Monday, October 29, 2012

Des Moines Register for Romney!

I was talking with my son on the phone. How bad is the hurricane? He described something like it is here. Then he asked, "What are you folks up to?" I said, I am looking up who owns the Des Moines Register. He laughed. He said my wife is doing the same thing. He also said it has been 40 years since the Register had picked a republican. I asked who was that? Richard Nixon. Oh that was a good pick! So take heart Mr. President, the last time they went this way look at what we got! A near impeachment saved by another republican that pardoned him. We should go into the background of the Romney advisers.  Were any of them clerks for Richard Nixon? Ahh! too much I guess.  

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Thanks Bob Shrum!

Bob Shrum, I caught your Face the Nation appearance this Sunday Morning. Thank you for your consistent level headed analysis on the talk shows for the past decade. I have watched often and you have aggressively presented the progressive point of view with a smile. I enjoy the frustrations other slick speaking opponents demonstrate as they try to deal with you! Keep it up! And don't let that Bob Schieffer off the hook either!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Following the money...


The election tempo has picked up. The President will visit here today. My wife is figuring out how to get to and from work with the least amount of traffic impact. New Hampshire is a swing state, let's hope it swings toward women's issues, towards an efficient and reasonable way to govern, towards Hassen, Kuster and Shea – Porter to run NH.
I have very slowly been reading Rachel Maddow's book Drift. One factoid popped out at me. (There are a lot of eye popping facts in the books all multi–sourced.) 874,000 people will be getting new top secret clearances to support the war on terror. At I ask.com they estimate a background investigation for a TS costs between $3000 and 15000 dollars. One might use $9k as a rough figure. So that's 874000 times 9000 dollars each or $7.8B just for the background investigations.  I wonder who gets that money? Who does those investigations?
Now I am not picking on Bush for starting this program or Obama for continuing it. It may be justified. But to those who wonder about the deficit consider the cost of these investigations in the grand scheme of things. We are changing the way we gather information about perceived enemies, inadvertently about ourselves, let's make sure we are still the US of America after this transition.

Friday, October 19, 2012

John Sununu Sr.


John Sununu Sr. a few years ago I had a chance to shake hands with your son. He told that story of how to spell Sununu, something like banana substitute u for a and like that. He was charming in asking for our vote. Many years ago you came to Hollis Town Hall with then VP George H Bush, my sons shook hands with you both, you asked for our vote for VP Bush to be President. You both seemed like good people and you served GH Bush well and in an important position. You mattered to me and my sons, you had influence.
So I'd like to ask what happened to you to turn you so completely into a drone for Romney? I am not asking you to agree with President Obama, not asking you to like him even, just respect his office for the good of New Hampshire, good of the country and for your own personal integrity  If you can't win by making a reasonable case for your guy, then fail gracefully, but this current series of lies and personal slams on the President only makes you look like an old fool and hurts the candidate you claim to support. Cool it for your own name because right now you look pretty weak!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Drift by Rachel Maddow a book review.


I am a baby boomer, was married in 1972 in a suburb of Washington, DC and have always viewed WDC as our second home. Our first home has always been New Hampshire. You can form some opinions about my point of view from my age and where I live. So as I read Rachel's book Drift, I find myself thinking about where we were and what we focused on at a corresponding time in our lives. We were dating in DC when the offices at or near the Watergate were broken into. The metro was just some huge holes in the ground. We moved back to NH due to job location and I worked the second shift and could watch the Watergate hearings on TV during the day. We grew through apartments to condos to our first home surviving gas shortages then lack of bank money to borrow for mortgages. We got kids, became successful, and had our first house built. I changed jobs a lot, traveled for work a lot. The family grew up. Not much of a book review is it?
Well how can people live through those things and be aware of the incredible shift, no drift, taking place in our countries government. We also saw the news only through the distribution given us by CBS, NBC, or ABC. I read the Boston Globe and of course disliked the Union Leader like my father and grandfather before me.
I thought Nixon was wrong and he was a crook! Ford did OK to pardon him and get things moving again. Carter was smart but got a bad deal with the Iranian hostage crisis, so did the hostages. Reagan was just what we needed a shot in the arm, then feeble at the end. I watched the North hearings and remembered Watergate. Couldn't really ever understand much but we had a family. I liked 41 even thought Sununu OK (my how times change), liked Clinton in spite of the fact that he was a caught philanderer and hated 43 and that he had used Clinton's personal life to help get elected.
We didn't know much. We raised our family voted when we were supposed to, didn't interactively affiliate with any party, you can do that passively here in NH by voting in general elections and just saying you are one or the other party.
A lot of Rachel's book is me sitting there with my mouth open, so to speak. It corroborates stories I have been told along the way by people I thought were fantasy theorists. My wife read Howard Zinn's History of the United States and said Drift reminded her of that. Rachel's book is an unvarnished look at the way we have re-framed our view of the war powers manipulation by the presidents to get us to do the right thing. Their right thing, some more ruthlessly than others. I note Rachel has sources for all she has written so if you don't trust her, go to the back and read about the sources first. Then use the Internet to validate all of them, or just realize she's a great American with a left leaning point of view that tells the truth, and read her book! Read it slowly and take notes. We need, as a nation, to get better everyday. Now I see why you dedicated this book to Vice President Cheney he deserves so much of your focus! 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Social Security a failed program, says Paul Ryan!

