Friday, November 30, 2012

Morning Joe 0, Sam Stein 10

Morning Joe! A microcosym of the American debate this morning. Mika, Richard Wolffe, and Sam Stein for the Dems. Mark Halperin, Harold Ford, and others for the Reps. I enjoy the show. I yell at the TV when I disagree and appologize to no one if I am too agitated.
In a sales course I took years ago inspired by folks at HP I learned about different buyer types. One was called the "court holder". JS is that guy! What a pompous ass. The panel is individually smarter than you, yet you brow beat them with questions designed to inflate your ego! It's a well worn stage play, but I know you are just doing it to provide the constructs for the American debate, right. No ego involved.
For those of you on twitter saying Sam Stein got bullied, I'd like to suggest an alternative image. He kept his head and ego in check. He tenaciuosly pushed back on Joe's criticism and exposed the older mans lack of thoughtfulness without rancor. Sam Stein is the real deal. Joe is an inflated windbag!
Why would you walk into that negotiation, Boehner v. Geitner/Obama, after this election, and drop your pants Joe? Obama wonnn! But Sam would correct me here to say that it was just to provide a point to begin to talk from.
Joe, talk less, ask small questions, seek big answers. For God's sake stop asking leading questions to make yourself look good.  Harold Ford was embarrassed for you! 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Tax Avoidance not a loophole, but it should be.



"@ChasMcDuffee: @jaazee1 @MemoBeacon Offshore accounts not loop holes #nhpoltics" You don't seem to understand, assets declared,taxes paid!

from Plainsboro, NJ Collapse

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a twitter comment above and my responce below.

Yes, you have got me pegged. I don't seem to understand those who use any form of technicality in IRS laws to avoid paying taxes. I am sure you are correct that my calling it a loophole is wrong on my part! I'd say a majority of Americans, a slim majority agree with me, though. You do agree, don't you, that Mr. Romney's offshore account activity may have hurt him just a little in the last election. He certainly didn't want to discuss it very much, so I assume it was not something for which he was proud. More correctly! He didn't want to look bad in the eyes of 98% of the people. By 98% I mean those who pay their taxes and don't employ avoidance techniques.
I understand that you will now be thinking of my free right to do the same. Except, I do not have the discretionary income to participate. I would not quibble with these techniques though until we find that people are using their offshore protected money to buy elections and thereby increase their lobbying power. God you guys must hate the one person one vote thing! One person, regardless of property, gets a vote. Must seem like a bitter technicality.

Below please find a reference that explains “tax avoidance” and clearly supports your point! You folks need to find a way to cover it up better.

 
@jaazee1  I have picked on your comment here, but I value your point of view. You are out there explaining to folks about what you believe in and though I disagree with some of your views, I am glad you tweet a lot and say what you think. Keep it up. Our disagreements have value! Thank you.
 

Monday, November 26, 2012

Lindsey Graham is right!


  1. Let's use the Mitt Romney “bucket” approach to all deductions in reverse. Let's exclude all deductions for people over 275k per year. I'll be fair, all deductions apply to everything up to 275k per year. That way, we will be “closing some loopholes” and the tax rates may not matter as much! You see the top five deductions for all Americans benefit the rich more than those with less.
  2. Government should identify all offshore accounts and enforce IRS laws for taxation. All loopholes should be closed.
  3. Let's redefine the words “entitlements”. Entitlements are not something you have paid for all your life. “Entitlement funds” (like social security) owned by the American people are not funds that should be borrowed from by Congress to defer the costs of wars. You see wars cause the use of bullets (and much other stuff) that lines the pockets of the few at the expense of the many.
  4. Medicare costs are healthcare costs. Medicare is too expensive because healthcare is still too expensive. Get those ideas linked in your head and you can see why Obamacare (Romney inspired) is a great idea. Let's continue to find ways to lower healthcare costs.
  5. These comments were inspired by Lindsey Graham who clearly has seen the light! He is a great conservative leader and will forgo even his alliance to Grover Norquist for the American People! (In all fairness Grover points out, it's not a pledge to him but to the American People, so even he doesn't own it!)



Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Norquist Pledge was always a sham!


The Grover Norquist pledge is a sham perpetrated on the American people by Grover and his lobby and implemented by the signers. A few days ago Grover disowned the pledge by saying it's not to him, it's to the American people. Well, we don't want it.

We don't want anything from special interest from either side.

Let us review. If you served in the military you took a pledge. When you serve in Congress in either the lower or upper houses you take a pledge. These are pledges you swear to God to implement. Why then do you need to additionally take any other pledges to augment those you have already made? For those of you who take the Bible seriously please go read Ecclesiastes again completely for a reference on vanity. All who have signed that pledge to GN, his lobby or anyone beyond those taken in support of our country should renounce commitments. We need serious people in Washington to deal with critical issues, not game players!


Norquist signers list.


the pledge text


The Hill Norquist Pledge takes an election hit...

