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Election 2012 – A Personal View
Are you getting ready to cast your vote?
Consider the following.
No candidate appears to be addressing the real issues namely the Financial Institutions and Jobs.
At the end of the day health care, immigration, and storms are only side issues.
The two real topics that should be screaming forth from the headline news should be unemployment and control over the financial Institutions.
Have the media failed the people concerning these issues. If so, is this due to the malignant lure of campaign funds to fill the publishers coffers.
Do you know the wise guys of banking have received more money in bailouts than has been spent on the wars in Iraq and Iran? All presidents are complicit in doling money your money into these wealth-sucking leeches.
Your next president will be no different he will feed the parasites.
The lesson learned from all of this is the President no longer represents the people. His sole duty appears to be to protect the wealth vampires and the military/industrial complex, the soldiers of destruction. Poor old Johnny Taxpayer must put his hand in the pocket for all the fraud committed by these smart-ass thugs. It seems to me not just in America, but everywhere the dissonant echoes of this story connect with the corridors of authority worldwide.
The most depressing think about this election is you cannot even pick the lesser of two evils
John Koster, GOP House Candidate: ‘The Rape Thing’ Does Not Excuse Abortions
John Koster, a Republican congressional candidate in Washington state, said Sunday that “the rape thing” is not a good enough reason for a woman to have an abortion, the Associated Press reported.
Asked at a campaign fundraiser whether he supports abortion rights in some situations, Koster replied that he only supports abortion in cases where a woman’s life is in danger.
“Incest is so rare, I mean, it’s so rare,” he said. “But the rape thing– you know, I know a woman who was raped and kept the child, gave it up for adoption, and she doesn’t regret it.”
He added, “On the rape thing, it’s like, how does putting more violence onto a woman’s body and taking the life of an innocent child that’s a consequence of this crime — how does that make it better? You know what I mean?”
In response to the controversy over his comments, Koster campaign manager Larry Stickney told the AP that Koster clearly takes rape seriously because he has strongly advocated cracking down on sex offenders.
Republican lawmakers and congressional candidates have made headlines several times over the past few months for their comments about rape and abortion. Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said that pregnancy from rape is “something God intended,” Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said victims of “legitimate rape” almost never become pregnant, and Rep. Tom Smith (R-Pa.) compared pregnancy as a result of rape to “having a baby out of wedlock.”
via John Koster, GOP House Candidate: ‘The Rape Thing’ Does Not Excuse Abortions.
via John Koster, GOP House Candidate: ‘The Rape Thing’ Does Not Excuse Abortions.
GOP Consultant Behind Fake Sandy Tweets – His false information made it into news broadcasts
Shashank Tripathi on the left of picture
NEWSER) – A Twitter user who spread false information as superstorm Sandy battered New York City has been unmasked by Buzzfeed as the campaign manager for Christopher Wright, the Republican House candidate from New York’s 12th congressional district. Among the rumors started by hedge fund manager Shashank Tripathi, using the name “ComfortablySmug,” were that all power in Manhattan was being shut down and that the New York Stock Exchange had flooded.
Tripathi’s rumors spread widely and were reported by several media outlets, forcing utility and transportation officials dealing with the crisis to take time out to deny them. Tripathi, who hung up on journalists requesting comment, has now tweeted a “sincere, humble and unconditional apology” for his “irresponsible and inaccurate” tweets and has resigned from the Wright campaign.
via GOP Consultant Behind Fake Sandy Tweets – His false information made it into news broadcasts.
via GOP Consultant Behind Fake Sandy Tweets – His false information made it into news broadcasts.
Mitt Romney Adviser Says Jeep Jobs Added In China Are Jobs Not Added In U.S.
WASHINGTON – When Mitt Romney told a crowd in Ohio last week that he had read a report saying Jeep was “thinking of moving all production to China,” there was at least a potentially defensible explanation.
A Bloomberg story published the previous Monday had stated that Fiat, which owns Chrysler, “plans to return Jeep output to China and may eventually make all of its models in that country.”
A line was added to the Bloomberg story after it was published stating that Mike Manley, chief operating officer of Fiat and Chrysler in Asia, was referring to “adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.” The Romney campaign told The Huffington Post on Tuesday that the update was after Romney made his remark on Thursday. It’s not clear whether that’s true or not, but what is known is that Chrysler refuted press reports about the Bloomberg story before Romney spoke Thursday evening in Defiance, Ohio.
