Rich man Romney wants to tax the rich

RETIII of the Daily Kos community discussed a recent op-ed written by Mitt Romney for the New York Times. Its title is Mitt Romney: Tax the Rich, Like Me. Romney looks to be retired now or at least retired from politics, though he had been a Republican senator, governor, and presidential candidate and is described as having lots of money, though not at the billionaire level. So, on to what he’s calling for. I’ll summarize both quotes of Romney’s statements and RETIII’s comments and add a bit of my own. The need for the government to raise more revenue or to cut spending is obvious if the nasty guy can add a trillion dollars to the national in just a couple months. Tariffs won’t raise enough. The biggest part of federal spending (beyond the military?) is Social Security and Medicare. There are endless articles about both programs being in fiscal trouble (though many of those are excuses to limit the programs). Mucking with them too much can bring great wrath from senior voters. One proposal is to raise the income limit on FICA. This supports Social Security and incomes higher than $176K aren’t subject to FICA. Romney supports getting rid of the limit. Along with that Romney wants to add a means test to Social Security and Medicare. In a sense there is a means test for Medicare. The higher your income the higher your premiums. But Social Security was designed as a benefit to all. RETIII understands why. If there is a Social Security cutoff or reduction then the rich will see it doesn’t benefit them. Increased FICA and they will pay more for a benefit they don’t get. If they don’t get it they will more easily brand Social Security as “welfare” and work even harder to undermine it. Romney calls for raising the retirement age because we live longer than when Social Security was enacted 90 years ago. But RETIII says working longer at a job that is physical labor is quite different than working longer at a desk job. Romney wants to eliminate tax “caverns,” what are usually called loopholes. One proposal is to eliminate the current practice of not taxing capital gains at death. Romney explains:

Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario using Elon Musk as a proxy. If he had originally purchased his Tesla stock with, say, $1 billion and held it until his death, and if it were then worth $500 billion, he would never pay the 24 percent federal capital gains tax on the $499 billion profit. Why? Because under the tax code, capital gains are not taxed at death. The tax code provision known as step-up in basis means that when Mr. Musk’s heirs get his stock, they are treated as if they purchased it for $500 billion. So no one pays taxes on the $499 billion capital gain. Ever.

Romney mentions a couple more. I can think of more that RETIII doesn’t mention: Tax capital gains at the same rate as wage income. Raise the tax rate for the higher income brackets. RETIII’s conclusion and a few comments say why Romney’s comments are important. They get the debate started. Having a rich guy talk about taxing the rich is much more important than when a poor or middle-class person says the same thing. Much of politics is about persuasion and Romney has started his persuading. We’ll see how hard he keeps at it. Mark Sumner, Kos staff emeritus, commented that the nasty guy has long complained that Biden used an autopen a lot and claims anything signed by an autopen wasn’t officially signed. But the nasty guy is an autopen – between naps he signs anything put before him without reading it. Sumner calls him Grandpa Snoozy. Think about the large number of times he’s asked about something he’s signed and he says he knows nothing about it. That means his staff – including Russel Vought and Stephen Miller – are actually running the place. Well, no surprise there. And that means they will never invoke the 25th Amendment that allows the VP and Cabinet to declare the president incompetent, which would end his term. And perhaps theirs. Lisa Needham of Kos discussed the problem of the nasty guy’s executive order declaring fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. First, it isn’t – it isn’t so destructive as to kill millions in a single moment. Second, the chemicals that are used to make fentanyl also have other good and important uses, so banning them doesn’t make sense. Third, Venezuela does not produce fentanyl. Fourth, this isn’t about fentanyl. It’s about providing an after-the-fact justification for bombing Venezuelan boats. It also allows the Department of Justice to get the Department of Defense involved.

This looks like a pretty blatant attempt at getting a widespread permission slip for military personnel to be used in domestic criminal investigations, which is not great! ... There’s also the problem that the administration has reassigned everyone to the “brutally torturing immigrants” project, which means drug arrests have already dropped, and fewer new investigations are being opened. But rather than do those actual investigations and prosecutions, which is what should be happening if we face such a deadly scourge, this instead is an attempt to get full war on terror authority, a blank check for Trump and Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem to do anything they want, any time, anywhere.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Krugman discussing the nasty guy’s viciousness:

Yet, on reflection, I realized that there’s a story here that’s bigger than Trump, a story in which Trump is one especially egregious example of a larger pattern. What is that pattern? That being vicious and bigoted is cool, is based in current slang. Trump is one data point in the midst of an epidemic of performative hatemongering in America. And while most of this is emanating from right-wing extremists, not all of it is.

I wanted to see what current slang reflects bigotry. So I went to Krugman’s article. It doesn’t discuss slang, though it does chart the rise of antisemitism and does talk about the increase in people of the far right around the world who say vicious and bigoted things. In the comments bjkeefe posted a cartoon by John Darkow of ICE agents picking crops. One of them says, “I guess we should’ve seen this coming!” Almost two years ago, about the time of Epiphany, marking the time the Wise Men visit the infant Jesus, I saw the phrase, “grifts of gold, frank nonsense, and merch.” Now Graeme Keyes did another take. His cartoon shows three guys in red “MAGI” hats. They guys could be Musk, the vice nasty, and the nasty guy. Their gifts are “Gold, Frankly dense, and Mire.” The Naked Pastor posted a cartoon of a brown Joseph and brown Mary – they lived in the Middle East – yet the just delivered baby boy is white. Which is how Westerners see him.

