In Republican election-rigging news…

I hope that Republican Governor Rick Scott will be very much charged for this....

A hell of a lot more than 50,000 republican voters were discouraged from voting and stayed home because Mitt Romney was their only choice.  Your side got off lucky. In 2013, try to be a happy socialist for a change.

Whatever.

Socialist, fascist.......all totalitarian plurocrats' happy game of Monopoly.

Wake up, buddy. You are just another one of the replacable game pieces — as am I.

Why don't you call Thom Hartmann A out on this "study" by Ohio State Univ.? What are they doing "studying" Florida elections anyway? Why don't they do a study of the voting precincts and counties in their own damn state that went 100% for oliar? That is a statistical improbability. But to do that might seem racist? Or even blastphemous to question the messiah's victory having any improprieties. 

If I were Scott, I would tell them to look in their own backyard if they want to find the boogeyman.

Wouldn't that take away Thom's daily racism dog whistle?

D, the study of election fraud by the Ohio State University may well include all the Ohio stuff.  It does not make the bad for going to look at Florida because there just might be a connection.  Our Rightwing seems to be hurt by the fact that racism gets revealed all the time on the Right.  It is woven into the fabric and it just pisses this ahole troll off so badly.  Go Thom!

Karolina, you are not nearly as disposable even if we are all 'replacable.'  Happy New Year.

I meant plutocrats.

 

DRC, thanks for the greeting and Happy New Year to you too !

Yea, the left pretends they are not racist simply by virtue of being leftist....history proves them wrong. The right does not have a monopoly on racism. They have a monopoly on their media lapdogs. I'll bet it didn't "include all the Ohio stuff".

I guess racism is the only reason people don’t like to hear that “the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color” or that “Them Jews aren’t going to let [Obama] talk to me” or the infamous “God Damn America!”

And then I turn on MSNBC and see Al Sharpton hosting his show.

Why are you continuing this silly game when the real fight is not between left and right, but between the controlling class of immoral plutocrats and everybody else, whom those plutos want to see living in desperate austerity ASAP.

Instead of crying "they're all immoral Plutocrats", try to look at more in the vein of "give a person a fish and they will eat for a day............................"  mentality.  Most conservatives, rich or poor, believe in self reliance and some small amount of financial responsibility. I really doubt that the entire conservative side wishes all the progressive/left to be sitting on the curb with a cup in their hand begging.  Believe me, trying to manage the lives of a bunch of people that think the opposite of them is last on a conservatives list of things they want out of life.  

I think it is reasonable to say the average progressive has no idea of what a true conservatives political beliefs are at all, and vice versa.   I have heard Thom state that he felt he thought he was leaning toward the middle on the political spectrum.  Chris Matthews and Bill Press have stated the same thing. That is an clear indication of how far apart things have gotten, or how distorted the mindsets are of the narcissistic talking heads. Yes, I do exclude the Hannity's, Limbaugh's, and Ed Schultz's of the world, because even the weakest minds should understand they are just trying to be showmen snd make $$$$.

 

I realize that there is no left or right in the corporate/government collusion. The left and right dichotomy is merely a dog and pony show for the sheeple. But the so-called leftist progressives that scream racism of the right are lying hypocrites and are just as racist. Of course drc2 will claim that race baiters like Sharpton, Wright, Jackson, nbps and such aren't racist, or have the right to be. Bullshit! AG Holder is one of the biggest of them all.

That makes no sense, Redwing, and you know it! The plutocrats are taking all power and all money away from anyone and everyone, in any and every way that they can, as is their nature. They are sociopaths who feel that a proserous public is a threat to their needs, because on some subconscious or superconscious level that they are not aware of, they know there is always going to be an end to resources. They need to keep the money and those resources away from everybody else becaue that way, they are possibly going to live a little longer that everybody else. That's all this jungle fight is about. 

Only through education and scientific research and work does our spieces and our planet have a chance to get out of this mess. If the public dies, there will be no geniuses to keep education, science, and our descendants alive.

Don't know what to tell you, Darline. I have never experienced racism toward other people, so it makes no sense to me and I don't think that I would recognize it, unless it were very overt.