What has confounded many political observers, and provoked a spirited counteroffensive from the Obama campaign — including their own TV ad — is why the Romney campaign then aired in Ohio a TV commercial that implied the auto bailout had hurt the auto industry and that Chrysler was sending U.S. jobs to China. Chrysler told HuffPost the company has added 11,200 U.S. jobs since going through a managed bankruptcy backed by federal bailout dollars in late 2008 and early 2009. And while Chrysler is going to make Jeeps in China for the Chinese market rather than selling U.S.-built models in China, the company said it is expanding production rather than shifting it, adding shifts and hiring workers in the U.S. at the same time.
via Mitt Romney Adviser Says Jeep Jobs Added In China Are Jobs Not Added In U.S..
via Mitt Romney Adviser Says Jeep Jobs Added In China Are Jobs Not Added In U.S..
Tom Angell: 10 Most Unexpected Marijuana Reform Supporters
With less than one week before we find out how voters in Colorado, Oregon and Washington will decide on ballot measures to regulate marijuana like alcohol, polls indicate there’s a very good chance at least one of these states will make history by enacting the world’s first-ever marijuana legalization law.
While the movement to reform marijuana laws has been steadily picking up steam in recent years, with rising national polling support and a growing number of states allowing for the medical use of marijuana, having the voters of a state opt to legalize and tax marijuana for adult use would propel the issue to the forefront of the mainstream political scene like never before.
The three legalization initiatives on state ballots are not only drawing support from a large number of voters, but are garnering endorsements from newspaper editorial boards, civic groups, civil rights leaders, celebrities and even some members of law enforcement.
But guess who else is speaking out in support of changing marijuana laws? Check out the slideshow below for a top 10 list of the most unexpected allies in the fight against marijuana prohibition.
These quotes are sourced from the new website http://www.MarijuanaMajority.com, which compiles quotes and videos from prominent people across the political spectrum who support reforming marijuana laws.
via Tom Angell: 10 Most Unexpected Marijuana Reform Supporters.
via Tom Angell: 10 Most Unexpected Marijuana Reform Supporters.
Buffy creator ‘switches allegiance’ to Mitt Romney in spoof video
Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has given a backhanded endorsement to Mitt Romney‘s presidential campaign predicting it will usher in a “zombie apocalypse”.
In a spoof video posted on YouTube, the director of The Avengers backs the Republican candidate’s programme of cuts that he says will turn the United States into “a nightmare zombie wasteland”.
Whedon, who describes himself as a liberal and a feminist and publically backs LGBT rights, including gay marriage, is seen stocking up on canned goods as if preparing for a disaster, as he explains his decision to shift his alliegiance from President Obama.
“Mitt Romney is a very different kind of candidate. One with the vision and determination to cut through the business as usual politics and finally put this country back on the path to the zombie apocalypse,” he says.
“Romney’s ready to make the deep rollbacks in healthcare, education, social services and reproductive rights that will guarantee poverty, unemployment, overpolulation disease and rioting. All crucial elements in creating a nightmare zombie wasteland.”
But it is Romney’s support for “ungoverned corporate privilege” that Whedon predicts will plunge the economy into “true insolvency and chaos”.
Musing that no one can predict whether the zombie hordes will be the old school shuffling kind or the speedier type from 28 Days Later, he says: “The 1% won’t be the very rich. It will be the very fast,”
The director adds: “Mitt’s not afraid to face a ravening grasping hoard of subhumans – because that’s how he sees poor people already.”
Whedon’s video is the latest in a series of celebrity election endorsements. Lena Dunham, creator of HBO’s Girls, appears in an Obama campaign ad in which she urges young women who are first time voters to lose their election virginity to “someone who really cares about women”.
The clip, entitled The First Time, provoked outrage from conservative commentators, who described as ‘tasteless’ and ‘disgusting’.
Actor Samuel L Jackson also stars in a rhyming bedtime story in which he tells Obama supporters to “Wake The Fuck Up” and support the Democrat campaign.
via Buffy creator ‘switches allegiance’ to Mitt Romney in spoof video | World news | guardian.co.uk.
via Buffy creator ‘switches allegiance’ to Mitt Romney in spoof video | World news | guardian.co.uk.
