Zebra Changing Stripes


Zebra Changing Stripes


Que Sticks & Billiard:
Well, well, well…the four debates are over and now it’s down to party boots on the ground to sway registered voters to vote and convince the three or four voters still for some reason as undecided to sway their way. This election cycle is turning back to the days when debates did influence and door-to-door canvassing indeed makes a difference in outcome.

Democrats have the advantage here in that their ground base is much more massive than the Republican base and if they do it diligently, properly and ethically, they should benefit in gaining the votes necessary to win this election cycle down the party line.

Republicans are well aware of this, but to level the disadvantage, they are resorting to deceitful and unethical methods. No, they haven’t chosen a path to widen their ground base through hard grassroots efforts, the GOP instead have resorted to dishonest and mercenary schemes to hijack the outcome of the elections. A party should not win by employing programs, policies and laws that restrict and depress an American’s most basic constitutional right and that is to vote for the candidate of choice.

The GOP is the bad guy with the big mouth in the wrestling ring who everyone boos.

Around the country, voter intimidation organized by Tea Party leaders are expanding from mailing out certified letters sent to addressed registered Democrats in challenging their right to vote to intimidating voters in voting lines. All this is federally illegal, but nonetheless occurring.

In Ohio, 2,100 registered minority Democrats have been targeted by Tea Party groups seeking to remove them from the polls with made-up reasons. What the conservative groups are doing is sending certified letters that appear official stating the recipient’s right to vote is being challenged.

An example of one was a letter sent to 40-year-old Lori Monroe, who at the present is recovering from cancer surgery. Her letter informed her that her voting rights were being challenged and she will be struck from the voting rosters due to the fact that her apartment building was listed as commercial property. She has lived there for seven straight years and this is the first time she would not be able to vote much less merely because of where she has been living.

The Tea Bags describe themselves as concerned citizens for an honest and fair Election Day. “We’re all about integrity,” states Mary Siegal, a spokesperson for the group’s effort. In the real world, Mary and her Tea Bags are the ones who need to be checked for integrity. Why haven’t they been arrested yet?

‘True the Vote’ (TTV) is a Tea Party spin-off that has recruited tens of thousands to intimidate minority voters or as they quip, intimidate the “food stamp army.” One of the well-funded group’s officials, Bill Ouren states that they’ll be a million strong in volunteers by Election Day trained to make minority voters feel “like driving and seeing the police following you.”

If this intimidation isn’t enough, my own governor here in Pennsylvania is still possessed. Tom Corbett, while he was attorney general did his darned best to seek out voter fraud, but never found any. As governor he gained much angst in failing once again to reveal any voter fraud. So now, what he’s doing is having registered voters to spy on their neighbors.

Just last week, Corbett and his Secretary of State, Carol Aichele released a new website that literally encourages neighbors to spy on neighbors for any suspect voter fraud and report it on the website. You write down info on yourself and on the one suspected of voter fraud with no reason needed.

Why; who in sound mind knows, for I do know some registered Democrats tried it out, but it wouldn’t accept them stating they weren’t a registered voter, when in fact they are. If registered Republicans can get through though, something is really awry; it is but another attempt to suppress liberal votes. But, if a Republican isn’t accepted either, Corbett most probably is gathering up information to proclaim all the reported voter fraud to vindicate his past failed attempts. Ah who knows…         

Prepare...for the next sentence is going to be a bit lengthy. In addition to the GOPs obstreperous campaign to restrict Democrat voter registration drives, purge filled out Democrat voter registration forms, re-register registered voters to give conflicting information, setup police roadblocks one mile from minority district voting booths, relocate registration and voting centers from Democrat districts to Republican districts, keep early voting hours during working weekday hours in Democrat counties while extending early voting hours to evenings and weekends in wealthy Republican counties, allow NRA card holders to vote, but not students with state issued college IDs possessing expiration dates and photos, roll back early voting ( a minority preference time to vote), installing Ohio and Wisconsin billboard ads placed only in minority communities to intimidate as voter fraud scare tactics, there are a few other suspect but isolated instances.

Oh there are other Republican antics I could dwell on or lay blame on, but won’t. For they are not proven as GOP orchestrated and appear isolated. Similar occurrences such as lawn sign stealing along with some pursuant incidents have been done by Democrats to Republicans as well. But by far, some of these Republican antics are a little more severe in higher magnitude.

One is the Virginia incident involving Republican contractor Colin Small, who dumped filled out voter registration forms into a trash bin. There is just no evidence yet whether he acted alone as an isolated incident or if it is a more widespread deliberate attempt to destroy voter registration forms. Colin’s behavior most probably looks like he acted on his own.

Another is the wrong voting dates sent out to registered voters in Ohio. The Republican ran Ottawa County board sent 2,300 mailers to three predominately Democrat northwestern precincts stating that the upcoming election would be held on November 8th, two days after when the official voting is actually to be held. Under direct control of Secretary of State Jon Husted’s office, Deputy Director Carol Ann Hill surmised that it was simply a mistake.

In Arizona’s Maricopa County, Republican elections officials sent out documents to Latinos in Spanish stating that voting would also occur on November 8th, even though the documents they sent out in English had the correct date of November 6th to voters with Anglicized last names. Spokesperson, Yvonne Reed of the Maricopa County Department of Elections claimed “it was an honest mistake.” Initially along with other Election Board spokesmen, she professed that no more than fifty people received the errant voting date, since it was people who picked up the document over the counter. However, it has later been revealed that a much larger number of Latino citizens, perhaps hundreds if not thousands were affected, due to the fraudulent document being passed out at three centers in Maricopa County.  

Well, they both say it was a mistake, so ya have to believe them, even though the mistakes were caught by alert citizens and not by them in both cases. Funny though how they both used the errant date of November 8th…

Speaking of informing voters of wrong voting dates or instructions, most probably this is not RNC backed, but it had some concerted effort and organization to it. Targeted registered Democrats in Florida, Indiana and Virginia were receiving calls that specifically expressed that there was no need to personally show up at voting centers on Election Day, since you can now vote by phone. This is egregiously wrong information. No one can vote by phone; there is no such thing as phone voting. The culprits have yet to be found.    

The final is voting machines that will be used in Ohio, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington. These machines are owned and operated by Hart InterCivic. There is a long tangled web of investments that hint to Tagg Romney as being an investor, if not a major one in the ballot machine company. Tagg started Solarmere Capital, a private equity fund after receiving $10 million in startup money from his parents Mitt and Ann. Solarmere is a ‘fund of fund’ sorts that only invests in other private equity funds instead of directly investing into companies. Out of the twenty-two equity funds Solarmere partnered with, H.I.G. Capital is one of them. In 2011, H.I.G. made a controlling investment in Hart InterCivic. Therefore it would appear that Tagg holds some controlling ownership in voting machines that will tabulate votes for his Daddy.

However, according to a Weekly Standard article, a Solarmere spokesman was quoted as almost under oath saying Solarmere has no ownership in Hart InterCivic and that Solarmere’s total investment in the company is a mere 0.05%. In other words, H.I.G. owns virtually all of the controlling interests. Also, the Cleveland ‘Plain Dealer’ newspaper states the voting machines in Ohio anyway, don’t record voter’s selections directly that they are merely stand-alone scanners that tabulate paper ballots, therefore suspect count tallies may be recounted.

