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Just look at North Carolina. In 2010 both houses went Republican. But they still had a Democratic Governor to keep them in check. That check was erased last November. Today with a Republican Governor, and super-majorities in both houses, North Carolina is a model for what would have happened if Romney had won the Presidency and the Senate become Republican…. Unchecked power. Basically a Tea Party’s wish list…..
So far, these changes have already done in North Carolina…..
A. Parents and families seeking Federal Assistance must first take a drug test, which they must first pay costing $100. That money is then used to help fund the benefits for those… who passed….
B. Passed a bill requiring photo identification at the polls.
C. Personal and Corporate Tax Cuts
D. Restrictions on Abortion
E. Cuts to Education Funding
F. Increasing out-of-state tuition for state schools.
G. Ending the public funding of Judicial elections.
H Devastating rollbacks of environmental legislation
I. Blocked the expansion of Medicaid under Obama’s Health Care Act.
This has happened in a few short months. The bills are instantly brought up for a vote, discussion is waived, and the vote is taken… It is always partisan with those representing good government, always losing.
This is what the rest of the nation avoided this past November…
It probably hit mass culture with Star Wars. Where, when in a pickle, one made some adjustments to a computer, pushed a button, and one was suddenly in another part of the universe.
Then came the TV show Quantum Leap in the 80’s, where after a certain feat had been changed, one jumped through space and time into a new body, to begin a new episode the following week. Remember Ziggy?
I was reading one of my earlier pieces that for some random reason yesterday had caught a flicker of interest, and back then I had used that concept, that of “jumping”, to explain why America was finally settling on Obama as their candidate of choice….
America had been milling around in stagnation and needed a “jump” to move us forward. Clinton and McCain could not engineer that, I proposed and that is why we needed someone new, to “make the jump” forward.
That was written during the campaign of 2008. This summer will be 5 years hence.
America still needs to make that jump.
But just as we almost get there, Republicans sabotage it by pulling the computer’s plug…
Now you reading this may be a Republican but please don’t take offense. You are actually a big part of the solution which you will see, if you read through to the end.
Let’s look at a few things.
- Starting in the 80’s the Middle Class has consistently been losing ground against the top 1%. Now the Middle Class has spent their retirement savings just to pay normal expenses , and we are still heading downward.
- Immigration reform was supposed to be completed and done in Reagan’s time. Thirty years ago. We are just getting serious now.
- Our interstate system is 50 years old. We haven’t reinvested adequately. 11,000 bridges are held up by paint, and could drop out from under us at any moment.
- Our tax system is still after 30 years, in disarray. The wealthy get breaks, the poor get pissed on.
- Our Social Security and Medicare Programs are going bankrupt. They were also supposedly permanently fixed in Reagan’s term, again 30 years ago.
- We have been at the mercy of oil speculators for the past 13 years. We still are. What did you pay today?
- Capital investment in America is at an all time low, yet the wealthy have parked $13 trillion in savings. Why no investment?
So America, why are we still stuck in the 1980’s?
Republicans. That is why. Conservatives.
That sounds so simple that one must wonder why we haven’t moved them out of the way?
And that answer, is because for some crazy reason, we keep changing the rules to let them play longer. Citizen’s versus United is just one case in point. Allowing one person to fund a candidacy opposing the people’s true choice, obfuscates the entire playing field, and in the fog, makes the minority appear to have far more clout than is endowed to it by the American people.
Voting tallies prove that we have had over the past 24 years, 5 popular vote victories for Democrat presidents, and just 1 for Republicans, and to be fair, that was to a wartime president who barely got re-elected into office. Voting totals are the only non-spin, the only unobfuscated time we ever get to see how America truly feels.
The majority of America want us to jump forward. They are tired after thirty years of nothing.
Right now, Republicans have killed the America dream. College grads do not see them using their knowledge in their future jobs. Retirees see their golden year’s savings swallowed up by profits of gigantic medical corporations. Everyone is making tremendous amount of money, except 99% of the American people.
The majority want to jump forward. Yet it is always Republicans holding us back.
Holding us back on Immigration Reform. Holding us back on higher revenue. Holding us back on budget cuts. Holding us back on health care reform. Holding us back on Chuck Hagel’s nomination….
It is just stupid.. It is done simply to achieve drama, and is only done for dramatic effect; it still is just a stupid waste of time and your money. It is as if Republican behavior was patterned after that of a six year old child who drags his feet before going to school. That child knows he has to go there eventually, but he whines, supines, and acts recalcitrant, just to get attention…. maybe make someone feel “sorry’ for them… Boo hoo.
