Admit It, America

Earlier this year, an interviewer asked Mitt Romney to clarify a remark about public resentment regarding Wall Street conduct and inequality. He had said that such talk was driven by “envy.” He had also stated that a public debate about inequitable wealth distribution in this country was not necessary.

The interviewer asked him:

I’m curious about the word envy. Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?

His arrogant response was off-the-cuff and, as with so many things Romney says without long consultations with his handlers, he revealed his real mentality and put his foot in it.

You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.

Given the weak state of the economy and the candidate's extreme wealth (a personal fortune reportedly around $250 million) it was a strange thing for any person running for office to say.

According to one source, over the last 20 years, America has had the highest or nearly highest poverty rates for individual adults, families and children among 31 developed countries. Meanwhile, the super-rich get just getting richer. According to the Aug. 23, 2010 New Yorker reported that between 2002 and 2007, the top one percent of rich Americans have seen their share of the national income double. 

For an interesting and enlightening look at depth of the problem, I recommend this link. Here's one excerpt:

In the decades after World War II, the wealthiest Americans were heavily taxed, with marginal rates over 90 percent on income above $400,000 (Bennett, 2010). Massive government investments in infrastructure, education, technology, and knowledge-based enterprises spread those tax dollars around, redistributing the nation’s wealth and creating “social value” (Alperovitz, 2009, p. 88) that was available to all citizens.

All that changed when Reagan became president and began a series of tax cuts which largely benefited the wealthiest Americans. One effect of these cuts has been a dwindling flow of revenue to spend on the infrastructure and for social investment.

(S)ince the late 1970s, wages have lost ground for the average worker while executive compensation has soared (Noblet, 2006). In 1979, the top one percent of Americans earned 33.1 times what the bottom 20 percent earned, but by 2000, this multiplier had more than doubled to 88.5 (Hogan, 2005).

Wealth distribution is even more skewed, with the top 20 percent of Americans owning 84 percent of all national wealth, while the bottom 20 percent own a mere 0.1 percent (Bennett, 2010). The United States has not seen this level of wealth inequality since the Roaring Twenties (Noblet, 2006; Tyson, 2004).

Had there been any one area of the economy that the conservative Republicans could point to and claim success, then an argument could be made. However, by following these policies, (and by launching two poorly conducted wars and allowing Wall Street to become an unregulated casino) these kind of wealth distribution has brought to nation to the brink of financial ruin.

And yet, according to Romney, nothing is amiss except the imagined jealousy of the 99%.

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Related articles

• What Class Divide? Rich and Poor, Red and Blue Agree on Wealth Distribution (moneyland.time.com)
• Romney's Disconnect With Average Americans (crooksandliars.com)
• Romney, the Unlikable (thedailybeast.com)

On Taxes, Reagan Sides with Obama against Romney

by Nomad

Though the Republicans of today like to consider themselves the party of Reagan, as we see, nothing could be further than the true. Reagan- whether you were fond of the man or not- would never have given his approval to a platform of  preferential taxation on the rich. That sly political fox would have told you that a politician would have to be completely  out of touch to try to run on such a ridiculous notion. 

Nevertheless, Mitt Romney wants to make the Bush taxes cuts permanent (or at least, for the foreseeable future.) Here is how he frames the discussion.

"I know there are some that say, look, we should lower taxes for the very highest-income people. My view is very simple: The people that have been hurt most by the Obama economy, has been the middle class. That's why I cut taxes for the middle class." 

Always careful to distract voters and frame the discussion but never actually saying one thing or another. Extending the Bush cuts? His answer is to talk about tax cuts for the middle class. Never mind that the middle class ARE paying their share. That's not the problem. That's not even the question. 

But back in 2008, he was far less careful about his pronouncements.

Amazing: Will Americans Actually Give Republicans Another Chance in the 2012 Election?

Mitt George Romney Bush

by Nomad

If you think about it, it's pretty astounding that, after eight years of George W. Bush, anybody in their right minds would even consider voting for another Republican party candidate. 

It must say something about the ability of the American people to forgive- or maybe, just to forget. It has to say something about the character of a nation that they would be willing to trust the same party with the reins of power again in this decade. 

Remember when we were all prepared to impeach Bill Clinton for hanky-panky in the Oval Office while the rest of the world scratched its head and wondered? The GOP talked like it was the end of the world. 

It's really beyond belief that we used to think THAT was as low as a president could fall.  

