I'm tired of the two party system. Here is my alternative. And they are good for the Earth.

The Green Party

There are plenty of people in the US who game the system--don't pay taxes due, get food stamps they're not entitled to, etc. But Romney's 47% has to include seniors (like me) who collect Social Security and get Medicare that we paid into during our working careers, as well as legitimately disabled people and unemployed people who got laid off through no fault of their own and are honestly looking for work. He and his rich supporters never have to use those benefits--they just get their oil depletion allowances, agricultural parity, investment tax credits, etc. So do Obama's rich supporters.

TB, the statistic I read was that roughly one third of that group are seniors. Many others are the working poor. Others, as you pointed out, probably are those that have learned to "work the system" and intend to gouge it for all they can.

The quote that bothered me the most is that Mitt has decided that this group will never learn to be responsible for themselves. My parent's generation, who never took a dime, who worked their whole lives, who rushed to go to war for their country, they will never be responsible for themselves??

It just might be the most disgusting, dismissive and condescending thing I've ever heard a politician say.

The following are the results of Fox News polls as stated on the Fox website:

President Barack Obama has the edge over Republican Mitt Romney in three potentially decisive states in the presidential election. Obama tops Romney by seven percentage points among likely voters in both Ohio (49-42 percent) and Virginia (50-43 percent). In Florida, the president holds a five-point edge (49-44 percent).

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/.../#ixzz26y0KwTRV

Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, was public aid recipient as child after family fled Mexico

Mitt Romney had harsh words for welfare recipients in a hidden-camera videotape from a May fundraiser that was leaked this week.

But his own father was once among public aid recipients.

As the Globe has previously reported, George Romney’s family fled from Mexico in 1912 to escape a revolution there, and benefited from a $100,000 fund established by Congress to help refugees who had lost their homes and most of their belongings.

That fund may have been what Lenore Romney, George Romney’s wife and Mitt Romney’s mother, was referring to in a video that was posted online earlier this month but has received renewed attention in the wake of Mitt Romney’s comments.

“[George Romney] was on welfare relief for the first years of his life. But this great country gave him opportunities,” Lenore Romney said in the video, which apparently dates back to George Romney’s 1962 run for governor of Michigan.

In Mitt Romney’s remarks at the May fundraiser, he said that 47 percent of people are dependent upon government, and described that segment of the population as a lost cause, both as prospective GOP voters and more generally.

“I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he said.

http://www.boston.com/politicalintellige...nGDL/story.html

I hate (or subconciously do I?) posting this piece reported by TMZ of all people, but considering he violated his own party's platform plank on no exceptions should be allowed for abortion...it's very appropriate.





http://www.tmz.com/2012/09/20/mitt-romne...ct-bill-handel/

Jeez, that will hurt him more within his own party than the 47% gaffe, being that the Republican poor are pretty much brainwashed.

It really sucks for Democrats and Independents who would like another option besides Obama (like myself). But I can't vote for this guy. It's one faux pas after another. It's Obama by default.

Things are really bad when Peggy Noonan jumps ship. She's a conservative journalist who I happen to respect the hell out of (she wrote a wonderful book about Pope John Paul II). You don't have to agree with her politics, but much like Hillary Clinton there's no denying her intelligence. She reminds me of Hillary for that very reason. Anyway, I don't have the link but if you Google her you'll see that she pretty much abandoned ship on poor Mitt.

All of this pregnancy/abortion talk reminds me of that old joke: You can unscrew a lightbulb. Which is ironic, because at this point you can't unscrew Mitt Romney.

Hey SB and West Wing fans, here is a political ad that brought the cast together. It reminds voters to check to make sure they voted for propositions on the "non partisan" portion of ballot.

TIS




And on a more comical note, Homer Simpson voted too.

Thanks for sharing, TIS! I miss The West Wing. There's certainly been nothing to replace it, not even Newsroom.

I read those Op/Ed's Noonan has been writing the past few days in the WSJ about the Romney campaign, she ripped his campaign to shreds IMO.

How did the Grand Old Party of Lincoln, William F. Buckley Jr, Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater turn into the party of Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Mitt Romney?

Well, it's 3:00 p.m. eastern time. What has Romney screwed up today?

I was watching Megyn Kelly (as the drool ran down my face as it always does when I watch her)who was inteviewing several pundits. The Republicans were stating that Romney needs to go on the attack. Now, I ask you, why would anyone vote for a candidate who needs to be told what to do?

And by the way, where have all of the Board's Romney supporters (or conservatives) gone?

^^^Not much to discuss in favor of Romney to their defense, but the main conservative on here (IMHO) Ivyleague is on a self-imposed hiatus cause he is still mad about being suspended a while back over a difference of opinion with another poster on here. He largely precipitated the whole drama with the other forum soon after.

Well....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/romney-ohio-taxes_n_1915949.html

Longer than I have time to discuss now but the short answer is the Party turned South. That helped them for a while but there isn't a Republican on the horizon who can unify the disparate versions of conservatism (social, neo-con, big business, libertarian, traditionalist, etc..) And the social conservatives make noise in direct inverse to their power but they scare off independents and energize the other side.

