The Puppet Show

It is common knowledge that politics is a “dirty” business, but Republicans have taken it to the filthy level. It is repulsive to see how they have no scruples. Sadly, they know perfectly well that their base is very gullible and that in their hateful minds any lies that it’s constructed to tarnish our President’s reputation will not only be believed but also welcomed, generating the anger and ire of the Tea-baggers and the Republican base. 

I take the latest comment of the GOP’s puppet, Mitt Romney, as a desperate action. After his disastrous European tour, where Romney illustrated his qualifications as a contender for Head of State and where he was the subject of mockery, both abroad and at home, because of his ineptitude Romney has resorted to this new attack on President Obama which is nothing more than an attempt to salvage a comatose campaign that is desperately grasping for air.

President Obama's lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage.

The brave men and women of our military make tremendous sacrifices to protect and defend our freedoms, and we should do everything we can to protect their fundamental right to vote.

I stand with the fifteen military groups that are defending the rights of military voters, and if I'm entrusted to be the commander-in-chief, I'll work to protect the voting rights of our military, not undermine them.

For those of you that don't know where Mitt Romney got his idea about President Obama suing the State of Ohio and for those that might believe such allegations, let me tell you exactly what the suit is all about, in simple words and not the legal mumble jumble. The State of Ohio just passed a law [HB224] that will impose different dead-lines for in-person early voting between the military and civilians.  Ohioans were able to  early vote starting three days prior to Election Day, with this new law this is prohibited except for the military.  All the suit is demanding is the restoration of the three day early voting rights to all Ohioans, not just the military.  That's basically it.

President Obama is not against the military, quite the contrary. But President Obama wants the rights of all citizens to be honored and respected, not just a few. As it is customary with Romney and the GOP, they don’t dare debating on true issues because they know they will lose, so they twist the truth and hope that it will stick.

Republicans know they can't fight President Obama using the truth, so they must fabricate lies. We’ve seen them do it over and over: Obama was born in Kenya; Obama needs to show his birth certificate; Obama wants to implement a “death panel”; Obama is gay; Obama will favor African-Americans; Obama wants a racial war… and the list of unfounded lies goes on and on. It is truly heartrending to realize that there are people that are too lazy to research for the truth in an era where there is nothing secret anymore. At a time when with a few strokes at the keyboard and the Internet you can find out everything you want to know. But the right base is lazy, mostly uneducated and let’s face it, it is far easier and takes less effort to believe all the absurdities reported by Fox News (no news there), the ridiculous never ending accusations of Michele Bachmann and those of the GOP’s marionette, Mitt Romney.

America can't afford to have another puppet for president. America can't go back in time as the Right wants... The future is always ahead of us, never behind us... Let's move forward, let's re-elect President Obama for four more years and remove all the Tea-baggers and Obstructionists from Congress. If we want to move forward, we can't surround ourselves with retrogrades.

No Help Needed

Mitt Romney is complaining because President Obama said that no successful person reached success all on their own. The GOP machine is quickly criticizing and shredding into tiny pieces our President for saying the truth. There is no business that succeeds all on its own. Someone built the roads for people to get there, someone installed the cabling necessary for phones to work, for electricity to reach the building. Someone built the building, desk, chair, paper, etc. And what is more important, someone was interested in whatever they were offering. Without us, the regular folks, no business would go very far, no matter how bright the businessman is or how good the product or service is; if there are no consumers, the business will go bankrupt. Romney knows this all too well; after all bankrupting companies and getting government help is what created most of his wealth.

Mitt Romney said in his 2002 Olympics inaugural speech something very similar to that said by President Obama and for which he is harshly being criticized for.   However, Romney's comment wasn’t aimed at businessmen. No, his comments were directed at the competing youth. He was clear to remind them that they didn’t get there on their own, that if they got to where they were was thanks to the help from others.  I guess that it is perfectly alright to say to a group of young athletes that their lifelong sacrifice as a child to reach the pinnacle of their sport is not a merit that they can claim as their own, but that they must be share the credit with others. As usual, it is a sin to suggest that a businessman needed help along the way to be successful. How dare President Obama even make such a suggestion?!  Doesn't President Obama know that "a businessmen should not be touched, not even with a rose petal?"

Romney wants us to believe that a businessman never asked for help. We are to believe that businessmen to make their dreams come true, built with their bare hands the buildings and did everything – absolutely everything – by themselves; they never needed a loan, a line of credit, secretaries, sales people.... consumers.