Here’s the big but…But, H.I.G. Capital’s co-founder is Anthony Tanner and along with several of H.I.G.s managing directors, all once worked for Bain under Mitt Romney as their CEO. Tanner and his wife are major donors to Romney’s campaign with their donation of $436,550.00 almost doubling the amount of Bain & Co’s (an offshoot of Bain Capital) donation of $275,100.00. To say the least, these electronic voting machines dispersed throughout the pivotal swing state of Ohio are owned, programmed, operated, maintained and tallied not only by staunch Republican firms, but too by Romney connected people.  Who knows what may eventually crawl out from underneath this rock?

The deal here, I feel anyway, is that this truly is a conflict of interest to certainly raise eyebrows even if a direct shareholding connection cannot be de-webbed and proven. With all the other tampering shenanigans Republicans have pulled, this is one area that should as well be scrutinized, for the boy with either a direct or indirect tie to electronic voting machines will be counting votes for his Daddy for cryin’ out loud.      

Due to Republican contemptible voting intimidation and caterwauling, America is no longer the land where a voter’s right can be taken for granted. Since we’ve had this president of mixed race, racists in leadership roles and those that just roam the streets have now come out from behind their hoods to publicly defame this president and appear to boast in keeping someone from voting for him. It’s outright shameful.

Authoritarian Regime:
For the first time ever, there is a concerted effort to have corporate CEOs and business owners to pressure employees in voting Republican. Top executives of businesses are coercing, even intimidating and threatening job security and benefits if their employees vote for Obama and all the more if he wins reelection. The one at the top of the list in promoting and encouraging this is none other than Romney himself. In a conference held this past June hosted by the conservative ‘National Federation of Independent Businesses’ (NFIB) Romney had this to say after baseless ranting about Obama’s anti-business, anti-jobs policies to CEOs and business owners:

“I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections, and whether you agree with me or you agree with President Obama, or whatever your political view, I hope, I hope you pass those along to your employees.”

“Nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business, because I think that will figure into their election decision, their voting decision, and of course doing that with your family and your kids as well. I particularly think our young kids…they need to understand that America runs on a strong and vibrant business and we need businesses growing and thriving in this country.”

Further, the NFIB is holding training courses and seminars for top executives and business owners on how to quote, “prepare employees for the crucial upcoming election.” Karl Rove’s ‘Crossroads GPS’ has donated $3.7 million to NFIBs training regime stating sarcastically, it is a way “to ensure business owners have the resources to grow their businesses.” This Rove charity for wealthy businesses and Republican candidates is totally the opposite of what a true charity really is.  

Romney is correct in stating it is legal. Since ‘Citizens United,’ passed by the conservative majority Supreme Court giving corporations the same rights as any American individual, it also granted legal rights for corporations to donate unlimited and anonymous amounts of money to political campaigns and allows CEOs to indirectly intimidate employees to vote the way the owners and executives wish them to.

Let me tell ya what, a lot of corporate management has taken up Romney’s advice. This is wrong. Corporations are not democracies, they are authoritarian. Intimidating voters in this way, employees are afraid to express their true political philosophies or choices. That shouldn’t be; employers should not be sticking their noses into their employees’ private decisions. They may own or run the business, but they have no business in prying into private lives.  

As former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich stated, “These people seem to have no patriotic sense. I mean they are part of a society. They have some obligations to society. And yet they are saying, I don’t want to be taxed, and if I’m taxed then I’m going to take it out on all of you, who have less job security than they’ve ever had, whose wages continue to drop, and whose homes are now worth 30% less than they were before.”

Following is a hit list of some management correspondence to their employees:

The Koch Brothers sent a list to thousands of their employees listing the brothers’ favored candidates in which they in turn should support, while also stating, “If we elect candidates who…put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses, employees may suffer the consequences.”

You might have heard of the real estate mogul, David Siegel. He’s the one in Florida building the largest mansion in the states. Siegel sent e-mails to all his 8,000 ‘Westgate Resorts’ employees insisting they vote for Romney, for if Obama is reelected, he might lose motivation to keep his business gainfully employed. He informed them that, “another four years of the same presidential administration would threaten your job.”

In Ohio, the same Robert Murray of ‘Murray Enterprises’ who earlier this summer forced his coal miner employees to attend a Romney rally without pay during their work hours, has also intimidated employees to vote Republican. Even in addition to that, Murray has coerced employees to donate to Republican candidates through ‘Murray Energy PAC.’  With internal documents showing who has donated and who has not, sources from Murray’s financial staff state that for those employees who haven’t donated are at risk in being demoted or losing out on bonuses. Most likely it’s safe to say that a car with an Obama bumper sticker parked in ‘Murray Enterprises’ parking lot is not the smartest thing for an employee to do.

In Milwaukee, ‘Rite-Hite’ CEO Mike White has warned his employees of the consequences if Obama is reelected. Company owner and chairman White sent an e-mail to all his employees warning that they “should understand the personal consequences to them of having our tax rates increase dramatically if President Obama is re-elected, forcing taxpayers to fund President Obama's future deficits and social programs (including Obamacare), which require bigger government.”

CEO Arthur Allen of Florida based ‘ASG Software’ took advantage in promoting his political interest by sending an email to all his employees stating, “I am encouraging everyone to go to the ‘Romney for President’ web site and contribute as much as you can to his campaign for President, up to the maximum of $2500.00 per person, Please help ASG and yourself by contributing to the Romney/Ryan campaign.” Allen’s company through its own financial actions tripped a bank leverage lending covenant and insists on blaming this all on Obama, while Allen confesses himself that he’s on his “$50 million private jet 250 days out of the year.” This, after cutting employee work hours to four day weeks and asking them to forego their salary period from now until after December. Just in time for Christmas. His reason, “When we buy a company, we eliminate about 60 percent of the salaries of the employees of that company. If we lose our independence and get consolidated, the same thing would happen to ASG’s employees.” Uh, Allen that jet fuel must be mighty expensive too. Instead of cutting out employee salaries, maybe you should cut down a bit on your air time gallivants.

‘Request Foods,’ a Michigan based food processing plant has prospered during the recession adding 250 jobs thanks in part to a $5.5 million dollar block grant issued from the ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ commonly known as the stimulus bill. Nonetheless, CEO Jack DeWitt, who actually applauded the federal taxpayer dollars received at the time in 2010, in this month’s company newsletter, DeWitt pressured employees to vote for Romney, insisting Obama spends too much. He wrote, “On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, we at Request Foods can make a big difference for our Country. Over the past 40-50 years, some Americans have been slowly changing the culture and values of what made the U. S. A. so great. The past 4 years with President Obama, trying to lead and represent us, has been a complete failure. His agenda promotes more regulations and rules which makes it difficult to start and grow business (such as Request Foods). Obama wants to raise taxes so we have to pay more money toward Washington’s spending; however, it’s obvious that Washington needs to become smaller and spend less of our hard-earned money. Please also note that four years ago, gasoline was less than $2.00 per gallon. Today and over the past three years, it has been close to $4.00 per gallon. What can we do? What am I going to do? I am going to vote on November 6 for new hope and change by voting for Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Pete Hoekstra. I hope you will join with me, so we have a better America with less government, less taxes, less regulations, and lower gasoline prices.”

Well shove down the barn door; I didn’t know that presidents were responsible for gas prices. In that case, the first time in history gas prices went over $4.00 per gallon was under Bush. I wonder if Dewitt told them to vote Democrat back then.

I’ll conclude with an actual experience of mine just this past October. Allow me to first explain before I actually show you the e-mail correspondence. I must also confess that it was swell that the CEO even responded, but he did even though it was under his own e-mail restriction terms.