America is playing the role of the parent to these recalcitrant Republicans and is damn tired of it.
One simply has to look at today’s looming sequestration, which is strictly a problem Republicans created and brought down upon all of us, and across this great nation, Americans shake their heads in unison, remembering that if a Republicans had never been elected President in the year 2000, by 2008 and Obama’s election, our national debt was on track to have hit zero… Yes, Democrats would have paid off the entire National Debt by 2008, if we had never had George W. Bush slip into office.
And now, we preparing to slash $86 billion over the next 9 months. Then do the same over the next 12 years…
Under the Budget Control Act by 2021 discretionary spending will be at 5.5% of GDP which is its lowest level of GDP since 1931. (We all know what happened in 1932!) And we propose to cut it lower?
Yet we have $13 trillion in savings owned by the top 1%. $86 billion of $13 Trillion is…. 0.7th of one single percent. If you increased taxes on the wealthy by only one penny per every dollar over $1 million, we would have yearly budget surplus... just like that. One penny per dollar over $1 million. That one penny would even give us an additional 0.3 of one percent extra which could be applied to lowering the deficit… Unbelievably easy…. If you own trillions, who is going to miss a penny?
But we can’t do it for one single roadblock. Republicans won’t raise taxes.
America needs to “make a jump”…… and we need to make that jump now.
If this were Hollywood or a television drama, Captain America would pull out his sidearm, kill the insubordinate (spy) officer, and ask his attache to step into his position. We would then, finally be able to save our ship.
Americans could then dream again about prosperity. There is only one reason we don’t still have it today.
The number is staggering. $15 million to Newt Gingrich, $70 million to official Republican entities, and reportedly $65 million to dark shady political shell organizations. All, being thrown up against the current President, the man who won.
Rumors floated up that this was in support of Netanyahu and the side of Israel that invests in settlements. It appears that Romney’s fervant support of Netanyahu was the result of his ties with this man… Not long after their first $10 million meeting, Romney restated his support for one of Adelson’s top priorities — his fervent backing of Israel’s conservative government and his opposition to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Romney’s first foreign trip after his meeting with Adelson included a late July visit to Israel, which included a Jerusalem fundraiser that Adelson famously attended.
However other fundraisers are now saying differently…
Adelson is reportedly to have said he planned to spend about $100 million or “as much as it takes” to defeat Obama and help Republicans in Congressional races. Adelson’s personal wealth has been pegged at $20.5 billion by Forbes, making him one of the world’s richest men and enabling him to open his checkbook wide without worrying much about his bottom line…..
During the election, Adelson told Politico that the Justice Department investigation, and the way he felt treated by prosecutors, was a primary motivation for his investment in Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and other GOP candidates…
In dark money he shelled out:
40 million to Karl Rove’s Crossroads.
15 million to a grassroots foundation run by the Koch Brothers.
5 million to the US Chamber of Commerce.
6.5 million to the Republican Jewish Coalition. (close to 100% of its entire funding.
It was a disappointing election for Adelson. His nemasis whooped him bad.
In SuperPac money Adelson gave $5 million to Boehner, and $5 million to Cantor and his allies. Which is why, he was in Washington today, meeting with Congressional Republicans to devise methods to disrupt any new tax on his estate… The Sands.
The primary reason for the meeting, is he wants these charges dropped. The Justice Department investigation, and the way he felt treated by prosecutors, was a primary motivation for his investment into the campaign of the Republican presidential nominee. Federal officials are looking into potential money laundering by two shady high rollers at his Las Vegas casinos.
The money laundering investigation, led by the U.S. attorney for Los Angeles, is probing whether the casino broke the law by failing to report to the government millions of dollars of potentially laundered funds that two gamblers transferred to its casinos. (Tax evasion: the same thing that brought down Al Capone.)
One of the two gamblers, Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, is being probed about over $100 million of his transactions through the casinos. Separately, he was arrested in 2009 and pleaded guilty to accepting illegal kickbacks in his job as an executive with Fry’s Electronics in California. He is now serving a six-year jail term.
The other big gambler in the probe is Zhenil Ye Gon, a Chinese-born Mexican-based businessman, who reportedly transferred $85 million to Sands casinos several years ago. Ye Gon was indicted in 2007 for dealing in illegal drugs, but the charges were dismissed in 2009.
So the largess of Sheldon Adelson’s giving experienced the Republican party, was part of the $185 million in laundered money it got from these two people, leaving a cool $35 million in profit. Seen this way, it didn’t cost Sheldon a thing.