Without consumers, without us, businesses could be selling the cheapest and purest diamonds in the world that if no one buys them, they will just be sitting on a pile of polished coal!

President Obama - Transcript.

...But you know what? I’m not going to see us gut the investments that grow our economy to give tax breaks to me or Mr. Romney or folks who don’t need them. So I am going to reduce the deficit in a balanced way, we’ve already made a trillion dollars worth of cuts, we can make another trillion or two and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more. And by the way, we’ve tried that before, a guy named Bill Clinton did it, we created twenty-three million new jobs, turned a deficit into a surplus and rich people did just fine.

We created a lot of millionaires; you know there are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with us ‘cause they want to give something back. They know they didn’t… If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, “Well it must be because I was just so smart” There are a lot of smart people out there! “It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.” Let me tell you something, there’s a bunch of hard working people out there. If you were successful somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Someone invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, that… you didn’t build that! Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so then all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is that when we succeed, we succeed because of the individual initiative but also because we do things together. There are some things, like fighting fires; we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their fire service, that’d be a hard way to organize fighting fires. So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what? There are some things we do better together. That’s how we founded the GI Bill, that’s how we created the middle class, that’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, that’s how we invented the Internet, that’s how we sent a man to the moon. We raise or fall together as one nation and as one people and that’s the reason I’m running for President, because I still believe in that idea: You are not on your own; we’re on this together!

Mitt Romney - Transcript

Is this a great show or what?! And how about that volunteer cast, uh?

This show it’s being watched all over the world. Young Yem Kim is eleven years old; he’s watching us tonight from his home in Seoul, Korea. It’s his dream to skate in the Olympics. In Piamonte, Italy, a fourteen-year-old girl named Nicole Ibasso is also watching, her dream is to compete in the giant slab in the games of 2006. Children around the world are dreaming. Dreaming of daring performances, cheering friends and proud parents.

Tonight we cheer the Olympians who only yesterday were children themselves, as we watch them over the next sixteen days, they affirm that our aspirations and those of our children and grandchildren can become reality. We salute you Olympians, both because you dreamed and because you paid the price to make your dreams real. You guys pushed yourselves, drove yourselves, sacrificed, trained and competed time and again, winning and loosing. You Olympians know that you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters and brothers, encouraged your hopes; coaches guided, communities built venues and organized competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians; lets also cheer the parents, coaches and communities.

After September, more than ever before our generation longs for a world where the dreams of all the children may come true, where aspirations can be nourished and homes with caring families and of nations which embrace peace and the rights of human kind. In such a world, the greatness of achievements would be measured by the greatness of dreams and by the fire and passion in the hearts of the dreamers. Olympians, the world watches you not just to see spectacular athletic performance, but also to be inspired by the spirit and fire which drives you. You skate and ski and our hearts quicken with your dream. We find ourselves hoping for you. Praying for you. I see the Olympic flame, which will soon enter the stadium, as a symbol of the fire that drives you to fulfill your dreams.

May the fire we see within you, light a fire within each of us. Thank you very much!
_______________________________________________________________________________________

It seems to me that Mitt Romney is not flip-flopping... I am beginning to suspect that Mr. Romney is senile - he colors his hair to look younger as Ronald Reagan did - and probably he is suffering from mild Alzheimer - again just like Ronald Reagan - which will automatically disqualify him to be president of the United States of America.

When Youth Fades Away

Medicare is the culprit of all evil for every Republican in Congress. They blame public programs such as Medicare for the economic crisis and the increases in our national budget. The numerous wars, the over expending in weapons which never seems to be enough, their salaries and lavish expenditures, the unregulated banking industry and of course over a decade of tax cuts to the very wealthy have not contributed at all to the current economic crisis, only Medicare and public programs for the poor and the elderly need to be “reformed” because they are the ones depleting our funds.  Really?

It is funny that all three branches enjoy the benefits of  Medicare  but Republicans are not willing to part with it, all these benefits are a necessity for them and a parasitic luxury for the rest of America.