Each week I drive past Channellock, the company that makes the channellock tool in Meadville, Pa. They have a medium sized billboard on their grounds strategically placed where cars can view it while going over an overpass. The first sign on it gave bogus figures on how Obama had increased the debt and deficit. That sign was replaced with another showing a pic of Romney with the words, “Take back our country.”

That perplexed me as to what that phrase actually meant, so I e-mailed the company’s communications director. Sure enough, within a week’s time I received a response. For privacy reasons, I have edited out their e-mail addresses. Following is the e-mail chain:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: B.J. Anderson [texan@windstream.net]
> Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 1:06 PM
> To: Michele M. King
> Subject: Sign!
>
> Ms. King,
>
> Howdy, I'm Bruce Anderson, a misplaced Texan currently living up here in N.W. Pa. I hope that your day is pleasantly going by.
>
> The reason I'm contacting you is the sign displayed on your premises facing
the highway. I drive past it every week and have noticed that it has changed
from blatantly false statistics to one with the theme "Take Back Our Country."
>
> Is this a sign leased out to someone else or is it your company's actual
stance? If so then, I have a question if you might answer.
>
> My question is...pray tell what exactly does that mean? Does that mean some
entity has, unbeknownst to us all, hijacked our country? Does it mean we once
had our country to ourselves? But when was that...was it when W. Bush turned
over a quarter trillion surplus into a $1.4 trillion deficit. Does it mean that
the current president who is fighting for the middleclass has somehow taken away
all our rights, but ignoring the fact that is exactly what Romney and the GOP
are doing to workers coercing their employers to threaten employees into voting
for Romney?
>
> Heck, if you want to talk about taking away our country, just look no further
than Michigan where Republican governor Snyder, along with the Republican state
legislature enforced Marshall law on communities and individuals firing all
local duly elected officials replacing them with state financial managers and
enforcing it with armed private security and state marshals.
>
> Or what about all the red states instilling voter suppression, America's most
basic constitutional right and falsely labeling it as voter fraud protection
when not one case of major or minor voter fraud can be produced. Here in
Pennsylvania alone, there were already 8 voter ID fraud laws in place that had
worked well.
>
> So again, I'm curious...exactly what do you mean by that statement?
>
> I am not a Democrat, but I as well for sure am not a Republican. More of an
Independent, but more of a redneck Independent to boot. I am all for one's belief
in voting for whomever they want; that is our right to choose. Believe anyway ya
want. But what I'm not for is disregard to facts and the promotion of
misinformation.
>
> I suppose I won't receive a reply, but remember, although I am just one
individual, I do have relatives and friends. There is such a thing as 'Facebook'
and 'Twitter.'
>
> Thank you much for your time and most definitely for any interests you might
direct my way.
>
> Regards,
> BJA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michele M. King
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 8:37 AM
> To: Bill DeArment
> Subject: FW: Sign!

---- Bill DeArment < > wrote:
> Hello Bruce:
> This email forwarded to me by our Communications Director...who had nothing to do with the sign in question.
>
> Yes, I will reply...
> I am the CEO of Channellock. The billboard is owned by the company.  Does not necessarily represent the views of all 380 associates.
> I can tell you It represents the view of the Board of Directors and, I
imagine, a lot of people that work here.
>
> The sign talks about taking back America...
> 1) Who "elected" all the czars?  Not Congress, not me, not you...
> 2) Have you paid any attention to the debate going on at the UN regarding gun
rights...globally?  A back door way to limit your right to bear arms. 
>       I would think as a          "redneck independent", that would anger you...
> 3) I believe voters should have ID.  You have to have it to buy guns, liquor,
register in a hotel...why not to vote for who runs this country?
> 4) Obama has no useful energy policy to speak of...what happened to weaning us
off of foreign oil?  Exporting LNG?  Becoming a net energy Exporter.
> 5) Obama has no useful or documented manufacturing policy...manufacturing
creates all those much desired middle class jobs we all seek.
>       In fact some of us believe that our Fed government has become our competitor, rather than our "partner".
> 6) Obama's foreign policy puts this country at risk...daily.  Insults our
allies, bows to our enemies...
>       As an American businessman travelling abroad, we are laughed at...They cannot understand why put up with this "buffoon"...their word, not mine.  It's
embarrassing.
> 7) Obama has placed more regulations and executive orders on the country and
business than any President except possibly FDR.
> 8) Obama continuously avoids, ignores, and tries to denude the
Constitution...think Obama care forcing people to buy healthcare...whether they
want to or not...
> 9) Obama leadership is highly divisive...driving Americans apart instead of
bringing them together...
> 10) Obama is reducing our armed forces' strength to dangerous levels.
> 11) Obama is spending this country into the poorhouse and continues to kick
the can down the road...We haven't had budget for 4 years...Who  does that?
>
> I am tired of it, fed up with it, and want him gone.
>
> I am sure you disagree.  That is fine.
> Perhaps you may rethink some of these issues and support Mr. Romney and
company...like the sign says.  That is your right and privilege...thanks to the
Constitution.
>
> So...that's why the sign is there.  It will come down on 11/7/12.
>
> Have a good day...
> W.S. DeArment, President
> Channellock, Inc.
> Meadville, Pa.
> USA
    

-----Original Message-----
From: B.J. Anderson [texan@windstream.net]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 12:33 PM
To: Bill DeArment
Subject: RE: Sign!

