If you’re going to build a 90,000 sq ft home, don’t make it look like the Bellagio.
It’s tacky.
So Mitt goes to a fundraiser and tells his donors just what they want to hear. 47% of Americans are lazy, parasites.
In 2008, Obama went to a fundraiser and told his donors just what they wanted to hear. A lot of voters are stupid, gun totin’, knuckle draggers.
You know what this tells me?
Big money donors don’t know squat about what it’s like to live in America without a trust fund and a portfolio of hedge fund investments. AND they tend to judge books by their covers and their mamas didn’t raise them right.
In other words, these people, and their candidates, have nothing to do with me.
You can elect whoever you want in 2012. There will be some people who will tell you that picking a specific presidential candidate makes a difference. Based on how they talk to their donors, I don’t see it that way. I don’t like either of these people and how they talk to their donors doesn’t phase me in the least. Last year, I was paying more than enough in taxes to keep a family of four above the poverty line. This year, I make below the poverty line in income. So, in a year, I’ve gone from 25 years of responsibility as a drug designer of cancer therapies to a deadbeat, indistinguishable from the trailer trash, high school dropout without teeth who thinks Jerry Springer has high-falutin’ guests.
I think we have the donors to thank for that.
I’ve got more important things to worry about than how clueless a bunch of rich people are. Their day is coming when they have taken the last bit of value off the top of the mountain and their whole reason for being is suddenly meaningless. Maybe after that, they’ll realize that they’ve got a problem.
But that is not my concern right now. And, frankly, I don’t really give a damn.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, rich donors, Siegel Versailles house |
The Confluence 
Actually. This is plenty enough to get Obama my vote again. Background Music “We’re through being cool” by DEVO.
Don’t be stupid. This is the way Obama talks about you behind your back to the donors.
“Those whiny middle class people. It’s all gimme, gimme, gimme. They want pensions and healthcare and vacations and maternity leave. They’re just going to have to live with less or there will have to be higher taxes on everyone”
{{Donors nod solemnly to themselves. Sad but true, the middle class will have to sacrifice in order for the rich to keep their tax breaks}}
They’re both losers. Mitt talks that way because that’s what his rich donors want to hear and Obama talks that way because that’s what his rich donors want to hear.
We’ve already seen what Obama is willing to do to serve his donors. THE DATA IS ALREADY THERE.
More and more, I am convinced that the left WANTS this guy. Yep, people like Matt Stoller can throw a holy conniption fit but since they do nothing to challenge him, I can only assume that this is what they want. and I want no part of it.
The left has made a devil’s bet, riverdaughter. They think they will be OK if they sail with Barack Obama a little longer. They’ll keep their perks and their access. Obama will pretend to care about their concerns but in the end, he’ll serve his donors first. And when it comes time to throw everyone else overboard, he’ll do it with a smile and reassurances that they will hit the water harder under the Republicans.
Matt Stoller isn’t the problem. The problem is there are TOO FEW like him willing to actually state the truth. Most of the left has already bought the lesser -of -evils argument. We need more people like yourself and Matt to end the vicious cycle.
Matt IS the problem. He is willing to sacrifice the rest of us and let Obama run a second time because he has the obsessive bug in his head telling him Hillary and Bill Clinton are EEEEEEVVVVIL. What we need right now is breathing space and we’re not going to get it. Maybe that’s not important to Matt because he’s employed or getting money somehow. But for millions of Americans, Matt and his friends’ opinions have a disproportionate effect on their lives because Matt et al did not stand up for average Americans and challenge the Democrats. Matt et al did not make it difficult for Obama to get the nomination. So, if Obama is not what they wanted and Obama’s policies are less than good, then you have to wonder why Matt et al were so fucking feckless and let him get a nomination without a credible threat from the left.
You know and I know why. It’s THEIR problem. We’re just forced to come along on their neurotic ride.
Somehow? I don’t see Romney’s wife as an Imelda. Srsly. I don’t. She would probably be more like a Lady Bird. Maybe. Dunno.