On his website, Romney says that President Obama has “attacked” every proposal suggested by Republicans. I think our President has defended rather than attack, the rights of the American citizens. What the Republicans have been proposing [and this is nothing new] is to privatize Medicare. The government will determine how much money a senior will receive to “help” them pay their insurance premiums. Basically, what that means is that Medicare will be eliminated and seniors will have to acquire private insurance. Of course, the consumer will choose the insurance they can afford, if they are to choose a more expensive option they will pay for the difference themselves. The problem with this, among many other things, is that those seniors that must opt for the more expensive option due to certain medical needs will have to pay out of pocket for it. Once again, only the wealthy retirees will be able to enjoy good health care when they reach their golden years, the poor seniors will have to shop around, be inundated with verbiage they don’t understand and where only the premium cost will be important, not their health since they won't be able to afford it.

According to Mitt Romney, the amount that will be provided to seniors to cover their premiums will be a fixed amount. I wonder if the “fixed” amount will take into consideration ailments that affect certain seniors but not all seniors. For example, will it be more for seniors that need an organ transplant or have gone through a transplant that requires follow ups with specialists and expensive medications for life? Will it be more for seniors with BP or diabetes? Will any of this matter when assessing the “fixed” amount?  We will not find the answers to these questions on Mitt Romney's site and in the usual Romneyism that characterize him, he is devious enough not to speak clearly or stand firmly on what he proposes - he knows that if we know the truth he doesn't stand a chance of ever being elected.

Romney, who “hates” government interference in private companies or on how they run their businesses, is going to demand that all insurance companies offer a comparable plan to today’s Medicare. Yeah, right!

Romney justifies the “fixed support” amount provided by the government as a tool because according to him it will empower seniors with the choice of purchasing less expensive plans and use the leftover to pay for  “other medical expenses like co-pays and deductibles.” So, on top of losing the security of Medicare, now the elderly who are almost at poverty line levels must pay for co-payments and deductibles set by private insurance companies. The party that cried that “Obamacare” had death panels doesn’t need “death panels”… They know that by privatizing Medicare most of our poor seniors will die, if not by choosing the worse but cheapest plan then by starvation. It is sad when a person that has worked all of their lives have to choose between medication and food since their funds won’t allow them to afford both.

Mitt explains that the government will still provide traditional Medicare but since this coverage will cost more to the government, seniors that wish to keep that plan will have to pay even higher premiums than those selecting private insurance.

In every civilized society in the world, seniors are viewed as a treasure to cherish. An endless source of wisdom and who most of the time binds a family together. Not in the United States, here seniors are seen as a burden, useless and who many of them die in a nursing home all alone because their children are too busy to be bothered with taking care of them. The Republicans are a perfect example of these views; they believe that seniors are a burden to society and especially to the government. A government that for decades demanded and took without hesitation the taxes these citizens contributed with, a government that had no problem asking them to go to war to “defend” our country in faraway lands that never posed a physical thread to us, such as Vietnam. A government that when have asked, these seniors responded by saying “Present!” but now, at the sunset of their lives, they can no longer say “Present!” so they are a bothersome group that Republicans cannot wait to get rid of, unless they are wealthy, of course. And we all know that the wealthier these seniors are, the most likely that they never said “Present!”

The Romney/Ryan plan claims [to read a previous post explaining in detail what the Ryan plan entails and with a link to the actual plan, click here] that will give a “more generous support” to lower income seniors and wealthier seniors will receive less. Why not remove wealthy seniors altogether? Wealthy seniors can afford to pay for full premium coverage without government help; they don’t need that “support” check. But no, the thought of not helping the wealthy it's unthinkable for the GOP. How can they tell a wealthy person that the government will not help them because they don’t need it but that they are going to help the poor instead? That will be outrageous, a sacrilege! But they can tell a poor senior “sorry, this is all we can help you with… not enough? Do all of us a favor and die quickly!

Once more, Romney is counting on the “good heart” of insurance companies. We must remember that he has promised to repeal Obamacare on his first day in office, among about a thousand other things he promised to take care on his very first day in office. Thanks to Obamacare, insurance companies can't raise their premiums or cancel your policy for a pre-existing condition, they can't drop you if you get sick and insurance companies must expend at least 80% of their profits on their policy-holders' medical expenses. If Romney wins (may the Spaghetti Flying Monster have mercy on us!) and repeals Obamacare, those provisions will also be repealed. We all know that insurance companies have never lowered their premiums no matter how many policy holders they have, the rich just seem to not have enough money and the more they have, the more they want.  We all know the true "heart" of insurance companies and it is not a pretty one.