Well thank ya much for the reply Bill. Still didn't receive an explanation as to
what exactly does the statement on your sign mean, instead got back some
venting. It appears that ya just don't particularly take kindly to our
president; not that he's taken and ripped our country from us.
> 
I won't elaborate much here, but I'll counter a few points of yours. You
certainly don't have to feel obligated in replying unless you want to.
>
1) Czars ya say, who was the first to elect a Czar...W. Bush. I suppose now that
comes with the territory. So if ya vote for any particular president, Democrat
or Republican, he/she will enlist his/her particular Czars. So ya can't pin that
solely onto Obama. If you really feel that czardom is taking your country away,
then get congress to outlaw it.
>
2) Feel at ease, guns will always be a part of Americana. I suppose one could
even obtain an howitzer if he wanted one. Obama has been great for gun
manufacturers.  The run on gun sales climbed exponentially, purchased by neurotic or paranoid gun owners due to the unfounded fears that Obama would take away gun ownership rights. Obama implementing nonexistent gun laws never happened and won't happen. It is an ingrained American right to kill or be killed by any type of weapon. Surely Columbine and the more recent Aurora and Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings tells us so.
> 
3) To register into a hotel, obtain liquor or drive a car is not a fundamental
constitutional right...voting is and is for every American, no matter color,
health, wealth, creed or any condition. Don't confuse that basic right with
anything else. But if you insist voter ID to protect from voter fraud that no
GOP state government can prove has actually happened, then instead of rushing to
judgment and hastily putting it in place, come up first with a program that
would give access to all, bedridden or not and accommodate their voting rights.
Along with the new voter ID laws, in Wisconsin removing 10 DVM registration
sites from Democrat districts to Republican districts does not alleviate voter
fraud. Cutting out early voting in Ohio does not alleviate voter fraud. In
Texas, allowing a cardholder with a NRA card to vote but a student with a state
issued college ID with photo and expiration date cannot, does not alleviate
voter fraud. In Florida setting up police roadblocks one mile from polling
booths only in minority districts will not alleviate voting fraud. Let's not
pretend anymore, this is a Republican ruse to voter suppression under the guise
of voter ID.
> 
The shame in all this is that the new GOP voter ID laws would not have uncovered
the voter registration fraud carried out by Nathan Sproul. Sproul was hired by
the RNC to register Republicans in the states of Florida, Virginia, North
Carolina, Colorado and Nevada. He was also hired by the way, by Romney under
'Romney for President Inc.' Sproul's firm turned in registered voters that have
been deceased, false addresses and names; even turned in a gas station.  In
2004, Sproul was caught destroying Democrat registrations, the RNC and Romney
team knew that but for unknown reasons hired him anyway. Surely you have heard
of this criminal indictment and how the RNC & Romney have washed their hands of  him canceling the contracts. The kicker, none of these new GOP voter ID laws
would have caught Sproul simply because their emphasis is in Democrat regions,
not Republican leaning regions.
> 
4) Yepper we need weaning off of fossil fuels, a non renewable energy and in a
hurry. Continually pushing fossil fuels, a dead dinosaur about to become
extinct, I suppose our politicians will lead us into war fighting over that last
drop of oil. Green technologies developed right here in the good ol' USA have
had rights sold off to other countries due to lack of interests and investment
here. Islands between Denmark and Germany are completely carbon free utilizing
those exact technologies that were first produced here. But the simple question
to what's happened to Obama's energy policy...the answer is simple the
Republican house congress.
>
5) Since yore a traveling business man, you perhaps know a thing or two about
globalization and its impact on today's world. American capitalism allowed
manufacturing to escape the USA in its pursuit of cheap labor and it ain't
coming back. Kudos for you and yore company in staying put. Simply put America
is what it is today due to its once strong middle class. With a strong middle
class, unlike any other country, America's distribution of wealth was more
spread out giving opportunity to a wider base while increasing consumerism,
which is truly the backbone of job creation. In fact 72% of Bush's GDP was due
solely to consumption and hardly had anything to do with produced goods. To halt
the whittling away of the middle class, Obama is right, we need education
reforms geared towards the middle class to invigorate jobs for the new
technologies. You can threaten China all you want, but manufacturing here has
voluntarily left our shores due to corporate strategies. To threaten China with
currency manipulation is asinine. America is a country now of consumption, China
is of production. That webs us into less exporting and more importing. China,
who's average middle class labor force only makes $200/month is not there to
consume but to produce. India's rising middle class even makes less. Not much
room for exporting US goods.
>
To even imagine that Obama is attempting the government to be our business
competitor may be a sly political monogram, but is so totally off-base. His
stimulus package has greatly aided small business. Something he should point out
more often. In fact Romney did. At the RNC Convention 2 entrepreneurs were guest speakers, Sher Valenzuela and Steve Cohen. Both benefited from the stimulus package, Ms. Valenzuela received $17 million in secured government loans while Cohen received $2 million in government contracts and $220,000 in stimulus funds when his company was hurting for solvency.
>
6) You say you've traveled, so have I...been to 39 countries in fact. I've met
people too overseas and all my foreign associates felt liberated once the brash
Bush era ended by Obama's inauguration. They feel more relieved in president
Obama's foreign policies and don't feel as threatened in particular the ones
THAT are our allies. The bullying has ceased. And too...less we never forget,
the one who actually attacked us is no more...bin-Laden is dead.
 >
7) I do not know of the regulations you speak of here for businesses, for I am
not aware of any new Obama administration regulations that strangle-hold
businesses. You need to be more specific. But if you are speaking of the
Dodd-Frank bill, how dare ya...not quite 4 years away and with employment
suffering still due to its aftermath, the financial market needs smarter
regulation in hopes that this self-inflicted recession never happens again.
Dodd-Frank concentrates on those financial institutions that make over $50
billion, making it law that they have to have a fund (living wills) to pay for
the advent of any bankruptcy putting taxpayers off the hook. Romney wants to not
only go back to the lack of oversight, but actually wants to increase it, while
on his busy first day repealing Dodd-Frank. This country is a democracy, not a
plutocracy.
> 
8) Whoa, back up podnuh! Bending the constitution...didn't the conservative
leaning supreme court call it constitutional. If you still feel that mandating
health insurance is illegal, then why do you accept mandated liability
insurance? Isn't it against the law to drive without car insurance? Most
probably your convictions conflict with mine in that I feel quality healthcare
is a right and not a privilege, while you believe the opposite. For me, the
measure of any country's greatness is how well ALL its citizenry are treated.
>
9) What's divisive is this new Republican ideology. Come on, how can you blame
that on Obama when he worked hard for bipartisanship, even dropping the public
option and single payer on the healthcare bill to appease Republicans. He struck
deals on all bills such as accepting entitlement and social program cuts. That,
when you have McConnell just after Obama is elected gathering all his Republican
clan into an office, closing the door and insisting each one no matter their
thoughts to just say no to anything this president works for.
>
10) We spend more on our military than all other countries combined. You as a
businessman, if you needed cuts...if one slice of the pie (military spending)
consumed 58% of your income, while another slice (social programs) consumed only 1.7%, which one would you approach first. Our defense spending in many cases is waste and not needed. If you look at it succinctly, the richest and also most
Republican counties house ammunition and defense contractors...that is where
this Republican military spending farce lies. Romney's statement that he'll
build 15 more naval ships and 3 submarines per year...my aspirin bottle.
>
11) Obama inherited a $1.4 trillion deficit, according to the CBO, the 2012
deficit will be $1.1 trillion. That's a reduction and even a reduction in
deficit during these excruciating recessionary economic times. The total
debt...$16 trillion, 92% of that was inherited, rolled over from the Bush debt;
8% of it you can blame on Obama's administration.
>
Yore not tired, just fed up simply because you don't like him. Fair enough, but
he hasn't done the harm you claim he has. Without doubt, his policies are more
for the middle class than Romney's ever will be. You can't even speak of
Romney's tax and economic policies because he want give details. If he did the
middle class would leave him in droves.
>
Hey Bill, even though we cohabit the same world, we're worlds apart on our
thoughts of what should be, but nonetheless I really appreciated this discourse
with you and think that it was nifty that you replied.

Best of luck,
BJA

---- Bill DeArment < > wrote:
Well...I read your dissertation.
Disagree with most of it.
Have a good day.
WSD

I would have liked to have responded by telling him there isn’t much to disagree with, simply because they are essentially stated facts. As far as ideologue beliefs go he can disagree all he wants, but it will never change substance. Beliefs can go anywhere you want to take them; truthful facts as solidly entrenched can’t be argued with mere beliefs.

Anyway, he further sent me a video with Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus ranting about total despair if Obama wins reelection and had nothing of substance, only pleading ideologue. Since I viewed his video, I sent him back a video in kind of numerous Republicans criticizing Romney’s constant flip flopping. I don’t know if he received it or not, or reviewed it or not for it was returned as restricted, but so was my former e-mails, even though he did reply and stated he read it.

I suppose in considering that Republican phrase, I have to conclude that ‘Take Our Country Back’ primitively means to give us what we want right now, even if we don’t know what that is.

Although I never received the meaning behind the sign message, something else interesting may have revealed itself. When he sent me the video, it also included all the forwarded supervisors and plant foremen e-mails. I don’t know one way or the other if Mr. DeArment influences all his employees to vote for who he sees fit, but he is certainly passionate in expressing his desires. We’ll let that rest.

