Our dog Cisco, has lymphoma, and sadly is nearing end-of-life. His lymphoma is advanced, and he is beginning to show signs of pain that his medication cannot control. Yet, he keeps trying to comfort me, and my wife who is distraught, over the difficult but necessary decision to put an end to his suffering.
Oh, how I love my big boy.
Ah, the momentary musty aroma of the furnace turning on for the first time in the Fall, after its long rest through the Spring and Summer…
It lasts only a minute or two, but each year that familiar fragrance transports me instantly back in time to my childhood home and warm memories of my mom, an angel who, though gone is not forgotten, and my brother, a hero and mentor whom I love unendingly and without condition.
And, I am, once again, reminded of how very thankful I am for a family and a childhood that was, perfectly imperfect.
I simply love the Fall.
At this late stage of the game, if you can’t stand up and lay out in two minutes more than a few VERY SPECIFIC details about precisely what you’d cut in order to balance the budget – a prerequisite for paying off the national debt – and balance it fast, then you have no business being president.
This isn’t rocket science folks; you don’t need three postgraduate degrees in finance and economics to grasp the fundamentals of the budget and national debt! Do you have a checking account? What about a credit card? Are you able to manage them without bankrupting your family? Then congratulations: you understand the fundamentals of the budget and national debt.
Last night, both Romney and Obama made exactly the sort of generic statements regarding what they’d do vis-à-vis the budget and national debt that you’d expect from two men who have not the slightest idea of how to solve the problem. Romney read from the standard Republican script that’s been in circulation for a generation or more (I’ll cut whatever’s necessary; whoa, you don’t have to be THAT specific!). Obama talked about the numerous minor and insignificant cuts he’s taking credit for and then read from the standard Democratic script that’s been in circulation for, well, forever (the rich should pay a greater share than the rest of us).
Lot’s of talk, little if any meaningful substance.
Just in case you hadn’t heard, the national debt is now over 16 TRILLION DOLLARS. But, how much is that really? Well, imagine stacking $100 bills one on top of the other. If you stack 10,000 of them in this manner, you wind up with one million dollars, and a stack that is 43 inches tall and weighs slightly over 22 pounds. You could carry this around in a duffle bag slung over your shoulder, like bank robbers do in the movies! Now, just get together 16 million of those duffel bags and you’ve got the national debt!
Or, you could take all those $100 bills in those 16 million duffel bags and stack them neatly on a football field, from end zone to end zone and sideline to sideline. Of course, you’d need a very, very tall ladder to finish the job, because the whole football field would be covered to a height of over 60 feet!
Speaking of movies, remember the movie Brewster’s Millions with Richard Pryor and John Candy? Pryor’s character, Montgomery Brewster, had to spend $30 million in 30 days in order to inherit $300 million from his previously unknown, deceased, rich uncle. That’s $1 million a day. Well, imagine for a second that you did just that — spent $1 million a day, each and every day, let’s say, since the birth of Jesus. Do you realize that you still wouldn’t have spent anything remotely approaching the national debt? You’d have only spent about $730 billion or about 4.5% of the national debt…
Yet, Obama and Romney think we’re going to pay off that massive amount of cash by getting Warren Buffet and his buddies to kick in a little extra on their 1040s or by cutting off Big Bird’s legs and making some modest improvements in the efficiency of a handful of government agencies!
These men are COMPLETELY and undeniably out of touch with reality.
Gary Johnson is polling at 10.6% in the “battleground state” of Ohio. No wonder “the system” is so afraid of letting Gary Johnson debate…
Jesse Ventura knows about polling low and winning elections, and he says, “Let Gary Johnson Debate“! When Jesse ran for Governor in 1998, he was polling at 8%… UNTIL he appeared in televised debates – the rest is history.
In case you weren’t aware, the presidential debates used to be controlled and sponsored by the non-partisan League of Women Voters, until 1987 when they just had enough of the two major parties trying to dictate every facet of the debates.