“She would probably be more like a Lady Bird”
oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezzz
god forgive you (pick any)
See this? http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/09/19/obama-jay-z-knows-what-my-life-is-like/70000647/1?csp=34news That’s all that’s there. Period. Not voting for it. Period.
Ann Romney is the Imelda of dressage horses. She refuses to tell how many she has and says that it’s because she doesn’t want Mitt to know.
Lady Bird was a decent woman who had a cause (Beautification of America) that actually benefitted all Americans. Ann Romney has stated that her cause will be at-risk youth. She and her husband have made a bundle from investing in kiddie jails where teens with behavioral and mental problems are physically and mentally tortured. These places don’t spend money on adequately trained staff or therapists because that cuts into the bottom line. Lady Bird’s anti-litter campaign didn’t make her a dime. What do you want to bet that Ann Romney’s campaign will result in increased profits for the institutions in which she and her husband are invested?
Lady Bird was my second fave First Lady. I was a kid, and I’ve lived through all of them since Jackie O. Bain was terrible, no? But there are a lot of guys like that aren’t there? Yep. There have been. Stein would be like the year I voted Nader. After 2008, I’m over the Dems. Simple. Really simple. Funny how you can choose a political party in college and then watch what happens to it. I feel sorry for Hillary. Just yesterday I read a story that called for her to be fired over what happened. How tragic is that? How many times has she had to cover his ass? Don’t get me started.
Lady Bird began a “beautify America” campaign and ramped it up into a genuine public conservation-botany movement with a genuine research and public outreach/information arm to continue and extend the work of conservation botany. I fail to see a First Lady Romney doing any such thing for the betterment of anything at all.
I thought First Lady Obama might work up her little garden effort into a real movement among her fanbase and beyond to begin and extend a movement for significant un-monetized personal food production on millions of acres of gardenable city and suburban land . . . beyond what is already being done by self-motivated people. I imagined it being storm center/mothership/nuclear brain-reactor for a deep and broad Culture of Mass Economic Resistance and Rebellion. Occupy your yard! Occupy your garden! It was not to be. It became little more than a Marie Antoinette style fashionable behavior statement.
I imagined she and her staff would at least register a website which could become an information node for Neo-Peasant subsistence information in the service of Economic Rebellion and Revenge. I even offered a potentially catchy name for such a website and offered it on various blogs. Neither she nor anyone else has ever even registered to put it to any kind of use. I could offer it here and I bet it is still unregistered.
http://www.myobamagarden.org
Personally? I think she is branding seeds down the road. GMO? But that’s just my opinion.
That would make her quite the grubby hustler, then.
Well, in that case, here’s some music to remind you of just who it is you will be voting for, then.
Why Willie Buck? Obama is the guy willing to trade away your or your parents’ Medicare and Social Security so he can play Mr. Above-it-all on television. And he can hand all that money to Wall St. which will ensure a cushy mega-millions position for him after he’s put in his time. Win-win. Except for you, of course. (If Romney gets elected, just change the names. It’ll be just as true.)
I’m pessimistic enough to doubt there’s anything we can do to stop that BS, but it doesn’t mean we have to help the bastards, any of them.
Sure, they both suck. But as far as a counter to the numbing ‘enthusiasm gap’ disease (that the GOP is banking on), lying that half of America are freeloading losers is a doozy of a remedy… just saying.
I understand the current Obamacratic line . . . if you will.
“Vote for Pierre Laval. Because Adolph Hitler is the greater evil.”
I understand that some people will accept that concept. But some other people including me just won’t. Because while Obama is certainly the new Pierre Laval for a New Generation, is Mitt Romney really the new Adolph Hitler? No. I’m sorry, but . . . just no.
Pretty funny. Probably a lot of frenchmen who still owe a lot to Laval’s healthcare initiatives. BTW every democrat who would like to see the country get better shouldn’t be described as a ‘collaborationist’ as you would have it seem. At least I do not think we are there yet!
I agree that I would not call every Democrat who would like to see the country get better to be a collaborationist. But I would certainly call every Democrat who would like to see the country get worse to be a VichyDem Republican collaborationist. Such as President “Catfood” Obama and the Catfood Democrats who plan to help him destroy Social Security and Medicare by slow-enough salami-tactics that they can pretend that they are not doing it.
