What is Willard Hiding?

Another interesting revelation about Willard’s non-revelations came to light this week.  Romney saw to it that the American public is unable to examine his tenure running the Olympic games with any particularity in order to evaluate his capabilities in running a large organization.  The reason this cannot be done is simple.  The documents  generated by his activities concerning the Olympics have been destroyed.  Does this sound familiar?  Have we heard this tune before?  Why in the world would these documents be destroyed?  What is the man hiding?  When Willard left his job as governor of Massachusetts every document, every computer, every e-mail was destroyed.  Why were these documents and e-mails destroyed?  What about his activities as governor of Massachusetts is the man hiding?  As a presidential candidate, Willard’s refuses to release his income tax returns so that his candidacy can be evaluated.  The brief glimpse of one year raises some questions about his commitment to America as he’s shipped millions of dollars in various foreign bank accounts generally used by tax evaders and thieves.  His IRA is worth $106 million dollars when by law the contributions to such a device is limited to $6000 per annum.  How did he do that?  There may be perfectly valid reasons for so doing, but if there is, Willard ain’t telling.  The question is why not?  What does he have to hide in this go-round?  Then, there’s the vagueness of his campaign policies and principles.  He is heavy on the criticism of Obama, but offers nothing of substance as to what he would do differently, except for lowering taxes on the very rich.  What do we really know about the man, his policies, his thinking?   I guess what one needs to do is  read the Tea Party Manifesto, if there is one, to understand  Willard’s opinions.  In that regard he is like a puppet on a string, dancing along with whatever far right thinking emerges from the Tea Party. 

As Maureen Dowd said in today’s New York Times, “So far, Mitt’s casting a shadowy silhouette, hiding his fortune in foreign tax havens, hiding tax returns, destroying and hiding records as head of the Olympics and as governor, hiding a specific sense of where he would take the country.  Americans don’t want to play hide-and-seek with their presidential candidates. Romney should listen to himself: The time for stonewalling is over.”

Just saying . . .

It Is About the Economy

Willard Romney makes a good point.  This upcoming presidential election is about the economy.  His constant hammering of the subject caused me to wonder just how well the economy has done since President Obama took over on Jan 21, 2009.  I Googled that date for information on the stock market, one of the best indicators of the state of our country’s economic health.  Stockwatch.com describes the level of the market on that date;

“The Dow Jones closed below 8000 for only the second time since this level was broken back in October. This is a break down and is viewed as bearish. There are two support levels worth watching, 7773.71 and 7449.38. 8000 has been a huge support level and I wouldn't be surprised to see us bounce around this level for several days or weeks for that matter.  . . . As long as we stay below 8500, I continue to be bearish on the overall stock market and stocks in general.”

Yesterday, the Dow Jones closed at 12,943.36 (source; my I-phone app).  Let me do the math (counting on fingers and toes . . .) the Dow Jones this morning is 4943 points higher than when Obama took office as president, nearly 40% higher!  When I head out to the golf course to play with my buddies today, I’m going to tell them I don’t want to talk about politics.  I want to talk about my tax returns which reflect an average increase in income the last three years in excess of twelve per cent per year.

Just Saying . . .

Reasons to Support Obama

A good friend has responded to my Mitt v Mitt blog by asking me the following questions.  "Can you give me a few reasons to support Obama in the election? Other then being an advocate of class warfare what has he accomplished? Do we really need 4 more years of a no growth economy?"  This is my response:

An issue of trust; that’s exactly what the major issue regarding who our next president is about.  As a voter, with a tendency to be liberal when it comes to individual rights and conservative when it comes to government spending, I am looking for the person I can trust. During the campaign Romney has proven he will do or say anything  to get elected.   I don’t trust him.  I think its best to start and mention the things I don’t like about Obama and his policies.  I don’t like the way he negotiates with the Republicans.   One of the principles of effective negotiating is the art of never starting at where you want to end, i.e. one should. instead, aim to reach the goal  by incremental concessions.  Obama doesn’t do that.  He stated early in his presidency that he was in favor of tort reform in medical malpractice cases.  It is my opinion that the most effective check on the way physicians and other health care professionals manage our health care is the threat of being held accountable for their misdeeds in a public forum.  There is a lot of malpractice going on out in the field.  The AMA estimates that more than 100,000 people a year die from acts of malpractice.  Let me remind my friends who are so adamant about their right to bear arms as guaranteed by the 2^nd Amendment to our Constitution that we also have a 7^th Amendment to the very same document which guarantees us all a right to trial by jury in civil matters.  Now, let me get to the main issue;  what do I like that Obama has done that deserves his re-election?  Let’s start at the beginning.  Obama came into office inheriting the Bush administration’s record of war, debt, spending, and torture and it is the progress away from that dismal period of our country’s history that I think he should be judged.  It is a fact that Obama has delivered magnificently in several key arenas;.

The Economy:  When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s and there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system.  In that time frame, he continued the bank bailout begun by Bush, initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion, which by all measures is credited with preventing a depression worse than the 1930s.  As the stimulus took effect, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs, more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created.  One of the important and real contributions made by the Tea Party was to sensitize the country, including our politicians to the size of government.  In the public sector, there are now 607,000 fewer people working than there were when President Obama took office.   Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.)

Taxes and Spending:  Contrary to Republican rhetoric, i.e. Obama is not a socialist who has raised taxes.  A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has also cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion.

Obamacare:  The Affordable Health Care Act was an idea pioneered by the archconservative Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich, and Mitt Romney and is much more moderate than its critics claim. The Congressional Budget Office has projected it will reduce the deficit significantly over the nest ten years.   The plan needs improvement and the administration is open to further reform.  It has agreed to allow states to experiment in different ways to achieve the same result.  Since federal law mandates that hospitals accept all emergency-room cases requiring treatment, the requirement that 44 million current ‘free-riders’ (Republican phrase, not mine) pay into the system is not socialism, but fiscally prudent. It is conservative thinking. 

Summary and Miscellaneous Achievements:   A depression was averted, the bail-out of the auto industry was successful and the bank bailouts have been repaid to a great extent by the recovering banking sector. The Iraq War has been ended on time with Afghanistan being next in line.  As a person with more than a passing interest in the science of intra-uterine development, I have familiarized myself thoroughly with the impact of various hormones in that time period on gender identification.  As I result, I believe that most persons of homosexual orientation were born that way and should be treated as equals, not as sinners of immoral conduct, as a rather large subset of the wonderful scope of human diversity.  Under Obama, gays now openly serve in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act is dying in the courts, undefended by the Obama Justice Department. I believe that global warming, human-caused, is not a myth.  I believe that eventually, carbon-based fuel supplies will be exhausted and to ignore this fact is to doom our children and grandchildren to drastic changes in their lives in ways that are unimaginable today.   Under Obama, vast government money has been poured into noncarbon energy investments and fuel-emission standards have been drastically increased.  Then, there are others important issues; Torture was ended, two moderately liberal women replaced men on the Supreme Court.  Politifact recently noted that of 508 specific promises made by Obama at the outset of his first term, a third had been fulfilled and only two have not had some action taken on them. To have done all this while simultaneously battling both the Republican party (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s has admitted that his primary objective is denying Obama a second term) and an economic situation bordering on disaster is about as much as anyone can expect.  Obama at all times has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure and has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, without a single significant scandal to his name. 

Finally, I like the guy.  I respect him.  I don’t respect Romney for failing to man up and take the credit (and responsibility) for Obamacare.  The funny part of this latter observation is that he probably would have gained more votes from independents like me if he had done so.

Just saying . . .