Glad to know that you see the big picture, and are aware that there are much more imminent disasters that we all must be fighting against — like WW3 and safe energy, among many others.

\Most of what is passed off as important political issues by the 2 parties of the corporate/government collusion is merely a distort and distract dog and pony show for the little sheeple.

I get goddamn tired of drc2 insinuating, inferring, his racist mantra on me as he follows me around these threads pontificating his communitarian, mutuality bullshit. He knows absolutley nothing about me. Some here have gotten the idea that I am a black woman (which I never said I was). But I have many black sisters and a niece that is married to a wonderful black man with 3 precious little girls. A nephew that has adopted a black baby boy because of 2 girls and wanting a son. None of my sisters or neices husband espouse anything political even close to the shit drc2 claims and pontificates to me and others about. No one I know black or white buys his ideology. It gets old. So most of the time I try to ignore him. 

To keep it in the forefront of discussions here and in the politics in America is just another distraction that people like drc2 and others here, along with race baitors that make their living keeping racism as an issue alive, like sharpton, Rangel, Jackson, et al buy into. I challange anyone to provide evidence where I have made any racial inferrence about oliar. Is a black person that hated/hates bushie racist? But the moonbats here cannot seem to do anything but continue to blame bushie and ignore the failings of oblamer and label ANY criticism of him as racist.

Your post reinforces that most of those on left side of the aisle live in a very dark, pessimistic world.  I really see that listening to Thom Hartmann's show but I thought he was at the extreme far left side of the spectrum, and those to the right of his radical views would be a little more positive in their daily lives.  Few conservatives lug a geiger counter with them to a restaurant. You guys always try to attach the word "crats" to anyone that has a differing opinion than you.   What the obsession with other peoples wealth is, or if they inherited it or not makes no sense to me at all.  Hartmann was complaining about his kids college loans, yet he brags about all the countries he has been to and lived in and/or all the succesful businesses he has started and sold.  Instead of ranting, take some of that money and support your kids during their college years so they don't have a $100,000 debt on their beekeeping degree.

Notice how Al Gore tried like hell to get his unwatched network sold BEFORE the new tax rates went into effect.  Do you think he will take his $100 million and redistribute amoung the great unwashed population?

I agree with you that racism, just like the never-ending "war" between the "parties", is a pointless distraction to keep the public divided amongst themselves — and unaware of the silent take of all power and money from the public being handed over to the plutocrats.

Until we are united, we do not stand a chance.

Do you reckon Joy Behar and Jennifer Granholm will have to wear burqas? That might improve ratings. 

I wouldn't argue with that, just on the basis of what we read here. There is a powerful Utopian movement that purports to be ultra-liberal.  There is an analogous one on the right (hence, crackpot theories like trickle-down). Both end-points rely on a transitional phase, the destruction of the status-quo, which takes us into anarchical thinking. Both versions, the left wing and the right wing are, in many ways, quite indistinguishable from one another.

I don't get much involved in Utopian thinking. I don't think it's useful.  

Wonderful sentence, I really mean that.   How do we get there?

Step One:
Have an educated public that knows the only real "war" is between the plutocrats and everybody else, all other "wars" are distractions meant to "divide and conquer" the plutocrats' enemies, i.e. all human beings, and that the only way to win this war is by hard, non-stop work and support, and only through legal, open channels to reclaim the American way.

Step Two:
Win the war quickly by hard, non-stop work and support, and only through legal, open channels that reclaim the American way.

 

Redwing - The problem is you can teach them to fish, but there’s no lake anymore.  The fish are gone, sent to China to pursue more profits, enabled by an authoritarian regime.  I consider undermining free workers by using workers laboring under an authoritarian boot to be immoral.  Most conservatives don’t.  So most of them are immoral Plutocrats.  By “most” I mean the higher ups who really control things, multinationals, big finance, and the plutocrats who pull the strings.  They are immoral in my view.  Most conservatives don’t agree with that.  You can teach them to fish, but the lake is gone, and now, the answer is to take away the fishing rod.  Immoral.