U.S. election: Romney held in disdain in his home state –
BOSTON—Abandoned. Used and abused. Thrown under the bus. Stomped upon for political convenience, then left behind like worthless electoral baggage.
That’s what you hear when you ask Massachusetts about former governor Mitt Romney.
And the contempt isn’t just palpable in the state that knows him best; it’s more like an alternate-universe episode of Cheers — where everybody knows his name. And they’re never glad he came.
U.S. Election coverage
Yet Romney, should he win the White House on Nov. 6, won’t just get the last laugh in the land of the Kennedys. The triumph inside his election-night headquarters at the Boston Convention Centre will be ringed by a doughnut of disdain for the first president in more than 50 years to claim victory while losing at home. Badly.
It will be an even rarer double-whammy if Romney wins the presidency while also losing lose his birth state, Michigan, as projected — a feat unmatched since 1844, when Democrat James Polk took the White House despite losing his native North Carolina and his resident state of Tennessee.
Indeed, Massachusetts appears to be saving a special place in hell for Romney, with polls suggesting he will lose here to Obama by about 20 percentage points.
No other state bears the Republican standard-bearer such ill will. Which leaves many of America’s political observers wondering whether the Democrats are leaving something profound on the table in all but ignoring Romney’s home state blues.
“It’s remarkable that Democrats have not made more of this,” said Robert McElvaine, a Millsaps College history professor who first documented the Massachusetts gap in a Politico article titled “Un-favourite Son.”
one in a line of GOP governors, including former Paul Cellucci, who went on to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Canada. And the very specific anti-Romney sentiment is evident in how he has fallen off the Massachusetts radar even as the state’s best-known Republican senator, Scott Brown, is still in a very competitive race against Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren.
Everyday Bostonians and the state’s close political watchers alike say the depth of the enmity is cumulative. It began long ago, and only worsened because Romney didn’t just run for president so much as run from Massachusetts.
“It’s reminiscent of what Sarah Palin did in Alaska. Midway through his term as governor he lost all interest in Massachusetts and set his sights on the presidency,” said longtime Democratic activist Richard Hall, a community development consultant steeped in Massachusetts politics.
“And so, for the last two years, he was a governor in absentia, flying around the country to attend conservative junkets, shifting his positions. He had his ‘epiphany,’ switching from pro-choice to pro-life on abortion. And, worst of all, that’s when he began insulting Massachusetts — ridiculing us to expand his national appeal.”
That perception sets him apart from the likes of Sen. Scott Brown, who even if he proves not to be Boston’s cup of tea, is still very much regarded as a New England patriot, a born-and-bred politician who truly loves his state.
Ruth Balser, a seven-term Democratic state representative from Newton, Mass., said the home-state resentment metastasized into something far more bitter in 2012 when Romney began trashing his signature accomplishment — the Massachusetts health-care overhaul many regard as the forerunner to Obamacare.
Balser herself wasn’t surprised. What loyal Democrats elsewhere call Romney’s political flip-flops, she considers triple-axel political pirouettes worthy of Olympic gold.
“Long before Romney had his ‘epiphany’ on abortion, even before he ran in Massachusetts, there was talk he might run for governor in Utah — on a pro-life platform,” remembers Balser.
“In the end, he decided his chances were better in Massachusetts, where he had to be pro-choice to win,” she said.
“It’s the same with health care. He helped create a model for the nation in truly bipartisan fashion and then proceeded to trash it. And now he’s turning a third time, trying to sound in these final weeks like the moderate Republican.
“We admire and respect plenty of Republicans. But if you make fun of Massachusetts, if you wear whatever political clothes are in season, it’s just the sheer opportunism that rankles. It’s the way you used our state — nobody likes to feel used.”
Boston author Sally McGinty, an educational consultant and former Harvard faculty member, suggests the numbers driving Romney down in Massachusetts are symptomatic of a larger malaise affecting that shrinking constituency known as moderate Republicans.
McGinty used to consider herself one, pointing proudly to her past support of Ronald Reagan. But as “Tea Party forces” take greater hold on the party’s centre, she feels increasingly isolated.