We are reaching the boiling point, where the 1% will be the only ones entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” while the rest of the 99%, will have no Life worth living, no Liberty since we will be the peons of the 1% and not entitled to the pursuit of happiness… we will have not the money nor the health to pursuit it.

Latin America: The Insanity Tactic

Political Cartoonist: Matt Wuerker

Moving forward reviewing Mitt Romney’s observations about current Issues, I opened the tab  "Latin America."

Romney opens the subject with what is rapidly becoming the Republican’s trademark: fear. He claims that the current administration is jeopardizing the “security, democracy, and increased economic ties with America.” Romney, of course, fails to mention why he believes that. Instead, he places the blame on President Obama for taking him three years to sign the Colombia Trade Agreement. To be honest, I am not thrilled with this or any other Trade Agreements; so far all they have been good for is to destroy our industries.

However, this particular agreement was already approved when President Obama took office.

Colombian workers and union members have been killed for 25 years by groups that oppose unions, and only a handful of people have ever been convicted for these crimes. The trade agreement signed by President George W. Bush required no action from the government of Colombia to protect Colombian workers and Unions. It took all this time for President Obama’s administration to negotiate with the Colombian government to secure the protection for these workers and the unions as well as the commitment from the government to investigate and prosecute crimes against workers and unions. As a result, the Colombia government agreed to the terms demanded by President Obama and the agreement was finally signed. As it is usual not only with Mitt Romney but with all republicans, he conveniently failed to mention the reason, after all it was related to the safety of workers and unions, which for Romney and republicans are both worthless. In the same paragraph Romney talks about Cuba and Venezuela, drug trafficking and the violence that is eminent in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Again, he fails to mention how or why the current administration is to be blamed for what is happening in the Americas.

On the next paragraph he outlines what he considers President Obama’s “failures.” Romney holds the President responsible for not reversing what it is happening throughout Latin America and bluntly accuses President Obama of worsening the situation by “reaching out to those nations that are working against our interests and values.” Those nations, I am assuming, can only be Cuba and Venezuela.

As every single republican has done in the past – with no results – Romney advocates the same strategy, which is to strengthen the embargo to Cuba and apparently severing all communications with Venezuela. After half a century since the implementation of the embargo that has yielded no beneficial results neither for the dissident Cubans in Miami nor for the Cubans in the island, Republicans criticize President Obama for making it easier for the exiled Cuban population in the United States to visit or financially help their relatives trapped in the island. I have always found it odd that republicans, who claim to own the sole proprietorship on family values and the likes, can't understand what it means to have a child, parents and loved ones suffering when you can help and have a government telling you "let them eat cake!"  And those Cubans holding a seat in Congress are the worst of them all, it is easy to be adamant to help the people in the island when you have no one there and you are living in the lap of luxury.

Fifty years later, republicans still support the failed embargo; I think they have never heard the definition of insanity… Perhaps, that explains their erratic, demented and illogical approach to the problems of this nation. Maybe they repeat the same tactics, over and over, expecting a different result to proof that they are insane in the eventuality that the citizens of this country ever accuse them of treason and demand their incarceration. I don’t know, but the embargo is the biggest failure that has been beneficial to one person: Fidel Castro. It is thanks to the embargo that the world sees Castro as a victim, a hero, an inspiration and a role model. It is due to the embargo that the world sides with a tyrant, viewing this tyrant as a martyr – the modern version of the biblical story of David and Goliath. Republicans know this too well, but they will never vote to lift the embargo.  There has always been a trade with Cuba but restricted to only food and medicine.  Only  big corporations can benefit from this trade, Cubans in exile, Americans and small businesses cannot. Click here to see a list of companies that were issued a license to trade with Cuba from 1985 to 2001 as well as other pertinent information dating back to 2001.

I have tried to find a current list of licensed exporters to Cuba, but it was impossible. I suspect that republicans have special interest for them to refuse to lift the embargo; they never do anything for nothing. So far, it hasn’t worked and you would think that after half a century they would try something different, but that is not the case. We all know that the only thing that motivates republicans is money and their immovable position on the matter makes me think that they must be getting some sort of rewards from the few companies authorized to trade with Cuba, which are all large corporations and many pharmaceutical companies.

The Venezuela-USA relationships are not the friendliest; I guess that Mitt Romney is following the ballistic obsession of most republicans.   Negotiations and a cold relationship between the countries is considered by Romney to be reaching out, nothing but invading to destitute the elected President of Venezuela is valid.  