Have to disagree with this one.  Anyone on MSNBC is center left in my view.  They don’t criticizeObama that much, nor do they ruffle the feathers of NBC by criticizing much of anything about our ethically bankrupt private sector (Multinations and big finance).  When was the last time Chris Matthews criticized the wars?   I can’t remember him ever doing that.  It’s business as usual.  To me, that DOES make him center left.  One of our problems, and an indication how effectively the pro-corporate worm has burrowed into the media and politcs is how both sides seemingly accept a corporate dominated world, and thus the wars.

If you believe Chris Matthews, or Bill Press is “far left,” neither of whom come at Obama with anything substantive or sustained, from the left……..THAT is an indication of how far apart things have gotten.

[/quote]

Darlene1, some on the left DO overdo the racist thing, but when such continuous venomnous criticism of Obama comes from someone who has posted the following in the past:

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2012/12/whats-wrong-white-america

 

You don't get any benefit of the doubt.

 

I am not asking for YOUR benefit of the doubt!!! I will continue my criticism of Barrack Hussein Obama, but will refrain from using (according to miksilvr's sensitivities) nomenclatures in reference to Barrack Hussein Obama in the future. And will strive to achieve his standard of proper grammar, english and spelling.

Some here, because of THEIR sensitivities, have absolutely no sense of humor or appreciation for sarcasm.

 

There is a lake, you just have to teach people to purchase products made in the USA and reject the merchants you feel are ruining the economy with low cost goods.  I believe you will find far more middle class conservatives doing that than progressives. Talk to most any redneck, Harley rider, or for that matter gun owner, they bleed American made products, and very, very, few lean toward the progressive side.  Just a guess, but in looking thorugh all the Thom Hartmann gear"  he is peddling, only one t-shirt, of all the crap listed, says "Made In America.  THAT is the self serving "do as I say not as I do" BS I am talking about.  Prove me wrong Thom, and show the country of origin on your order blank. There are plenty of websites to show people where to go to get Made in America products.  It is all of our jobs to get people to support those products. You don't need to get Walmart to pay their people more, you need to close them down for lack of business. Get people to put their money in a local credit union, buy a Smith & Wesson instead of a cheap Chinese copy of a AK47.  That is called filling up the lake.  If you feel the way and I do, a more prosperous USA is through more and more  support for american made products, you should demand the progressive talking heads stop spending their one/ two/ three hour monologues bringing up repeated recordings of FDR, Jude W., etc. or suggesting that should be illegal for a person to have over 1 billion dollars of wealth and anything over that belongs to the people,  and focus their attention on supporting local and American businesses that share the same beliefs as they do, we would get the lake filled up a lot faster.

As for you thinking the evening MSNBC chatterboxes are center left, THAT shows how distorted  and far apart both of us are in our thinking.   A year ago or so, Schultz was openly criticizing Obama for something, I believe it was his failure to go to Wisconsin during the recall election, and the next day he was all over himself apologizing for his transgressions.  Clearly he was spoken to by someone high up the foodchain.  There are dozens of YouTube videos of Matthews and O'donnel  coming totally unglued over one of their "beliefs".   If you don't think the talking heads get there daily fodder from one or two programed sources you are blind.  That also goes for the FOX News boys and girls.  Everyone pushes the dictated agenda on a daily basis.

The problem as I see it, is the two sides are far apart because there is such a dislike for Obama from the right.  Before you start with the "rascist" crap, I do think skin color does have a lot to do with it, but you would have seen one tenth the distaste if Herman Cain were in the office.  To many, if not most conservatives, and I am one of them, Obama pushes an arrogance that I find totally distasteful.  For that reason I feel he will never be able to bring any true merging of right and left.  Reagan and Clinton had it, Obama knows he does not have it, so he is forced to try to jamb his beliefs down our throats while giving away a lot of goodies to those that got him elected. No way to win a war, or further the best interests of our country.