“Romney was a very successful business person and that’s a positive way to begin as Massachusetts governor. I’m an in-town Bostonian, but I’m originally from the New York area, where being Republican wasn’t a despicable thing — it represented a reasonable-minded position,” said McGinty.
“But today, in order to have a Republican affiliation, people are required to talk seriously about insane candidates like Michelle Bachmann. And to me Romney is a part of that shiftiness, to the point where I don’t have a sense of who we’ll really get as president if we elect him.”
McGinty doesn’t wear rose-coloured glasses when it comes to Romney’s Massachusetts health-care overhaul. “It seems to work, but it might be too expensive for the state to sustain.
“But for me, I just can’t bear the thought that Romney will be spending the next four years trying to take it apart rather than spending his efforts to make health care work. It might be the electable answer, but it’s very troubling.”
Balser and others describe the vetoes — nearly 800 in all — that Romney wielded during his governorship as evidence that puts the lie to his campaign’s bipartisan claims.
“The one I was most closely involved in was Romney’s rejection of funding for kosher meals in nursing homes. It applied to only a few hundred people; there wasn’t a huge amount of money involved,” Balser said.
“We saw it as a question of religious freedom and appealed to Romney on that basis, thinking he would surely come around. But his veto stood — and we eventually were able to use the Massachusetts supermajority to overturn his decision.”
With Romney now polling strongly against Obama, many in Massachusetts now are bracing for the New England equivalent of political vertigo — that nine nights from now, Romney will stroll up to the microphone in Boston as president-elect. And it will be Massachusetts that launched him on America.
“I recognize it intellectually. But I’m not braced for it, emotionally. I feel that now it’s all in the hands of low-information voters — political ignoramuses. I want to say shame on them — and shame that our politics feels it has to cater to them,” said Hall.
“I truly can’t stand Romney. I still feel he’s unsalable. And I remain an optimist, despite my jaded cynicism, that the American people are better than this. We’re not going to elect him.”
And if Massachusetts is wrong? What sort of Romney does he expect America will get?
“I’ve been thinking about that more and more,” said Hall. “He seems to have no core beliefs, but you can’t be alive for 65 years and not stand for anything, right?
“I do think Romney is basically a centrist at heart. If he’s forced to confront the question on his deathbed, that’s probably how he would call it.
“So we would be looking at a more conservative president than Barack Obama, but one who will adapt to his surroundings. Look at the way he turned chameleon in the presidential debates — that gives you a clue.”
But even Hall is able to swallow the bitterness and get his head around the notion that Massachusetts will survive a Romney presidency, should it materialize.
“I think this country, as screwed up as it may appear to someone from Canada, is still too strong and stable to be upended by any one individual,” said Hall.
“Our system is designed to weed out the clowns. And now all the clowns — and there were many — have fallen by the wayside. Whatever Romney is, he’s not a clown.
“He’s not morally despicable — he’s intellectually despicable, in my opinion. But the country would survive Mitt Romney, even if it’s a long and unpleasant four years.”
Massachusetts, Hall reminds us, does not take these matters lightly. This is a state where “only two things matter — politics and sport. And politics as played like a blood sport. We export political operatives around the country. It’s ingrained in our DNA like nowhere else.”
When Romney first ran for governor in 2002, said Hall, a rare opening was apparent. The Democratic state house was in disarray, with the public mood swinging against a party that had enjoyed too free a reign for too long.
Romney “adroitly” seized the moment, said Hall, with a campaign that labelled his opponent, then State Treasurer Shannon O’Brien, as part of the worst of the Democratic old guard — the so-called “Beacon Hill triumvirate.”
“Every speech, every debate, he just hammered and hammered and hammered. It was a boring, soul-crushing campaign — and the whole time the press was trying to find ways of describing this strange animal called Romney,” said Hall.
“He didn’t follow any mould seen before. You had the wonky guys like Michael Dukakis. You had the old Irish-Italians with their own brand, reaching out to the blue-collar union guys.
“But Romney wasn’t any of these things. And the press ended up with the words that hold to this day. ‘Wooden, stiff, awkward.’ Finally someone seized on ‘robotic’ and that became the word — a robotic candidate citing the same things over and over again. People didn’t take him seriously. But we were wrong and he was right — he won.”
via U.S. election: Romney held in disdain in his home state – thestar.com.
via U.S. election: Romney held in disdain in his home state – thestar.com.