Elephant in the living room: we need publicly funded elections now!
You want to say “that doesn’t faze me” not “phase me”. Just sayin’
[errmmm….this is from a Bill Kristol column, but it’s referenced.] Here’s Barack Obama, on April 6, 2008, in San Francisco:
“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
It’s worth recalling that Obama was speaking about Democrats who were voting in the primary for Hillary Clinton. So Obama seems to have contempt not just for the Republicans who oppose him, but for millions of Americans who ended up voting for him in November 2008.
Yeah, that is what I was referring to when I mentioned what Obama said to his rich donors. In his case, he was ALSO just as willing to write off the working class and his donors were eager to do it. But they’re Democrats so they couldn’t look like callous, mean spirited assholes. They needed a different reason. So in come the dog whistle words like gun toting and religion and bitter. So now you’ve got the mental picture of stupid rednecks who hang out at the Dew Drop Inn. But isn’t it the same thing, Bev? Both sets have decided that there’s a segment of voters that they don’t want to have to cater to. And now Obama wants to go out and campaign to those voters by pointing at what Romney said.
THEN to top it all off, he hangs an albatross around the neck of Bill Clinton, whose job it now seems to be saving Barack Obama. Wages and employment actually improved under Clinton and those working class people knew it or they wouldnt have given Clinton a second term and a high approval rating when he left office.
Make no mistake, Obama is talking about us behind our backs in a way that would make us furious. He’s just more careful this time.
But it doesn’t matter. I’d rather be waterboarded than vote for either.
“But it doesn’t matter. I’d rather be waterboarded than vote for either.”
Please, I recall your defense of Palin here (blush).
Really the only thing contemptible for me about Obama are his constant & dependable cave-ins. This by itself leads to all other faults of the man (continuance of Bush policies whathaveyou). I’ve always held that this election is a win-win for repubos. But after being furnished these video proofs of avarice, cowardice, and unsuitability of leadership for all to see…. why would any sentient voter not be against it?
“Make no mistake, Obama is talking about us behind our backs in a way that would make us furious. He’s just more careful this time.”
Rush Limbaugh territory
I defended Palin against attacks on her humanity, not her policies. Misogynism was a core feature of the Obama campaign in 2008 and it was used against Palin as well as Clinton. I won’t participate in that, no matter how misguided she is. I voted for McCain to protest the way the Democratic had taken a turn for the worse and disenfranchised 18,000,000 inconvenient voters. None of this is a secret. In fact, I have been quite open about it.
I saw what you did, WBM. I paid attention in 2008. Do you think I don’t know fraud and election manipulation when I see it? I know what the Obama whips did at the convention to the delegates, the screaming and harrasing, threatening to get them fired from their jobs. I talked to some of those delegates on the streets in Denver and they were *eager* to tell me what was going on.
Do you think for one moment I was going to vote for that?? None of us should have. There are all types of corruption and Obama is not an exemption from avarice, cowardice and unsuitability.
As for Rushbo, I don’t listen to the turd but I have a copy of Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot, first edition, from when I was a devout Democrat. Your comments would work better on dumber people. You won’t find them here. Why don’t you go haunt DailyKos for awhile?
Ditto. Since I’ve learned all about reasons why I *only* supported McC. After what happened to Hillary? You have no idea how many of us feel. We WERE Dems. Concerned Dems. Post-Bush. It was cagey of McC to choose a woman. You ave no idea who you are talking to at this blog. We’ve all known each other since 2008.
Very mean-spirited RD. But such is life 🙂
here
Whose defense of Paylin here do you remember? I am too new to this blog to know who said what about Paylin at the time stuff was happening. So . . . whose defense of Paylin here are you referrencing?
As per your request
“Palin and Clyburn add fuel…”
January 12, 2011
Oh the stupid burns, but the page has been turned 🙂
Actually if I recall correctly, this was just the 2nd of two posts that were completely batshit crazy. The first I can’t seem to dig up, but hence why I started my comment on the 2nd with “She’s your baby, Palin protectors!” Oh well.