Well, everyone likes puppies too.  Of course everyone favors U.S. made products.  Putting out the effort and $$  to buy them is a different matter, when the system favors artificially cheap imports.  I believe most on both sides, from the reddest "redneck" to the blueist liberal , aren't generally aware how much stuff is made in China, and are even less aware why most of it is made there, or the system that’s stacked against “Made in the USA.”  Simple, ideological scapegoats (It’s the UNIONS!) instead are offered for political gain.  I just ordered tires for my car and stipulated "Made in USA." By an American company.  Unfortunately, Goodyear or Firestone don’t count any more.  Most of the sales people just thought I was a kook, and acted like it was an inconvenience if I requested the tire said “Made in the USA.”  Nobody cares anymore. And as far as Harley - I'd bet much Harley gear is made outside of the U.S.  Maybe the bikes are made in the U.S, but again I’d bet many of the parts are made outside the U.S. and sent to the assembly plants, so it can still say “Made in the USA.”

Generally, it’s the pro-business conservatives that brought to us “free markets,” “outsourcing,” “deregulation,” ideas that have destroyed manufacturing in the U.S.  And before you blame Clinton, yes, Dems have also been culpable, but to the extent they supported those conservative ideas.  Most of the bad trade policy voting have been more supported by the GOP vs. Dems.  But I will admit Obama is just as bad as Clinton about his drinking of the pro-corporate Koolaid.

But you are correct in your assertion that liberals don’t fight enough to change this situation.  There’s a disconnect when liberals – including prominent liberal media personalities - gush over each and every Apple product, and Steve Jobs is considered an icon among liberals, when Apple is the poster child for the destructive labor, trade, and tax evasion policies that are anathema to liberals.  That’s hypocrisy.  Gushing over Northern European countries' living and economies when they allow almost no immigration.  That’s hypocrisy.  Downplaying the power of boycotts, even though boycotts were highly successful in the civil rights and apartheid battles. Can't p*ss off the powers that be.

That would be rich, if it’s true. 

Yes the FDR drumbeats are a bit overdone but FDR laid the foundation for quite a huge lake.  As for billionaires, why not pick on them?  Most of the time the money’s been made by extraction from the productive economy.  Even if you have no problem with that, their brazenness in distorting our politics for their own personal gain is a problem   Skipping out on taxes.  It’s not the billions, it’s most of them are a$$holes that’s the problem.  10,000+ PO addresses in the Cayman Islands for the express purpose of tax scams?  The same companies and individuals who line up and benefit from government military contracts?  They deserve a wealth tax, I would fully support it.  Clawbacks.  F8ck them.  

Precisely.  The fact that they DO get their talking points from some corporate or political “overlords” MAKES them center left, NOT far left.   That's my argument.  A Far left “talking head” would NOT be on corporate TV, he’d be banished to the hinterlands of the internet.

Cain was a clown, hopefully you recognized that.  I don’t believe you, nor most of the conservatives on this blog are racists.  But I don’ get the “arrogance” thing.  Cain offered: “If you don’t have a job, and you aren’t rich, it’s your own fault!” – THAT isn’t arrogant?  At least Cain’s self made which is more than I can say for most conservative movers and shakers.   I also don’t believe the “goodies” meme, neither does most of the country and that’s why this meme backfired on Romney.

Simple quick answer.  Yes, Cain was a clown.  It is easy to tell people to work hard when you have already made your money.  Much of that is being in the right place at the right time.

 

Goodies is what I believe Obama did get reelected on.

Not with the more educated people on both sides of the spectrum, but with the very low information voter. There is absolutely no question that we are turning a corner in this country in a direction that forces people into government dependency, and attempts to belittle those that have worked and become successful. A few years ago I lost much of my house to a 18" rainfall.  It caused a small stream to backup and it destroyed the completely finished lower level of our home. When I bought the house I asked if flood insurance was available.  It wasn't because we were out of the 100 year floodplain. I had to learn to become a carpenter, plumber, and electrician.  I rebuilt on my own dime, with my own hands, recovering only my casualty loss on my tax return. I passed all the necessary inspections and life went on.  Yes, I would have loved to have the government rebuild for me, and today they probably would have, but I am a much stronger, more self reliant person because they did not help. Going back, I would not have traded the experience I gained for anything.