I will save democracy by wearing a suit

Over the last couple decades I’ve learned of the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a late 18th century French composer, yes about the time of Mozart. When my classical music radio stations began to play recordings of his music they would, of course, discuss that he was a black man and in addition to his abilities of composing and playing music, he was quite a good athlete, especially in fencing, and also a good soldier. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has now played one of his symphonies. I didn’t go because the music of Mozart and his contemporaries is music I appreciate in small doses. When these stations began to talk about a movie of his life. I was, of course, interested. The movie is Chevalier, and was my Sunday movie. As with all of Hollywood movies one must not assume the whole thing is historically accurate, even though the frame probably is. A featured user review on IMDB says the movie is so historically inaccurate one would do better reading Saint-Georges’s Wikipedia page. Sticking to the what is historically accurate would have made a fine movie, so why muck it up with a fictional overlay? Alas, Wikipedia pages tend towards the dry side. Well, fine. Don’t watch this movie for the history. Instead, consider it as a fictional story. Does it do well at that? I think so and I enjoyed it. The acting is quite good, the movie is quite well made, and the story is a good one. The movie opens as Mozart and his orchestra finishes a concert and asks the audience what should be played as an encore. Joseph approaches the stage and proposes one of Mozart’s violin concertos – with Joseph playing along. Mozart agrees, no harm in humoring the guy. And Joseph begins to add another line to the solo part with the cadenza (usually improvised at the time) turning into a musical duel (though some of those riffs sound too bluesy for the 18th century). The audience is impressed. Then we see young Joseph being brought to a French music academy. His father is a white plantation owner on Guadeloupe, part of the French West Indies, his mother a slave. But Joseph already has good violin skills. This part is basically true. Once grown a fencing duel introduces him to Queen Marie Antoinette and she anoints him as Chevalier, the French equivalent of a knight. This gives him access to the high society circles and soon he is her guest in her box at the opera – and we pass from the historically dubious and on into the historically false. He hears that the job of director of the Paris Opera is open and he proposes to the queen that the one to get the job should be the one who writes the best opera. And he’s off and running. Then racism happens. And he has to figure out who he is. At the death of his father his mother arrives in France. She warns him about living in a white man’s world. As this is going on we get closer to the French Revolution, which Joseph begins to take interest in the people’s point of view – especially that égalité thing. It all comes to a satisfying (though not historically accurate) climax. At the end of the movie it says that when Napoleon came to power he banned Saint-Georges’s music because he was a person of color. It said that much of his music was destroyed, though consider this movie’s relationship with historical accuracy (I don’t know how much was lost). Napoleon’s ban is a big reason why this music was ignored for 200 years. We begin to wonder... Saint-Georges was called the “Black Mozart.” Perhaps Mozart should have been called the “White Saint-Georges?” I finished the book The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel. It’s a science fiction murder mystery. Kobo comes from a family so poor they lived in underground burrows. His burrow collapsed, killing his parents and mangling his right arm. The arm is replaced with a bionic version. And soon he is obsessed with getting the latest bionic body upgrade. Kobo is taken in by the family of JJ Zunz. Zunz is just a few days different in age from Kobo and they consider each other to be brothers. Kobo had a short stint in a baseball league that featured players with bionic body parts, but that league was banned. So he now works as a scout for the latest sort of baseball team, heavy with corporate ownership. His prospects include medical and genetic scientists as well as players. That’s because while bionic parts are banned chemical and biological enhancements are not. Then Zunz, now the star batter on another baseball team, is murdered by a biological agent during his last at-bat in the last game before the World Series, a very public death. Kobo is asked by Zunz’ team to investigate the murder in exchange for the hope of paying off his considerable medical debt. But only if he solves the crime before the end of the World Series. The plot has a great number of twists and turns and the ending is not anywhere near where one expects, which is good. Along the way are discussions of bionic enhancements and cloning. There are also discussions of inequality – if only the rich are able to afford bodily upgrades and perhaps long-term youthful vigor, where does that leave the poor? I enjoyed this one, though I tend to avoid murder mysteries because they start with a murder. Hunter of Daily Kos reported that the loudest noise coming from the Senate this week was about Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania routinely showing up at the chamber wearing a hoodie and gym shorts instead of a suit. To accommodate him Schumer told the Senate sergeant-at-arms to no longer enforce the dress code. Republicans promptly needed a fainting couch and pearls to clutch. They are mighty upset the Senate has lowered the bar on dress code. Hunter and many others noted Republicans are not at all upset about the lowered bar on behavior by members of Congress. That low standard includes things like Rep. Lauren Boebert and her date being booted from a theater because of vaping, groping, and being disturbing nuisances to those around them. Or the Pandemic Prince being awarded with $2 billion by the Saudis after departing the White House. Or it seems a frequent parade of Republicans caught in a sex scandal. Could you guess that Fetterman is a Democrat? Joan McCarter of Kos reported on Senate Republicans going “DressCon 1” over the relaxation of the Senate dress code. 46 of them signed a letter to Schumer discussing how casual clothing disrespects the Senate. Wrote McCarter:

They even pulled the war card. The Senate floor, they wrote, “is where we must make the gravest decision imaginable – whether to send our fellow Americans into battle to defend the freedoms we all hold dear.” Meanwhile, every one of the senators who signed that letter is standing by while Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville symbolically spits on our armed forces with his monthslong hold on military promotions and confirmations.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Fetterman, who had no tolerance for BS and is quick with humorous counterjab had a proposal to all those who don’t like his hoodies:

If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.