Romney continues his relentless attack on President Obama by accusing him of siding with Honduras’ ex-President Manuel Zelaya. Apparently Mitt Romney has no idea what diplomacy is or that the United States will never accept or intervene in a coup d’état, which is what happened in Honduras. Romney doesn’t understand how diplomacy works or that the United States can comment, negotiate, recommend but should not interfere in matters from other countries. At the same time, unless resolved by the country in question, the United States can’t recognize a government taken by force, militarily as it happened in Honduras. That concept is unbeknownst to him.

Romney's “Plan”

“Mitt Romney will chart a different course. Under a Romney administration, the United States will pursue an active role in Latin America by supporting democratic allies and market-based economic relationships, containing destabilizing internal forces such as criminal gangs and terrorists, and opposing destabilizing outside influences such as Iran.”

The above is the core of what his “plan” is.  Apparently, it is his opinion that President Obama doesn’t do any of these things. He insinuates that President Obama has ignored Latin America or the violence that is infesting the continent. Romney insists in free trade, which I am sure will have no demands for workers, concentrating only in the profits corporations can obtain. He dreams of the day when, through these free trade agreements, these countries can become members of the “Reagan Economic Zone.” The “Reagan Economic Zone” is a fantasy of Mitt Romney and republicans which is nothing more than a conglomerate of countries where the lucky members [corporations] can enjoy doing business without regulations, crushing unions and paying less to their workers. The ultimate republican fantasy!

Mitt Romney also wants to create a “Unified Hemispheric Joint Task Force on Crime and Terrorism.” That's a mouthful! Romney wants military-to-military training between the United States and Mexico to combat the narco-trafficking and narco-terrorists. Every administration has failed on this absurd "war on drugs," including President Obama and so will any president that comes after unless the strategy changes. In countries where the vast majority of people live below the poverty line, the only possibility these people see to come out of the slums is by trafficking drugs. We, as a country, are largely to blame; we are the consumers. As long as there is a demand there will be a supply and Romney, who claims to be a savvy businessman, should know this. The only way the violence associated with drugs and the lure of wealth will cease is by legalizing drugs, tax them and control them. If we were to dispense the drugs as we do alcohol and control it as we do with any prescription drug the demand will greatly diminish. The income produced by the distribution of these “legal” drugs, could be used to provide rehabilitation for the addicts and the ease our debt. That is the only way we can, once and for all, end the drug-trafficking violence and reduce the drug addiction, nothing else will work.

Mitt Romney closes this section stating that we will use the “full power of the presidency” to complete the border fence. That fantastic and super expensive fence that, just as the “war on drugs,” will serve for nothing but an exaggerated waste of funds that we don’t have but that is a immense selling point to the greatest oxymoron in this country: The Right.

The Manufacturing of Lies

Continuing my previous post and to show how deceiving and manipulative the Right wing and their current front runner are, I used the same source Mitt Romney used on his website to clearly demonstrate how Mitt Romney is constantly misinforming his base. 

I think it is funny to see how easy it is to disprove Romney's claims, it speaks volumes about what Mitt Romney and those that support him think of the American People.  They are confident that even when given the source of the information, people will not try to confirm their allegations and sadly they are right.

On his website, Mitt Romney shows a graph with only two columns, one from 1975 and one from 2010. He doesn’t specify if the Chart is for the Private Sector, the Public Sector or both sectors combined. Of course, you will assume that the chart represents both sectors… but this is not true.

He shows only two columns so he can place the blame solely on President Obama. If he were to show all the columns with each president since 1975 and reflecting both the Private and Public Sectors, the chart would show a very different story. Below is the graph using both sectors and the presidents during each of those years.  The source used to create the following chart is the same Mitt Romney used: www.unionstats.com.

Clearly we can see that the combined private and public union members have remained practically the same since 1975 with a peak during President Carter (1979) and a decline that began with President to the present.