Hopefully these hell bound bosses won’t follow their employees into the actual voting booths, so perhaps employees will feel safe there to vote as they please. But what this intimidation does is nix the freedom of free speech. I don’t see too many of these employees expressing their choices if it weren’t exactly what the bosses desire. I can easily see where even having a bumper sticker of a preferred candidate in direct contrast to the candidate promoted by the company would put the employee into direct harassment.

This is not a fundamental component of American democracy; in fact it is quite the opposite. Alexander Hamilton once warned, “Power over a man’s support is power over his will.”
         
Ass-holier Than Thou:
Muslim Sharia Law/Tea Party Platform as defined: A religious fundamentalist way of life imposed politically by men on a group of people. Whenever necessary, it is an imperative virtue to lie and distort, but if the perceived enemy does the very same, it is the work of the devil. The twisted fundamentalist viewpoint is that Satan is the prefecture of lies therefore one can be forgiven in fighting perceived lies that are actual reality with lies that promote the unrealistic bubble world they pursue.

The above two groups both profess sole ownership of morals, such as in sex or sexual matters while at the same time in pursuant of their perceived morality, utilize immoralities such as distortion, misinformation and condemnation in laying waste to other aspects of individual and social ethics.      

When I ask Republicans why they are voting Romney, usually they can’t answer, but on occasion they simply say that Republicans represent more my values. Ya know I definitely have a rebuttal to that paltry excuse (duly note I said excuse and not reason).

No party holds sole rights to patriotism, nor to form of religion. Democrat, Republican or Independent all share in these values and there is no one entity that can claim the supreme path. Heck, there are even gay Republicans GOP politicians gladly accept votes from. The only reason that Republicans feel their party is more religious and patriotic is that the GOP duped them into thinking so. Republican leaders won that battle by constantly spitting out religious and patriotic phrasing and rhetoric down the throats of the gullible and told them to not chew on it; just swallow.

The point is we’re all human. There have been as much if not more scandals dealing with sex, sexual preference and corruption on the side of the Republican fence as there has on the other side.

Please pardon me moral majority folks, but religion should not even be a major issue in politics. Apparently fundamentalists think otherwise, as it is common rhetoric to hold onto the fold in today’s conservative political ideology and campaigning.

In making an ad last week, the aged Billy Graham was propped up while a large portrait of him clutching the Bible was shot. His statement underneath the photo read, “As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election may be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman.”

At the same time, Graham’s ministry also removed Mormonism from their website cult list.

This is essentially an endorsement for Romney. They won’t explicitly state so or print Romney’s name, for they would negate their tax exempt status as a church and charity. This gambit with an ailing Graham to draw sympathy has nothing to do with Jesus Christ the Savior, it is simply a political move to appeal to and manipulate the devotees’ vote.

Christian means more than merely a follower of Jesus, no, it implicitly means to be like Christ. The GOP appeal to the Christian right has nothing to do with the party as being more Jesus-like, it is simply a ruse to attract votes, to use the religion for their authoritative end goals in gaining power. Jesus would have never resorted to the vindictiveness, deceit and fear mongering that the GOP has incorporated in alienating their perceived foes.

This cheap grace is highlighted from a campaign speech by the practicing infidelity demagogue, Newt Gingrich. He thus stated in his demagogy of liberals:

“If we look at history from the mid-1960s, we’ve gone from a request of toleration to an imposition of intolerance. We’ve gone from a request to understand others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional values. I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head-on and described as what it is, which is the use of government to repress the American people against their own values.” 

Therefore, thusly goes the flock.  

I counter this with psychologist, Robert Altemeyer’s response on the aggressive nature of authoritarian fundamentalists. He has made it his career in evaluating the self-righteous. He states:  

“They are highly submissive to established authority, aggressive in the name of that authority and conventional to the extent of insisting everyone should behave as their authorities decide. They are fearful and self-righteous and have a lot of hostility in them that they readily direct toward various out-groups. They are easily incited, easily led, rather un-inclined to think for themselves, largely impervious to facts and reason and rely instead on social support to maintain their beliefs. They bring strong loyalty to their in-groups, have thick-walled highly compartmentalized minds, use a lot of double standards in their judgments, are surprisingly unprincipled at times and are often hypocrites.”       

It’s the exact same strategy with their perception of patriotism. If you do not faithfully abide by their ideologue, then you cannot be a patriot of this country. I got news for ya, liberals are as a true patriot as any conservative. Perhaps even more so, for a true patriot would never demean his/her president in the way conservatives have this president.

A weekend ago at a girls’ gymnastic meeting that my two daughters were competing in, even though we weren’t engaged in a political debate, I was confronted with the following. Although he knew beforehand my political views and I his, as my wife and a male parent were discussing their common photo websites, it came my turn to speak about my website. I told him he most probably wouldn’t want to know about it as it is political and scientific in nature and that I am most definitely a liberal. He then spouts out, “What! Are you a communist?”

Normally at any other time I would have welcomed this opportunity to shoot his views down, but watching my two girls compete along with the other parents in the stands, I didn’t want to get into a shouting match. So in biting my tongue, this is what I wanted to deliver him…

In any other situation I would have stared straight into his innards through his eyes while saying, I know what it means when one American blurts out to another, “Are you a communist.” They say this only because your viewpoints contradict theirs. But with that pointed out, I would have asked him, “Do you even know what a communist is? Please explain.”

After his struggle in explaining, I would then say, “Ya know, nowhere else in the world do they chew tobacco, it is only an American tradition. I chew…do you?” This is totally a dumb response, and I am not promoting the habit, believe me it is an unhealthy habit, but it parallels these ultra-conservatives’ way of thinking and interpretation of the world. For if you are to be truly patriotic, you must follow perceived American ways and traditions. It’s only logical right? This indeed does bewilder them and at least anyway for the moment shuts down their primitive belief strategy.

Then I would have hit him up that, no sir, I work from factual accounts, critical thinking, reasoning and realize that the USA is a cosmopolitan mix of diversity, not just one and indeed the ideas that have come from all in this mix is the true strength of America. This is what I want to protect and preserve in the American experiment. Just because a fellow American is different from you or has varying viewpoints makes him no more or no less American than you. I want to ensure, no matter your principled stance, social, ethnic or wealth standing, all still have the right to participate. That is the strength of this country, not its weakness. I will with gusto support a political cause that promotes this anytime as opposed to one that is selective of its membership, exempting most…like the 47%.

Then I’d finish by stating, “If you now want to talk politics I’m ready to back up my statements with concrete facts; are you?”

With these Republican fundamentalists, authoritarians and so-called ‘the real American’ (those among us who only believe in as they do), truly bite into ‘American Exceptionalism.’ This divine doctrine dictates that the true Americans are those from or like the earliest immigrants (European stock) who massacred the original inhabitants (Native Americans) and is justified, as it was ordained by their creator. Through this godly dispensation, with God on their side, the true American is exempt from all governing social norms, physics or rationality. They live in their own made-up factual world abating reasoned thought and actual facts.

Republicans are truly entrenched in a warped since of identity and it has festered for an extensive time frame. What Herbert Hoover’s secretary of the treasury, Andrew K. Mellon suggested way back during the Great Depression, also rings as loud with conservatives during this recent Great Recession we’re currently trying to pull out of at the moment. Mellon expressed:

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate! It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will go down. People will work harder and live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted and enterprising people will pick up the wreck from less competent people.”

