Global Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy

This is the TRUTH of science.  Deny it at your peril!

Global Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy

By George Lakoff, Reader Supported News

30 October 12

Reader Supported News | Perspective

Global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy - and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let's say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation.

Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies.

There is a difference between systemic and direct causation. Punching someone in the nose is direct causation. Throwing a rock through a window is direct causation. Picking up a glass of water and taking a drink is direct causation. Slicing bread is direct causation. Stealing your wallet is direct causation. Any application of force to something or someone that always produces an immediate change to that thing or person is direct causation. When causation is direct, the word cause is unproblematic.

Systemic causation, because it is less obvious, is more important to understand. A systemic cause may be one of a number of multiple causes. It may require some special conditions. It may be indirect, working through a network of more direct causes. It may be probabilistic, occurring with a significantly high probability. It may require a feedback mechanism. In general, causation in ecosystems, biological systems, economic systems, and social systems tends not to be direct, but is no less causal. And because it is not direct causation, it requires all the greater attention if it is to be understood and its negative effects controlled.

Above all, it requires a name: systemic causation.

Global warming systemically caused the huge and ferocious Hurricane Sandy. And consequently, it systemically caused all the loss of life, material damage, and economic loss of Hurricane Sandy. Global warming heated the water of the Gulf and Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in greatly increased energy and water vapor in the air above the water. When that happens, extremely energetic and wet storms occur more frequently and ferociously. These systemic effects of global warming came together to produce the ferocity and magnitude of Hurricane Sandy.

The precise details of Hurricane Sandy cannot be predicted in advance, any more than when, or whether, a smoker develops lung cancer, or sex without contraception yields an unwanted pregnancy, or a drunk driver has an accident. But systemic causation is nonetheless causal.

Semantics matters. Because the word cause is commonly taken to mean direct cause, climate scientists, trying to be precise, have too often shied away from attributing causation of a particular hurricane, drought, or fire to global warming. Lacking a concept and language for systemic causation, climate scientists have made the dreadful communicative mistake of retreating to weasel words. Consider this quote from "Perception of climate change," by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, and Reto Ruedy, Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

...we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.

The crucial words here are high degree of confidence, anomalies, consequence, likelihood, absence, and exceedingly small. Scientific weasel words! The power of the bald truth, namely causation, is lost.

This no small matter because the fate of the earth is at stake. The science is excellent. The scientists' ability to communicate is lacking. Without the words, the idea cannot even be expressed. And without an understanding of systemic causation, we cannot understand what is hitting us.

Global warming is real, and it is here. It is causing - yes, causing - death, destruction, and vast economic loss. And the causal effects are getting greater with time. We cannot merely adapt to it. The costs are incalculable. What we are facing is huge. Each day, the amount of extra energy accumulating via the heating of the earth is the equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs. Each day!

Because the earth itself is so huge, this energy is distributed over the earth in a way that is not immediately perceptible by our bodies - only a fraction of a degree each day. But the accumulation of total heat energy over the earth is increasing at an astronomical rate, even though the temperature numbers look small locally - 0.8 degrees Celsius so far. If we hit 2.0 degrees Celsius, as we may before long, the earth - and the living things on it - will not recover. Because of ice melt, the level of the oceans will rise 45 feet, while huge storms, fires, and droughts get worse each year.

The international consensus is that by 2.0 degrees Celsius, all civilization would be threatened if not destroyed.

What would it take to reach a 2.0 degrees Celsius increase over the whole earth? Much less than you might think. Consider the amount of oil already drilled and stored by Exxon Mobil alone. If that oil were burned, the temperature of the earth would pass 2.0 degree Celsius, and those horrific disasters would come to pass.

The value of Exxon Mobil - its stock price - resides in its major asset, its stored oil. Because the weather disasters arising from burning that oil would be so great that we would have to stop burning. That's just Exxon Mobil's oil. The oil stored by all the oil companies everywhere would, if burned, destroy civilization many times over.

Another way to comprehend this, as Bill McKibben has observed, is that most of the oil stored all over the earth is worthless. The value of oil company stock, if Wall St. were rational, would drop precipitously. Moreover, there is no point in drilling for more oil. Most of what we have already stored cannot be burned. More drilling is pointless.

Are Bill McKibben's and James Hansen's numbers right? We had better have the science community double-check the numbers, and fast.

Where do we start? With language. Add systemic causation to your vocabulary. Communicate the concept. Explain to others why global warming systemically caused the enormous energy and size of Hurricane Sandy, as well as the major droughts and fires. Email your media whenever you see reporting on extreme weather that doesn't ask scientists if it was systemically caused by global warming.

Next, enact fee and dividend, originally proposed by Peter Barnes at Sky Trust and introduced as Senate legislation as the KLEAR Act by Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. More recently, legislation called fee and dividend has been proposed by James Hansen and introduced in the House by representatives John B, Larson and Bob Inglis.

Next. Do all we can to move to alternative energy worldwide as soon as possible.

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Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

 http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/14262-focus-global-warming-systemically-caused-hurricane-sand

Short Thoughts -- We WILL!

It is the first thing I think about when I awake and the last when I go to bed. NYC/NJ you are ALWAYS on my mind. Man recovers from catastrophe and we will. Time is what it takes and although Americans are not used to waiting we must. Other peoples in catastrophes in other times -- WWII, Hiroshima, San Francisco earthquake, the tsunami of Indonesia, not to ever be forgotten 9/11 and many many others show us man comes back and we WILL.

This was nature's wake-up call. Climate change MUST and WILL now be addressed in the president's second term which he SHOULD without question get (I HOPE!). The election of Romney is UNTHINKABLE. Either we want to live or we die it's that simple.

This was the wake up call nature handed us. WE MUST USE IT as a sign that climate change due to man's overuse and gluttony of fossil fuels is at its core! Man, gets up, dusts himself/herself off and begins again!

GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH THE MAN MADE OVERUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT EXAMPLE OF WHY THE PRESIDENT MUST BE RE-ELECTED. HE IS IN THE PARTY THAT IS THE ONLY ONE THAT GIVES CREDENCE TO SCIENCE AS IT IS DENIED BY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. IT IS THROUGH THE LAWS OF NATURE WE EITHER LIVE OR DIE. IT'S THAT SIMPLE. THE PRESIDENT WILL BE RE-ELECTED AND HOPEFULLY WE AND FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL BEGIN TO BE SAVED!

Manhattan, the New Jersey Shore and More--the Truth of Science

If you ever want to know what happens when one does not pay heed to the FACTS of science feast your eyes on this Huff Post headline here or below relating the latest macabre details of death and dying in our latest global warming catastrophe in Manhattan including caskets literally washed out of their graves.

Whether it is evolution, climate change, the bacterial cause of disease, immunizations that prevent disease, gravity or the earth revolving around the sun the FACTS of science rule the day everywhere from particle to quantum physics nothing escapes the fundamental facts science tells us and these facts of biology and physics even pertain to outer space. There are some eternal truths of science no party, no political thought, no religious wingnut fantasy and no one human being can deny. To do so means vast death and utter immolation of places like Manhattan, the New Jersey shore and much much more.

Which US political party denies science and which party would ideologically deny the rules of it to promulgate the fantasy and mythological fairy tales of religion just because it feels much more secure to so and gleans the leaders votes and vast sums of a great-gig-if-you-can-get-it wealth?