Again, comparing the chart I created for the combined sectors and that shown on Mitt Romney's site we can see that this is not the data he used.  I went ahead and created yet another chart showing the Public Sector numbers, hoping that it was there where the data will coincide:

If we take a look at the Public Sector (government) then we can say that President Obama has done nothing to increase the number of union members or number of employees, actually by the pressure of a Republican Congress the number of jobs in government has decreased at a time where jobs are needed most; a very smart tactic used by Republicans in their quest to make of President Obama a one-term President at the expense of the country and the American people. In reality, and using the same source as Mitt Romney, it was President George W. Bush the president that since 1975 increased the number of employees in government, in other words, George W. Bush was the “big government” President, something that the right is always accusing the left of doing. This chart you will not find it in Mitt Romney’s website, it goes against what he is so proclaiming.

Which brings me to the chart used by Mitt Romney in his website – the private sector. This should come to no surprise since it is the only sector that Mitt Romney is truly familiar with. His views on government and the way he operated during his term as Governor of Massachusetts is that you handle government the same way you handle private companies. I guess the government shareholders are not the people, but the companies within the State or if president within our borders that should matter to a Governor or President, the ones deserving of protection, not the people [human beings, that is].

Once more, Mitt Romney was careful to remove from his Chart the years between 1975 and 2010 simply because if shown people could see that President Obama had nothing to do with the decline. Manufacturing jobs flourished during President Carter and began to decrease during President Reagan, culminating with the economic crash as a result of the over-expending, deregulations and excesses of the Bush Administration and whether Republicans like to admit to it or not President Obama inherited. Given the “hot potato” passed down to President Obama, he has performed something short of a miracle containing a meltdown, without any help from a Republican Congress and as shown in the Chart it is beginning to show signs of recovery.

Mitt Romney continues to blame President Obama for everything that happens in the private industry and Unions. As an example he talks about the suit filed by the NLRB and the International Association of Machinists against Boeing America opening a facility in South Carolina. He fails to mention, conveniently, that Boeing America, the NLRB and the International Association of Machinists reached an agreement and the plant opened in South Carolina. That little detail is purposely left out, because he knows that most of his base will not do any research to investigate, preferring to be compliant and lazy accepting whatever their candidate, Fox News or Rush Limbaugh tells them is the truth.

Mitt Romney is outraged because the NLRB changed “the rules of the game.” He is upset that now employers will receive “as little as ten days” notification to organize against unions if they formally file a petition to vote. I find this to be so ridiculous! Corporations do not give people more than 2 weeks notice if they are to be fired and that is if they are "lucky" most often than not is pick up an go. Corporations have a legal department that can put together the toughest cases against an employee or anyone without any problem and in basically no time. But they cry fowl if unions don't give them more than two weeks notice to counter-attack. Good for Unions! Mitt Romney continues to accuse Unions of conspiring against corporations for a year to attack innocent corporations… as if corporations do not do the same during their shareholders quarterly meetings! Give me a break!

Mitt Romney’s accusations that President Obama is to blame for the decline of manufacturing jobs are false as most of his statements are. I’ve used the same exact source used by Mitt Romney, with the difference that I didn’t conveniently picked only two years as he did, instead I selected the last year of every president since 1975 not only to be fair but most importantly, to find out the truth. Republicans when they are not correct will alter the information (lie) in order to look good and deceive their constituents, that is the Republicans way… Mitt Romney and Republicans only care for Corporations they don’t give a damn about the people, the hard-working American people that is the force that has made this country the best country in the world. If corporations care so much for this country, why is it that they outsource our jobs and place their bank accounts offshore? That is not “Love American Style!” That is greed.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

There is nothing I could say that could be better than being able to compare, side by side, the Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney and the President of the United States.

To be able to "feel" what they believe America's future should be. One believes in helping the American youth get an education by providing easier access to Federal Pell Grants, Financial Aid and lowering the interest rates of their loans; the other suggests that our youth ask their parents for a loan to start a business. That alone, should tell you the vision Mitt Romney has of America: a place where parents have financial solvency, a solid financial situation enough to lend their children money to start a business, like the story he mentioned in his speech, we all have parents able and capable of lending us $20,000 just because we want to venture into business immediately after high school. Perhaps, this is very easy for him and his circle of friends, but for the common and almost extinct middle class American its a dream beyond their current capabilities.

This is the man that wants to run this country. A man that thinks that a college student should start their own business instead of finishing school and of course, do not ask the government for help, ask your parents... after all, he is positive that everyone in America has 5 mansions, 10 cars and probably several bank accounts with over six figures in all of them, so there should be no problem!

