and people wondered the earth at the same time. He is living proof that some people did not evolve.

Does Original Intent Justify Malintent?

“In order to form a more perfect union…” The union formed by the Constitution was better than the loose confederation of states under the Articles of Confederation, but it was still a union brought about by many painful compromises, some of which perpetuated egregious injustices. The original intent of the framers of our constitution is still argued and is still considered by our courts, but it is not and should not be the deciding factor. If it were the deciding factor we would still have slavery, women would still be deprived of the rights granted to male citizens, some states would still have state sanctioned churches, and many states would still restrict the right to vote to citizens who own a substantial amount of property. Our founding fathers were well aware of the fact that the union they created was imperfect and that they could not predict what future circumstances might require in regard to making the union better. They tried to remedy some of the flaws by passing the first ten amendments, but those amendments only protected citizens from the federal government. What it took to prevent the states from violating the rights guaranteed by the first ten amendments was the Civil War. When President Lincoln used the phrase “a new birth of freedom” in his Gettysburg address he was referring to the abolition of slavery, but the diminution of what many people considered state’s rights brought about a new birth of freedom that went beyond freeing the slaves. The intent of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to our constitution was to forbid the individual states from depriving citizens of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States.

It is little wonder then that they who would deprive their fellow citizens of their civil rights frequently talk about states rights as though the individual states are still sovereign entities who have merely entered into an agreement of mutual cooperation under limited circumstances. This archaic view of the union has not been true since the Civil War. Yet there are still gray areas of jurisdiction that the unscrupulous are now using to deprive people of one of the most fundamental rights of any democracy. What I am talking about here is the right to vote. Each state can set, within limits, the requirements that must be met in order to register to vote. Since the Republicans have angered senior citizens by attacking Medicare with the Ryan plan and by favoring the privatization of Social Security the Republicans want to discourage senior citizens from voting. Since the Republicans have angered the less fortunate by attacking safety nets such as unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps they also want to discourage the less fortunate from voting. Finally, because of their attacks on public education the Republicans want to discourage college students from voting. The Republicans would like to keep ethnic and racial minorities from voting as well but the amendments passed during the reconstruction era will not let them do that directly. In the states where the Republicans control the government, however, have found a way to prevent a large number of people from all of those groups from voting.

The means the Republicans are using to deprive lawful citizens of the right to vote is the new requirement to show state sanctioned, picture identification in order to register to vote. In many states the only state sanctioned identification is a driver’s license. “What do you mean you’re too old to drive? Blind, you say? So sorry, but because of budget constraints the Department of Motor Vehicles is only open on certain days and only for limited hours. Many states are also requiring a birth certificate and proof of residence over a specific time period in order to meet the residency requirements to register to vote. Forty years ago I saw documents saying the federal government would accept a notation of your birth in the family bible or church records noting your birth in lieu of a birth certificate, because it was that common for people not to have a birth certificate. A person may not have a birth certificate because birth certificates were not issued for home births, or because the place in which a person was born did not issue them for certain races, or because the place in which the certificate was stored burned down. The older and/or poorer you are the less likely it is that you will have a birth certificate or a driver’s license. What is obviously happening is that the Republicans are using state jurisdiction to suppress the vote in a manner we have not seen since the days when Jim Crow laws were in effect.

Most of the amendments and case law regarding voter suppression deal with racial or gender discrimination. Such discrimination is unconscionable but so is discrimination based on the partisan interests of a political party. If any state government is going to pass voter registration requirements that make it unduly burdensome for some of its citizens to vote that state should present irrefutable evidence that the voter fraud taking place there is so rampant it requires extreme measures to combat the fraud. No state has presented such evidence because the evidence does not exist. In fact, the history of voter suppression in this country indicates that it is a far greater problem than voter fraud. The Justice Department is now trying to combat this outrageous effort by the Republicans to suppress the voting rights of lawful citizens. Unfortunately, the Republicans have also given us the worst and most partisan Supreme Court in modern history. It is unlikely that the five injustices the Republicans appointed to the court will render the correct decision. Instead of supporting this fundamental right of all citizens those injustices will strictly interpret the case law to insist that voiding such unconscionable registration requirements requires proof of an intent to suppress the votes of Afro-Americans.

What this means is that we have to raise hell. We have to let those injustices know that such a narrow decision will mean the ruin of the Republican Party because we will vote the Republicans out of office on both the state and federal level! We must make it very clear that we will not allow the Republicans to steal elections by means of voter suppression. This attempt at voter suppression is a very real threat to our democracy. Senior citizens who have been voting for most of their adult lives had no reason to believe they would be deprived of this right, nor did the poor, nor did the college students who came from out of state but have been residing for two or three years in the state where the college they attend is located. If you doubt for one moment that voter suppression is a threat to everyone, you are fooling yourself!