Yes, it takes your breath away. Especially given the fact that nobody in the Republican party- as far as I recall- ever said they were sorry about: 

• the unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq, 
• falsely representing Iraq as an imminent threat to the United States, 
• mishandling of the disaster relief after Hurricane Katrina, 
• the failure to respond to prior intelligence and 
•  fumbling of the 911 investigation, 
• the disastrous tax cuts which drove the economy into the ditch, 
• the Patriot Act and the desecration of civil liberties, 
• the outing of a CIA agent purely for political gain
• "kidnapping" and detention of foreign nationals without trial, 
• the use and legitimizing of torture, 
• the illegal spying on American citizens 

Perhaps I was sleeping but I don't remember hearing anybody apologize for 

• awarding no-bid contracts in the rebuilding of Iraq,
• allowing Halliburton and friends to overcharge the government, 
• Failing to provide adequate protection for contract workers in Iraq  
• or failing to provide troops with body armor, 
• falsifying US troop deaths and injuries
• the national shame of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal
• the murder of untold Iraq and Afghan civilians who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, 
• lying to the American people and 
• disgracing the image of the United States around the world.

And yet, after eight years of George W. Bush- who somehow feels confident enough to endorse Mitt Romney and peddle his self-serving memoirs, still to this day walks amongst the people as a free man. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld clearly have no fear that they might be someday held accountable. 

Another stunning thing? it's not as though Mitt Romney is a breath of fresh air from the pollution of the Bush years. The same people who got Bush into the White House are behind Romney. Karl Rove's group, American CrossRoads, has recently put out an attack ad on the president, filled with lies and distortions. That's right, Karl (Bush's Brain) Rove. 

And there will, no doubt, be a lot of people who will come back to and vote for the same party and vote for the same people with different faces and different names. 
Other than that, nothing has changed about the Republican party. Only, perhaps, their use of hate and lies to divide the nation may be a bit less restrained.

Even now, there are die-hard Republicans who have the arrogance to proclaim President Obama as "the worst president since Carter." They seem to be serious when they say it but how they can forget the years from 2000 to 2008 so easily is really something that defies explanation.

It's pretty amazing, I tell you.

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Romney Supporter: Where Empathy Ends

On the Environment: Romney and Hannity Share a Dirty Joke 2/2

by Nomad

In Part One, we examined Mitt Romney and Fox News' Sean Hannity sharing a few laughs at President Obama's expense. 

In the friendly chat, they mentioned Obama's remark that he stood for progress while Romney represented only "dirty air and dirty water." 

Hannity snidely asked Romney,"Do you want dirty air, Governor? I didn't hear you in the course of the campaign talk about dirty air and dirty water. Is that your plan?" 

What none of us heard in the campaign was Romney's relatively-recent alliance with the Koch brothers (and all the pollution that they create). That topic was something that Fox News conscientiously avoided. 

Surprisingly, there's still a little more mining to be done on this story. It requires us to shift direction.

Jake and Rupert

The private joke between Hannity and Romney about the environment works both directions. When it comes to the environment, if Mitt Romney's chummy relationship with major polluter (and all around toxic) Koch Brothers brings the candidate a giggle, then the owner of News Corporation must have a few reasons to cackle, chortle and guffaw as well.

As everybody knows, Fox News is a part of that Argus-eyed monster, News Corporation which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Most people mistakenly think of Rupert Murdoch as a media mogul and this is not strictly true. Murdoch is also an oil man.

On the Environment: Romney and Hannity Share a Dirty Joke 1/2

by Nomad

During times of extreme stress, it's always nice to see a person like Mitt Romney cut loose and have a good chuckle among his friends.  
We see far too little of this but it does make you wonder what kinds of things actually tickle Mitt's funny bone.
Here’s a exchange between Sean Hannity, Fox News host, and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney from May 8 2012.

HANNITY: It's pretty clear now, I think, in many ways, what the Obama campaign has planned. They can't run on their record, I make -- I contend they can't run on their record. So, they're going to -- they're going to use a lot of class warfare. There's been a lot of rhetoric that's been thrown around.

Let me show you, for example, this is -- like, you know, bad it's gotten. And it's very early. We still have six months to go. This is what the president said about the Republicans' plan. I just want you to hear it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, OCT. 17, 2011)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: My plan says we're going to put teachers back in the classroom, construction workers back to work to rebuilding America, rebuilding our schools, tax cuts for small businesses, tax cuts for hiring veterans, tax cuts if you give your worker a raise.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: That's my plan.

And then you got their plan, which is -- let's have dirtier air, dirtier water.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: Is that -- do you want dirty air, Governor? I didn't hear you in the course of the campaign talk about dirty air and dirty water. Is that your plan?