Since that time, the debates have been controlled by the “Commission on Presidential Debates,” which has been headed since its inception by former chairs of the DNC and RNC.
The 15% polling threshold was created by the LWV in 1980 – not as a means of excluding candidates, the way the CPD uses it – but rather as a means of allowing third party candidate John B. Anderson to appear! Of course there was only one debate in 1980, between Reagan and Anderson, because Reagan and Carter were being such babies.
Listen to Gary Johnson, read about him and his positions on the issues, check out his following on Twitter and Facebook. His ideas are good and he had a proven and consistent track record. He deserves a spot in the presidential debates.
Then, if you are so inclined, sign the petition to get Gary Johnson included in the presidential debates.
Conor Friedersdorf writing for The Atlantic: Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama — The case against casting a ballot for the president — even if you think he’s better than Mitt Romney
I don’t see how anyone who confronts Obama’s record with clear eyes can enthusiastically support him. I do understand how they might concluded that he is the lesser of two evils, and back him reluctantly, but I’d have thought more people on the left would regard a sustained assault on civil liberties and the ongoing, needless killing of innocent kids as deal-breakers.
Nope.
There is a candidate on the ballot in at least 47 states, and probably in all 50, who regularly speaks out against that post-9/11 trend, and all the individual policies that compose it. His name is Gary Johnson, and he won’t win. I am supporting him because he ought to. Liberals and progressives care so little about having critiques of the aforementioned policies aired that vanishingly few will even urge that he be included in the upcoming presidential debates. If I vote, it will be for Johnson. What about the assertion that Romney will be even worse than Obama has been on these issues? It is quite possible, though not nearly as inevitable as Democrats seem to think. It isn’t as though they accurately predicted the abysmal behavior of Obama during his first term, after all. And how do you get worse than having set a precedent for the extrajudicial assassination of American citizens? By actually carrying out such a killing? Obama did that too. Would Romney? I honestly don’t know. I can imagine he’d kill more Americans without trial and in secret, or that he wouldn’t kill any. I can imagine that he’d kill more innocent Pakistani kids or fewer. His rhetoric suggests he would be worse. I agree with that. Then again, Romney revels in bellicosity; Obama soothes with rhetoric and kills people in secret.
To hell with them both.
I implore you, read the entire article; it is, without a doubt, the most well-reasoned piece that I’ve read on the upcoming election.
AP Campaign 2012 (@APCampaign) on Twitter:
Tea Party Republicans caught between promises to cut spending and demands of constituents back home: apne.ws/QUHRxk #Election2012
What? Tea Party Republicans are facing serious re-election challenges? Even those who won by double-digit margins just two years ago? Please -– please — take a moment and picture, if you will, the complete and utter lack of surprise that’s on my face, right now!
What to make of this? Well, I’ll tell you: THEY (as a group) DIDN’T KEEP THEIR WORD once they got to Washington! Michael Cloud, writing at the non-partisan Center for Small Government: 1.8% Budget Cut by House Republicans: Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, NOT a Boston Tea Party
And what did the 242 House Republican Representatives give the Tea Party Movement – and America?
A 1.8% spending reduction. A $3.6 Trillion federal budget. A $1.4 Trillion deficit.
Wow! Stunning performance Tea Baggers! But you see, that’s what happens when you elect candidates who DON’T HAVE A PROVEN TRACK RECORD.
And why? Because TALK IS CHEAP.
The Republicans and Tea Bagger Republicans love nothing more than to point out how stupid all the Democrats were for believing Obama’s line about “change” four years ago, and yet, you’ve all bought-in to the EXACT SAME LINE — delivered with different wording, of course — from Mitt Romney, and you’re lining up to vote for him, when his ACTUAL TRACK RECORD is shoddy — SHODDY, AT BEST!
