When Things Have More Rights Than Humans.

Whack-a-Mormon

Presidential Debate 
October 16, 2012 
Moderator: Candy Crowley 
Place: Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY 
Format: Town Hall 

Tuesday night was the second presidential debate and I was glad it was a town hall setting; I knew President Obama excels in that environment and I was right. President Obama was outstanding, so much different than during the first debate where most of us felt that his body was there but his mind and spirit where somewhere else and we kept waiting for him to wake up. This time, this time he was excellent and if he disappointed someone it was probably the people at Fox News. 

The debate began with a student, Jeremy Epstein, who asked the following question: “Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate?” 

I will not be providing Romney’s full answer to every question because if I do you will need three days to read this article. Instead I will just provide the “key” parts of some answers. Romney's answer to Jeremy's question was “…So what we have to do is two things. We have to make sure that we make it easier for kids to afford college and also make sure that when they get out of college, there's a job. When I was governor of Massachusetts, to get a high school degree, you had to pass an exam. If you graduated in the top quarter of your airlines, we gave you a John and Abigail Adams scholarship, four years tuition free in the college of your choice in Massachusetts; it's a public institution. I want to make sure we keep our Pell grant program growing. We're also going to have our loan program, so that people are able to afford school. But the key thing is to make sure you can get a job when you get out of school. And what's happened over the last four years has been very, very hard for America's young people. I want you to be able to get a job.”

 

In his plan, A Chance for Every Child, page 31, first paragraph, you’ll find how Romney is planning to help students from low to middle-income families to attend college, or at least it was back in May of this year… before he decided that in order to get the vote of young people he needed to change his tune and be a huge supporter of Pell grants, but that will not be what he will do if he ever gets in the Oval Office. 

This is what he says on the paragraph in question: “Last but not least, families must be supported in their efforts to plan ahead and save for their children’s higher education. A Romney Administration will aim to increase the opportunity to save and invest for higher education, particularly for low- and moderate-income families. With better information and more affordable options, financing higher-education can once again become an attractive opportunity instead of an overwhelming burden.” 

Of course, for a person that believes a middle-income family makes between $200,000 to $250,000 a year, this is a very doable proposition. The problem is, his figures are wrong. Middle-class income is somewhere around $50,000 and his strategy its completely impossible to do for low-income families. Once more, only the wealthy are worthy of higher education. Romney keeps mentioning that his Education plan while he was governor of Massachusetts was a success, but a recently Faculty Research Paper published by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government reveals that the contrary its true. If you wish to read it, click here.  

The next question was directed at President Obama and was asked by Phillip Tricolla: “Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it's not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department?” 

I must admit that President Obama didn’t answer the question; instead he began to mention all the things he has accomplished or wishes to accomplish regarding energy. But Romney, his answer was terrible, providing the wrong figures and what is worse supports the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the majority of Americans are against. Romney, mocking the president, said if he gets to be president: “We're going to bring that pipeline in from Canada. How in the world the president said no to that pipeline? I will never know.” 

Perhaps Mr. Romney hasn’t heard of all the environmental damages this pipeline represents. That dirty tar sands oil is not ours, it belongs to Canada and it will be shipped out of the US as fast as it’s being extracted. This will only benefit Transcanada, not our country and not our environment. But of course, Romney doesn’t care about either; he only serves the big oil moguls and the mighty buck, the rest can go to hell for all he cares.

Romney continued to say, “Talk to the people that are working in those industries. I was in coal country. People grabbed my arms and said, "Please save my job." The head of the EPA said, "You can't build a coal plant. You'll virtually -- it's virtually impossible given our regulations." When the president ran for office, he said if you build a coal plant, you can go ahead, but you'll go bankrupt. That's not the right course for America.” 

President Obama gave us a hint at Mitt Romney's chameleon opinions:  “…And when I hear Governor Romney say he's a big coal guy, I mean, keep in mind, when -- Governor, when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, "This plant kills," and took great pride in shutting it down. And now suddenly you're a big champion of coal.” As usual, President Obama was telling the truth, if you don't believe me, watch Mitt Romney's video stating it.

 

Romney accused the president of reducing production of oil in federal land, the President kept persisting that oil production in Federal land has gone up, not down. According to CNN, the President is right and, as usual, Romney is wrong. Click here to read CNN's article. 

Mary Follano directed her question to Romney. She asked him: “You have stated that if you're elected president, you would plan to reduce the tax rates for all the tax brackets and that you would work with the Congress to eliminate some deductions in order to make up for the loss in revenue. Concerning these various deductions, the mortgage deductions, the charitable deductions, the child tax credit and also the education credits, which are important to me, because I have children in college. What would be your position on those things, which are important to the middle class?” 