Fetterman’s campaign is now selling hoodies. Last June the Supreme Court handed down a decision that said colleges and universities could no long use race in the admissions process. That decision explicitly said it did not apply to the service academies – West Point and such. Nina Totenberg of NPR reported that the same organization that brought that suit against Harvard is now bringing a suit against West Point. Totenberg noted why the service academies are so invested in racial balance. During Vietnam black soldiers made up 25% of the enlisted men in the Army, but only 2% of officers of all branches. They determined lack of of minority officers “threatened the integrity and performance of the military.” So they consider race in admissions. The case will likely be before the Supreme Court some time next year. Sumner discussed the legacy of Rudy Giuliani. Once beloved for the way he seemed to handle the job of Mayor of New York after the 9/11 attacks (though Sumner reminds us that he was actually an awful mayor), Giuliani has fallen so far he was sued by his own attorney for about $1.3 million in unpaid legal fees. The more he associated with the nasty guy the worse things have gotten for him. And few people are shedding tears. McKay Coppins wrote a biography of Sen. Mitt Romney, to be published soon. Coinciding with Romney’s announcement that he will retire when his term is up next year Coppins published excerpts in The Atlantic. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed a few excerpts, mostly those that focused on Romney’s views of other Republicans. A big part of that was even though in public they toadied up to the nasty guy in private they ridiculed him, one declaring, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.” Yet, they voted to acquit at the impeachment trials. Coppins gets to why.

But after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged. One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome?

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Michael Tomasky of The New Republic discussing why Biden isn’t getting credit for his accomplishments.

There is no one reason. But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media. Or rather, the two medias. It’s very important that people understand this: We reside in a media environment that promotes—whether it intends to or not—right-wing authoritarian spectacle. At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance. The result is bad for Joe Biden. But it’s potentially tragic for democracy.

A few days ago – before I saw this quote – I got to thinking about the media obsession with the campaign as a horse race. I’ve talked many times about a social hierarchy and how many, perhaps most, people pay a great deal of attention to their position in the hierarchy, annoyed by those above them and pleased there is someone below them. I’ve seen the higher one is in the hierarchy the more one is obsessed with maintaining their position near the top. Most media companies are also obsessed with the hierarchy. That’s why they report on who “won the day” and who is ahead. That’s all about who is higher in the hierarchy, who is moving up, who is falling down. Policy issues, especially many of the ones pushed by Democrats, aren’t about the hierarchy, or rather about policies that help people to move up the hierarchy. In contrast, most – likely all – policies proposed by Republicans are about maintaining the hierarchy or pushing those low in the hierarchy to even lower positions, to make those at the top look better. Because of that to a media company obsessed with hierarchy policy is boring. In another roundup Dworkin had a few interesting quotes. One is a tweet by David Pepper:

More traditional/“moderate” Republicans: 1) engaged in egregious gerrymandering, and/or stopped efforts to reform it at the federal level 2) bemoan the state of their extremist party. Guys—1) led to 2)! You created the beast. A true self-own! Get on board & help fix it!

Dworkin quoted MatthewContinetti of Commentary

The first thing to say about the New Right is that it can get weird. Its ranks are composed almost entirely of men. They inhabit a social-media cocoon where they talk a lot about manhood, and strength, and manliness, and push-ups, and masculinity, and virility, and weight-lifting, and testosterone. “Wrestling should be mandated in middle schools,” write Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor in the collection Up from Conservatism. “Students could learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals. Every male student could learn to skin an animal and every female to milk a cow.”

And the second thing is the “flirtation” (though I would use a much stronger word) with racism and anti-Semitiem. Yes, they’re obsessed with the hierarchy. Dworkin also included a tweet from Archaeo – Histories that has a couple photos of a 2200 year old mosaics recently uncovered in Turkey. Down in the comments Denise Oliver Velez included lots of cartoons. One is from Jesse Duquette of Harriet Tubman holding up the finger with the caption:

On this day in 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. Florida schools: Ungrateful helper rudely abandons her generous landlords.

And a cartoon by Paul Noth in honor of Constitution Day (Sept. 17th). The document is now 236 years old. The cartoon shows several founding fathers seated around a table working on our founding document and one of them says:

But what if a tyrant comes to power and no one’s able to stop him because the whole thing’s kind of funny?

And in a third roundup is a cartoon from Pat Byrnes. Two elephants are walking in the Capitol and one says to the other, “But won’t charging Biden with something only help his electability?”

Morality of capitalism

Over the last 30 years there has been a lot of talk about the glories of Capitalism. Part of that is the demise of Communism in Russia and the reduction of Socialism in Europe. It isn't just talk, of course, there has been a big push for free-market solutions to everything. And with that came stagnant incomes, gaping inequality, and the Great Recession.

So the talk is moving to make the moral case for even-freer-market capitalism, with books being published. Yeah, these are the same ideas I've discussed and worked to refute: taxation and regulation restricts liberty, income redistribution is thievery and undermines the incentives that drive capitalism. And capitalism has been "the best system for freeing large masses of human beings from lives of misery and poverty." So what could be more moral than that?

Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post doesn't refute those ideas (alas!). But he does note the rough time Romney had running on them and that Obama is beginning to join the debate. Good, says Pearlstein. It is time to grapple with these ideas and a debate will lift flabby arguments out of easy slogans.