Demagoguery Or Ignorance?

I do not know if Mitt Romney is simply trying to lure the wild dumb asses to his side or whether he is really this ignorant, but he has been excoriating Rick Santorum for voting to raise the debt ceiling. Hey, Nit-Mitt! Raising the debt ceiling does not increase the debt it authorizes payment of the debt that already exists. Have you now become the advocate for deadbeat nations? Would it surprise you to hear that no one wants to do business with a deadbeat nation?

Misogynistic Hypocrisy!

Leave it to Rush Limbaugh. The most cogent argument for providing affordable birth control is that some of the forms of birth control are used as a treatment for health problems. That is in fact what Sandra Fluke described so well. In ignoring her argument and launching his crude attack on her Mr. Limbaugh was not merely playing the part of a vulgar entertainer. Instead, he was trying to redefine the issue. He was saying in the crudest possible way that women should not have control over their own reproductive systems. Does this mean he thinks that sanctimonious men like Rick Santorum should be able to inflict on all of us an extreme moral code we rejected long ago? Does Mr. Limbaugh think women should be kept barefoot and pregnant? Does he expect couples to have nine kids when providing for two or three children is so difficult? It is Rush Limbaugh’s inability to see or admit the consequences of what he is advocating that makes him so dangerous. He is perfectly happy to apply the double standard by saying that single women should put an aspirin between their knees, the implication being that women who have premarital sex deserve whatever happens to them. He does not give a damn about the damage caused by such an attitude. Stirring up the right wing idiots that listen to his show is good for his ratings, and he is all about the ratings.

The problem is that Mr. Limbaugh’s listeners comprise such a large part of the Republican base that he is considered the unofficial spokesman for the Republican Party. His comments would be disturbing under any circumstances, but they are downright frightening when placed in the context of the radical social agenda the Republicans are pursuing. In states where the Republicans control the government they are passing punitive laws that punish women who seek abortions regardless of the reason for the abortion. They are doing this by requiring unnecessary ultrasounds. In some states, such as Virginia, they are trying to make the ultrasound as invasive and demeaning as possible by requiring the kind that involves a vaginal probe. In many states the Republicans are also proposing personhood laws that would outlaw the very birth control methods most frequently used to treat health problems. On the federal level the Republican controlled House of Representatives de-funded Planned Parenthood, which provides the only health care available to a large number of women. The Republicans have also joined with some Catholic Bishops to oppose the birth control provisions in what the GOP calls Obama care. The Republicans argue that an employer should be able to deny insurance coverage for anything he or she finds morally objectionable. The Republicans claim they are defending religious freedom, but Rush Limbaugh showed what this is really about when he threw that argument into the gutter. By calling Ms. Fluke a slut and a prostitute he ripped the mask off the sanctimony to reveal the misogynistic hypocrisy behind the Republican Party’s attacks on women’s rights.

This is not an issue of religious freedom. This is about the separation of church and state, the availability of health care and contraception, and the freedom to plan families and careers. This is about the Republicans trying to create a government that is far more intrusive than the big government they say they are trying to keep out of our lives. Women are as moral and smart as men are. They do not need the government or an employer to protect them from themselves. They do not need a state government forcing them to undergo unnecessary ultrasounds in order to make informed decisions about something as traumatic as an abortion. They do not need an employer depriving them of affordable birth control. I know the argument I am presenting here is not the strongest political argument, but I am not going to play the game of saying that health care is the only reason to provide affordable birth control coverage. Freedom is far too important to restrict the argument in such a manner. Religious conservatives can preach and moralize as much as they want; that is their right, and I will defend it. Like most men, I will also fight to prevent those, so called, conservatives from depriving women of the rights they have struggled so hard to obtain. This is not strictly a gender issue. This is a quality of life issue for all people. Both women and men have a lot to lose if the Republicans get their way. I am confident that the people of this nation will reject the big, intrusive government the Republicans are trying to impose upon us. Most of us thought this issue had been decided thirty or forty years ago. That we should have to fight this battle again shows just how extreme and dangerous the Republican Party has become.

The Main Ring

In the main ring of the Republican circus we are down to two clowns:

Mitt Romney, who thinks he is running for Chairman of the Board, is the odds on favorite to become temporary chairman of the bored in spite of his best efforts to salt his rhetoric with amusing gaffs.

This, however, is not the most disconcerting thing for the other clown, Rick Santorum. The most disconcerting thing for Rick Santorum is that he cannot attain the position he seeks because we do not have a national church. On the other hand, he just might be delusional enough to think he can create one!