Romney replied, and this time I will quote his entire response: “Thank you very much. And let me tell you, you're absolutely right about part of that, which is I want to bring the rates down, I want to simplify the tax code, and I want to get middle- income taxpayers to have lower taxes. And the reason I want middle-income taxpayers to have lower taxes is because middle-income taxpayers have been buried over the past four years. 

You've seen, as middle-income people in this country, incomes go down $4,300 a family, even as gasoline prices have gone up $2,000. Health insurance premiums, up $2,500. Food prices up. Utility prices up. The middle-income families in America have been crushed over the last four years. So I want to get some relief to middle-income families. That's part one. Now, how about deductions? 'Cause I'm going to bring rates down across the board for everybody, but I'm going to limit deductions and exemptions and credits, particularly for people at the high end, because I am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now. The top 5 percent of taxpayers will continue to pay 60 percent of the income tax the nation collects. So that'll stay the same. 

Middle-income people are going to get a tax break. And so, in terms of bringing down deductions, one way of doing that would be say everybody gets -- I'll pick a number -- $25,000 of deductions and credits, and you can decide which ones to use. Your home mortgage interest deduction, charity, child tax credit, and so forth, you can use those as part of filling that bucket, if you will, of deductions. But your rate comes down and the burden also comes down on you for one more reason, and that is every middle-income taxpayer no longer will pay any tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. No tax on your savings. That makes life a lot easier. If you're getting interest from a bank, if you're getting a statement from a mutual fund or any other kind of investment you have, you don't have to worry about filing taxes on that, because there'll be no taxes for anybody making $200,000.00 per year and less, on your interest, dividends and capital gains. Why am I lowering taxes on the middle-class? Because under the last four years, they've been buried. And I want to help people in the middle-class. And I will not under any circumstances, reduce the share that's being paid by the highest income taxpayers. And I will not, under any circumstances increase taxes on the middle-class. The president's spending, the president's borrowing will cost this nation to have to raise taxes on the American people. Not just at the high end. A recent study has shown the people in the middle-class will see $4,000.00 per year in higher taxes as a result of the spending and borrowing of this administration.” 

Mitt Romney has no idea what it’s considered to be a middle-class income. For a man that has never been “middle-class,” he thinks that $250,000 its what constitutes the annual income of those from the middle-class. He has no idea that middle-class earnings are about $50,000 a year. So when you hear him puffing about our President raising the taxes on the middle-class, bear in mind that he is referring to those making from $200,000 to $250,000. For a man that makes in dividends millions of dollars those that earn a quarter or half of what he makes without moving a finger, it’s the middle-class.  The real middle-class are those that he was despotically referring to as lazy and government leaches that don't want to take responsibility for their lives.  Remember that!
 

Ironically, Romney believes that the top 5% pays about 60% of their income in taxes and as far as I know, that is not true. The maximum amount for an individual making over $379,150 is 35% and that’s before all the loopholes which the very wealthy are “entitled” to and which allows individuals like Mitt Romney to pay less than 13% in taxes while the rest of us pay an average of 23%.  The same is true for Corporations. 

The Tax Policy Center believes that Romney’s tax plan doesn’t have a leg to stand on and that the math simply is not there. To see the report, click here.

Katherine Fenton asked Romney a great question: "In what new ways to you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

Romney never provided an answer to that question. Must of us just only remember his now famous “binder full of women” because apparently there were no women available in Massachusetts to do the required job, so he had to “go and find them.” While it is true that he had 9 women in his cabinet, the previous governors from Michael Dukakis to Jane Swift, all of them had women in their cabinet, including the present governor Duval Patrick. The honor of having more women in cabinet positions belongs to Paul Celluci, Republican, who governed Massachusetts from 1997 to 2001. However, the question was not about his opinion about hiring women, the question was about equal pay which Romney refused to answer and, during a Presidential Debate where so much is at risk not answering this very important question means that he agrees that women should earn less than their male counterpart. What’s more, when pressed by Crowley, his replied was: “I'm going to help women in America get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.”

Is he serious? Women don’t need “support” to be part of the workforce, women have been part of the workforce for over half a century. Women have been getting “good work” for a long time now. What women are not getting is equal pay for that “good work” and that was precisely the question. His stand on this subject reflects how distant Romney is from what women need and how deaf he is to women’s pleas… He ignored it completely and it is obvious that he like things just the way they are. Another thing one must keep in mind is his hiring record while he was running Bain Capital… He hired no women while at Bain  and you can rest assured that he will overturn the Lilly Ledbetter Bill since it allows women to file suit, retroactively, against the companies that pay less to women for equal work. All Romney wants to protect are the interests of Corporate America, not the workers and certainly not the women... after all, unlike President Obama, Mitt Romney only has sons and for him and his religion, women are second-class citizens.

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