ROMNEY: I think the only dirty air and dirty water is coming out of that clip that you saw of the president.

(LAUGHTER)

And that, my friends, is just an example of the kind of side-splitting humor that we will have to look forward to should Mitt Romney ever become president.

Firstly any time a man like Hannity moans about the amount of campaign rhetoric that is being “thrown around,” you may expect an mind-bending blur from hypocrisy to amusing irony.

The Strange and Unnecessary Lies of Mitt Romney

by Nomad

A Presidential History of Truth

I suppose all of us are, by now, used to politicians bending, twisting, spinning and throttling the truth. 

Before our current president, there was George W. Bush who looked at truth like a butcher examines a side of beef before knife hits the flesh. He seemed to think the truth needed a lot of trimming and only about half was fit for public consumption.

Bill Clinton looked right into the camera lens and told the American people "I did not have sex with that woman" without so much as blinking a watery blue eye. Later he fell back on his personal- or perhaps a sort of hillbilly- definition of sex. ("That's not sex. We were just a-playin and a-foolin'")

The lies of George H. W. Bush are possibly some of the most shocking in American history but because he was so successful at covering most of them up we may never know the truth. His involvement in the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, the naughty things he did with the CIA, and so many other exploits will require quite a monstrous backhoe to uncover them all. 

A Closer Look at the Swing States Obama Must Win: Nevada

by Nomad

Back in February of this year, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won by a substantial margin over his Republican rivals in the Nevada caucus. Referring to the state’s economic woes in his speech, he told the people of the Silver State,

"Mr President, America has had enough of your kind of help.”

For some voters, the remark must have hit home. Nevada was hit hard by the economic meltdown and both its once prosperous gaming and construction industries went into free fall. At 14 percent, Nevada has the nation’s highest unemployment. If that weren’t bad enough, the state has seen the steepest drop in home values. 

Obviously Romney’s game plan is to exploit the issue of the slow economic recovery and the perception that the president has failed to deliver on putting the economy back to together. 

Puppet Masters Koch Brothers and Pinocchio Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney's nose gets longer and longer

by Nomad

Once again, the American public is witness to the folly of the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United decision. The Brothers Koch recently launched a $6.1 million attack ad against the Obama administration which quickly received a "Pants on Fire" rating from PolitiFact.

The factchecker at the Washington Post had this to say about the ad which was sponsored by the Americans for Prosperity - an astroturf organization created and heavily-funded by the Koch Brothers.

Our Factchecker deemed this ad false, relying on since-debunked claims about the stimulus. “One can certainly raise questions about how stimulus funding was used and whether it was effective,” he wrote. “But there is no excuse for these kinds of ads, which take facts out of context or simply invent them.”

Out of respect for my readers and the truth, I will only give you a link to the original ad. Falsehoods when repeated often enough bear a similarity to the facts, especially when the lies come come various sources. That itself is the very reason why the Supreme Court's decision was such a disaster and a blot on the America's judicial history.

A Message to Women

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All about Rob: Will Portman be Romney's Running Mate?

by Nomad

Finding a person that doesn’t outshine the bland Mitt Romney was always going to be something of a problem. Even his supporters would admit that, for all his ambition, charismatic is not one of Romney’s great attributes.

Recently, he has been compared to a modern day Don Draper, but with half the looks and none of the charm or sex appeal. That just leaves a head of good hair, a strong jaw and the determination to do whatever it takes to get ahead of the competition.

So the question for the Republicans boiled down to how do you out-vanilla vanilla? The answer, as far as the GOP was concerned was Republican Senator Rob Portman from Ohio . According to the Washington Post:

Two thirds of the state party chairmen and Republican National committeemen and women polled by the online news site BuzzFeed said that the Ohio senator was the most likely and best pick to be Romney’s running mate.

That’s not to say it’s a done deal of course. Still, it’s only fair to ask: who is Mr. Portman and what, besides colorlessness, does Romney like about him?

Portman’s resume seems pretty straightforward.

Remember in November- Hispanic Americans

Here's some information about why the Hispanic vote could play a crucial role in this years election. In an op/ed piece at Politico, Martin Frost asks: Can GOP ever win Latino vote?

Romney captured the Cuban vote in the Florida primary, this doesn’t mean the GOP can win Latino votes this fall. Unlike other Latino voters, Cuban-Americans are reliably Republican.

The vast majority of Latinos in other states, however, are not from Cuba. Many are from Mexico, as well as Central America and Puerto Rico. Even in Florida, there is now a significant number of non-Cuban Latinos, who tend to vote Democratic.