In this theater of the absurd both clowns are telling us that things will get much better if we double down on Mr. Bush’s failed economic policies and decrease the size of the market in this country further by increasing the disparity in wealth between the one percent and everyone else. And to make this fallacious argument more attractive they are giving us straw dogs to kick. They are denying the economic progress we are making in recovering from Mr. Bush’s failed economic policies while calling Mr. Obama’s policies disastrous. They are also blaming President Obama for the high price of gasoline caused by the intransigence of Iran. The retro, pre-birth control, clown, Rick Santorum, has even added another straw dog by attributing to President Obama statements about religion that Mr. Obama did not make. I guess Mr. Santorum wants us to think that God is punishing us for having an irreverent President that only exists in Mr. Santorum’s primitive mind.

The people most amused by the straw dogs are the cite checkers who are finding such blatant lies all too easy to disprove. I would share their amusement if there were not so many people who seem to be incapable of reading or understanding the list of toxic ingredients the clowns are trying to sell us. Here are your options: You can choose a Democratic government that restricts the decisions made in the boardroom in order to prevent the oligopoly from taking unfair advantage of you or you can choose a Republican government that restricts the decisions made in the bedroom in order to prevent you from planning the size of your family. You can choose a Democratic government that wants an equitable tax system or a Republican government that takes the price of enriching the rich out of your hide by destroying earned benefits programs such as Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, and Social Security. I am not making this up. That really is what is at stake; that is the stark reality of the Republican clown show!

Are There Any Winners?

The Affordable Health Care Act is once more the center of controversy. The rule that requires all employers, including hospitals and universities owned by the Catholic Church, to provide a health insurance policy that includes coverage for contraception and birth control is being attacked on the grounds of religious freedom. This issue involves a broad interpretation of religious freedom versus a more measured interpretation of that right. I do not think anyone can seriously argue that freedom of religion is absolute. For instance, this country outlawed polygamy even though it was a part of the Mormon faith. Furthermore, although a church that thinks a woman’s place is in the home can discriminate against women in their church, they cannot violate the law by discriminating against women in a more secular setting such as a hospital or university that church owns and operates. What the Catholic Church wants is an exemption from having to provide insurance that covers contraception and birth control. The Church argues that the exemption should be granted on the grounds that the Catholic Church opposes all contraception and birth control as a matter of conscience. I do not agree with the Catholic Church on this issue, but I must concede that I understand its objection to a requirement that forces it to violate its own doctrine. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this problem, and both sides have a lot to lose.

Any controversy over contraception and birth control is particularly problematic for the Catholic Church because the vast majority of American Catholics use contraceptives and/or other forms of birth control. In a recent poll fifty-three percent of the Catholics asked said they even agree with the government on this issue of insurance coverage. Fifty three percent, however, still leaves a lot of people who disagree with the position the Obama administration has taken. This is understandable. Catholics are very aware of the history of prejudice against them and their church in this country. Like most people who have faced prejudice and discrimination, Catholics are sensitive to anything that might make them think that they or their church are being treated unfairly. This is probably why President Obama has softened his position on this issue. He is now trying to address the objections of the Catholic Church by requiring insurance companies to cover contraception and birth control at no cost to Catholic hospitals and universities.

As difficult as this dispute is for the Catholic Church and the Obama administration the Republican Party will probably suffer the most damage from it. This is because the Republicans have shown a callous disregard for the health and rights of women. The Republican controlled House of Representatives withdrew the government funding of Planned Parenthood on the grounds that Planned Parenthood provides abortions. The Republicans did this even though Planned Parenthood provides cancer screening and contraceptives and does not use any government funds to provide abortions. On the state level what the Republicans have been doing is just as bad. Not being content with violating Roe v. Wade by making abortions unavailable in their states, radical Republican governors and legislators have also been attacking many forms of birth control and the Planned Parenthood organization. That right wing Republicans would go this far is no surprise. What is a surprise is that women have not mounted an organized defense of their health care and their reproductive rights. For several years now I have been asking what it was going to take before women started fighting back. What it has taken is an incredibly stupid and political act by the Susan Komen Foundation. The Komen foundation used a bogus investigation of Planned Parenthood being conducted by a radical Republican congressman as a pretext for withdrawing its funding of Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening program. This time women quickly and effectively responded to the threat, and the Komen Foundation was forced to reinstate the funding.