Another inquiry by Justice and the SEC has been under way for about two years. It involves allegations that Adelson’s lucrative casinos on the Chinese island of Macau may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by paying bribes to Chinese officials to expand its operations there.
Bribing the Chinese was a smart deal, if only the SEC and Justice Department hadn’t been so “hung up” on
regulations… (Can anyone else here a Romney campaign line here?) $700,000 went to a local attorney, Leonel Alves, who was hired by the Sands Chinese subsidiary while he was a government legislator in Macau. The lion’s share of Sands’ corporate revenues now come from Macau. That $700,000 bribe now yields a return of $326 million this past quarter…. As a business proposition, it made very good sense. Unfortunately there is one of those ridiculous regulations that hog-tie real business people called Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Republicans would simply look the other way as long as they were on the receiving end of millions. Obama’s Justice Department? Well, not so fast.
Hence the determination to throw money away on the flimsiest chance that doing so could defeat him.
Of the billion dollars spent in this past election, 15% of that came from one man. Now, I believe in America, a man should spend his money how he wishers. Had he chosen to give this to fight Breast Cancer, we would all hold him in high esteem…
And the law is so broad, after Citizen’s United, that it appears he violated no rules, no regulations, and all his giving to Republicans was legal and completely within the law….
Seen from hindsight, obviously his influence impacts candidates. Karl Rove was in his box during his election night meltdown. Some fundraisers are pointing fingers at Karl Rove for advising Sheldon not to invest in “their” dark money organization, simply leaving competing interests for Rove, out in the cold. Newt Gingrich out of nowhere came out with an uncharacteristically backing of Israel during the primary. We now know why. Netanyahu figured prominently in the third debate, far more than his importance warrants. We now know why. Republicans against their parties own self interest, are risking losing any loyality with the American middle class over their intransigence not to raise taxes a teeny bit upon the wealthy. We now know why….
Simply put, if you can’t get elected without the help of one man…. and that one man is in your office telling you what you should be doing, you are going to listen to him…
The losers of this method of campaign financing are the American people. In this battle between the wealthy and everyone else, the Republicans are siding with the wealthy for their own self interest…. and their political survival is a pretty darn big self interest. Which means the rest of us are only getting one option to choose from. One party rule will again dominate America, as long as dark money is allowed into politics and there are no caps on one person’s influence.. And that party… will be the one representing the 98%….. and any party, without being repeatedly challenged, inevitably becomes soft and corrupt.
Until soft money becomes dried up, we will continue to have Sheldon Adelson types dropping into Washington with open checkbooks, and the rest of us will suffer these childish posturing battles between Sheldon Adelson supporters, and the rest of America. More grandstanding is guaranteed to be forthcoming by the Republicans….
I’ll bet you $150 million on it….
This just in from CNN… There is a lot of polling that is showing a large segment of Republicans do not trust Romney.. From October 21, here is what CNN found out….
- Romney’s economic plan has 59 points. Cain’s had 3.
- Many Republican voters don’t like him, trust him or relate to him. It’s the same thing that plagued the former Massachusetts governor in the 2008 election.
- It’s not that he is not conservative; it is that they don’t think he’s sufficiently anything.
- Romney’s character in the debates was accused — by one after another — of being inconsistent, dishonest and untrustworthy.
- Romney deceptively “mixes apples and oranges”
- Accusation that opponents direct at Romney? — that he misleads.
- Romney is accused of “huffing and puffing” over very little tiny things or over things he frequently does himself…
- Republicans feel “”It’s time for you to tell the truth, Mitt.” One Republican ad against him, called him … “Mitt-leading.”
- Gingrich: Romney needs taught a lesson: Don’t exaggerate the facts.
- Republicans are fed up with his tendency to shade the truth. Romney excels at it.
- Look at the Las Vegas debate again and read the body language. It’s clear that Romney’s opponents would not buy a used car from this man. CNN
- Romney tries to look presidential; the message sent by some of his opponents this week was simple and direct: buyer beware.
- Romney is the worst kind of politician, the kind who will say anything and pretend to be anything to get elected.(Remember, this is the same view held by many Republicans, from conservative radio talk show hosts to members of the tea party, of the current occupant of the White House)
- His net worth is over $200 million from his multitude of investments. If elected he’d be the richest president in history.
- His wealth is scattered in so many different bank accounts scattered around the globe in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
- His five sons have a trust fund worth over $100 million. The Romney family has paid no taxes on that $100 million – not one cent in gift or estate taxes – for the past decade by taking advantage of loopholes.
- His old company, Bain Capital, is known on Wall Street for perfecting the art of the “leveraged buyout..