THE GOOD:  Click here to read President Obama transcript of his speech at North Carolina University     

Please notice the students behind President Obama, their enthusiasm and participation throughout the speech.  The atmosphere was vibrant.  No one can deny that President Obama is a great speaker, he lifts the spirits and inspires the masses.

THE BAD:  Click here to read Mitt Romney's transcript of his speech at Otterbein University    

Now in contrast, notice the students are barely keeping awake.  Not only do we have to endure Mitt Romney's sucking his teeth every so often during the speech, but he has some sort of speech impediment, he stutters a lot. The rhythm he maintains during his speech is enough to knock anyone out, it is almost unchangeable, from beginning to end.  The audience is not engaged, actually it's comatose.

THE UGLY:  I had to throw this in here to cover for the Ugly, sorry no transcript...   

Well, what can I say about Ron Paul, I think he is delusional if he still believes he has any chance of winning the primaries... but I think he will run as an Independent, I sure hope so, it will be better for President Obama if he does.

ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2012

VOTE DEMOCRAT

RE-ELECT PRESIDENT OBAMA ONE MORE TERM!

On the Road Again…

The persistence of the Republican candidates is incredible; their unwillingness to give up and allow Mitt Romney to be nominated as the Presidential Nominee of the party goes beyond reason. So, there are more expenditures to take place, more hateful commercials, more Robocalls, more of the same vile tactics which cost money, and we on the left are very happy about it, all of it is good news for the Democrats, the longer they drag this race among themselves, the less money they’ll have when the time comes to confront our President. 

I’ve noticed friends that are disappointed because Santorum lost, since they prefer Santorum to win and be the rival of President Obama in the primaries. I can’t understand why people think that if Santorum wins that will be beneficial for Democrats, I believe the opposite. 

To begin with and contrary to what many believe, Santorum is not a bad speaker, he’s not as good as President Obama – far from it – but he is much better than Mitt Romney. Second, most of the extremist right wingers and the Tea Party followers are either with Santorum, Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul, and by now we all know that neither Ron Paul nor Newt Gingrich stand a chance of winning. Their followers most likely will go to Santorum. The religious extremists would prefer to vote for Santorum than Romney, simply because even though Romney is a Christian, he is a Mormon – in the eyes of the Catholics, Baptists, Evangelists, etc. the Church of the Latter Day Saints it’s a “sect,” not a Christian religion. On the other hand, Mitt Romney is the least crazy of the contenders, actually, the sanest of all the republican candidates. Remember, during the campaign of 2007-2008, when he ran a campaign based on his ideals – an old fashioned republican, a group now extinct – he lost in a blink of an eye. That is why he is probably behaving and sounding like the nuts out there, we say he’s flip flopping, in reality, he is sewing the nuts so he can reap them in November… when he is planning to make peanut butter out of them! 

Another thing against Romney is that he does not know how to be a “regular guy”, he really tries hard to be ‘one of us’ but he fails miserably – every single time. He has no charisma, and at times I even feel sorry for the man, but that lasts less than a second. 

But Romney will lose, there’s no doubt in my mind… the real danger against President Obama was Santorum and thankfully, he is running behind. There is still a long way until Election Day, but I surely hope that Romney will continue winning. 

I truly hope Romney is the republican nominee… if he is, we can be certain that President Obama will be shaping the future of this country for four more years.

The Times they are a Changin'

I am in one of those days where I feel as if I forgot to pay my electric bill… Everything seems dark and of course, my humor can’t be any different.

Every time I read the news, I am faced with horrible stories, whether these stories are a catastrophe somewhere, a murder, a report of child abuse, the never-ending war in the Middle East and the many wars being fought right here at home, amid an already unnerving and unstable situation.  Yes, you heard me right, wars that are being fought right here in our homeland: war against women, war against the middle class, war against the poor, war against the citizens, war against integrity, war against education, war against homosexuals, war against the elderly, war against race, war against ethnicity and the worst war of them all, the war against our intelligence.