The interesting part to me is that whoever wins this election, Obama or Romney, will lead a country where somewhere between 45-50% of the population HATES him and thinks he's illegitimate.

Lilo, you've got a point. The GOP has encountered pluralism in its ranks. The emergence of Republicans who are gay, have had extramarital affairs and been divorced, been drug addicts or alcoholics (they or their kids), had children out of wedlock, etc. has diminshed their moral staunchness and lost adherents.

If Obama is re-elected I see the G.O.P. tearing itself apart. The Tea Party crowd is going to say (from its bubble) that someone from their wing should have been the nominee, whereas the more moderate group including people like Lindsey Graham and John Boehner will realize they need a wider tent and more
tolerance on social issues. I can see them engaged in a struggle for some time much like the Democrats were from 1968 through the election of Clinton. They had a left wing and a moderate wing which fought all the time. The results were nominees like McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis. Carter, more of a centrist, was an abberation, having been elected for only one term on the heels of Watergate and the pardon of Nixon.

^^^I agree

Anyone see Newt on Morning Joe today? Man, this guy is delusional. Now he is basically saying Obama is Jimmy Carter redux, and saying we cannot trust him on security matters because he dropped the ball in Libya where it now apears some kind of al quaeda unit was involded in the asination of the ambassador and others at the embassy. Maybe Obama dropped the ball on that and maybe not. THe jury is still out. But it is not the worst secuity breach ever as Newt implies. Don't forget that little incident on 9/11/01 in New York. Talk about an administration dropping the ball.....

Exactly DT. For one, I don't understand all of the concern on Libya. Regardless of how he died, the ambassador was murdered in a volatile country where law and order is a premium.

Regardless of who wins someone is going to get hit upside the head with reality. And I am going to enjoy it immensely.

Right now it looks like that will be Romney and Ryan. No matter what lies politicians tell the public they need to have access to reality for themselves. It may be a shock for Republicans to discover that people really didn't want to repeal Obamacare, weren't clamoring to reduce access to abortion or contraception, didn't want another Middle east war, don't think the rich are too lightly taxed and didn't revolt at executive implementation of much of the Dream Act.

Of course vice versa if Obama loses..

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — What first appeared to be an isolated problem in one Florida county has now spread statewide, with election officials in nine counties informing prosecutors or state election officials about questionable voter registration forms filled out on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida.

State Republican officials already have fired the vendor it had hired to register voters, and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company, Strategic Allied Consulting, with state officials. That complaint was handed over Friday to state law-enforcement authorities.

I love Morning Joe, even with all his wackiness I enjoy Newt. He keeps it entertaining to say the least.

Spot-on, Lilo. In many ways the country is as divided today as it was in the '60s. Both extremes fret that the other side is "winning," when in fact most people outside of the so called "one percent" are losing to some degree or another. And the class rage will only get worse as people start to realize that the American economy is never going to be the same as it was prior to globalization. There are just too many jobs that are never coming back.

I saw an economist who had some interesting points about the economy. While she agreed that funding the Iraq and Afghan wars, runaway lending, etc. were huge factors in the current economic crisis, you can't blame it all on that. Thanks to the emergence of the global economy, this has been at least 20 years in the making.T We want cheaper goods and we have sacrificed jobs to get them. We complain about corporate farms, but nobody wants to pay $8 for a peach.

What we need to do is begin tight visa control to keep companies from bringing in foreign outsource companies and to have huge tariffs on companies that outsource their jobs overseas. It used to be manufacturing, then call centers, now it's IT, legal and medical. Why should your insurance company pay a US radiologist's fees when they can email your CAT scan to a doctor in Mumbai who read it for a fraction of the cost?

SB, PB, I agree with you. Some of those jobs are never coming back but it will be very difficult to get companies to change their ways insofar as globalization. It's almost too far gone. A few years back when it looked like my department and maybe my company was going to go kaput we had to train our possible overseas replacements. Somewhat surreal but that's business. Anyone who is not onboard with outsourcing and making the cheapest possible use of labor had better forget about rising in the company hierarchy. It's not happening. I probably should have kept my mouth shut about some things but what can you do...

The only good thing is thanks to a few massive screw-ups companies are starting to realize that getting something quickly or cheaply isn't always better than getting it right. So there is some minor cessation of outsourcing in my field-not much but it is what it is. You have to run faster and faster to stay in the same spot. Most roles that are purely technical and repetitive have been moved out. The people that survive tend to be people with some sort of relational skills with the customer or business leads OR people that are working in tech that's so old that no one overseas is familiar with it.

Remember, the US economy is primarily a service economy. Thus, it is very amenable to contact between buyer and seller through technical media. That's only going to increase. As has been the case for decades, US manufacturing continues to erode for any number of reasons. Equity holders want to maximize return on investment which is anathema to tariffs. Globalization is here to stay and and so are its effects.

Lilo, don't know if your company is experiencing the same issues, but my husband's company can no longer bring in workers from outside the country. They can't get work visas. If the current workers have to go home for some reason, they can't come back. They can still outsource work to other countries (most goes to Chennai), but the days of bringing over programmers to work on a special project for a year and then shipping them back is no longer an option. One of the guys in my husband's department couldn't even go back home for his mother-in-law's funeral.