- Under Bain’s stewardship, companies like American Pad and Paper, GS Industries, Dade international closed plants and let go hundreds of the worker. Bain investors made hundreds of millions from these deals.
- When Romney was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in terms of job creation.
- Romney personifies an unattractive side of the elite 1%. In short, they are able to avoid tax rates that apply to the 99%.
- The richest 400 Americans have more money than the bottom 150 million… combined. That means the top 1% controls 25% of the total income in this county.
- Romney’s comments bring to mind a Spanish proverb that says even the foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wisdom.
- Romney’s continued insensitivity on issues of wealth and privilege contribute to an image of an out-of-touch plutocrat who is insensitive to the economic pain being felt by the average American.
- His dubious claim that he knows what it is like to be unemployed.
- “I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama,” said Barbara Doherty,..
- So according to CNN, and Fox News, these are most of the reasons why Republicans don’t trust Romney….
- It is surprising that they still hold true.
So why is he the contender and neck and neck in the polls? Simple… The $1 billion in dark money has no other candidate with which to stop Obama….Obama will do aways with the Bush Tax Cuts and $1 billion of dark money doesn’t like that. The true real deep down dark contest is between $1 billion dollars of dark money and Obama… not Romney versus Obama….
The Salt Lake Tribune article quoted in the post below, puts their finger directly on the problem.
We don’t know which Mitt Romney will show up!
When he’s with Tea Partiers, his policy bends to the Tea Party.
When he’s with corporate moneybags, his policy bends to their needs.
When he’s courting a liberal audience on the debates, his policy bends to liberalism.
There appears to be an urgent need to please. A psychological urge to say the right things, and avoid confrontation whenever possible.
Tonight, he sat with the President.
He said fourteen times: I agree with the president, then goes on to repeat verbatim what Obama just said. Because he was repeating Obama, even I found some of what he said was agreeable, presidential, and the correct assessment. It appears that in foreign relations, we will not have any “daylight” between what Romney would do, and what Obama would do…
There’s a problem.
Just last week, Romney said something else. On Iran, he said we needed to draw a line and go to war with Iran. Tonight, he said war was off the table.
Just last week, Romney said we needed to get tough on China. Then tonight, in a very revealing episode that I hope America caught, he said: We need China. I would do nothing to offend China. Then 2 minutes later, he says on day one he will lable China a currency manipulator, and get tough on everything else, (back to where he was two weeks ago.)
If you don’t listen to what he says, it sounds nice. A gentlemanly man, nice suit, looking earnest, likeable, sophisticated, makes a good presentation.
If you listen to him on the radio, you miss all that. You get what he says. And what he says, is all over the map.
He will say anything to get elected.
Now that’s the joke of politicians every where. But is it good for America? If we tell the Israeli’s we will bomb Palestine, and tell Palestine we will defend them against Israel, then one of them is going to start something just because they think we got their back…..
So, what’s he going to do about China.
He’s going to be tough and be concilitory.
So, what’s he going to do about Iran.
He’s going to do what Obama did, sanctions.
So, what would he have done in Egypt?
He would have done what Obama did.
So, what is he going to do in Afghanistan?
He will do what Obama did.
So, what is he going to do with Russia?
He will do what Obama did.
So, what is he going to do in Antarctica?
Uhhh, President Obama, would you like to go first here?
If you are a dumb American, you probably don’t know that Romney campaigned on the opposite of all these up until this one debate.
Russia is our number one enemy.
Obama is indecisive on Israel.
Obama is indecisive on Iran.
I will put more troops back into Iraq.
I will put pressure on China and show them who is boss.
I would have supported Muburack.
I would have stayed out of Libya.
I would not have gone after Osama Bin Laden.
Now, he says he never said “let Detroit go bankrupt?” When that has been the campaign for 18 months?
Now, he says he will increase the deficit by $8 trillion and balance the budget?
Now. he says the deficit is our number one priority and he will cut the money coming in to pay our bills by 5 trillion to balance the budget?
Now, he says he is for abortion, when last week he would overturn Roe versus Wade on day one.
And it all depends upon the audience he is with, at that moment. He doesn’t even know what he believes in it seems. He just wants you to like him; he’ll tell you what you want to hear….
And as the Salt Lake Tribune puts it, it is not coy. It is a shameless disregard for the truth.
Romney’s character flaw, is dangerous. Who is he going to be in office? The guy who was crashing in the polls until he reinvented himself in the first debate by being Liberal? And, if we are to truly believe this guy… where are those missing tax forms?