The way in which women responded to the threat of the Komen Foundation should have put the Republicans on notice; it should have told the Republicans that women have had enough and they are ready to a fight. The Republican Presidential candidates, however, are still trying to win the primaries and they are still pandering to the religious right wing of their party. All of those candidates jumped into the argument between the Catholic Church and the Obama Administration. By accusing President Obama of violating the First Amendment right of freedom of religion those candidates have simply reminded women that the Republican Party is trying to deprive women of their reproductive rights and the health care so many women cannot obtain without affordable insurance coverage or the help of organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

The best thing the Republicans could have done would have been to let the controversy over the Affordable Health Care Act speak for itself, but this is something they did not feel they could do. The Republican Party is in a bit of a quandary. As it now stands, Republicans do not have a viable economic argument. The economy is improving in spite of all their obstructionist tactics, and the tax breaks for the rich that the Republicans are advocating are unpopular because of the great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation and because those tax breaks would come at the expense of Medicaid, Medicare, and probably Social Security. This leaves the Republicans scrambling for some other issue to use against President Obama in the upcoming election. I am sure the Republicans are hoping they can pick up some Catholic voters by painting Mr. Obama as being anti-religious. I do not think this will work. In all likelihood, President Obama’s reasonable efforts to resolve the issue between church and state will satisfy the Catholics who are already Democrats. What the Republicans are doing by trampling on women’s rights and health care, on the other hand, is going to alienate most of the women in the cities and suburbs regardless of the religious affiliations of those women. Ironically, this controversy will also make many people aware of some of the benefits of the Affordable Health Care Act, and that awareness will probably make those people view the act more favorably.

I have just finished reading a news story that said American Bishops have rejected President Obama’s compromise. It would be foolish of me to offer spiritual advice to Catholics on this issue. What I offer instead is my hope. I hope Catholics will not see this dispute as an attack on their church, that they will understand that the intent is simply to make contraceptives and birth control available to all women who desire them, and that Catholics will not abandon their church or the Democratic Party over this issue. I think most people realize that everybody will be worse off if the Catholic Church or the Democratic Party are damaged because of this, and I have enough faith in my fellow Americans to believe they will not let either of those things happen.

Mr. One Percent

The empty suit that is Mitt Romney is currently being filled by the poster boy for the one percent and that poster boy is also Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is a venture capitalist. Venture capitalists have one goal that is first, foremost and always. They strive to make as much money as possible. If they can reap huge profits by building successful, productive companies they will do that. If they can maximize their profits by destroying businesses, laying off all of the employees, and leaving gullible shareholder with an empty shell they will do that. It is a bit like a scene from the Godfather where one gangster turns to another and says: “Sorry, but I’m going to kill you. There’s nothing personal about it. It’s just business!” Well, it is certainly personal to the man who is being killed, and it is certainly personal to the people who are losing the means to provide for their families. But that is just the way it is. It is just business. Only the strong survive. Unfortunately, this business ethic carries over into Mr. Romney’s politics. He will say anything and do anything to gain power, and he will use that power to maximize the wealth of the wealthy.

Mitt Romney is not just tone deaf he is clueless. He lacks the empathy to understand the struggles of the majority of the people of this nation. As a venture capitalist he only pays around fifteen percent of his income in taxes, and he wants to reduce that amount. He tries to justify that by saying venture capitalists provide jobs, and he does this knowing full well that those businessmen will continue to maximize their profits in any way they can regardless of what the tax rate might be. To him ten thousand dollars is mere chump change. He cannot understand why people might think that challenging Rick Perry to a ten thousand dollar bet is a shameless flaunting of his wealth. He cannot understand why people think that a man who says that nearly four hundred thousand dollars is a small amount can and should share a greater percentage of the tax burden.

It is easy to see why Mitt Romney wants to shift a greater share of the burden of paying for our government off onto the middle class and the poor. He honestly thinks the federal deficit is more of a problem than high unemployment. Yes, I know he is saying that Mr. Obama has failed to create jobs, and that he, Mr. Romney, would create jobs, but that is just a lie. It is another case of Mr. Romney saying what he thinks he must say to get elected. The truth is that President Obama’s policies have created jobs, and more jobs would be created if Republicans such as Mr. Romney would pass the American Jobs Act. Instead of supporting reasonable attempts to correct the real problem, however, Mr. Romney wants to make the failed policies of George W. Bush even worse. In spite of the great disparity in the distribution of the wealth of this nation, he wants to lower the tax rate on the rich and cut all of the safety nets the government provides. He was reluctant to embrace the Ryan plan because the destruction of Medicare and the steep cuts in taxes on corporations and the wealthy are too obvious. He knew the Ryan plan could hurt his chances in a general election. Yet he did endorse the Ryan plan to win the Republican Primaries. Furthermore, his own proposals are just as bad as the Ryan Plan. In order to accomplish the drastic cuts in government spending he is proposing he would have to drastically reduce the benefits of the earned benefits programs such as social security and Medicare as well as greatly reducing other government services.

Slashing government spending rather than making the rich pay their fair share of the taxes makes perfect sense in Mitt Romney’s world, even though it is painfully obvious that the trickle down theory has never and will never work. For people such as Mr. Romney it is not about jobs or people or even the production of goods. Mr. Romney is a businessman, and it is all about profits. There is nothing personal about it. The rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer. That is just the way it is. If the death of the middle class destroys the U.S. market so be it. Other markets will emerge in other nations. That might be the way to run a business but it is no way to run a country!