We never defended her policies but we did stick up for her as a person. The hype about how stupid she supposedly was relentless and denigrating and sexist. We didn’t much like that. We thought she should have been judged on her politics. And from what I could see, she was a very talented politician. You don’t get to be governor of a major oil state like Alaska if you don’t have family connections UNLESS you are a gifted politician. Which she was.
That doesn’t mean we liked her values or politics and after the Gabby Giffords incident, we banished her and her followers from lurking here.
They made a mistake to think we were being anything but kind to her. She should be judged by the company she keeps.
Did you also read all of the posts about her that were NOT favorable? How would you know the different opinions about her if we didn’t discuss them? BTW, you might notice that the person who pushed her here is no longer posting here. He crossed a line and didn’t think I would have the guts to react the way I did. He was wrong. I don’t take orders from men who do not own this blog.
But in any case, the Democrats made her a lightening rod for several years after the election. I’m sure obama’s peeps loved that. It kept the rank and file democrats distracted and still eating red meat. And what did that get them? They paid no attention to what Obama was actually doing and they continued to hardware the idea that if you are a sufficiently popular female politician, there is absolutely no limits to what the party will say or do to sideline you.
I’m pretty sure that kept me from rejoining the party. I won’t join a party that disrespects women.
I don’t remember RD ever defending Palin but she did have a front pager who, imo, often allowed himself to write with his little head and not his big head. He loved Palin.
“…often allowed himself to write with his little head and not his big head.”
I shudder at the idea of defending Obama but he did include in that offensive commentary that Democrats needed to find a way to convince those people that a Democratic government would improve their lives. Romney specifically writes his “those people” off as lazy, good-for-nothings who will never get up off the couch and get a job.
I was enraged at Obama’s comment because he was supposed to be a Democrat. I can’t say that I was all that surprised that Romney was caught on tape telling what he actually thinks of people who aren’t wealthy. But, on the whole, Romney’s sneering delivery wins him my vote for the asshole candidate’s comment.
Sadly, both sides are determined to destroy Social Security and Medicare.
Yes but 2 minutes directly after the victims quote from MoJo is missing. If you think that wasn’t from Democrat editing you are simple. We don’t know what Romney said but I am not troubled by it. We know the Dems are liars because they are lying to us regarding the September 11 terrorist attack on our embassy.
bill clinton was just as big a sellout as obama. but the economy was better, so we didn’t pay as much attention.
nafta, telecom bill, welfare reform, kosovo, etc.
and he continues to sell us out even in retirement as ‘elder statesman’.
telecom bill?? I think you’ve got your presidents mixed up. Obama voted for telecom immunity.
Look, I’m not going to go over this again here. We’ve done it many, many times and many posts have been written about each one of your arguments shooting down each one in succession. All we can tell you is that you’re wrong about most of it. yep. And you can’t rewrite history to those of us who were old enough to witness it at the time it happened.
Obama is can’t hold a candle to Bill in competence or skill and Obama is the most conservative Democratic president we have had since Woodrow Wilson. That’s been proven based on evidence and voting records. Bill Clinton was as liberal as JFK. But don’t let facts get in the way. Just keep repeating what the Democratic activist insiders keep telling you. They’re the ones who wanted Obama over our objections. And now that they don’t like Obama, they’ve done nothing to challenge him. I don’t listen to them anymore. They’re either fools or frauds.
I suspect “telecom bill” in the just-above comment refers to the Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996(?).
The FISA lawsuit setaside bill was Speaker Pelosi’s special agenda,
I more and more think. Pelosi owns something like 3 million shares of AT&T stock and a FISA judgement would have lowered the shareprice of her stock. She was legislating her book by pushing that law. At the time I thought that voting for immunity and impunity for AT&T was merely the price Pelosi extracted from Obama for helping get Obama nominated. Now Obama looks like someone who believes in upper class impunity and immunity for upper class crimes. So Obama’s support for FISA suit setaside was overdetermined. Obama is indeed a Pelosi-Bormann Democrat.