If you said the Republican Party and Mitt Romney you would be correct. If this nation catastrophically elects Willard Mitt Romney and the Republican Party of religion, organized and extreme, it could mean ultimately the end of life on earth as our species has known it since the evolutionary assent of man. Deny science at your peril and at the peril of all of us who know the veracity of science when it stares us in the face. 
Yet another reason to re-elect the president and Elizabeth Warren to the US Senate!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

A natural disaster named Sandy and the disaster of a man named Mitt Romney

I have witnessed in my life many horrific events challenging our nation but never have I ever witnessed the devastation and wreckage wreaked by a unique weather phenomenon of a hurricane wrapped in a nor'easter storm named Sandy. It assaulted and battered the northeast. This is the serious impact of climate change that has shown its ugly face in a plethora of nature’s fury here and throughout the world. It is a scientific reality which the Republican Party and Mitt Romney, as its titular head, is loathe to admit. This storm has ruined lower Manhattan, Long Island and devastated the Jersey shore. It has impacted seriously many other states. The damage is incalculable, unbelievable and the saga ongoing.

I developed my political philosophy after two historical events. The Holocaust and rise of fascism in 1930’s Europe which made it clear to me the horror of right wing fascism -- unprincipled, extreme and unbounded in its nationalistic animus. It gives rationale for every violence too horrible for a normal personality to contemplate. It has no humanitarian basis of thought. It is mean, violent, and unabashed in its fanaticism. Fascism weds an oligarchic capitalism with unbridled militaristic nationalism and is inhumane, bellicose and racist to its core. Mitt Romney and his party are much like that.

FDR and the Great Depression solidified my point of view that federal power is NOT the enemy of our nation. The tug of war between the Constitutional mandates of state power versus federal power has been argued in American history for centuries. I believe, as history has unfolded, federal power in this country can and SHOULD, when crafted well, be invoked to save a nation. It was true in the age of the Great Depression giving us jobs, Social Security and later Medicare for seniors; it was true during the Civil Rights era leading to the Voting Rights Act disassembling the age of Jim Crow and it is true now crafting a policy to dig us out of Republican-induced Wall Street anarchy and the birth of the Great Recession.

Throughout President Obama’s leadership we have mandated equal pay for equal work for women, codified rules for Wall Street, we have a more affordable health care act and we have killed bin Laden. Government can work for the people. It can level the playing field making policy fairer by rounding up a field of 50 cats in the form of states each doing their own thing to enact the mandate of federal power trumping that of the states when necessary to promote the general welfare. Government is a matter of setting priorities. Do we want perpetual war and a more bloated military or do we want repair of our sagging, dangerous, and potentially catastrophe-inducing infrastructure.

Mitt Romney, a candidate who has changed his mind on nearly every single issue of our day to fit the milieu in which he finds himself, yet again, was taped during the Republican debate saying he thought it would be a good idea to de-federalize and even get rid of many federal institutions like the EPA and FEMA – two agencies necessary in keeping us safe from disasters like Hurricane Sandy and corporate polluters like the perpetrators of the BP Gulf oil mess. Romney said he thought it a good idea to turn recovery after a natural disaster to the states rather than ask for assistance of the federal government even though he DID ask the federal government for just that as the governor of Massachusetts even withholding state funds until the federal government stepped up to the plate.

In our age of unending national disasters due to climate change what would this unconscionable man do? He would leave the states to fend for themselves. In view of this latest horrific disaster involving a multitude of states how quickly could the states themselves save themselves from this holocaust of destruction? How many would die? The loss of life would be enormous but Mitt Romney does not care about that. He TELLS you he does but he does not.

Romney and the Republican Party LIE about nearly everything even having the nerve to lie about the president's saving of the auto industry through the auto industry bailout touting it as Romney’s own policy when he, in fact, advocated for its opposite -- bankruptcy. He lied about Chrysler sending its jobs to China because of the president. Chrysler by their own statements said this was untrue! It was another lie. There is NO shame and no morality in the man Romney. He will say and do anything to win.

The choice is ours to make. Do we choose a man who lies constantly, flip-flopping his views to fit the moment? Or do we acknowledge our president’s leadership, setting a thoughtful and cogent course, protecting our nation when it incurs a national disaster or a threat from abroad?

Yes, I hope every day that the country does not do anything so incredibly short sighted and infinitely wrong by electing the immoral man, Romney. The election of Mitt Romney means not only the death of a salesman’s economy through bad arithmetic but the death of our nation through the disaster named Mitt Romney as well.

WHY WE MUST RE-ELECT THE PRESIDENT AND ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE!

Pass this on to whomever you like. If you know someone in Ohio and any other swing state pass it to them most especially or use it for an opinion piece in an Ohio or other swing state newspaper. Use it in any way that could help the president!

Final Days, Biggest Issue, Clearest Choice By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog 29 October 12

s we go into the final days of a dismal presidential campaign where too many issues have been fudged or eluded - and the media only want to talk about is who's up and who's down - the biggest issue on which the candidates have given us the clearest choice is whether the rich should pay more in taxes.
President Obama says emphatically yes. He proposes ending the Bush tax cut for people earning more than $250,000 a year, and requiring that the richest 1 percent pay no less than a third of their income in taxes, the so-called "Buffett Rule."

Mitt Romney says emphatically no. He proposes cutting tax rates on the rich by 20 percent, extending the Bush tax cut for the wealthy, and reducing or eliminating taxes on dividends and capital gains.
Romney says he'll close loopholes and eliminate deductions used by the rich so that their share of total taxes remains the same as it is now, although he refuses to specify what loopholes or deductions. But even if we take him at his word, under no circumstances would he increase the amount of taxes they pay.
Obama is right.

America faces a huge budget deficit. And just about everyone who's looked at how to reduce it - the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the bi-partisan Simpson-Bowles Commission, and almost all independent economists and analysts - have come up with some combination of spending cuts and tax increases that raise revenue.

Just last Thursday, executives of more than eighty large American corporations called for tax reform that "raises revenues and reduces the deficit."

The practical question is who pays for those additional revenues. If Romney's view prevails and the rich don't pay more, everyone else has to.

That's nonsensical. The rich are far richer than they used to be, while most of the rest of us are poorer. The latest data show the top 1 percent garnering 93 percent of all the gains from the recovery so far. But median family income is 8 percent lower than it was in 2000, adjusted for inflation.

The gap has been widening for three decades. Since 1980 the top 1 percent has doubled its share of the nation's total income - from 10 percent to 20 percent. The share of the top one-tenth of 1 percent has tripled. The share of the top-most one-one hundredth of 1 percent - 16,000 families - has quadrupled. The richest 400 Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together.

Meanwhile, the tax rates paid by the wealthy have dropped precipitously. Before 1981 the top marginal tax rate was never lower than 70 percent. Under President Dwight Eisenhower it was 93 percent. Even after taking all the deductions and tax credits available to them, the rich paid around 54 percent.

The top tax rate is now only 35 percent and the tax on capital gains (increases in the value of investments) is only 15 percent. Since so much of what they earn is from capital gains, many of the super-rich, like Mitt Romney himself, pay 14 percent or less. That's a lower tax rate than many middle-class Americans pay.
In fact, if you add up all the taxes paid - not just on income and capital gains but also payroll taxes (which don't apply to income above incomes of $110,100), and sales taxes - most of us are paying a higher percent of our income in taxes than are those at the top.

So how can anyone argue against raising taxes on the rich? Easy. They say it will slow the economy because the rich are "job creators."

In the immortal words of Joe Biden, that's malarky.

The economy did just fine during the three decades after World War II, when the top tax rate never fell below 70 percent. Average yearly economic growth was higher in those years than it's been since, when taxes on the rich have been far lower.

Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and the economy did wonderfully well. George W. Bush cut them and the economy slowed.

The real job creators are America's vast middle class, whose spending encourages businesses to expand and hire - and whose lack of spending has the opposite effect.