Yes, there are rich crooks and there always have been.  I feel elimination of loopholes is the best way to get at many of them.  I would start with all of congress.  The laws they pass must be applicable to them also, including healthcare and retirement. You do have to admit that all the "tax the rich" and "pay their fare share" is never going to solve our spending problem. The newest tax brackets raise annually enough additional money to run the government for a few days.  I would completely a Wall Street transaction tax.  It would accomplish two goals.  Raise a lot of revenue and maybe lend some stability to the market by making day traders and hedge funds more astute in their buys and sells.

It is a mess and I fear Obama has no clue as how to remove us from it, so he is painting a wall made of paper studs not douglas fir.  Not what this country needs.

It is amazing the fact that the new taxes will only raise enough revenue to run the govt. for a few days and how that fact is ignored. SPENDING (especially waste and fraud and military) need to be CUT!

With this logic, I assume that you now will need to lose everything, including all money and resources — so that you can become infinitely stronger as you start heading into old age! Good luck in getting all of the loss that will give you these most valuable experiences!

Thanks for the suggestion, but I took all those steps late in Dec. of 2012.  Roth'ed my IRA and paid the 35% rate.  Myself, my wife, and our trust, each max gifted  our now non taxable account funds to family,  and sold our home to a family member for $100. We will continue to cling to our guns and religion.  Now, all I need is a frontal lobotomy, and I can become a disenfranchised progressive and enjoy the Great Obama Depression while collecting free stuff, thank you very much.

Again – good luck in acquiring as many tragedies and disasters as Job! I doubt that your efforts will shield you and your family from those fabulously hardening experiences, so you can look forward to a "stronger" self ... and family !

Well, to most of them, especially the ones who like to hear themselves talk, it's because they were so smart.  Timing and luck had nothing to do with it.  And for Cain at least, he's self made, and didn't make it from the Wall Street criminal syndicate, so I found it easier listening to his nonsense than say, Ryan and Romney's preachings about "entitlements," or 47%.  People don't like being preached to - from on high - about entitlements from trust fund babies.   

You're right about dependency, but I believe the increase in government dependency is a symptom of an out of control deregulated economy run expressly for the benefit of CEOs, shareholders and transitory traders like mutual and hedge funds..  While Obama seems to be "going with the flow," regrettably, about reforming this, increasing dependency is a symptom of a sick economic system, not one President's scheme to buy votes.  Note what Conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby said:

“The number of food-stamp users went up in seven of the eight Bush years, climbing from 17.3 million in 2001 to 28.2 million in 2008 -- a 63 percent leap. Indeed, the Bush administration led a campaign to dramatically expand and destigmatize the use of food stamps, a campaign that began before the recession did. If Obama has been "the most successful food stamp president in American history," it is only by continuing what his predecessor began.”

Growing dependency isn't exclusive to Obama.  It does coincide, though, with pro-business conservatives' influence on the government and economy.

Well, since there are always rich crooks and always have been, it suggests massive deregulation of the economy was a bad thing.  But then, most liberals already knew that.   I support passing laws where lawmakers must take our retirement and healthcare.  No problem there.  And "tax the rich" won't balance the numbers, no, but it's a good start.  I supported expiring ALL the Bush tax cuts. 

What are you talking about?

Karolina - What I am talking about is as follows:

I believe making lawmakers subject to the same healthcare and healthcare insurance markets as the general public, as well as the retirement system, would make them more responsive to those programs.  I'm not familiar with their healthcare and retirement packages, but they should all be in the private insurance market, Medicare and Social Security.  I've been told, they're not all subject to these programs, but cushier, more insulated programs. 

As far as "entitlement reform," note that I consider Reich's "limiting the growth of overall  healthcare costs" part of entitlement reform, and support that..  I also support implementing a means test and raising the income cap.    I'm also on board with cutting military and corporate welfare.  We should agree there. 

Now as far as letting all the Bush tax cuts to expire, I supported that because we're all (poor-middle class-rich) utilizing irresponsible tax cuts to party on, insulated from the real cost of things we otherwise would make more of an effort to investigate and oppose.  It insulates us from the costs of war, for example.  It also insulates us from the cost of providing defense for our industrial competitors Germany, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc. etc.etc., making us less competitive economically. 

As conservative columnist Steve Chapman writes:.