Also, wasn’t the whole Denver convention sponsored and captured by AT&T? Don’t I remember reading that AT&T handed out branded bags and pens and all kinds of neat stuff to everybody there? Of course I have only read that from 1500 miles away.
Yes, I also remember reading that ATT was a sponsor of the convention and provided some of the swag bags.
In the electoral circus, we are at best, spectators. Or, I should say “at worst”. I removed myself from the audience and only get news from Facebook and this blog about the more entertaining aspects. Gone are the days when I thought my vote meant something to anyone else but myself.
Of course, the super rich class ” earned ” their money. THey earned it when they undertook massive accounting control fraud to artificially bid up house prices. When the whole house of cards collapsed, they petitioned the government for bailouts. That’s, of course, isn’t welfare..we call it ” Quantitative Easing “.
The super-rich “earned” it when they colluded to bid-rig in the muni bond markets. They earned it when they manipulated the LIBOR rate. They earned it when they decided to outsource a chunk of our manufacturing base to China to reduce labor costs. I could go on, but I’ll stop it here.
They now have decided that the public needs to make further sacrifices so they can maintain their position of dominance.
They are also intending to set off inflation which is the most cruel tax on the poor. Wait until that hits. Normal people have lost the equity in their houses and what little money they still have they haven’t been able to earn interest on for the last few years. Regular people are loosing ground. I have always had great health insurance, my co-pay was $10 when Obama came to office. Now it is $25.00 and my monthly cost is up.
I used to vote for the lesser of two evils, but I can’t hold my nose while voting anymore (arthritis…) I agree that the presidential candidates are close enough to make voting not worth the bother. I’m going to lose my house under the Obama administration because none of the programs he claims he has put in place has done anything to stop it. Hope for Homeowners, MakingHomeAffordable.gov, There is nothing for a homeowner who has struggled to keep up payments so as to avoid foreclosure but experienced a loss of income (I became physically disabled after earning 4 college degrees and working as a professional for 15 years), and can’t sell because the home is underwater (fixed-rate, not adjustable). I even canceled my drug coverage to afford the mortgage, and am skipping medicine. All the fed. functionaries have to say is, “Oh, there’s nothing I can do. You have to BE in foreclosure, and even then, the banks aren’t required to use bail-out money to help.” I can’t vote for someone who makes sure taxpayer money helps banks beef up their capital while leaving severely disabled people in the cold (literally.)
How utterly horrible. (The situation. Not the fact that you’re not voting for the blot.) Not that it’ll be any kind of news to you, but David Dayen has been doing excellent work documenting just how far into negative territory the Obama “help” for homeowners has slipped.
I’m sorry to hear about your troubles. I know many more people like you. They’ve lost their jobs and health insurance and they find out they have cancer or their wife is too disabled to relocate to another state. Many, many people have had to take cuts to their salaries that amount to more than half. Many have houses under water and are scrambling to meet their mortgages. And none of these people were irresponsible. Up until the last couple of years, they were gainfully employed, paid their taxes, we’re respected members of their communities, did experiments at the school science fair. They are good, hard working, intelligent people with multiple degrees. Everyone I know is struggling, has been laid off, got a job, got laid off again, sold their houses at a loss, moved their families, are living in fear of more layoffs. At this point, my advice is to get out of the industry. Sell what you can, get to a safe financial spot and figure out where to go from there. Can you rent your house and move into a smaller place? Do it until the housing market recovers.
Good luck. You have a lot of company.
The government programs are next to useless. Neil Barofsky describes it eloquently , they are designed to ” foam the runway ” in other words, spread the foreclosures out over a longer period of time s in order to minimize the potential hit to the banks’ balance sheets.
You should contact a realtor in your state. You could possibly do a short sale. It would impact your credit, but it would get you out of a house you can no longer afford. See if you can rent the house and downsize, that could work if the rental income comparable to the mortgage payment.