That's why the recovery has been painfully slow. So much income and wealth have gone to the top that the vast majority of Americans in the middle don't have the purchasing power to get the economy moving again. The rich save most of what they earn, and their savings go anywhere around the world where they can get the highest return.

It would be insane to compound the damage by raising taxes on the middle class and not on the rich.
Logic, fairness, and common sense dictate that the rich pay more in taxes. It's the key to avoiding January's fiscal cliff and coming up with a "grand bargain" on taming the budget deficit. And it's central to getting the economy back on track.

A Quote to My Liking

You will have to forgive my loving a quote but not knowing who said it or from whence it came. Suffice it to say I will quote it writer unknown because it is EXACTLY how I feel. It states as follows:

Myth [yes, that is right no typo here] Romney is a despicable, self-centered, privileged, condescending, unqualified, lying, flip-flopping, no-core-values slug who demeans the office of the presidency by assuming he is entitled to it. Go back to one of your seven homes, Willard, or to your yacht, or go visit your money in the Caymans, Switzerland or China.

I could NOT have said it better myself!

WHY THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF YOUR LIFE AND WHY WE MUST MUST MUST GET THE VOTE OUT FOR THE PRESIDENT. I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU MUST DO TO GET THAT VOTE OUT BUT DO IT. IF YOU THINK THIS PRESENT WEATHER HOLOCAUST IS JUST ANOTHER ONE AMONG DOZENS THAT HAVE TAKEN PLACE AND HAVE YET TO COME THINK AGAIN IT IS CALLED GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE AND IT IS DUE TO MAN-MADE OVERUSE OF FILTHY, DISGUSTING AND RUINOUS FOSSIL FUELS. ROMNEY WILL MAKE THIS TEN TIMES AS BAD AS IT ALREADY IS AS HE IS NOW THE LEADER OF A PARTY THAT SPITS ON SCIENCE AND BELIEVES IN MAGICAL UNDERWEAR. IF YOU THINK SCIENTISTS DO NOT KNOW THINK AGAIN. THEY DO AND ARE IN NEAR UNANIMOUS AGREEMENT. THE PRESIDENT IS THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HELP FIX THE IMPENDING CATASTROPHE. IF YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO LIVE THEN WORK FOR THE RE-ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT AND ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE.

I Irony of Voter Fraud

The wonderful Melissa Harris Perry MSNBC progressive commentator and host of her own weekend show discussed today Republican attempts at voter suppression and voting fraud ironically the very thing about which Republicans say they are SO concerned. She had four panelists one of whom was entitled “Republican Strategist.” I wrote the following to Melissa Harris Perry:

I believe the Republican "strategist's" feet were NOT held to the fire. She came across as honest, upright and being as concerned as those in the Democratic Party about voter suppression. I say bull pucky. It is HER party, the Republican Party, that is guilty of the MOST egregious voter suppression by Republican governors with Republican legislatures in Republican states in American history since the post Civil War period. It is ALL geared – ALL of it – geared we know to suppress the Democratic vote by making it more difficult for minorities in particular to be able to vote. No Democrat ever wants to limit the vote but Republicans do because they know they cannot win unless they employ what should be illegal and nefarious policy to do this.

For this Republican strategist to come across as squeaky clean is deceptive at best and dishonest at worst. It is HER party and no other party who wants to steal the vote from Democrats because Mitt Romney CANNOT win on his own rancid policy positions. From posters screaming out in heavily African American districts where there is NO voter fraud that voter fraud is a felony to reminders in Spanish sent out with the wrong date IS irony and it is also a felony. It is a felony, indeed, and Republicans should be indited, tried and imprisoned for it because they commit most of it.

For Tag Romney to have an interest in a company in the most contested and important of all states, Ohio, is NO QUESTION an egregious malevolence. This should not happen. There should be laws against this conflict of interest. Do YOU trust Tag Romney will make sure his machines work equally well for the president as they do for his own father? Do you trust Tag Romney to make sure those machines are not hacked by Republicans? NO? Well neither do I!

Because Tag Romney owns the voting machines in Ohio who knows what could happen in the dead of night as some Republican hacker somewhere could flip and dump the vote as they did in 2004. They can do it in 2012 IF they own the voting mechanics and IF we let them. If that god forbid happens, you will see then the Democratic half of the nation FLIP ITS WIG.

Republicans are NOT the only ones with computer expertise and hacking knowledge. Democrats I am sure have that knowledge too and if Republicans are not careful it could be a do unto you as you do unto me moment. Do NOT underestimate the abilities of the Democratic Party to STOP the Republican racist party from gaining one corrupt foot into the oval office again. You should make it clear to her that Democrats KNOW the Republican game after the stolen 2000 and 2004 election. We are NOT suicidal. WE WILL NOT REPEAT 2000 and 2004 AGAIN!

Those machines owned by Mitt Romney's son Tag should be replaced POST HASTE with paper ballots where there is a paper trail just like in Massachusetts, a state that misguidedly elected his empty suit flip-flopper-in-chief father governor in a fair election!

Leslie Gore Women Singing -- a MUST See

Leslie Gore was a big singing star of the early and mid 1960's. She was my favorite and we even saw her in those days at a theater in "closed circuit TV" along with the Beatles! A cousin of mine who will get this remembers our fun time then with HORDES of women flocking to a Boston movie theater and running down isles to see them both not even in person but on the screen. We were let in early and sauntered down the isle taking our time looking for a seat when all of a sudden they opened the doors and would have gotten trampled to death if it were not for seats right near where we were. Today I would have been in mortal fear but then so young you think nothing can hurt you. 

Well, Mitt Romney and his minions can hurt you, take away rights we earned and hurt your posterity for DECADES!

SPREAD THIS AROUND AND VOTE TO RE-ELECT THE PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND IF IN MASS. THE GREAT AND BRILLIANT ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE!

Click on the video link below or HERE

Leslie Gore wrote and sang the music around 1965 but is still applicable today!

http://vimeo.com/51920265

Flummoxed

It’s like a bad accident. I cannot look at it but I cannot look away. I am addicted to polling. It is a very bad addiction because any bad news about the chances the president will be re-elected and I feel despair flood my body.

I am sitting here as if someone stun gunned me. I shake my head incredulously utterly flummoxed as I listen to polling that shows a slight national edge for the president’s opposition. How human beings with a supposedly a superior brain to our animal friends can think that the most powerful nation in the world may just vote in a president Romney who is committed only to that which he THINKS people want to hear and the people --WHITE people mostly-- cheer and think this charlatan bs artist flip-flopper-in chief is convincing them that he has the key to their happiness when the only happiness that humanoid cares about is his own.

We know racism is the cancer that has inflicted the Republican Party and to some degree a percentage of the white undecided voters who think that a vote for Romney will usher in an economic tidal wave of paradise.

They somehow identify with the 1% richest, want Wall Street to go unregulated, want Social Security to disappear so that Wall Street can control ALL of their retirement promising wealth and think Wall Street is SO reliable to give that guarantee. They too want an end to Medicare and Obamacare so then what? Insurance Co.'s HUGELY expensive health insurance tied to your job you will be forced to have when you are 85 and can barely get out of bed. Oh yes, those vouchers that Paul Ryan is touting will pay for what exactly? Maybe a toothbrush in the hospital room?

The American low information voters will probably do just what George Carlin always said -- take it getting nothing at the end of their life and die well before their time with nothing to show for it!

Every Now and Then

Every now and then I must be brought back to earth with a dose of reality which reinforces what I already think. It's simply that I keep thinking that I am alone until I listen to a variety of the UTUBES of George Carlin. George Carlin was the Lenny Bruce of his time. I know I posted him before but it is time for another dose.