"We fought two wars without raising taxes to pay for them. If Americans had known that invading Iraq was going to cost them real money, right away, they would have said: No, thanks." [Emphasis mine]

Instead, we party on, oblivious to the costs, because someone else will pay for it.  Later.

 

I couldn't support that because it doesn't address the fundamental unfairness of the tax system. The goal for me is to dramatically steepen the progressivity curve. You can set the levels anywhere you want. 

The tax system has gradually come closer and closer to resembling a flat tax, and flat taxes are always regressive. The recent deal on the Bush tax cuts takes a teensy little baby step in the right direction.

I cannot argue with anything you just posted.

As much as we may argue, I think you and I are not as far apart on a lot of topics as we think we may be. At the very least, I can see compromise in each of our positions to reach a common goal.  Just let's keep the lobbyists out of it.

I was so delighted to see you and Art coming so close to agreement about how insufficient the tax reform has been and how progressive it ought to be.  Or did I miss what you were saying?

I wanted to contrast it with this earlier post about clinging to your guns and religion.  I do hope that is more metaphorical and jocular than serious about both.  Where I really lose you is in the frontal lobotomy reference leading to your stereotype, strawperson projection about "disenfranchised progressives enjoy(ing) the Great Obama Depression while collecting free stuff."

What world are you describing?  Obama has done nothing progressive about the economy, and what he inherited is very slowly 'recovering' in the sense that a drunk sobers up enough to drink again.  The design and the events leading to this "Depression"  are directly attributable to GOPimps and some, but hardly the consensus, of Democrats.  The strategy of 'triangulation' under Clinton was played on Neocon game boards with Neocon rules, and if Dollar Bill was good at the game, we ought to be able to see the brand of the game anyway.

As to the 'free stuff' crap, the benefits paid for are called entitlements while the subsidies to the privateers are what?  I think they are the waste and corruption that the term 'entitlement' has come to imply.  We cannot afford the privateers and need to own our own stuff ourselves.  Yeah Democracy.

al3, I misunderstood what you said about the congress people getting our healthcare.

I disagree with your idea that everybody needs to stop "partying on" with the Bush tax cuts. We are at the moment when there can be a chain reaction destroying our entire economy, and none of the people in the middle or poor classes had anything to do with putting us in this most dangerous place, or benefitting from the situation that did. Those who found themselves benefitting financially from other people's ruin should be the only ones whose taxes are increased back to pre-Reagan.

Bravo!

Dripping with sarcsam.  Much like GOpimps, republicons, democrat party, Mittens, gun nuts, etc. You know exactly what I am refering to.  Thom's show is full of metafors for those he dislikes or disagrees with.

As to the free stuff, there is much to be cleaned up in the entitlement and subsities area.  Gvot. paid "group homes" run my phoney corporations, EBT cards being cashed at porn shops, casino's, and liquor stores, etc. In my state if you lose your card they send you a replacement no questions asked. Plenty needs to be done and everyone will suffer to one degree or another.

All the scams run on the poor can go, but it is the GOPimps who love this crap.  They think getting our money to loan out to students 'entitles' them to take a 20% cut for passing the paper over their desks.  Oh, yeah, we can find bad spending, but not in the benefits due to working people or even in the dole although paying people to do value creation is better.  The bad spending is at the top and goes to the warmongers and the banksters and their ilk.

I do not KNOW what you are referring to if you only imply it.  I might be able to guess.  You might even have left true hints and clues.  But why not just say it and be clear.

Within a strong critique of the duopoly, I still see the GOPimps as the active addicts and the Dems more as co-dependent or "cold turkey" ex-users who skipped the rehab they needed to have a real recovery.  It does not excuse co-dependency, but covering for the addicts is a different problem than using the bad crap that drives them mad.

In regard to shared pain, all we want is for it to be shared instead of being all ours while the gains are all "theirs."  The rhetoric about "free stuff" is a really ugly GOPimp lie.  The "takers" are the banksters and the privateer looters who do not return value for what they steal.  The 'needy' should never be insulted for being human.  Our resentment toward the rich is for their not being human.  They earn that many times over in Romneyworld.  Check out Paul "the vulture" Singer for a real creep.

Yikes! That could be the kiss of death for me on this message board.