Every time Mittens makes some callous remark that shows who he really is the Obots are all over it. But those of us in the real world – struggling to maintain our ever-shrinking incomes or learning to live without – could give less of a hoot about anything either one of these pampered suck-ups has to say. It boggles the mind that some idiots think this is the great catch that is going to sink the Mittster.
How about Obama killing American citizens without any process at all, much less due process? Shouldn’t that have been the death knell for the big O? I mean – after all the other things that should have been his death knell, including the wonderfully enlightened statement about bitter folk clinging to their guns and their religion.
Blog after lefty blog backing Obama. The hypocrisy, the tribalism, the fear of independent thought and being out of the in crowd – this is truly pathetic. How many true liberals are there in this country? Makes you wonder.
I have a theory that the A list bloggers are being funded by the party directly. They either despise Obama for being a venal, incompetent, corporate schmoozer but they don’t want the money to dry up, or they’re totally onboard with Obama and the direction he’s taking the party but they’re only griping to get the audience onboard.
Either way, my respect for them has plummeted lately.
I agree with you. Large Elements of the left know Obama is a sellout, but they put their own positions at risk if they challenge it. Some are more venal and don’t mind the direction he takes as long as they personally benefit.
I think some A-listers are being funded by the party, others want to be funded or to be in with the in crowd, and still others are scared to death of Ryan, so scared that they’ve fallen into the lesser-of-two evils cesspool. Some of the ones being funded probably know they’re utter hypocrites and no longer stand for anything liberal, while others probably believe that the first “black” President can do no wrong. It’s historic, don’t you know. And we’re nothing but racists and bitter old hags.
I notice that the Hullabaloo comment hosting platform now says “this widget will be turned off on Oct. 1”. I assume that means commenting will be terminated. That’s even easier than having to lie about stealth-banning people and stealth-editing and stealth-preventing unwanted comments.
A Digby-style moderation regime seems to prevail at Glenn Greenwald’s new digs, though not being a commenter there I’m relying on hearsay. There now seem to be very few venues left where the Duopoly doesn’t reign supreme. Ian Welsh runs one, here’s what he had to say about the A-listers a few weeks ago:
The money must be really good.
Butcha know, for some weird reason, Digby hasn’t banned me yet. You’d think I’d be one of the first people consigned to the trash heap over there and yet I comment pretty freely.
Maybe I’m wearing some kind of invisibility cloak, I dunno.
Romney didn’t take a salary when he was Governor and he said he wouldn’t take a salary when he took over the failing Olympics unless it made a profit. When it did make a profit he took his salary and gave it to charity. He is very rich and doesn’t need to ever work another day of his life but is still willing to take on the job of President. This shows character to me. I also find it strange when Democrats find Romney’s wealth which he earned offensive but they are OK with Kerry’s wealth which he got from being a serial gigolo and marrying rich women. Clearly he know how to make and manage money and isn’t allergic to working.
You think Richie Retch actually earned his wealth?
Apparently, you define the verb “earn” more broadly than I define it. 🙄
How do you define earning money?
Constance, believe it or not, some of us have worked our asses off and still not taken in the haul that Mitt Romney does. For some reason that defies explanation, some of you associate wealth with virtue. That somehow the work ethic is stronger in the exceedingly wealthy. I don’t know if that’s true. There’s only so much a human can do in a day. Then there are people who have made massive contributions to the world and have lived very modest lives. I’m thinking about Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein and even Steve Jobs. Jobs lived in a pretty average looking house, didn’t own a yacht, didn’t have a security system or guards. His kids had no idea how rich they were when they were growing up.
I don’t look up to Mitt Romney or any wealthy person. In most cases, they *didn’t* get their on their own, especially if they came from inherited wealth. Mitt started with his boots on, pulled up and with a dozen extra pair in his closet. It would be difficult to not be a success in those circumstances. On the other hand, some of us just have no desire to be wealthy. That doesn’t make us losers. It just means we value different things. We value the quality of the work we do and our interest in it, and the contributions we make to society. There’s nothing wrong with that.
I am puzzled why you aren’t looking up to US.
RD speaks for me here, except for the last sentence. Honey Badger Ruddyneck don’t give a $#!+ if anyone looks up to him or not. 😛
I define it as . . . pay/unit-time X time-units worked = money earned.