Question: Is Mitt Romney a conservative, moderate or liberal? Well, let’s be completely honest for a moment, shall we? The only correct answer is “yes,” unless you also supply the timeframe involved, because he’s been all three — all the while proclaiming himself to be a “conservative Republican.”
I’ll say it again: TALK IS CHEAP people!
But here’s an idea: Elect a man who has a proven track record of making the tough decisions on wasteful spending — Gary “Governor Veto” Johnson.
Gary Johnson was elected the Republican Governor of New Mexico at a time when the state’s voter registration was 2-1 Democrat. He won re-election four years later against an Hispanic opponent in a state that is 40% Hispanic.
During his two terms as Governor, Gary Johnson had no tax increases in six years, shifted Medicaid to managed care, slashed the size of state government, vetoed a record number of wasteful spending bills — 750 in total (more than the other 49 governors combined) and a third of which had been introduced by Republican legislators — and only two — TWO — of his vetoes were overridden. He used his line-item veto power thousands of times, implemented a major road building program, built two new state-of-the-art prisons, and much more, and STILL left the state with a ONE BILLION (with a ‘B’) DOLLAR BUDGET SURPLUS – one of only four states at the time to even have a surplus.
Gary Johnson is the ONLY FISCAL CONSERVATIVE running for president in 2012, and he is the ONLY CANDIDATE who has a PROVEN TRACK RECORD of REDUCING SPENDING and BALANCING A BUDGET*.
LIVE FREE.
I understand the purpose: to help prevent voter fraud; and while reasonable opinions vary as to any supposed secondary or non-stated purpose(s), I don’t feel that reasonable opinions can vary on the importance of eliminating voter fraud.
That being said, you have to admit it seems a little peculiar that you need a Photo ID to vote, but you don’t need a Photo ID to obtain ANY of the “vital records” required to get a Photo ID – not even a passport!
Which naturally raises the question: other than a convenience to the individual person*, what good is a Photo ID? And I’m not just talking about voter fraud here! Heck, ask Kevin Mitnick just how unimaginably easy it is to obtain the birth certificates and social security cards required to get a driver’s license (or passport) in someone else’s name! All it takes is an hour or so online (public library anyone?) and a couple weeks for the snail mail to run.
Basically, all “Voter Photo ID” does is force people who don’t drive to jump through a few hoops.
In what was undoubtedly one of the wildest games in Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans and Detroit Lions history, the Tennessee Titans managed to eak out a win over the Detroit Lions today, 44-41 in OT.
In a game that saw what many are calling “Music City Miracle II” on a punt by the Detroit Lions, and saw several Titans player and franchise records set (e.g., first game in Titans history to have two kickoff and/or punt returns for touchdown), there were many amazing – or infuriating, depending on your perspective – moments for both teams. Most frustrating for me personally, was seeing Titans kicker Rob Bironas kickoff with a 14 point lead and only 1:16 remaining in the 4Q and watching in agony as the Lions forced the game into overtime!
Many in the sports press are calling the game an “instant classic” and calling for NFL Films to get a special together post haste.
What a game!
RON PAUL SUPPORTERS: Don’t listen to anyone who gives you the bullshit line about how not voting for Romney is the same as voting for Obama. That is fuzzy, childish thinking and is, in fact, known to grown-ups as the “either/or fallacy” (and to educated grown-ups as the fallacy of “false dilemma” or “false dichotomy”).
Of course – and this goes for everyone – if you sincerely believe that Mitt Romney (or Barack Obama) will not only make a great president but is the best possible choice for the job, then by all means vote that way; but remember: A VOTE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS IS STILL A VOTE FOR EVIL!!!
Gary Johnson:
Be Libertarian with me for one election […] and if, in four years, we as a people decide we don’t like peace, prosperity and freedom, we can always vote tyranny back into office again.
Conservative columnist David Brooks takes Mitt Romney to task in The New York Times…
Sure, there are some government programs that cultivate patterns of dependency in some people. I’d put federal disability payments and unemployment insurance in this category. But, as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney.
Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?