I enclose two videos that bring me back to earth and allow me to feel that someone much much smarter than I thought the same things and created an act of genius leaving, when he died, a bunch of brilliant and prescient comedy. We can let it influence our action or not. It's up to us.

Warning though, the language is sometimes rough BUT right on point.

You Have No Rights here or below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E&feature=endscreen&NR=1


The American Dream here or below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

The Murderous Mourdock and the Republican New Real Deal

Mitt Romney is not ONLY about electing a man who thinks corporations are people and will act accordingly accumulating IMMENSE profits for corporations that already earn profits in the hundred of millions and billions but he is also about choosing profits over people reflecting his company Bain's vulture capital ethos. He is, of course, exactly like his company Bain Capital which thinks nothing of taking over companies, eating their entrails, firing American workers, dissolving the company on American soil then shipping its jobs to any country which allows its workers to slave for wages of $1.00 per day. After all it’s nothing personal it’s just business!

Sensata Technologies is reflective of just that. It is or was a plant in Freeport, Illinois taken over by Bain Capital and against the pleas and protest of American workers who stand to lose everything, Bain ignores their cries and its pleas for Romney to intercede even arresting some who protest its job masticating ways. The company Senstata employed PEOPLE not robots but if you are a Mitt Romney you have NO heart, no soul and no conscience when it comes to the accumulation of YOUR own wealth. Romney will say anything, do whatever it takes and rollover whomever he must to concern himself with himself no matter whom it destroys even WHEN his wealth accumulated is in the hundreds of millions. It is never enough. I thought Teddy Roosevelt though Republican busted the monopolistic trusts of yesteryear. The politics of Romney makes me think I am in a time warp returning to a 19th century mind set.

As bad as Romney’s policies are on economic issues he stands for worse policy on the so-called social issues. The most egregiously stupid components of the Republican Party would, IF THEY COULD, roll back the progressive advancement of this country to the 1950’s. A talking head (I know not whom) said “We may love the series about the 1950’s Mad Men but we SURELY would not want to live in it again.” Having lived in that era I can attest to that especially if one is African American, disabled, gay and of course, a woman.

Most specifically on religious, economic, women’s health and reproductive issues he and his minions if they gain power will relegate women to a life of unfair pay for equal work, make contraception and pregnancy an affair of the state and not only blur the separation of church and state but FUSE it.

Republican candidate for the senate Todd Akin several weeks ago said the scientific absurdity that a woman’s body can defend against pregnancy from forcible rape because her body mounts a defense against it. This is not unique because many in the Republican Party actually BELIEVE that tripe! Yesterday, yet again, Richard Mourdock, Republican candidate for the US Senate from Indiana shows the stupidity of the Republican Romney Party by saying the following and I quote:

I believe life begins at conception. The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.

One might think these two men represent a skit from Saturday Night Live but they do not. They are serious. Romney quickly stated he disagreed with Mourdock view BUT would not pull the ads he ran before the statement was uttered and still supports him. Why? He knows he will need him for Republicans to take control of the Senate.

BUT there is a wider more nefarious reason Romney would not pull his ads supporting Mourdock. The Republican Party of right wing extremism ENDORSES those views. If Romney rejected candidates with views like Mourdock then Romney KNOWS he would not have been a candidate for the presidency on the Republican ticket. The murderous views of Richard Mourdock are NOT eschewed by the Republican Party they are EMBRACED by it.

The Republican Party along with its draconian economic policy would cut severely programs that would help people who need it. They would return this country to the days of a Medieval darkness when African Americans paid a poll tax, the disabled died in poverty, seniors died before their time, women with no available contraception were forced to bear children they could not afford AND worse where women were relegated to unprofessional and unclean back alley abortionists who ripped apart their bodies, often relegating them to infection through unsterile techniques where death or sterilization was not the exception but too often the rule.

In essence the Republican Party through its puppet Romney would return this country to a Republican new real deal and a Dickensian madness where government offers no help to the poor (which could be you,) where government offers no help to the unemployed (which could be you,) and where many with no job could not afford health care (which could be you.) The Republican Party, in short is NOT the party of life. It is the party of death and you vote for Romney at your own peril!

Something everyone should read and share--it boils down to this perfect storm

This is a wonderful article striking at the heart of the choice in this election. It really does boil down to this. What is the definition of the kind of culture in which you want to live? Is this the brave new world you want to pass on to generations that come after us?

It is an article everyone who is or soon will be registered to vote should read. So pass this on to whomever you wish. 

Taken from Huffington Post and written by Alberto Torres UCLA professor of education, author, and co-founder of the Paulo Freire Institute The Republican Party's Perfect Storm: The Hegemony of Male-centric, Class-centric and Ethnocentric Policies. 

Hegemony is a concept derived from the Greek wordeghémonia, which means leader or ruler. Usually employed to signify military power, or the political predominance of one state over another, Antonio Gramsci, arguably the most important Marxist thinker of the 20th century, suggested the term hegemony is often used to mean the broader process of moral and intellectual leadership through which the dominant class and ruling elite exercises its domination.

Domination is not only based purely on coercion but it is a moral, intellectual and even cultural drive imposing a clear and certain cultural direction. Moreover, the basic argument that Gramsci makes is that socially subordinate sectors accept the hegemonic domination of elites even though this implies that they will follow economic, cultural, and political principles working against their own interests.

The tumultuous nature of this presidential campaign teaches us many things about hegemony in the United States. The country, split into two different political persuasions representing two different views of the world, includes unique understandings of capitalism and the role of government. To see evidence of hegemony, however, one need only look to the Republican Party, whose campaign discourse and idea of democracy is a perfect storm of overwhelmingly male centric, class centric, and ethnocentric policies.

The Romney/Ryan philosophy is straightforward old school male-centric. When Romney shared that he had asked for a "binder full of women" while governor of Massachusetts, to purportedly identify and appoint a few women to his administration, it was a small but telling gaffe reflective of a larger personal and social disposition: that males are natural rulers in every sphere, most especially in politics. It's not a big leap from there to suggest that women should return home to fix dinner for their man once they have finished working all day outside the home. For Romney, it is obviously irrelevant that there are many households with just one head of the household, most of whom are women. In political life, women would only play a role when they embody and represent, like many businesswomen and some politicians, "hegemonic masculinities." That is, they share with men and particularly the elites their desire to control and suppress counter-hegemonic principles, values, alternatives, and practices. Women's bodies, which have long been a matter of public policy, are placed at the center of a "war against women," where Republican anti-abortion policies are sustained and cuts to Planned Parenthood are proposed.

The Romney/Ryan philosophy is also conspicuously class-centric, given the platform of the Republican Party runs on the principle that we, Americans, live as "possessive individuals." Hence, we are measured by our ability to show our possessions as symbols of success. In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German sociologist and political economist Max Weber showed that people often equate the idea of material success as proof that some individuals have been 'chosen' by God to rule. Evidence of this abounds. Between 1980 and 2008, the bottom 90 percent of wage earners -- the non-ruling class -- saw a rise of $300 in income, or less than 1 percent, while the top 1 percent of the socio-political stratum saw their income double to $1.1 million, and the top .01 percent quadrupled to almost $4 million. The one percent at the top has the approval of God to rule, and they even get this approval religiously certified by a number of churches and denominations.

The Republican Party's immaculate choreography of faces during their convention shows a U.S. society that is conspicuously homogeneous and racially white. To Republicans, it doesn't matter that poverty affects ethnic minorities disproportionately more often than whites. Republican millionaires and billionaires are feeling victimized by the press given their practices overwhelmingly favor whites. Unfortunately, the discourse on diversity in this country is wholly absent in the Republican model, and it's not likely to find a voice any time soon.