A commenter named Fiat500 explains the national economic debate this way:

An anology i often use when explaining political-economics to younger people is to look at society as a vehicle. The economy is the engine. We want a strong engine, but the purpose of the car is get us collective to our chosen destination, not just to go as fast as possible. Republicans want a ferrari, big engine, goes really fast, is a lot of fun, but only for two people. Democrats want a tour bus, same big engine, but lots of comfy seats, driver (govt) goes where passengers want him to go. The economy is not an end in itself, but rather a tool for achieving the public good, and it should be managed as such.

Outspent and outvoted

Jon Stewart takes a look at the David Petraeus scandal. Along the way he talks to a military "advisor" who concludes that heterosexuals should be banned from the military because, "These people are incapable of monogamy." Six minutes of fun.



Now that Obama is firmly reelected (and some people just can't handle that idea) a slew of petitions have appeared asking for individual states be allowed to secede from the union. Yep, Michigan is in the list (there is a strong Militia movement in the farm country north of Detroit). If a particular petition gets over 25K signatures within a month, Obama is supposed to consider and respond. The petition for Texas has topped 73K.

David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement notes there are such petitions in 42 states. He tries to make the claim that the states without such petitions are the ones with gay marriage, but he includes Alaska and Hawaii and leaves out New York and New Hampshire. Oops. But why not let them secede? he asks. Progressives can take their part of the country in the direction they want much more quickly, and conservatives can remake society in their own fashion without big battles. So, if you can, go for it. Except progressives know that the children, minorities, the old, and the poor won't fare well in the conservative parts. Badash ends this way:

But sadly, it’s probably not possible.

So, Tea Party “patriots” will need to become compatriots. They’ll need to lose the attitude. Lose the wing nuts. Lose the hats. Send the GOP to the dust bins of history. And send the anti-gay radical religious right straight back to the Hell from which it came.

Let’s start anew — by recognizing we are a nation of immigrants. And gay people. And Black people. And Women. And…

But God Almighty, cut the selfish, racist, anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-gay, anti-math, anti-education, anti-truth crap. Or get the hell out.

Fred Karger, one-time gay GOP candidate for prez., ponders the invisibility of the Mormon Church in the recent four-state battle over gay marriage for an article in the Huffington Post. That church has been heavily involved in all such battles since the one in Hawaii back in 1998. They were also in the thick of it during the Calif. battle in 2008. The backlash from that battle gave the Mormons a very public black eye.

Karger is the one to talk about all this because he was the one in 2008 who documented and exposed how much money and effort the Mormon Church put into the battle.

Karger says the reason why the Mormons sat out these four battles (actually, five -- they sat out North Carolina last spring) is simple. One of their guys was a candidate for prez. and they didn't want their reputation of bullying gays to hurt Romney's chances.

But will they sit out the next marriage battle? They lost a lot of members over the Calif. fight, so perhaps they will.

In Karger's article I found that Mormon science fiction author Orson Scott Card is on the board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM -- who were very much our opponents this year). I already knew Card was anti-gay. Now I have an even bigger reason to avoid his books.



NOM is whining they were outspent in the four marriage equality battles this fall. And not by a little, but by 3-4 times. Actually, NOM has been outspent starting with the Calif. battle in 2008. Even so, it leads to a couple questions. Would NOM have still lost if they weren't outspent? See the amount of money spent on the Romney campaign. And why weren't they able to raise as much money as the pro-gay side? Perhaps the Catholic Church is tapped out and nobody else wants to fund a losing cause.



Michelangelo Signorile, also writing in the Huffington Post, notes the shrinking influence of the Christian Right and lists some reasons why that is happening.

* There just aren't enough of them anymore.

* Reaching out to Latinos and Blacks isn't going to fix that demographic problem -- these two groups are changing their views of social issues, especially marriage equality, as fast as the rest of the country.

* Catholic Church members (not the leadership) can no longer be counted on as a reliable conservative vote on social issues.

* Single women (and there are a lot more of them) don't like politicians who want to control their wombs.

* Nine states now have marriage equality.

Signorile says that means the Fundies are getting desperate and their rhetoric is becoming more violent. We dare not dismiss them.



Joe Sudbay, again of the Huffington Post, looks over the last eight years. The string of marriage equality losses in 2004 were quite scary for gay people. It is a different world now, and feels much safer.



Janesville, Wisconsin City Council has extended domestic partner benefits to city and library employees. Lots of towns are doing that now (such as Grand Island, Nebraska, of all places), so why mention this one? It's Paul Ryan's home town.



From the crazy to the cute. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor stopped in to Sesame Street to talk to Abby Cadaby about careers.

And Sesame Street deals with a hurricane. This is in three parts. The first part (15 minutes) is all about preparing for the storm and riding it out. The second (15 minutes) deals with Big Bird trying to rebuild his nest, though it is only a small part of the episode. The third (10 minutes) features the actual nest building but is also just a part of the episode. I'm sure lots of East Coast kids had to deal with Sandy, so seeing their beloved characters deal with it would be a help. Beyond noting this episode exists, I'm not exactly recommending you watch it all -- unless you are a fan Sesame Street.

Blackmail campaign

Nearly 400 people from more than a dozen different kinds of progressive denominations (and not all Christian) held a rally in Seattle in support of gay marriage. Washington does vote by mail, so the end of the march was at the county admin building where participants dropped their ballots into the waiting bins. The post includes some good photos.