Mitt v Mitt

The blog today is short and sweet. It features a four minute video highlighting some of the problems that Mitt faces in his quest for ascendency to the presidency.  Keep in mind that this is being presented the same week that his claim that he did nothing upon behalf of Bain after 1999 is contradicted by a 2002 written disclosure to the state of Massachusetts that he was currently an executive (CEO, President) of Bain Capital and his sworn testimony in 2002 that he was attending frequent board meetings in person and by phone of various Bain entities.  In earlier blogs I have presented solid evidence to question the man’s character and integrity, but now the ability to be truthful must be added to the list.  Take the time and watch this: 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9njHHyRI7g

Just saying . . 

The Right to Arms (and Life)

I was thinking about our Bill of Rights a couple of times yesterday, particularly the Second Amendment which allows us to bear arms (i.e. weapons, pistols, rifles, shotguns, assault rifles, etc.), .  I thought about it when I read about the woman who hugged a policeman and was killed when his revolver accidentally discharged.  I thought about it a second time when I read that a federal judge in Florida tossed out another provision of the new Florida gun statute (yes, the same statute receiving so much publicity recently when George Zimmerman, the self-authenticated watch dog, stalked a young black man and shot him to death).  The provision rejected by the federal judge made it a crime in Florida for a doctor to ask a patient about gun ownership.  I am not making this stuff up.  That’s what the law really said.  A doctor couldn’t have a conversation about gun ownership because, apparently, it might lead to a suggestion that the guns might be stored safely in order to prevent harm to a child.   I would guess that the Florida legislature is probably considering a new law making it illegal to use a cautionery “Drive safely’ to friends, family, children when they are going on a long trip.  Nobody,particularly our government, should tell us what to do is the apparent motif of the politicians in that state. 

This insanity prevails in Michigan as well.  The Michigan legislature has recently passed a law no longer requiring mandatory protective headgear for motorcyclists, and I understand that the deaths in the first three months since its passage are three times greater in the helmetless, but free, group than those smart enough to protect themselves.  A proposed bill under consideration by the Michigan State legislature would change the current law that prohibits people with concealed weapons permits to carry their hand guns in churches, bars, schools, sports arenas, etc. When I go to my church, the tendency is to hug a lot and hugging is not necessarily just among friends, but strangers who happen to be sitting nearby.  We’re all there for the same purpose, right?  I ask myself, what if this stranger is carrying a firearm?  What if his only purpose in attending my church is to show others that he has a weapon and can wear it in church?  What happens if, like the unfortunate lady yesterday, that firearm discharges while he is being hugged by a fellow worshipper?  Then, there’s the combination of alcohol and guns.  Do we really want to be around an angry person with a gun who is drinking heavily at a bar?  How about a sporting event where the kid is sitting on the bench because he is not as good a player as the kid out in the field?    Is it a solution to take the weapon to the event to have a little talk with the coach to guarantee some playing time?  How about a nice little chat with the teacher who gave your kid a bad grade?  It would seem to guarantee a better grade if the teacher noticed the gun sticking into your belt.  If you think that’s a good idea, please don’t visit the schools where my grandchildren are students.  But you can do something. A petition drive to prevent this bill from going into law is being led by Rev. Eric A. Stone – pastor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Essexville, MI.   You can sign the petition and forward it to all of your friends as well.  

http://signon.org/sign/keep-gun-free-zones-in source=s.em.cr&r_by=4727464&mailing_id=4942.  

Opposing Views Sharpen Thinking Skills

I received the following e-mail this morning from a good friend who is at odds with me on political views.  I regularly inundate him with my views from my blog and he (good naturedly, I might add) doesn’t hesitate to present me with his as well.  I think it is a good time to mention this, because from time to time in the past, I have had readers of my blog get upset when the topics generate some viewpoints that others don’t want to hear or read.   During the last presidential election, I had one good friend who asked to be dropped from my blog list because in his view he thought I was sounding too much like Keith Olbermann.  From my viewpoint, I think dialogue between and among people of opposing views is essential to develop the critical thinking skills to make intelligent decisions about, among other things, who should guide our country as president.  It is within this spirit that I pass on a portion of today’s e-mail. 