What's most important for Americans to decide in the 2012 presidential election is if they want the hegemony articulated by the Republican Party to be the guiding light for this country in years to come. Will a representative of the hyper-rich who is interested in serving the public as president but who does not believe in serving 47 percent of the population, or in the need to make public his tax returns, bring about a perfect storm of male-centric, class-centric, and ethnocentric hegemony? Will the country be able to accept and live with this model? We will know in the aftermath of Nov. 6, 2012.

A Quote

Quoting Pigotry (whatever that is but I like the quote.)

"The only INTERNATIONAL experience 

Mitt has ever had is that he once had a dinner at the 

INTERNATIONAL House of Pancakes."

The Life of the Republic -- The Third and Most Important Debate

The explicit duty of a president as fully defined in the US Constitution is Commander-in-Chief of the civilian controlled military. His most important duty, of course, is to keep the country safe – free from enemy attack. Because the president has at his disposal the ability to use a military which is the strongest and most technologically sophisticated in the world, he understands, after having occupied the oval office for four years, how to command it while using the expertise of dozens of military advisers to assist him in the process . Since 9/11 the Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the CIA and other arsenals of foreign policy have had to morph and grow into something it never was in history – a gargantuan technological vessel of computer programmed precision able to talk with each other at a moment’s notice. The process and the procedure are as complex as they ever have been and the president is familiar with it but Romney did and does not have a clue. He looked nervous and sweated profusely because he knew he understood little about foreign affairs as witnessed by his disastrous tour abroad to our strongest allies, England, Israel and Poland where he managed to insult someone in every state. One wonders what he would do when confronting an adversary. Perish the thought.

In the third debate the president brought with him the crucial determinate -- EXPERIENCE -- four years of it. He brought with him foreign policy successes many times over including the head of the slain dragon, Osama bin Laden, which the president said was worth “moving heaven and earth” to obtain. I concur. In one word his opponent Willard Mitt Romney was, shall we say, LOST and, using his word, SEVERELY so. Romney in his usual fashion was all over the foreign policy Etch-A-Sketch map changing positions he once held but, at least for this debate, seems not to any more. What positions does this chameleon really hold? Who knows? Like every other issue whether foreign or domestic he changes more than a hotel employee changes the sheets.

If I were a right winger (perish the thought) I would be scratching my head wondering who the hell this guy is. What he is perhaps, is the WORST Republican candidate ever. Why? Because he stands for everything and, therefore, he stands for nothing except that which his handlers tell him to stand and when he should stand for them. Last night one would have thought Romney agreed with every foreign policy act that the president has put forth. Barack Obama has not governed in foreign policy domain from the left. He has governed centrist no matter what his often racist haters incorrectly aver.

I do not know what the polls will be saying in the next few days but the instant flash polls of various media had the president winning and often by significant margins. One would have to have been asleep to say otherwise.

The third debate was the most important of all because it was about whether we live or whether the nation dies. Prescient and wise policy in the ever-so complex Middle East is crucial. Shooting from the hip in Bushian style is folly. Clearly, last evening was a disappointment to the Neocons who make up more than half of Romney's foreign policy advisory staff emanating from the failed team Bush. They were disappointed because the American people, even on the extreme right, have little stomach for endless war and THAT is all the Neocons want. Most of them INCLUDING Romney have never fought in war; Romney evading the Vietnam draft by peddling Mormon magic underwear to the French during that time. Neither he nor his five ever-so-healthy sons has ever served. What does he know about the intricacies of war? Answer: NOTHING and it showed.

One most entertaining take down of the night occurred when Romney said he would increase Navy ships because they were at a numerical low of 1916 levels and the Air Force at a numerical low since 1947. The president profoundly said referring to 1916 "we also have fewer horses and bayonets too." Clearly a high school senior could understand the difference between World War I or II and the modern era with the incomparable technologically sophisticated hardware that exists today. Moreover, George Bush began two wars with the amount of military equipment low by comparison to other 20th century wars.

In last evening’s third debate there was no comparison between the depth of knowledge of a commander-in-chief who inherited two wars with the task of ending them and a one- term governor who never served in a war when he had the chance. Romney is significantly UNFIT and WOEFULLY UNQUALIFIED to perform the most important duty a president faces and that is protecting the lives of the people and the country from attack.

By this yardstick not only did the president crush his opponent in the debate he should without hesitation win re-election to the presidency. Let's hope the majority of the electorate sees this the same way because no less than the life of the republic is at stake!

Nine Reasons the President Will Win-by Robert Creamer

The following article from Huffington Post is excellent. For those of us who are doom and gloomers here is a more positive point of view. Moral of the story VOTE!
As Election Day grows closer, some pundits seem almost breathless in their prediction that the Presidential election will be close. Well, of course it will be close. It has been obvious from the campaign's first day that it would be close. But there is overwhelming evidence that President Obama will win.

Why is the race so close?

1). First and foremost, the Republicans' trickledown, let-Wall-Street-run-wild policies sent the economy into a catastrophic recession just as Obama took office. This was not your run of the mill business cycle recession. It was caused by a financial collapse the likes of which America had not seen since the Great Depression.

The historic evidence is very clear that whenever there is a recession induced by a financial collapse, it take years for an economy to recover. American did not fully recover from the Great Depression itself until World War II -- almost twelve years after the stock market collapsed.

Had the Republicans remained in office and responded as Republican President Hoover did in 1929, the same fate could have awaited America once again. But instead, the Obama Administration moved immediately to stimulate the economy and shore up the financial system -- and especially to rescue the auto industry -- using policies that in most cases the GOP opposed.
Those policies have set the economy on a path toward sustained growth. But the Republicans have been hell-bent on stalling growth with the expressed purpose of defeating Obama this fall. They have sabotaged the economy by preventing even a vote on the Americans Jobs Act that most economists believe would create another 1.7 million jobs and would have prevented massive layoffs in state and local governments.

Mitt Romney is like an arsonist who complains that the fire department isn't putting out his fire fast enough, then tries to convince America to allow him to take over the effort armed with buckets of gasoline -- the same failed policies that caused the fire in the first place.

But the Republicans are right about one thing. It's hard to get re-elected in a tough economic environment -- even one that is improving. That is the main reason this election is close. If unemployment were at six percent, Obama would be re-elected by the same kind of electoral vote margins the Bill Clinton piled up in 1996.

2). The election is close because Wall Street -- and super-wealthy right-wing oil tycoons like the Koch Brothers -- have spent huge amounts of money to defeat Obama. This week alone, Romney and his outside group allies have booked $57 million in TV time.
Their financial advantage has been neutralized by the spectacular Obama fundraising operation -- particularly the incredible small donor program that has raised funds from over 10 million individual contributions.

And its effect has also been ameliorated by the fact that TV spots can be bought by both campaigns at the lowest possible rate, and super PACs or outside groups must spend much more per television viewer.
But the fact remains that all of those negative attack ads about Obama have kept the race close.

3). The American electorate is closely divided. In 2008 the economy had collapsed under Republican rule. The GOP candidate was not very popular. And the Republican incumbent President was downright radioactive. Regardless, the Republican candidate still got 47 percent of the popular vote.

Of course the race will be close.

But there are at least eight very good reasons why Obama will win. The first four have to do with extreme right wing policies Romney has advocated that have made it clear to key blocks of voters that he is simply not on their side.

1). Romney's advocacy of the "free market uber allies" view that we should have "let Detroit go bankrupt" may be his most costly single mistake. His position has crippled his campaign in the crucial industrial Midwest -- especially Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio. There are 780,000 auto-related jobs in Ohio alone. The auto rescue is one of the key reasons why unemployment in Ohio is well below the national average. His opposition to the auto rescue alone may be enough to cost him Ohio -- and the election.