One of the dumb conspiracy theories is that Hurricane Sandy was sent to disrupt Romney's chances (he's got to blame somebody -- it can't be him or the policies he's spouting). Mark Sumner summarizes it this way:

Republicans say God sends hurricanes. Republicans say Obama is only ahead because of Sandy. So… God must want Obama to win.

This post shows a couple other ways the Romney team has shown desperation craziness.

One of those is Romney urging businesses to tell their employees that the best interest of the company is in the best interest of the employee. Translation: if you don't vote company interests, you're fired.

This is an example of the blackmail campaign.

Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, expands on that idea. Various commentators (and including the Des Moines Register endorsement for president) say that Romney should be elected because he would be better able to deal with the recalcitrance of Congress. Romney would be able to work with Democrats in contrast to the way Obama couldn't work with the GOP House. After all, Dems are more reasonable.

Krugman says that is accepting "protection-racket politics" -- giving in to the GOP threat of "Vote for Romney or we trash the economy."

Hmm. I've heard talk that the economy is in recovery and if Romney wins he is poised to institute tax cuts and budget cuts and claim these things improved the economy. It seems more likely those policies (sucking money out of the middle and working classes) would stall the economy or send it spinning down again.

So we either have the threat, "Vote for Romney or we trash the economy," or Romney and the House GOP have their way and we end up with "Vote for Romney and the economy gets trashed anyway."

Profit from tragedy

The standard line is to avoid politicizing a tragedy. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Ari Ezra Waldman asks how does one tell if a politician is actually working to provide relief from a tragedy or merely working for political gain? Was Obama being political when he left the campaign to coordinate relief from the White House? Was Romney being political when he staged an event in Ohio (a swing state) rather than in New Jersey or New York where the help was needed (but are safely in the Obama column). What about the various state and local candidates who bought more ads on news channels knowing they would reach more people who were glued to the news?

Waldman considers ways we might tell whether the candidate is acting out of political calculation and gain.

Is the candidate being selfish or selfless? Since this is a description of character and not behavior, it is hard to tell.

Does the candidate pose and posture or offer solutions? This test falls apart when one considers the House GOP who pass piles of bills they know have no chance of being considered by the Senate.

Perhaps we should consider all candidates with names currently on a ballot somewhere as in it for personal gain. That's way too easy and a pretty low view of humanity. There are some decent politicians out there.

Is the candidate attempting to learn from the tragedy or profit from it? If learning from it he might help prevent a similar tragedy in the future. This question has some merit and as an example Waldman contrasts Gov. Cuomo and Gov. Romney.

Cuomo didn't rip into the GOP, but did talk about dealing with "hundred year storms every two years" and that recovery has to include solutions to protect New York city and state. These kinds of storms are now a reality.

In contrast, all of Romney's actions have been about how he might profit from the tragedy.

But didn't exceed authority

My friend and debate partner responded to my post about Obama's power grab. He wrote:

Executive orders do not constitute dictatorship and Obama has in no way exceeded his authority -- if the R's had a case for any of that, they would try to impeach him. [Perhaps these admirable people are saving all that for his second term, as they did unto Bill Clinton.] Executive orders instead administer the Executive Branch, exactly the President's job. They also let the government try out things before they are put into law and regulations. If Congress wants to override an Executive Orders, it is free to legislate on the matters ordered and deal with the President. We have here simply R's complaining about power they do not have and have not earned.

Romney cannot fail to enforce the penalty provisions of the ACA -- the government would be promptly sued and injunctions sought (and won). I also think it unlikely that Romney will be able to repeal it in full.

Finally, I don't think Obama's behavior in using Executive Orders is similar to Bush's and I don't think he has set any new precedents. Its just that conservatives complain about everything. Bush usurped the Constitution via detention and Guantanamo, was fiscally totally irresponsible, etc -- very destructive courses of action.

Investing in the son

Commenter B.D. responded to my post yesterday that included his comment about Romney and voting machines. This time B.D. included a link to his source.

Though I didn't read every word of the article (it is rather lengthy) I didn't find a mention of voting machines. Even so, Romney's "crony capitalism" would lead to more conflicts of interest. After Romney dropped out of the race in 2008 he set his son Tagg up with an investment company and a huge network of people willing to invest.

If Mitt Romney becomes president his assets go into a blind trust. He would supposedly be able to set national policy without knowing how it affects his personal wealth (though I'm skeptical). But Tagg Romney's assets do not. And Tagg is a big part of his father's campaign and would, no doubt, make his views known to his dad the prez.

Of course investors know this. Many are investing precisely because they know this would be a backdoor way to influence gov't policy.

A stunning record

The Detroit Free Press has endorsed Obama for president. Their reasons:

* He has a "stunning" record of accomplishments for his first four years. They give a list of those accomplishments.

* His plan for the next four years "trumps" what Romney has to offer.

* Romney's economic plans are "unbelievable" and a "rehash" of what led to the crash in 2007.

* The appearance of "Moderate Mitt" over the last month means either Romney is pandering or doesn't know who he is. Both possibilities are bad. That is especially troubling in foreign affairs, such as what to do about Iran.