Today’s direct Republican quotes:

“Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you”…
Texas governor, Rick Perry

Pregnancy resulting from rape “is something that God intended to happen.”
Indiana senate candidate, Richard Mourdock

“Some girls rape easy.”
Wisconsin state representative, Roger Rivard

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing [pregnancy] down.” “Liberals hate God.”
Missouri representative running for the senate, Todd Akin

“You told me you’d have an abortion, and now we’re getting too far along without one.” Tennessee representative pro-life advocate, Dr. Scott desJarlais pleading with his patient/mistress who they both thought she was pregnant, so he was encouraging her to get an abortion.

“Let’s hurl some acid at those female Democratic senators.”
GOP spokesman, Jay Stephenson

“It was a compliment. They knew it was a compliment, they turned it into an insult because they’re professional hyper-ventilators.”
Iowa representative, Steve King in response to immigrant protests after King compared immigrants to dogs

“My point is God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”
Oklahoma senator, James Inhofe on disavowing man induced global warming

Even Romney appears to live in this GOP fairy-tale land. He supports or has endorsed every one of these above dork-heads. In fact his own actions correlate. In 2005, Romney as governor of Massachusetts, vetoed a bill that would allow hospitals to administer the morning after pill to rape victims if they so requested it.

But of course Romney wants rape to have a lower profile in his moderate attempts to sway Independents. But why he still insists in supporting these totally bogus rapist statements from these oafish clowns is that he himself is a corporate rapist.

In summing it all, in the GOPs platform and Ryan’s budget plan, along with their anti-abortion stance, no funding for in-vitro fertilization should occur, in fact they would like to make it illegal. So essentially, if a couple wants to get pregnant and have a baby they can’t, but in the case of a rape pregnancy, the woman who doesn’t want a baby has to…Does this make any sense…

For the Republican Party to welcome the following three imps into their fold with open arms is so hypocritical, it smacks of acculturation from the bowels of Hell. The three are Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer who got their start under President Reagan’s administration.

It’s not that it’s so asinine Norquist has all Republicans sign a pledge in making the little boys toe the line in promising to thwart any of the country’s concerns if a tax increase is required; it is the fact that these Republicans oblige in doing so. I do not know if they like the dorm master or not, but they certainly mind his rules.

Gary Bauer, a Christian Zionist first got rich starting up the ‘Campaign for Working Families’ (CWF), a political action committee dedicated to electing ultra conservatives to state and federal level offices. Also as president of ‘American Values,’ Bauer is committed to instituting programs to get parents to raise children up only through conservative values. He was one of the original signers of the Statement of ‘Principles of Project’ for the ‘New American Century’ (PNAC) which the intended goal is to promote American leadership throughout the world, but particularly in the Middle East by any means, even ceaseless wars, which was one of the main pushes to invade Iraq. The PNAC had heavily influenced Bush and his high level officials during the administration’s early term long before 9/11. One item Bauer has never understood is that force does not make for good friends. Bauer has no time for anyone who does not fit into the mold he perceives a true American should be. On September 14th he told a crowd at the annual meeting of the ‘Values Voter’ summit that it needs to “turn out in great numbers to defeat President Obama’s army of welfare recipients and fraudulent votes.”

Ralph Reed, oh how can we count the ways in which this guy has cheated the left and duped the right. Even convicted for ethics violations pleading guilty to three counts of conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion, Jack Abramoff insists Reed’s a very bad version of himself.

After Reed left the Reagan presidency, he became a preacher becoming the first executive of the ‘Christian Coalition’ in the early 1990s. Later in 2009, he founded the ‘Faith and Freedom Coalition’ as a non-prophet-profit tax exempt church to spread the gospel of conservatism. Reed boasts that he’s built a quasi-religious/political dynamo of five million members and a $100 million budget to promote right-wing agendas. This is the reason and tie-in that the GOP ignores his past but gladly accepts him into their fold, for he is nothing short of an unethical crook.

Although the Marianas Islands in the Pacific do not have state status, they are under American territory and governed by American law. In the early 2000s during the Bush years, Congress was wrestling with the idea to clean up the sweat shops on the islands and enforce a minimum wage law.

In the islands’ garment industry Chinese women were brought in to work in god-awful horrid conditions. Forced into squalid and overcrowded living, prostitution and peremptory abortions, the women were paid pennies a day to make clothing articles.

Owners of the companies did not want to pay higher wages, but if they did not comply would lose their ability to label all the garments as ‘Made in America’ and continue bringing in Cheap Chinese women labor. The labeling was a big attraction to buyers. So ownership enticed corrupt island governing officials to hire Jack Abramoff for $4 million plus to halt the reforms back in Washington. To approach a lobbying strategy, Abramoff hired Reed. Through his direct mail company, ‘Millennium Marketing’ Reed devised and orchestrated a plan to conduct a sham grassroots campaign where he convinced Alabama Christians to write their congressmen to oppose the reforms. Reed hooked the Christians into writing their congressmen by lying.

First off, he never told them he was actually being paid by Abramoff for their volunteering to write congress. Secondly, even though he knew firsthand the conditions on the islands, he came up with a fabrication that left leaning organized labor was threatening the owners to pay more. He callously insisted to his congregations of Christians it was in the best interests of the Chinese women for they could be “exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ” as long as they were shipped to the islands to work. As opposed to remaining isolated in China, the workers could now be “converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand.” The southern Christians bought into it mouth and foot.

Reed and Abramoff successfully lobbied and halted the reforms, but once the Jack Abramoff scandals were exposed the spotlight on the Marianas sweatshops finally lead to congressional action, including a raise of the minimum wage and a law to federalize labor and immigration rules in the Marianas. The minimum wage now is $5.55 an hour as of September 30, 2012.

Reed’s connection and dirty deeds were also exposed too during the investigations. In the name of conservatism, Reed abused and misled, yet the Christian soldier marches on today as a pundit stumping for the GOP. As Bill Moyers so eloquently portrays, Reed has turned the Christian faith into one big ATM machine.

Texas governor Rick Perry’s constant god this and god that tirades have finally got one group of Christians a bit riled. They see through his ruse. Perry tells us any chance he gets how wonderful theocracy would work simply due to how much he adores his god. This nonstop action in using their religion to promote bad policies and mounting religious tyranny is finally getting some Christian denominations to speak out.

The ‘Rainbow Sash Movement’ had this to say about Perry during his failed presidential campaign, “The Rainbow Sash Movement is calling on GOP hopeful Presidential candidate Rick Perry to stop using God as if he were his personal campaign manager. In our opinion, he is insulting the intelligence of most reasonable and fair minded people in Iowa, and indeed around the nation when he promotes such narrow-mindedness.”

Basically composed of Catholic gays and lesbians this Christian denomination is hardly a mainstream entity in today’s Christian theater, but they are the first to realize the jig of tying religion into politics. Let’s just keep religion out of our government and government out of our church aisles.

A Straying Say Anything Strategy:
After Obama’s poor performance in the first debate, with political pundits aside, the majority of Americans agree Obama won the second and third debates handedly. They also agree in the VP debate that Biden spanked Ryan’s tail but good.

When lil’ Ryan brought Reagan and bipartisanship into the debate, Biden took the boy to school. He cleverly pointed out how Ryan had voted no on every Obama bill, from healthcare to jobs and to unemployment to raising the debt ceiling.    

In the first presidential debate Romney’s eclectic salesmanship in rhetoric and lies trumped Obama’s boring statesmanship in presenting facts. In the second debate, Romney was caught red handed dead panning in numerous accounts mired in his misstatements such as his insistence Obama never referred to the Benghazi attack as an act of terror and giving Obama the opportunity to open up the door on Romney’s 47% speech when Romney first said he was 100% for all Americans.