2). Romney's embrace of extremist positions that require the government to get involved in personal decisions about women's reproductive health -- especially contraception and abortion -- help drive a huge and continuing gender gap. A recent Gallup poll found that these questions were the most important electoral issue to nearly 40 percent of women -- more important than the economy. Bottom line for most women: "my body, my business." Romney has aligned himself with the most extreme anti-choice views -- represented by his running mate Paul Ryan. If elected, he could potentially select three justices to the Supreme Court that could ban access to abortion altogether. That's enough by itself to alienate a big block of women voters.

3). Romney's statements about "self deportation," vetoing the Dream Act, the Arizona "papers please" law, have made him toxic to many recent immigrants -- and especially to Hispanics -- the fastest growing voting block in America. That will cost him dearly in swing states of Nevada -- where Obama has a large lead -- as well as Colorado and Florida, where the race is very tight.

4). Romney has supported Paul Ryan's plan to eliminate Medicare and convert it to a voucher program that would raise out of pocket costs to seniors by $6,500 a year. That position is enough to decide the votes of many older Americans -- a fact that could be determinative in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and especially Florida.

5). Obama has articulated a far more compelling agenda than Romney. It will become even clearer during the last weeks of the campaign that Obama has a program that can build long-term prosperity for the middle class, while Romney's trickle down policies will benefit only the wealthy -- and will fail to create long-term growth.

We have had two great economic experiments in America during the last thirty years. The Clinton policies during the 1990's that grew the economy from the middle out, invested in education, infrastructure and long-term economic growth, and made the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes. That experiment ended with the most prosperous period in human history, budget surpluses as far as the eye could see, and 22 million new jobs.

The other experiment was conducted by George Bush and the Republicans. He cut taxes for the wealthy, tried to grow the economy from the top down, let Wall Street run wild, and conducted two wars without paying for them. The result was a massive increase in Federal deficits, zero net private sector job growth, and the worst economic collapse since the depression. You choose.

6). Democrats have largely defeated a systematic Republican voter suppression program. In Pennsylvania the attempt to suppress the vote by requiring state ID's that could not be provided in time for Election Day was stopped by the courts.

Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted's desperate attempts to block robust early voting -- especially the weekend before the election -- was ultimately snuffed out by the U.S. Supreme Court last week. Ninety three thousand people voted on the weekend before the 2008 election in Ohio, and they went heavily Democratic in large measure because of the Democratic "souls to the polls" program that got predominantly African American congregations to go vote immediately after their Sunday services. That, by itself, could decide the election.

7). The Obama ground game is utterly superior to its Republican counterpart. In many swing states the Obama ground operation never left after Election Day in 2008. Now it has vastly more volunteers, field offices, experienced organizers and sophisticated social media mechanisms. And in the run-up to the election it has outgunned the GOP in terms of voter contacts.

All you need to do is look at the early vote numbers. In Iowa a recent PPP poll found that 32 percent of voters have already cast their ballots and they are breaking for Obama 64 percent to 35 percent. You see the same trend throughout the key battlegrounds.
Remember, early votes are not simply cast by voters that would otherwise go to the polls on Election Day. Many are lower-propensity voters who get to the polls when it is convenient. And by banking huge numbers of votes before November 6th, Democrats are allowing themselves to concentrate their Get Out the Vote efforts on additional hard-to-get-out voters on Election Day.

8). Obama is just a better candidate than Romney.

There are nine qualities that, in my experience, are generally used by swing voters to evaluate candidates:

Who is on my side?
Does the candidate have strongly held values -- Is he committed to something other than himself?
Is the candidate a strong, effective leader?
Does the candidate respect me?
Do I like or make an emotional connection with the candidate?
Is the candidate self-confident?
Does the candidate have integrity?
Does the candidate have vision?
Does the candidate inspire me?

When you evaluate Obama and Romney against those nine qualities, Obama wins in every category.

Romney is the embodiment of an out-of-touch plutocrat who will say anything to get elected. He is a guy who, throughout his career, was happy to close plants and outsource jobs, and destroy other people's lives, if it would make him and his investors more money. And if he is elected president, he will be beholden first and foremost to his new investors, the same way he was at Bain Capital, except in the case of this election, Romney's investors include mainly ultra-rightwing billionaires.

And can you imagine Mitt Romney representing America around the world? This is the guy who turned a "good will" trip, aimed at highlighting his foreign policy chops, into a "blooper reel." This was strong, effective leadership?

9). When given a choice between true progressive American values and the values of extreme individualism and greed, progressive values trump every time.

The fact is that most Americans believe that we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We believe that we're all in this together, that everyone should have a fair shot, pay their fair share and play by the same rules. We believe in the values of our soldiers who refuse to leave any of the comrades behind. Those are the values we were taught by our parents. Those are the values we learned in Sunday School.

"Greed is good" is not a family value. Americans don't believe that we succeed when everyone simply looks out for themselves, and ignores the common good.

Americans do not believe that we should have a society where the wealthiest one percent among us prospers, and the ninety nine percent does not.

We do not believe that 47 percent of our fellow Americans refuse to take responsibility for their lives. Mitt Romney does.

There hasn't been an election since World War II where the choice is clearer between a candidate who embodies mainstream progressive American values -- and one that that does not.
Those are the reasons I believe that Barack Obama will win re-election on November 6th. But that outcome rests squarely on the assumption that tens of thousands of ordinary Americans will do whatever is necessary -- personally -- to convince those last swing voters and turn our votes out to the polls.

If you want to make this prediction come true, it's up to you to get off the sidelines and stream out on to the field to join the army of volunteers who have devoted millions of hours to assure victory.
The right wing is still counting on progressives -- and on ordinary people of all sorts -- to stay home from the polls. They are counting on us to be dispirited and disengaged. They will be wrong.

We will not allow them to destroy Medicare and Social Security.
We will not allow them to continue siphoning all of the increases in productivity and national income to the top 1 percent of the population.
We will not allow them to send women's rights back to the 1950's.
We will not allow them to demonize immigrants.
And we will not allow them to destroy the American middle class.
More than anything else, that is why we will win. Because we make it so.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.

Why I am so enraged -- an equilibrium sought

Some to whom I send my opinion worry about my emotional stability because my anger about the economic injustice, money and power in politics knows no bounds. I agree my anger knows no bounds and it is because of that I write to give voice to the injustice of it all to those who need to know the truth.

The polls before the first debate were surging in the president's favor everywhere he needed them to surge. All of a sudden after a lack luster first debate by the president, the polls fell so dramatically not even to be redeemed by his clear win of the second debate. Moreover, now many articles, some of which I have sent talk about Romney& Co. owning a large share of the e-voting machines in none other but the most important swing state of all, Ohio, as well as in other swing states. Curious how that is doncha think?

The following is an interview by Bill Moyers, of the great economic genius of Rolling Stone Magazine, Matt Taibbi and of journalist Chrystia Freeland, author of Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. The interview is entitled the 1%’s Power and Privileges.

If the fix of the 2012 election is in (and I believe it is) for the oligarchs in the form of the one percenter Romney since money gorges especially Republican politics in this country but also Democrats as well to a lesser degree, then there must be a remedy. Romney conveniently since 2006 has been planning his attack in part by owning the e-voting machines in Ohio and other swing states to cement the fix of this egregious democracy-killing election.  