Conflict of interest

My post yesterday about being fed up with election coverage actually prompted a comment! I get so few of those (other than from my friend and debate partner). Since many of you read my posts through email and don't visit the site, I am including a bit of the comment in a post to make sure you see it. This is from a friend-of-a-friend who I think is a regular reader. He goes by the moniker B.D. In response to my annoyance of voting machines (with problems of tampering) he wrote:

The electronic voting is even more troubling considering that the Romney family is heavily invested in machines that are being operated in Colorado and Ohio.

I'm sure the GOP has been considering lots of ways to steal the election.

I'm setting my alarm clock for Nov. 7

Perhaps a week ago Obama, in his campaign speeches, started using the term "Romnesia" as a way of saying Romney can't remember what position he declared yesterday on any given issue. That is, naturally, too rich to go without comment by wags on the internet, you can see the result here.

But other than that lighthearted moment I've been feeling mighty grumpy about the election. My friend and debate partner remains hopeful (at least the last time we talked). Even so, I'm ready to tune out for the next 11 days. I'm ready to turn off my radio when the daily campaign update is on the news. The reason for the grumpiness:

* Electronic voting and the ability of it to be tampered with is still out there. Sheesh, hadn't we dealt with this back in 2004? This particular story deals with the issue in as it relates to the four marriage equality battles. But it will involve more than that where electronic voting is still in use in battleground states. Bush v. Gore round two as Obama v. Romney?

* Ongoing stories of voter intimidation (alas, I didn't collect links) such as letters sent out in Florida (I believe) telling voters that it is illegal for non-citizens to vote.

* Emails from Washington state saying the lead in the marriage equality battle has shrunk by 10 points (they're still ahead by 4 points) due to nasty ads by the opposition ("Gays are out to git yer kids!"). Of course, the email asks for money. Again.

The whole election feels like a power that is desperate wielding the full force of its might to stay in power. That wielding is in the form of huge amounts of money and huge amounts of lying. I've had enough. Wake me when it's over.

Economic gambling

I've been reading Newsweek magazine for more than 30 years, since shortly after I graduated from college. It is usually on my kitchen table so that I can read it during meals and while snacking. Lately I've been finishing off an issue in about 3 days (possible since I'm semi-retired).

But Newsweek has announced today that the Dec. 31 issue will be the last one printed. After that date content will only be online. That has left me with some questions. Do I want to sit in front of my computer to read it? That's an issue because it is now what I read when I'm not in front of my screen. What happens to the remaining 20 months of my subscription? Is it worth buying an in-home wi-fi transmitter so I can read it at my table on my netbook computer?

The radio program Marketplace did an interview with Jeff Jarvis, who promotes digital media. He's sorry about the job losses, but not at all disappointed to see the print version disappear. Besides, he says, the print version has had some pretty lame covers lately.



While I'm writing about Newsweek, a couple articles from the latest issue:

Sidney Blumenthal has a featured article about President Lincoln. He describes the national hero as a consummate politician, willing to do serious horse-trading for the highest ideals. First goal of 1864 was to get reelected. Since the North wasn't doing well at the time that didn't look likely. But Lincoln knew if he wasn't elected again the next administration would recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation. He did all the necessary politicking to keep his job.

Second goal was to pass the 13th Amendment, the one that abolished slavery. The list of political favors was long, including dangling political appointments in front of opposition lawmakers. In one case, Lincoln kept a vacant federal judgeship open saying the appointment could be influenced by a supporter of the Amendment.

Blumenthal's conclusion is that playing politics is not, by itself, dirty. It depends on what one is playing politics for. And the abolition of slavery is a pretty good reason.

Once the 13th Amendment was approved, Lincoln gave a speech promoting the 14th, which would make former slaves into fellow citizens. John Wilkes Booth was in that audience and couldn't stand that idea.



David Sessions wrote about how the Christian Right's push into politics has turned off the younger generations and has contributed to a drop in church membership and participation. Some leaders are now saying that politicizing the Gospel was a big mistake.



David Stockman was budget director under Prez. Reagan. He went on to do leveraged buy-outs (LBO) at Blackstone and then on to run his own finance company. His knowledge of LBOs allowed him to write the book The Great Deformation: How Crony Capitalism Corrupts Free Markets and Democracy. Alas, it won't be published until well after the election. Part of the book is Romney's dealings while head of Bain Capital. Stockman's report lists the details of a few of those deals. Since Romney touts his leadership at Bain as a qualification for the presidency, it is important to take a close look.

Part of Stockman's story is that while Romney led Bain, the country was experiencing Alan Greenspan's bubble economy (which crashed the first time with tech stocks in 1999 as Romney was leaving Bain to rescue the Salt Lake City Olympic Games -- great timing). The policies of that time encouraged what Romney did at Bain.

The lesson is that LBOs are just another legal (and risky) way for speculators to make money, but they are dangerous because when they fail, they leave needless economic disruption and job losses in their wake. That’s why LBOs would be rare in an honest free market—it’s only cheap debt, interest deductions, and ludicrously low capital-gains taxes that artificially fuel them.

The larger point is that Romney’s personal experience in the nation’s financial casinos is no mark against his character or competence. I’ve made money and lost it and know what it is like to be judged. But that experience doesn’t translate into answers on the great public issues before the nation, either. The Romney campaign’s feckless narrative that private equity generates real economic efficiency and societal wealth is dead wrong.

In the deals Stockman details, it is amazing how little money Romney and his partners invest (though it is still in the millions) and how much they reap from the deals. One deal involved the companies Wesley-Jessen and Schering-Plough. A $6 million investment yielded $300 million four years later. A big reason for the 50 times return was a great deal of creative lying when preparing the companies to sell.