Second, assuming Romney is the Republican nominee, he has a lot of ground to make up with Latinos after being pushed far to the right on the immigration issue during the early primaries and caucuses.

Many Latinos are culturally conservative, patriotic and remarkably entrepreneurial. On paper, this sounds like fertile territory for the GOP. But once Latinos have heard the GOP’s strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, they may well stop listening to anything else Republicans have to say.

Beyond Flip-Flopping: Is Romney Just a Liar?

By Nomad

Here we are with only 193 days before the election night and Mitt Romney appears to have the Republican nomination wrapped up. This hellishly long vetting process, with endless, needless debates and primaries run amok, has been an inglorious examination of a variety of political failures. 

From Newt Gingrich's impossible pomposity and Rick Santorum's often unnerving tendency to sound as tolerant as your average Iranian mullah, to Rick Perry's bout with unexpected amnesia in mid-sentence. 

With all that maneuvering, jostling and elbowing, what has emerged out of the muck is a candidate who will, quite literally say anything to get elected. Although this tendency has long been a handicap of Romney, the history of modern American politics has perhaps not seen anything quite like this character. 

Whether the candidate of yore was liked or not, a voter could feel reasonably certain what his core values were. (There were exceptions, of course. Nixon for example.) 

With Romney, it has been a question of wind direction.

Mitt Romney and the NRA: The Conning of the GOP Voters

by Nomad

Damn the historical record! To hell with what I said in my past. I'll say anything! I'll do anything! I am severely conservative, Darn it.

That seems to be the line that Mitt Romney thinks will carry him to the White House. And it's entertaining for your average progressive liberal to watch Romney attempt to con his own party into believing he has somehow actually changed- reversed every one of his positions.

The latest scrubbing redacting and erasing involves the National Rifle Association (NRA). Speaking National Rifle Association's annual convention in St. Louis with an estimated 70,000 people in attendance, Romney last weekend made every attempt to win the hearts and minds of gun owners.

Pew Research Says: The More They Hear from the GOP, The More The Voters Like Obama

by Nomad

Campaigning for Free

According to a national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Washington Post, the Republican campaign is doing wonders for drumming up support. Unfortunately, for the GOP, that support is not for any of their candidates but for the opposing party and the president.

The Republican nomination battle is rallying Democrats behind Barack Obama. Currently, 49% of Democrats say that as they learn more about the GOP candidates, their impression of Obama is getting better. Just 36% of Democrats expressed this view in December, before the Republican primaries began.

In contrast, there has been virtually no change in Republicans’ views of the GOP field during this period. Just 26% of Republicans say their impression of the GOP field has improved as they have learned more about the candidates. That is largely unchanged from December (30%).

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage : Mitt Romney Flip-Flop 1/3

by Nomad

Romney’s Double Back Flip

Last week Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney somehow managed to flip-flop from the frying pan into the political fire when he told reporters that he didn't fret about the poor because of the social safety net. He explained to a CNN reporter:

“I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it.”

President as handy-man? Naturally, like every politician who finds himself in a pickle, he blamed the media for taking his statement out of context. Like his “corporations are people too” remark, Romney once again seemed unable to hear how out of touch he actually sounds. Until everybody else notices. 

Restore our Future: A Closer Look at Contributors to Mitt Romney’s Super PAC

©2011@nomadicview

By Nomad

When the Supreme Court handed down its historic decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission on January 21, 2010, some legal analysts and political commentators warned that it would, in effect, open the floodgates for unlimited campaign contributions from corporations. Others championed the decision as a victory for free speech.

Democratic congressman from central Florida, Alan Grayson, said that following this decision, “only huge corporations have any constitutional rights... They have the right to bribe, the right to buy elections, the right to reward their elected toadies, and the right to punish the elected representatives who take a stab at doing what's right.”

Richard Hasen, writing for Slate, put it this way:

Today the court struck down decades-old limits on corporate and union spending in elections (including judicial elections) and opened up our political system to a money free-for-all.

Another source neatly summarized the decision this way:

...the Court overturned long-standing precedent, ruling that banning corporations from using money from their general treasuries for express advocacy was an unconstitutional violation of First Amendment political free speech rights. The majority opinion also struck down the electioneering communications rule as it applies to corporations. As a result, corporations and unions may now spend as much as they want on independent expenditures, in a way that could help the candidate of their choice, right up until Election Day.

As the presidential election of 2012 looms, all of us will be able to watch with our own eyes the impact of this decision. Even now the signs are ominous. Let’s take a closer look at one candidate, Mitt Romney, examining his source of campaign funding and a few of his top name contributors.