On foreign diplomacy in the last debate, Romney stated Syria is the pathway for Iran to the sea. Got some advice for Romney…get a map Mr. Sarah Palin South Africa is not a country, just the southern half of the continent. To get from Syria to Iran one must traverse land, not sail a sea. Anyway, I suppose we could forgive him for that geographical slip-up. I do think though that we could all ‘agree’ that in his attempts to appear moderate, he ‘agreed’ with Obama’s foreign policy to the point of seemingly endorsing Obama.

On top of the many agreements Romney had on Obama’s foreign policy, five of them were (1) killing bin-Laden was a great accomplishment, (2) there’s no reason to change current Syrian policy, (3) yes sir, troops stationed in Afghanistan should all come home in 2014, (4) there’s no reason to strike Iran yet with military force (5) because Iranian sanctions in place have worked well. In previous statements and speeches Romney vehemently contradicted all his present agreements with the president.

It’s also amusing that Romney still insists that Russia is our main foe, but yet has instilled Putin style elections in preaching to corporate executives to intimidate employee votes. This is the exact strategy Putin has installed in Russia. It most probably is where Romney got the idea once the Citizens United decision allowed it.

Mitt the Miff in Debate II after being stung
         
What truly embroils me is how Romney has muted truth with vociferous lies and still insists they aren’t lies. He merely slops on the whitewash to his deceit. This is a calculation in strategy by him and his campaign that if the lies are heard enough, they will supersede the truth.

This Republican style in covering over the truth had its early beginnings as a Republican strategy policy during Reagan’s 1984 reelection campaign when George H. W. Bush was caught stretching the truth in a VP debate. In coming to Bush’s defense, the VP press secretary, Peter Teeley announced, “You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it. So what!” For when the media covers it and exposes the lie, “Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000.”

This relapse into deceit is the controlling factor of the Romney campaign. They literally meant it when emphatically stating, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” The Romney campaign also lives in the conservative bubble world of what is perceived as truth. If Romney truly paid attention to the real facts, he would not have performed his mittsteps (missteps).

Romney should have known the president the very next morning after the attack in Benghazi, did indeed state that it was an act of terror. Instead, he only relies on right-wing fodder for information like Fox News’ Megyn Kelly proclaiming on October 18th that, “Declaring something an act of terror does not necessarily mean you are declaring it a terror attack.” This double talk doesn’t even make sense much less make news.

Romney should have known better in announcing last week by shouting Chrysler was moving their jeep production from the states to China. It was a totally false announcement. He got that news from a conservative blogger website that corrupted the truthful news in a Bloomberg article. There, it correctly stated that Chrysler was going to build a facility in China to sell jeeps to the Chinese, not that they were going to move U.S. facilities. Nonetheless, Romney is still insisting he was correct, even though U.S. Chrysler and GMC management have come out with statements and articles of their own on how idiotic and false Romney’s professing is. Romney is still running the ad in Ohio proclaiming it is so, and even adds that he has a plan (of course with no specifics) that he can make the auto industry healthy, even though they now are thanks in kind to Obama’s actions.

Let’s list a few point blank lies that Romney still insists are the truth.

Romney accused Obama of dismantling welfare reform by deleting work programs. This is false.

Romney accused Obama of attempting to keep military families from voting early in Ohio. This is false.

Romney doctored an Obama audio to make it sound as if Obama was saying you didn’t build that. This is false and misleading.

Romney accused Obama of being unable to communicate an agenda for a second term. This is false.

Romney continues to blame Obama for high gasoline prices. This is false and misleading.

Romney accused Obama of not having a jobs plan in place. This is blazingly false.

Romney accuses Obama of not cracking down on unfair global trade practices. This is false.

Romney states that $716 billion will be grabbed from Medicare and put into Obamacare. This is very misleading and blatantly false.

Romney claims Obama said by now we would be at 5.4% unemployment. Obama has never said this.

Romney accuses Obama of not cutting the deficit. This is absolutely false.

Romney accuses Obama of having a jobs deficit from when he first took office to now. This is totally false.

Romney accuses Obama of creating a coal war with coal production and jobs down. This simply is not true. 

Romney’s portrayal of himself as being small business, ya know that sweet ring to a mom ‘n’ pop sort of thing is false    

Romney constantly claims he balanced the 2002 Winter Olympic budget, when in fact it was the largest taxpayer Olympic bailout in the history of the sporting event. It was not through his business wit.

Romney continually claims the top 5% of taxpayers will continue to pay 60% of taxes under him. This is false and deeply deceptive.

I did not give sources to these above false claims of Romney’s due to length of this already long paper. But they can easily be researched if you care to look them up. There are well over sixty Romney lies I could have jotted down here.

Finally, in Romney’s disparate attempts in claiming that the CBO states that 20 million people will lose their insurance when the affordable care act kicks in next year is such an outrageous distortion. What Romney is doing is switching words. He’s replacing ‘change’ with ‘lose.’ It’s actually estimated in the CBO report that 20 million folks will be “changing” insurance for better quality, value and price…not “losing” insurance.

Speaking of health insurance, one would think that insurers and their CEOs would be all against Obamacare, but after a conversation with my brother David and a little research that is not the case. Health insurance company executives are actually jittery about a Romney win.

The reason being, health insurers have invested tens of millions into the program in liking its framework of allowing them to gain more customers. ‘UnitedHealth Group’ and ‘Blue Cross Blue Shield’ state they stand to make billions off the new bill in garnering more clientele.

Recently former Cigna vice-president, G. William Hoagland said of the new bill, “There are a lot of dollars and a lot of staff time that’s been put into place to make this thing operational.” He also added, “Insurers are not going to be out there saying repeal, repeal, repeal.” He finishes with that there may be some points insurers won’t like, “but not throw the baby out with the bath water.”

The industry consultant, Robert Laszweski laments tension is becoming unbearable in the industry, “I spend a lot of time in executive offices and boardrooms, and they are good Republicans who would like to see Romney win. But they are scared to death about what he's going to do.”

Romney’s campaign now is releasing bogus ads directly onto the air like the one in Ohio of the jeep move and in Florida of Obama’s coziness to President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, before first releasing them to the media as normally is done. They are doing this because they don’t want the media writing about them, but prefer just getting the lying content directly onto the airwaves where viewers first see them before reading about them.

 Romney, along with his sidekick Ryan are retail politicians. They will state exactly what you want to hear no matter the fence you stand on. When Ryan voted for sequester he was obliging conservatives. Now in moderate mode he declares he did not vote for it, even when you can view his voting record.

When Romney stated…“Look, the reason I’m in this race is there are people really hurting today in this country,” it’s really hard to believe him. He was a venture capitalist. He did not go to investors and say, I want to create jobs, no, he said I want to make you quick money while putting some in my own back pocket by utilizing troubled companies and their employees as paper stock to buy low and sell high.

It’s also tough to believe him when he states how bipartisan he is to get things done in government by always referring to his governorship with a majority Democrat state congress. In his four years as governor, he vetoed 844 bills that for the most part the state legislature overrode; sometimes unanimously. That is more than 200 bills per year he vetoed. Now that doesn’t sound too bipartisan.