Stockman concludes by saying:

In short, this is a record about a dangerous form of leveraged gambling that has been enabled by the failed central banking and taxing policies of the state. That it should be offered as evidence that Mitt Romney is a deeply experienced capitalist entrepreneur and job creator is surely a testament to the financial deformations of our times.

Muppets take Washington

While viewing the first presidential debate a couple weeks ago two men in different parts of the country came up with the same idea. If Romney wants to get rid of PBS and Big Bird, it is time for a Million Muppet March in Washington. Once the two men found each other they decided to work together. The march will be November 3, just a few days before the election. Take your puppets.

Ruffled feathers

Some videos to share with you:

Romney said he would cut funding for PBS even though he likes Big Bird. In response Big Bird was a guest on Saturday Night Live. It's a couple minutes and quite tame for SNL (though I don't watch the show), meaning Big Bird doesn't do anything strange.

John Corvino, the Gay Moralist and Ethics Professor at Wayne State University, has been debating Maggie Gallagher of National Organization for Marriage. They even wrote a book together each making their case and critiquing the other's. Now Corvino has created a series of nine videos outlining, from the moral viewpoint, why gay marriage is a great idea. He even does it with humor (stick around after the brief credits). The whole series is about a half hour. This link is set up for autoplay so the whole series will play automatically.

Sally Field received an Ally for Equality award from the Human Rights Campaign at their annual dinner. She is introduced by her son Sam, who is gay. The intro and thank-you are together 15 minutes.

He's the problem, not us

I heard a comment today on NPR (and, alas, can't find the link) that many GOP pundits are getting ready to explain a Romney defeat this way: Yeah, he lost, but he's not really one of us (those Mormon and Massachusetts things). Our economic plan really will work and Americans really like it. They just don't like Mitt.

That is what is called a True Believer. The problem isn't what I believe in. The problem is you didn't believe it hard enough.

Democracy is a competitive disadvantage

Terrence Heath has a couple essays about Romney and his now famous "47%" comment. First, an important clarification. These people pay taxes -- at least state, local, sales, and payroll (if they're employed) taxes. What Romney was referring to (though didn't say) was income tax.

There is the important question. Why don't these people pay income tax? The answer is simple. The amount of tax they are to pay is lower than the amount of tax credits they receive. Short answer: They don't make enough money.

Next question: Why don't they make enough money to pay income tax? Because people like Romney shipped the good paying jobs overseas. That leaves Americans with lousy paying jobs. The kinds of jobs Romney wants credit for creating.

Heath's second post features comments by Sara Zacharias. She discovered she is part of the "lazy" 47%, one of the "victims," and is insulted to be spoken about like that. Lazy she is not. And she refuses to be anybody's victim.

Heath's first essay linked to one by Dave Johnson of Campaign for America's Future. He continues the discussion of why so many Americans don't make enough money to pay income tax.

When people are able to have a say in society they say they want such things as decent wages and benefits, good roads and parks, clean environment, standards for safety and decent treatment from businesses. All those things cost money. When people don't have a say in society they are told they can't have all those same things.

"Globalization" and "free trade" mean only a trade in who does the manufacturing work. Factories were closed in places where people have a say and opened in places where people don't have a say. We let those companies "escape the borders of democracy." And because it costs less to exploit workers and foul the environment, allowing companies to escape responsibility means democracy is a competitive disadvantage.

Another reason why so many people don't pay income tax is because so many companies, like Wal-Mart pay just above minimum wage (well below a living wage), requiring their employees to make up the difference with the same gov't services that Romney wants to eliminate.

Responsibility

Mitt Romney's campaign has been under fire all week about comments he made to supporters last spring that were captured on video. He said 47% of the people in this country were going to vote for Obama because they felt like victims and the gov't owed them a living. Rob Tisinai does a bit of compare and contrast from what the candidate said last spring and what he said this week trying to dig out of the hole his campaign fell into. From this week's press conference.

My campaign is about helping people take more responsibility and becoming employed again, particularly those that don’t have work.

From last spring's video:

I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Tisinai concludes:

Romney’s whole campaign is about something he believes he can never achieve. Think about that.

Yeah, Romney named a big problem in American and has told us he isn't the one to fix it.

Tisinai is good at capturing that contrast in a visual image.

One responder notes that while Romney may not be able to "convince" people to take personal responsibility, there are solutions, such as using force. Is it enough force to simply dump them off all gov't assistance? Or does Mitt have something stronger in mind?

Moral protection

Romney has been running ads attacking welfare. Most of the content in the ads are false. Yet those ads appear to be working. Why?

It turns out the more racist, or more racially resentful, the more likely a person is affected by the ads. That's even though the ads themselves are racially neutral.

This is now a strange situation. Obama can't talk about race. When he does he is accused of playing the race card. But Romney is talking about race a lot, in ways aimed at racists.

Terrence Heath asks an important question. Why is the Romney campaign (and the GOP) getting away with playing the race card? Two parts to the answer:

The media either excuses those comments or pretends the comments aren't really as racist as they appear. Media talking heads can't believe the GOP really is that racist in our supposed "post racial" society.

The base is willing to endorse policies that hurt their own lives as long as *those people* are not helped. Robert Self, in a New York Times article (sorry, no direct link) said, "For liberals, government promises to support individuals and families economically. For conservatives, government promises to protect individuals and families morally." So if a GOP candidate explains the need to end welfare in moral terms he can get support in spite of the harm other policies will have on the voter. And the moral reason is the candidate wants to eliminate a culture of dependency -- a phrase loaded with racial overtones.