The curative fix must be done by WE THE PEOPLE. We must demand, especially of our presidential candidates, revelation of their tax filings going back 12 years and disclosure of all their investments including those in so called “blind” trusts. Romney's taxes would tell us a LOT he, obviously, does NOT want us to know. The story, though, is MUCH bigger than that and so I post the interview here and below for your edification and my own emotional equilibrium. After one hears the interview a feeling of equanimity is not exactly what I get!

http://rsnorg.org/opinion2/277-75/14116-the-1s-power-and-privileges

Yet another article showing the poison in this snake's veins. Article alleging fraud here and below:


Employees of Romney Family's Secret Bank Tied to Fraud, Money Laundering and Drug Cartels

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12231-employees-of-romney-familys-secret-bank-tied-to-fraud-money-laundering-and-drug-cartels

Ohio Voter Machines owned by Mitt Romney--The Rigging of the 2012 Vote! PLEASE READ

Read and feast your eyes on the most disgusting part of this country since the Civil War. Read what I wrote to the Attorney General and then read what this utter SWINE Romney is going to do Nov. 6 in the dead of night the votes will turn to this gutter snipe slug Romney If you do not think the 2004 elections were fraudulently handed over to Bush think again. Romney has been setting this up for at LEAST six years!! There are NO words left in my vocabulary to describe the sickening Republican Party and its soon to be leader Willard Mitt Disgusting Romney. When they get middle class and lower class whites to vote Republican it is wholly UNBELIEVABLE. It surely takes a certain amount of stupidity to do that. Please scroll down!

I am pasting an article which specifically sites voter improprieties by Mitt Romney. I am sure you are aware of it but want to show you that we the people are aware of it as well. If this article is true it is UNACCEPTABLE that in a country where democracy is SUPPOSED to reign and which we export to other countries that this vile usurpation of the Democratic vote is taking place. It is not enough that 2004 election was stolen by the Bush hackers and mobsters now Republicans of Romney will do it to the president specifically in the swing states and most egregiously in the biggest of all: Ohio. It is why I believe many of the pollsters are calling this a close election. I personally do NOT think it is but we will get a ruination of our nation if this liar in chief Romney is allowed to steal the vote!

Here is the article below. PLEASE HELP US and help our country to ENSURE a fair vote. 

Please scroll down.

Does Your E-Vote Now Belong to the Romney Family?
By Gerry Bello, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, The Free Press
20 October 12

Will you cast your vote this fall on a faulty electronic machine that's partly owned by the Romney Family? Will that machine decide whether Romney will then inherit the White House?

Through a closely held equity fund called Solamere, Mitt Romney and his wife, son and brother are major investors in an investment firm called H.I.G. Capital. H.I.G. in turn holds a majority share and three out of five board members in Hart Intercivic, a company that owns the notoriously faulty electronic voting machines that will count the ballots in swing state Ohio November 7. Hart machines will also be used elsewhere in the United States.

In other words, a candidate for the presidency of the United States, and his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public. But they will help decide who "owns" the White House.

They are especially crucial in Ohio, without which no Republican candidate has ever won the White House. In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In defiance of a federal injunction, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties destroyed all election records, making a recount impossible. Ohio's governor and secretary of state in 2004 were both Republicans, as are the governors and secretaries of state in nine key swing states this year.

As we have previously reported, H.I.G. Capital has on its board of directors at least three close associates of the Romney family. H.I.G. Capital directors John P. Bolduk and Douglas Berman are major Romney fundraisers. So is former Bain and H.I.G. manager Brian Shortsleeve. H.I.G. employees have contributed at least $338,000 to Romney's campaign. Fully a third of H.I.G.'s leadership previously worked at Romney's old Bain firm.

But new research now shows that the association doesn't stop with mere friendship and business associations. Mitt Romney, his wife Ann Romney, and their son Tagg Romney are also invested in H.I.G. Capital, as is Mitt's brother G. Scott Romney.

The investment comes in part through the privately held family equity firm called Solamere, which bears the name of the posh Utah ski community where the Romney family retreats to slide down the slopes.

Unlike other private equity firms, Solamere does not invest in companies directly. Instead, Solamere invests in other private equity funds, like H.I.G. Capital. Solamere calls them “partners.” These partners, like H.I.G., then invest in various enterprises, like Hart Intercivic, the nation's third-largest voting machine manufacturer.

As reported by Lee Fang of The Nation, Solamere was founded by Tagg Romney and Spencer Zwick, Papa Romney's campaign finance chair. Ann Romney and Mitt's brother G. Scott Romney are also invested. Mitt himself threw in $10 million "seed money" to get the fund going, and spoke personally to its first full investors conference. Solamere's public web presence has been reduced to a front page only, so a complete list of it's “partners” can not be found. But reportage by the New York Times, Boston Globe, Esquire and the Nation have slowly given us a partial picture of which funds are being funded by Solamere. Some $232 million has been raised so far, according to SEC filings and industry publications.

In addition to Romney's finance chair Spencer Zwick, Solamere has also provided the campaign with its finance director, Richard Morley, and a western regional finance coordinator, Kaitlin O'Reilly. O'Reilly is listed as an “executive assistant” at Solamere, and also at SJZ LLC, which was founded by her boss Spencer Zwick. The SJZ LLC campaign finance consulting firm has billed Mitt's campaign over $2 million this election cycle as well as doing another $9,687,582 in billing to various Congressional Campaigns. The host of the private fundraiser at which Romney made his infamous "47%" speech was Marc J. Leder, co-CEO of Sun Capital, another "partner" of the Solamere fund.

As in virtually every close presidential race, Ohio may well hold the key to the Electoral College decision as to who will become the nation's next chief executive. The presence of Hart Intercivic machines in Hamilton County, home to Cincinnati, means there is a high likelihood the votes that will decide the presidency will be cast on them. Major media like CBS have begun reporting that Cincinnati could be "ground zero" in this year's election.

But these Hart machines are deeply flawed and widely know to be open to a troubling variety ofattacks and breakdowns. There is no legal or other means to definitively monitor and re-check a tally compiled on Hart or other electronic voting machines. Ohio's current governor and secretary of state are both Republicans.
Does this mean the Romney investment in Hart Intercivic through H.I.G. Capital and Solamere will yield it not only financial profits but the White House itself?

Tune in during the deep night of November 7, when the electronic votes in swing state Ohio are once again opaquely reported to the nation and the world, without meaningful public scrutiny or legal recourse.

Comments are Not Printing

I have received numerous comments to my site.  For some reason I know not why both good and bad do not show.  I will have to figure it out.  Suffice it to say I print the favorable and unfavorable ones IF (big IF to Republicans who often are of course NOT favorable) I will not print nasty, mean, hostile, rancid argument.  I WILL print that which is for the sake of argument rational, insightful and offers a cogent different point of view.  MOST times, sadly, Republicans and so called "conservatives" are anything but reasonable and nice!  

I will NOT give you a format to publish swill on MY site!

One Shining Moment -- can we relate?

I lived the experience of the era of George McGovern. Former presidential candidate, George McGovern lies near his natural death but this documentary shown on Democracy Now here and below is the story of me and millions like me who rose up then and said NO to a war waged on the powerless for hegemony of the world.

How much is history repeating itself? Moreover, some have said the fix is in for this election and that power and money will fix and buy this election for the biggest liar and charlatan, Willard Mitt Romney, that has ever had the potential of occupying this highest office. If you elect him you sow the seeds of the demise of this nation as those who are rendered powerless, hungry, homeless and without hope will not take this lying down while liars and frauds steal an election by the surreptitious wielders of power and huge money unknown in the history of man.

Watch this documentary, see and know the politics of that era as it exists now. If you do not watch it take heed the massive corruption usurping the echelons of power will continue to exist but it will only exist if WE let it.

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/19/as_sen_george_mcgovern_nears_death

Romney's Diagnosis

President's diagnosis for Romneybot: ROMNESIA!!!