Even his skin tanning spray sessions before any speech is troubling in my viewpoint for it points to fakery. Of course Ryan’s false photo-op at a Cleveland soup kitchen was way off base. The way he and his team barged in there unannounced to wash clean pots and pans for photo shoots to prove they are working hard for the poor was outrageous. After they got their photos, they left as quickly as they came. Didn’t even leave a dollar donation; no they didn’t. The manager of the kitchen has since been inundated with right-wing phone calls and e-mails of hate and threats on his life simply because he exposed the ruse.

All Republicans don’t fall for these kinds of antics, but the core does. The GOP base is far more vested in ideologue and belief than in actual facts. They refute the logic and reasoning in an argument that disputes or contradicts or exposes their credence and faith systems. They are programmed.

I once got into an argument with a Christian on homosexuality, for that was why he was totally against Obama and Democrats. You see, in the Bible, God repeats numerous times that this is an abomination. True, but lying is a form of abuse and is the ninth Decalogue in the Ten Commandments; homosexuality is not.

Romney’s constant lying underscores his integrity in leadership. Should we as a nation not tolerate a man who incessantly lies while wanting to be chief leader of the country, or should we allow it to become the norm? What will other countries view us as?

If Romney wins election, he has a lot on his docket for the first day. On his first day he promises to repeal the ‘Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank law, defund ‘Planned Parenthood’ and drastically reduce funding for FEMA in hopes of sending emergency preparedness to the cash strapped states or even making it all private. That would make sense wouldn’t it…I mean a for profit corporation hiring all these people preparing for an anticipated future disaster. Profit businesses do not operate that way, they only hire when production calls for it. To make the companies remain on alert and prepared, it would be an enormous cost to taxpayers for national disaster emergencies to be held by for profit companies.

But in his and Ryan’s arguments in doing away with “immoral” FEMA, it certainly did not stop Romney in wanting to get brownie points with phone calls and photo-ops with high ranking FEMA officials during Hurricane Sandy’s ravaging of the northeast coast. He even had a picture of a Romney bus with some boxes filled with goods laying on the street just in front of the bus to go viral onto the airwaves and internet as if he and his campaign were 100% out there aiding victims.

Romney and his campaign still stand on disbanding FEMA in his speeches and websites, but after Hurricane Sandy, he has avoided scores of reporters’ questions and concerns on the topic. Literally, he has run from them like a scared rabbit from a fox. 

Meanwhile, as Obama cancelled his campaign tour to get down to business in responding to the natural disaster and coordinating events between states affected and FEMA, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie of all people would have nothing to do with the right in attempting to make political hay.

When interviewed by Fox and Friends on Halloween morning, Christie put aside his Romney stumping and said, “I appreciated the president’s outreach today in making sure that we know he’s watching this and is concerned about the welfare and safety of the people of the state of New Jersey.”

This of course floored the Fox and Friends hosts. They were reaching out to the only northeast coast Republican governor impacted by Sandy not for showering praise on Obama’s good effort, but to find something negative to say about our president’s response. Christie also added, “The president was great last night.”

In trying to veer the conversation away from Obama and onto Romney, one of the hosts asked if Romney comes into New Jersey would he meet him. Immediately, Christie responds in this way:

“I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested. I’ve got a job to do here in New Jersey that’s much bigger than presidential politics and I could care less about any of that stuff. I have a job to do. I’ve got 2.4 million people out of power. I’ve got devastation on the shore. I’ve got floods in the northern part of my state. If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don't know me.” Then he goes on to shower Obama’s efforts with more praise.

If this is the new Republican, I am all for Christie. After big Democrat wins, if Christie is representative of the new rising Republican after the extremists are swept away with the ashes, perhaps I might even go back to voting Republican a time or two. Bless Christie’s big soul though, the fallout from his fellow Republicans is going to be merciless. He’s going to get a tasting of what his party is really all about.

Romney is the eternal perjurer. Whatever it takes to make a buck or win an election, he’s standing ready and able to pull off and sell the distortions to the American public. He keeps his skeleton closet sealed tight. His blind trusts are beyond his control, his tax returns are off limits for it’s “all you people need to know.” His 5-Point rhetorical plan, well with no substantive detail, there is no ‘point’ period.

 In being blunt but veritable…Romney is a lying sack of vo-mitt.
                
In Word & Deed:
Inference! I truly do like that word; it kind of just rolls out of a mouth’s breath. What it defines is reasoning, not just any ol’ reasoning, but derived reasoning resulting from factual knowledge or evidence. It does not fit the scheme of Republican thought. As Santorum recently and infamously expressed, intelligence isn’t a welcoming attribute into the Republican fold.

With their rhetoric and ideologue, Republicans ignore substance and relinquish science while enveloping themselves into their own little world with their made-up facts and figures. After really getting to see Ryan speak, he is no genius behind his cardboard graphs riddled with false facts and figures, he’s simply the GOPs poster boy to rid the perceived vermin only they see in social programs and American citizen earned entitlements.

In October of 2011, the very same day that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) announced that the richest 1% of households had more than doubled their share of gross incomes since 1979, while the remaining 99% (all the rest of us) had significant drops in income, Representative Paul Ryan countered. Ryan insinuated the CBO finding amounts to President Obama and his so-called liberal government to creating “class warfare.” He further stated Republican policies of cutting social program funding would preserve his and their distorted views in “equality of opportunity,” essentially saying almost the whole of Americans are stuck in their thwarted opportunity to climb the social ladder. The 99% should just accept that we are victims of circumstance beyond control. Therefore, the government’s role is not to help us climb out of the economic hold the financial market put us into, but to merely aid us in coping with our dire situation.

In other words, Ryan’s snide side rhetoric states people who are rich deserve to be rich, while being poor is your own fault.

This truly is a glaring example of Republican fealty for the rich.

This, backed by the very Tea Baggers covered by Medicare but hate socialized medicine. Their ironic and conflicting values just don’t cut mustard in common sense. Is this who we truly are? I don’t think so.

In America’s political arena, there will be misery in loss simultaneously while others enjoy the fruits of a win. That’s fine we all must concede there will be winners and losers in an election. But what I disdain is misery at the expense of a cheating winner.

America loves competition. It’s a make-up of our past time through sports. Competition lowers commodity prices for consumers, while at the same time bringing about better quality in product. It brought leadership to the fold in our communities, state and federally elected officials with the most sincere integrity to keep America on track running on all engines.

These are descriptions though, not reasons. The reason why Americans have always loved competition is that one’s gain does not halt the current loser’s potential to gain in the not too distant future. There’s always that sense of fair play in that in any given level playing field, there is enough to go around. In already having a slice, we’re merely fighting for a bigger slice of the pie. That is beginning to not be the case in American capitalism and politics…it’s no longer holding, it’s eroding. Whoever has the most money now wants to buy the whole pie, but out of the kindness of their heart leave some crumbs.

A majority base is no longer required, except for the one needed obstacle of votes. But through a highly financed propaganda public relations machine, opponent voter suppression, a blatant fabrication of facts and not just money, but hordes of it…we are no longer electing the proper politician or putting into office the proper CEO. Corporations today do not hire a CEO who came up through the ranks of the company. Corporate boards don’t hire one who knows the inside out of the business; they seek outsiders with exorbitantly high salaries who can best perform spin.

In this election, if Romney/Ryan wins, this is exactly what America will be entrapped in. It is the whole pie versus the crumbs.   
         
Vote your conscience, but please first feed your conscience with true reasoned thought. Do research on your own for the truthful facts. Remember that word…inference…


BJA
In Adamant Reporting
11/01/2012

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