We are being attacked on a daily basis in every way imaginable.  On-line, on the news – regardless if the news you watch is local news or propagandistic news such as Fox "News” which we all know by now is anything but real news and Liberal news that doesn’t offer us a much better scenario.  We are watching everyday how the local governments are restricting people from exercising their constitutional right to peaceably assemble (Amendment I of the Constitution), and are treated as enemies of the State while those that were elected into office by those same individuals being arrested, ignore the constitution while claiming how much they adhere to it.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that in order to assemble you must have a permit.  Nowhere.  Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that you can only peaceably assemble if you agree with the current status, what need would the people have to assemble if in agreement?  Yet, these officials send out the troops as if to combat a member of Al-Qaeda, in full riot gear, pepper spray and batons in hand, guns and weapons that up to now have had rubber bullets, to fight, arrest and disband those that dare to exercise the first amendment.  This extreme use of force was NEVER used on the "peaceably assemblies" of the Tea Party members sporting guns.   We are witnessing similar situations taking place all over the country; we’re outraged, we go crazy posting in Facebook, Twitter, signing petitions and talking about it.  I’m guilty as sin of the same thing.  When are we going to join these groups?  When are we going to be physically offering our support?  Can’t we understand that there are many of us and few of them and if we all grew a pair of balls, leave the comfort of our homes and join them no one could stop us?  Yes we do, but we are always hoping for others to do what we could do ourselves and we prefer to stay home and remain safe.  

Of course, there are those that know how to manipulate the masses.  We have so many important things to do, such as watching the football game (October and end in February); Golf (January – November); Baseball (April – October); Indy (March – September); Basketball (October – June); Hockey (October – June); Tennis (January – November); Miss Universe, The Oscars, The Grammys and so much more that we get easily distracted with and they succeed at keeping us entertained and with our eyes off the ball.  There is not one month of the year without a sporting event, heck, there is not one day of the year without one and, this is a nation that loves sports and it seems that this nation loves sports much more than they love liberty.  Perhaps that is the reason why the last civil war took place so long ago, in a time when sports didn’t run the course of this country, civil duty and honor did.

The latest thing they’ve tried to keep us away from the important issues, on an election year, is the same thing they’ve been whining about for the last three years: the Health Care Reform.  This time, since the Catholic Church decided that it was against their “moral” and religious views to supply contraceptives in their insurance plans and they were enraged by the interference of government in their “business.”  The Catholic Church backed by the extreme right wing Senators and Representatives and most if not all of the Republican members of Congress – particularly Senator Rubio, Senator Blunt and Representative Fortenberry – decided to openly and defiantly fight the bill in Washington.  President Obama amended the bill in an effort to respect the religious views of the Catholic Church and any other religious institution that might feel the same by ensuring that these institutions will not financially contribute to these contraceptives.  Obama changed it so all insurance companies had to offer them, free of charge, to any employee or beneficiary under a religious institution’s plan.  Since the matter was never a financial matter – even when they said it was offensive for them to pay for something that went against their beliefs and was the argument originally used.  In reality was just an effort to repeal the Health Care bill, these institutions still "cried" wolf, and the right wing behind them cried wolf even louder!  So, in a move that I can only categorize as the stupidest political move in ages, that began as nothing more than a distraction from the Republican Presidential Race (they have so many inapt candidates that I can’t blame them) congress and the religious institutions waged a war against women… They sure didn’t expect the outrage of the women and the support these women received from people from all political groups, all genders, from all races, ethnicity and age groups.  

I don’t know what the mentality of the new Republican party is, it is as if they are trying to push their boundaries and try to come up with more and more outrageous ideas the closer we are to the elections.  I know they are conservatives, and as the meaning of the word conservative (1) they prefer to keep things as they are and which makes them comfortable they are confused with the meaning of conservative and retrogress.  We can say, without a doubt, that the Republican party is NOT a conservative party, it’s been a long time since they ceased to be conservatives; they are a retrograde (2) party and that will work against them, there is no nation that can move forward while moving backwards – it is physically impossible.

We must renew our efforts in moving forward.  We can’t go back to the time where only white men had a voice and the rest of society had little or none, as the case of women long ago.  We can’t allow this to be a religious nation, it is imperative that it remains, as our Founding Fathers wanted it to be: a secular nation!

Don’t stay home, don’t stay idle, keep a diary of all the proposals, advocacies, ideas and ideals of the GOP so you will not forget when they throw at us another distraction.  These are dangerous times, our future is on the line, if we are not to march and protest against them, let us at least make our voices heard by writing to them, calling them, email them and write to your local newspapers denouncing them and most importantly… On Tuesday, November 6th, let’s kick the rats out of Washington!

⁽¹⁾ adj. tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions: traditional

⁽²⁾ (1) moving, occurring, or performed in a backward direction (2): occurring or performed in a direction opposite to the normal or forward direction of conduction or flow