It's official, the "baby boom years" according to Wikipedia as demonstrated in a chart on US births was from  1946-1964. That's the bump in population that will challenge all our social programs. Paul Ryan says it's a failed and soon to be bankrupt system.
I remember attending parties when I was younger and everyone agreed that SS was there for our parents but would be gone by the time we needed it. Well, I need it now and it's here for me so far. The financial crisis hit us, like so many other Americans, in many areas. It destroyed the value of our homes. It cut in half anything we had in retirement funds. I had done well earlier and many years maximized social security payments. So we are surviving economically.
Here's the thing, Mr. Ryan, if social security goes away because you are panicking then so does our income. So does the security portion of the program for our children and grand children. Social Security is too big to fail sir. Just like Bank America and others. President Obama and congress have infused social security with funds that will last out through the year 2033.
My question is this Rep. Ryan;  if I add 18 years to 2012 that's 2030. Social Security will be solvent till 2033. Where is the crisis? Second part, by 2015 half of us will be gone, further unloading the system. I repeat where is the crisis?
If we had a privatized system for social security in place in 2007 how would Americans be doing now?
One more final question: If you and Gov. Romney are elected how can we be sure you will leave social security alone? I wonder if Grover Norquist has any pledge language available for that?
  

Friday, October 12, 2012

The Hill Website and Blog

The Hill Website  US federal politics and how it relates to NH and other states and countries.

Global Affairs Blog at the Hill  An interactive look at details of US foreign policy.


Think Progress debate analysis!

Thinkprogress Hangout on Google Plus

A complete analysis of the debate with fact checking and explanations of each discussion point. Someone stayed up all night at TP. Thank you!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Mother Jones: Are You a Taker or a Maker?

This chart is offensive in nature, the author looks down their nose at middle class Americans. I find the entire concept in line with my low opinion of the republican party, I'm sorry, the Tea Party lead remnant of the republican party. Those of you who attend church should read the red sections of the new testament. Then compare that to what you currently support. Those that want governance to prevail after the election should ask do you think you can really rely on Romney. He sure looks like your winner now! Right. He was very effective as governor in Massachusetts. Right? See Youtube videos. 
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/flowchart-are-you-taker-or-maker

I wanted to place this comment on you blog but your login precedure required me to give too much control to Motherjones of my Twitter Account. You need a better system for login.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Plan for Taking Back the House


'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW
September 26, 2012 Guest: Nancy Pelosi, The Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives speaks to RM and this is an except from that exchange.
PELOSI: Well, first of all, the fact that President Obama is on the 
ticket will get more people to the polls. On many of the races, the 

battleground states that you showed earlier, are just a few states. We`re
in more states than the president. So we`re basically on our own, Texas,
California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Washington state, Arizona,
although it may become a battleground state, because the opportunity might
be there for the president.
And we expect to win about 20 seats in the states I just named. Then
we go where the president is, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, states
like that, to take us, oh, I want to go beyond 25. I`d like to have 35.
But the -- it`s a very discreet races, some states have blue patches
that we want to win back. There are 66 districts that are held by
Republicans that were won by President Obama and about a third of those
were also won by John Kerry. And so, we think there`s real opportunity.


Full article URL here!