Welfare for the wealthy

A few other things from Terrence Heath's blog from the last month.

The easiest way to give the economy a boost? Raise the minimum wage. It would even help the federal budget deficit. Heath notes that two-thirds of those making minimum wage work for big corporations -- the ones sitting on their huge profits -- not the small businesses the GOP claims to be protecting.



The Supremes said states may refuse new Medicaid money without jeopardizing the Medicaid money they already get. So six GOP state governors have declared their refusal. That's even when the feds pay all of the new increase for three years and 93% of the increase beyond that. Those governors claim they don't have the money. Heath points out how little taxes would have to be raised to cover that 7%. Then he documents how cruel those governors are. They would rather let poor people die than accept money from Obama's laws. And it was the GOP that railed against Death Panels.



Mitt Romney went overseas and made a fool of himself. While there he gave a speech in which he said the difference between Israelis and Palestinians was their culture. That translates to Romney declaring Israelis are naturally superior to Palestinians.

Juan Cole rebuts that: Palestinians are poor because their land, water, and other resources were taken away from them, leaving them stateless.

Romney was stating a common conservative belief. Some cultures are superior. And America is at the top of the heap. Which makes Romney a cultural supremacist.

Romney did a similar comparison between American and Mexican economies. Another rebuttal: NAFTA made food so cheap that Mexican farmers could no longer make a living on food crops. So they turned to something they could make money on: drug crops.

Which brought Heath back to a familiar refrain. By (their) definition, the richer you are the more moral you are. Romney is more moral than us because he happened to be born to a mega-rich man and figured out how to cheat the system through Bain and hide is gains overseas.

Through that definition we get the Bully Economy -- you deserve whatever economic success you have. And if you don't have any success, you deserve that too.



The GOP has begun to trumpet that Obama wants to "gut" welfare reform. To understand their charge one must understand what the GOP meant by successful welfare reform that was enacted under Clinton. A progressive would think to get people off welfare we must give them the tools (education, job training, public transportation, perhaps even child care) to be a productive member of society and no longer need welfare.

That's not the GOP definition. Theirs is to simply get people off the welfare rolls. No longer have any means of support? Too bad.

Heath reminds us that their current trumpeting is a lie. We can easily disprove it. Which is exactly what the GOP wants us to do. Because then we'll be so busy focusing on this lie we will miss talking about their real agenda -- improving welfare for the wealthy.



And one little tidbit not from Heath's blog…

I haven't wanted to bother with the claim from Todd Akin, candidate for US Senate from Missouri, in which he said that if it is a true rape, a woman's body can shut it down and avoid pregnancy. It's one of those things the GOP (especially Paul Ryan) strongly believes, but doesn't want to actually say in public.

The only reason why I mention it is because it creates a great campaign slogan: "There's one thing women's bodies can shut down. And it's called the Republican Party."

Reading all this about the GOP gets annoying. And tiring.

Does the candidate matter anymore?

There's a great cartoon in this week's Between the Lines. I'd link to it, but it appears the link is to whatever cartoon is current, not to a particular cartoon. The panel shows GOP Veep nominee Paul Ryan on television saying, "I don't know why we're spending all this time talking about gay marriage, or employment discrimination, or hate crimes. We've got a debt crisis coming!" A character labeled "Gay GOP" is watching the TV and calls over his shoulder, "Did you hear that? Ryan's promising no more Republican homophobia until after we pay off the national debt!!!"

My first reaction was I like the thinking. Then I thought about who the second character is and realized the thinking is delusional -- he's looking for any excuse to support Ryan in spite of the candidate's rating of zero on support of gay issues.



Andrew Romano has a feature article in Newsweek about Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Dem candidate from Ohio for the US Senate. Brown had a sizable lead, 15 points, until Super PAC money started flowing. His lead is down to 7 points. Instead of coasting to an easy victory Brown is hustling for every vote and working for every endorsement.

It appears Ohio is the Super PAC test ground. $15 million may not make much difference in the prez. election, but it makes a big difference in a Senate seat. If Super PAC messaging and money works here the idea can be tried in other states that might swing to either party. Spend enough money to capture enough Senate seats and the guy in the Oval Office won't matter so much to the corporate wallets.

Brown's opponent, Josh Mandel, is not running a very good campaign. Which means if Mandel wins, he would be even more beholden to his corporate masters. Justin Barasky, spokesman for the Brown campaign, puts it this way:

We beat them on every metric. But for these outside groups, Ohio has really become a test to see if this kind of money can decide a race. It's a test to see if the candidate and the campaign even matter anymore.

Scary thought.



In another Newsweek feature article Michael Tomasky takes on Mitt Romney's wimp factor. This article appeared at the end of July while I was on vacation. I'm now caught up on my Newsweek reading. I'm not sure "wimp" is the right word, "insecure" and "thin-skinned" also work.

The guy is tone-deaf in his treatment of others. He usually whines rather than apologizes for gaffes. When attacked about some aspect of his campaign he declares that topic to be one that shouldn't be discussed. His position is whatever his audience wants to hear. He is amazingly risk-adverse (this came out just before he chose Ryan for Veep). He has worked hard to avoid any tests of his character. And if he becomes prez. he may decide he has to prove something -- at a dreadful cost of lives.