FLIP FLOPPER in chief taking one position one day, changing it the next and then the next changing it back so that your own web page has position statements that do not pertain to the last position of this charlatan.

This tape is HILARIOUS as the president makes his case better than ever before in VA. Romneybot has ROMNESIA. But the president says, here's the good news -- Obamacare will take care of that under pre-existing conditions.
Here is part of the tape or below. Try to get the rest of it to see how brilliant his speech was. I was cheering and clapping in my living room. Have a great laugh but know there is nothing funny about Mitt Romney's candidacy. He is deadly!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/19/romnesia_n_1987800.html

What I Want to Ask Mitt Romney

The question during the second debate that I would have LOVED to ask Mitt Romney is the following: Mr. Romney, you were allegedly against the bank taxpayer bailout, certainly against the bailout of GM. You seem to advocate for a bankruptcy restructuring debt of corporate entities that go belly up and against the taxpayer or legislation such as TARP giving banks billions to avoid a colossal collapse and world economic catastrophe. Our form of economic capitalism has seen many many booms and busts over at least two centuries. Occasionally, like the Great Depression, the severity is unmatched The Great Recession of 2008 came close to that. What would YOU do IF yet again while you held the presidency an unregulated in extremis Wall Street was in imminent danger of collapse?

The question I really want to know is how much does this mendacious man truly believe in laissez faire capitalism and does he believe in the moral hazard as defined by Wiki "a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the risk. A moral hazard may occur where the actions of one party may change to the detriment of another after a transaction has taken place." How fervently is he against incurring this moral hazard by allowing Wall Street to be bailed out with taxpayer money. Would Mr. Romney let his Wall Street financiers of his campaign fall?

The article pasted below by Robert Reich also wants to smoke Mitt Romney out in a slightly different way!
How Obama Can Smoke Out Mitt
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
19 October 12

resident Obama should propose that the nation's biggest banks be broken up and their size capped, and that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected.

It's good policy, and it would smoke out Mitt Romney as being of, by, and for Wall Street - and not on the side of average Americans.
It would also remind America that five years ago Wall Street's excesses almost ruined the economy. Bankers, hedge-fund managers, and private-equity traders speculated on the upside, then shorted on the downside - in a vast zero-sum game that resulted in the largest transfer of wealth from average Americans to financial elites ever witnessed in this nation's history.

Most of us lost big - including over $7 trillion of home values, a $700-billion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, and continuing high unemployment.

But the top 1 percent have done just fine. In the first year of the recovery they reaped 93 percent of the gains. The latest data show them back with 20 to 25 percent of the nation's total income - just where they were in 2007.

The stock market has about caught up to where it was before the crash. The pay and bonuses on the Street are once again sky-high. So are the pay and perks of top corporate executives. The Forbes list of richest Americans contains more billionaires than ever.
And the tax rates of the top 1 percent are lower than ever - courtesy of their armies of lobbyists.
Mitt Romney, private equity manager and financier - well within the top one-tenth of 1 percent, collecting more than $20 million a year yet paying 14 percent in taxes because of tax preferences for capital gains and for private-equity - is the avatar for all that's happened.

Just like the rest of the Street, Romney used other peoples' money to make big bets, leveraging like mad, pumping and then dumping companies regardless of the human costs.

Worse, Romney wants to cut taxes even further on the top 1 percent - giving them them lion's share of a $4.7 trillion tax cut - while shredding safety nets the rest of us rely on.

And he wants to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act that goes some way to preventing the worst excesses of the Street.

And this man has an almost 50-50 chance of becoming president?
The President should counter Romney's extraordinary solicitude toward the Street with a proposal to cap the size of the nation's biggest banks so that no bank is ever again too big to fail. And to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act, which once separated commercial from investment banking.

In the 1980s the ten biggest banks had less than 30 percent of bank depositary assets. Now they have 54 percent. And the four biggest now dominate the Street almost completely. Because lenders and investors know they're too big to fail, the four biggest banks have a competitive advantage over smaller rivals that pose larger financial risks. That means they'll only get bigger.

Breaking up the biggest banks and capping the size of all banks is hardly a radical suggestion these days. The Dallas Federal Reserve Board, which has never been accused of excessive liberalism, has called for it. So has Sanford Weill, the creator of Citigroup, one of the biggest of the big. So has Daniel Tarullo, the Federal Reserve governor charged with bank regulation. So have conservative commentators such as George Will.

It's not too late for the President to advocate these measures. In fact, now may be the perfect time. Besides, it's not as if Wall Street is going to pour campaign contributions into Obama's coffers anyway; the Street is going with Mitt.

Calling for a breakup of the biggest banks and a resurrection of Glass Steagall would smoke out Mitt Romney - revealing clearly and decisively he's not on the side of most Americans.

The American Taliban--We are ALL Malalas

I am sure most of you have heard what the heinous Taliban have done to the most virtuous of young girls named Malala. They shot her in the head for the crime of simply wanting an education. This is a barbaric act that knows no boundaries of inhumanity. It springs from religious orthodoxy that understands little and wants only to secure power from the powerless by keeping their subjects ignorant. Malala, fighting for her life, was NOT ignorant. She is brilliant and wise beyond her teenage years.

I hold a special place in my heart for Malala. Her fate transcends ideology or religion. It reinforces our common humanity and our greatest gift that nature or God has bestowed upon us and that is our compassion, understanding and most of all our ability to learn.

It is that gift -- learning -- which civilizes man. It is clear those who gain power through the ignorance of those they wish to control that there is nothing they will not do; no barbarity they will not inflict to achieve their cause and inject the poison of ignorance into even an innocent teenage girl who merely wanted the hope that education can bestow.

Education is dangerous because it liberates man instead of relegating his/her intellect to a barbed wire prison of ignorance stuck in a 7th century mindset in a 21st century world. It is hard to fathom.

The Taliban, though, are a metaphor for the toxicity of uncompromising and extreme fundamentalist belief everywhere. Our own nation should not sit smugly secure thinking that we are so much more advanced than they. WE ARE NOT. Our own American Taliban have seized power through an unrecognizable Republican Party which shows NO mercy, has NO compassion and whose minds are so closed they want to return our heretofore advanced country to an 18th century anti-science world even our Founders would find abhorrent.

Those of us who care about human advancement through academic excellence should consider all of ourselves Malalas hoping and praying, if praying is your choice, that this profound example of heroism, heal and return to speak another day for her cause.


YET ANOTHER REASON FOR THE RE-ELECTION OF OUR PRESIDENT. NOW IT APPEARS THE ELECTION IS CLOSE IF THAT DOES NOT MOTIVATE YOU I DO NOT KNOW WHAT WILL. WORK YOUR HEART OUT FOR THE RE-ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, REGISTER TO VOTE AND VOTE AT ALL COSTS FOR HIM AND IF YOU ARE IN MASSACHUSETTS ELECT THE GREAT ELIZABETH WARREN TO THE US SENATE! 

THE HOUR GROWS LATE AND THERE IS TOO MUCH AT STAKE. I BELIEVE THIS IS A LIFE AND DEATH ELECTION. AS WAS TRUE ABOUT GEORGE BUSH THOUSANDS OF LIVES WERE UNNECESSARILY TAKEN -- DO NOT -- DO NOT MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN. THIS TIME THE DROP OF A BOMB ON IRAN ROMNEY IS JUST ITCHING TO DO COULD MEAN NUCLEAR WAR AND I AM NOT KIDDING.  IT COULD MEAN A MUSHROOM CLOUD COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU! A MITT ROMNEY UNETHICAL AND EXTREME IS THAT DANGEROUS!