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Morning Joe Discussion by conservatives.

Digbys Blog on Morning Joe discussion. Everyone should listen to these guys. Winners, losers, right, left, con, dem. David Frum's new ebook is described. Read the entire article. Listen to the video. Consider with Digby the amount of time he was allowed to speak. Consider the amount of time others ignored him. Mika was not there this particular morning. There is a reason they call it Morning Joe. Maybe they could change the name to Wake up Joe.

Friday, November 9, 2012

NH House Flips, what's next?

Let's be clear on the hard right Tea Party view. Mainstream America doesn't buy it. You drove moderate Republicans out of the party. You don't really like folks of any color and you are not into rights for gay people. I agree that there was no war on women, you just don't believe they have rights either.
If you think that last paragraph was hard, and it makes you want to call me names then you need to rethink how you communicate with a majority of Americans. Keep on your current path and you will not be a party much longer than 2016.
I would prefer that all state and federal congresses be balanced. That conservative and liberal ideas be blended into a more steady governing course. You need to learn about compromise and learn quick or you really will be out.  

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Difference Makers in 2012 media.

The Maddow Blog and Show, The Edshow, The Last Word, The Cycle on MSNBC, Morning Joe, Up with Chris Hayes, The MHP Show, The Fix @ WP, The Bill Press Show Radio and TV, The Stephanie Miller Show Radio and TV, Hardball, Politics Nation, Now with Alex Wagner, Joy-Ann Reid, Ed Rendell, Nia-Malika Henderson, Senator for Ohio Tina Turner, Karen Finney, Ari Melber, Mark and John and Steve Schmidt, Michael Steele, Howard Fineman, EJ and Eugene, Chris Cillizza, MSNBC VP Richard Wolffe are all people that got out the word, moaned cajoled and preached for the truth as they perceived it. Chuck Todd and Ezra Kline (Wonkbook @ WP) for charts and numbers. Nate Silver is exonerated! We watched you all and read your stories on the Internet and you expanded our view. We knew a little bit more about why we should vote the way we did because of you and all the production people that make the talent look good. So for THE LAST Word let me get UP NOW with Morning Joe to watch Hardball. Can someone please restrain Ed, take the chart from Ezra, no Rev I don't want to buy a bridge, Chuck step away from the presentation machine. Rachel is after all a troublemaker! Grats! OFA 2012.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

NH Obama crowd


The first stop of the second-to-last day of the presidential campaign brought with it a new political record in the politically-rich state of New Hampshire.
The Obama campaign drew 14,000 people to an outdoor rally in Concord. That was the biggest crowd for a campaign event in Granite State history, the Obama campaign said.
The prior record seems to have been the 8,500 people that Obama drew to an Oct. 27 rally in Nashua. Following that rally, WMUR political analyst James Pindell reportedly said it was the largest campaign gathering the state had ever seen.
Obama's Sunday morning event -- which featured speeches from both him and former president Bill Clinton -- shattered that total.
New Hampshire is a small state. The capital, Concord, has a population of less than 43,000. But it has also witnessed its share of campaign moments, owing to the tightly contested primaries every four years and its status as a toss-up state in the general election. So for Obama to have set the record there says something about his continued appeal in the state, especially since he has had difficulty drawing crowds of the size he drew as a presidential candidate four years ago.
For the record, the weather in Concord on Sunday morning was cold, but not painfully so for that part of the country. At the time that Obama started speaking, weather.com had the temperature at 48 degrees Fahrenheit.
-- Sam Stein of Huffington Post

Thursday, November 1, 2012

One long war causes debt!


Rachel Maddow, I have slowly read to finish “Drift”, your book is an eye-opening, sometimes eye-popping, look at the military in the US from Eisenhower forward. You seem to suggest that we go to war more easily than ever before. That we may be shading the war powers act and we are way out on a limb regarding the use of a privatized augmentation to our standing forces.
The last part was the most dramatic. As an aside I ask you, (How important to Americans was the freedom of information act?) Miss-placed,  lost, and unguarded nuclear weapons, and exploded dirty bombs. Your final sentence says it all. I am paraphrasing now, America is a peaceable country, that's not just our inheritance, it's our responsibility. My father is gone now, he served in the Army. My mother is 88 and she was a waitress in a cafe in Portsmouth, NH at the shipyard during the war. Mom's brothers (four) and some of their friends were with the Army in a Maine regiment that fought in many of the island landings in the Pacific. My Uncle Merle got a Silver Star and three purple hearts serving as a medic with Mark Clark in Italy, they would all like your book. None of them liked war, none of them were conscripted. They all volunteered. 
Oversight is not red tape or too restrictive a set of regulations. It has it's purpose. In an ideal congress where legislation flows and compromises on both sides occur there will be time for Congressional Oversight. First though, we need to fix congress by cleansing it of graft. De-emphasizing lobbying power. We need a debate on term limits. Then to strengthen the war powers act or interpret it better so that energized presidents can't act without congress.