And I don’t include “working the rackets” as working.
The shenanigans by which Richie Retch “earned” his money are no less racketeering because they were technically legal. That does not prove that Retch is a good man. It merely shows that not enough things are illegal. Corporate raiders like Richie Retch make their living by legal versions of “bust-outs”, just like Tony Soprano. 👿
Romney isn’t “willing” to take on the presidency.He’s determined to be the most powerful man in the world. He wants the power and the prestige. He couldn’t care less about $400,000 a year salary when he’s making a minimum of 20 million dollars a year from Bain.
Romney has no character.-
Voters like me weren’t offended by Kerry’s wife’s wealth because it was her wealth that was going to be handed down to her children and Kerry had never tried to pas any laws that would enlarge their tax deductions. Neither did Gore who had a few bucks or Clinton who had basically nothing.
Sorry, you weren’t offended by Kerry’s wealth because he is a Democrat. Look just because Republicans don’t believe that the government should run large programs for the poor doesn’t mean they don’t think there should be programs for the poor. Most Republicans believe the Government is so corrupt it can’t be trusted with anything. But the give large amounts of money to charity I see rich people like Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet and I think the guy from Facebook giving half their money to foundations to help the poor and I think that is going to accomplish far more than if the Government taxed it all away from them and used it for a big give away to their supporters.
Constance, you are so naive it’s pitiable. The reason that Republicans don’t think government works well is because they’ve gone out of their way to make sure it doesn’t in the past 40 years. They think, correctly in your case, that if they continue to undermine the efforts of other politicians to make government work for the average American that people such as yourself will turn against the very programs that have helped so many.
They haven’t gotten to Social Security yet. That’s because it has a multi-trillion dollar trust fund and it’s run exceptionally well with low overhead. But they’ve done their best to start the undermining process in the past few years by keeping unemployment high and by reducing the payroll tax by 2%. That’s going to exacerbate a problem in the social security system that up until 2008 only needed a minor correction.
Republicans are not true politicians. They are not actually into working for people. Their business is to dismantle as many protections as possible, privatize as much of the government as possible so they can charge us rent for the services we used to fund, and to make sure that their property is protected at all costs, even if that means you lose everything you own. Haven’t you been paying any attention???
Oh, just turn the TV off forgawdssakes and read a book.
And you know what? Reducing the payroll tax by 2% was Obama’s idea! See what I mean by “Vichy Democrat”? And all the Stockholm Syndromocrats voted for it! I only know of ONE Democratic Senator who voted against it, and that was Senator Harkin of Iowa, for whom I voted in the Michigan primary of 1990. I hope that at least one other Democratic Senator voted against Obama’s “starve the Social Security beast” payroll tax holiday.
There are plenty of people who work hard who don’t earn a lot of money. Mitt Romney had advantages few people will ever have. His father, George Romney was wealthy AND politically connected. Mitt got to attend elite prep schools and go to the best universities money can buy. Not only did he have bootstraps to begin life, he was handed the whole suit. I don’t think being wealthy necessarily would make him a bad president; FDR came from the upper statum of society and his policies built the middle class. Romney, however gives me no indiciation that he relates to the struggles of ordinary people and I don’t think he’s as wily or shrewd as Roosevelt was.
Constance, many people have become wealthy not through virtue or hard work, but because wealth was handed to them or they took advantage of others to gain it. Wealth does not equate to virtue, in my view. People like Louis PAsteur, for example have contributed WAY more to society than someone like Mitt Romney.
And I completeely agree with riverdaughter’s assessment in her final paragraph. Romney is a member of the rentier class. What she describes is correct and it’s what Romney and his ilk have in mind for the rest of us.
Agree, RD. What was the point of slaving for the companies & getting effed over as we did. I do see Romney’s point though. My taxes alone raised families and the government has never given me a dime. No on O, just like 2008. No more a Dem. I love Stein for the idealism, but not this year. Not after what just blew up. It’s just like Carter redux — on the hostages. Our embassies? Those matter.