Tom, I thought you might enjoy this and could possibly pass it on to the others who receive your blog.

CAN THE USA SURVIVE GIVEN THE FOLLOWING?

The folks who are getting free stuff, don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

The folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop, and the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!

Now... The people who are forcing the people to pay for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.

So... The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff, and giving them the free stuff in the first place.

We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.

Now understand this. All great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years after being founded. The reason? The voters figured out they could vote themselves money from the treasury by electing people who promised to give them money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.

Thomas Jefferson said it best: "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

The United States officially became a Democracy in 1776, 235 years ago.

The number of people now getting free stuff outnumbers the people paying for the free stuff.

We have one chance to change that On Nov 6th, 2012. Failure to change that spells the end of the United States as we know it.

My comment on the above:

My initial thought on reading the above was “Wow, did Jefferson really say that?”   The concerns about ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ are legitimate in the above ‘essay.”  Several questions are unanswered for me.  Am I (having paid into social security at substantial rates for more than 45 years) now considered to be one of the ‘have nots’ getting the free stuff?  Are the children receiving a Head Start benefits the free stuffers?  How about college kids receiving loans to obtain an advanced education? Or are we talking about millionaire farmers still being paid millions of dollars not to grow stuff?   About the Jefferson quote I did some homework and found out the following:

When widely syndicated columnist Cal Thomas posted a commentary on his website (1/15/09) opposing federal bailouts, he cited the same ‘quote’ from Thomas Jefferson to bolster his argument:

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas described this as “ancient wisdom,” which, he said, “is almost always better than what people come up with today. Consider that it became ancient because it was wise.”

But consulting The Works of Thomas Jefferson available in full at the Online Liberty Library, as well as the Library of Congress’ online Jefferson site, Ed Darrel of Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub (2/1/09) could find no evidence authenticating this quote.  As Darrel, whose website targets historical falsehood, observed, “Jefferson seem[ed] oddly prescient in th[is] quote, and, also oddly, rather endorsing the views of the right wing.”

The quotes could not be authenticated on the Jefferson Library website (www.monticello.org) either, which includes the quote in Thomas’ column in its list of frequently cited “Spurious Quotations.”

The quote can not be verified in the Jefferson Cyclopedia database at the University of Virginia.

Just Saying . . .

Running in Circles

Can Romney lead this country in any direction except in circles?  I had an epiphany this morning as it finally dawned on me what Romney’s pattern of campaign behavior resembles.  I was walking through a near-by neighborhood when I saw a young dog chasing its tail.  I stood and watched it for a moment and felt an eerie familiarity percolate in my brain.  I started laughing when I realized that it was exactly how Romney is running his campaign.  He is struggling mightily and continuously to avoid running in circles. A definition of full circle is to return to an earlier or first position or situation after leaving it.  Today’s struggle is the observation that former governor, who set up a healthcare system in Massachusetts — the best of its kind in the country — is now trying to pretend he doesn’t remember how it works.  As reported today in the New York Times, “On Monday, his campaign said Romney believed the identical requirement in President Obama’s health care law was a penalty, paid through the tax system. Two days later, Romney rushed to the cameras to contradict the campaign and insist the mandate was a tax.”   

There are two aspects of my morning observation that are pertinent to this discussion; one humorous, the other troublesome.  The humorous aspect we all get.  Who cannot be amused at the spectacle of a grown man dodging and weaving his way around issues and positions struggling mightily to keep from returning (full circle) to places where he has been in the past?  The other, more ominous, is that the man will do anything to appease the right wing of his party even if, in so doing, he makes a fool of himself publicly for reversing and going in the opposite direction of where his initial impulses and common sense reactions might take him.   I think the American public wants more from a leader than someone who will disagree with his opponent and his former self just to garner votes.  How about demonstrating some character and integrity instead?

Just saying . . .