Elayne - I agree 100%! I was proud to have him represent the Commonwealth of VA!

BARF!!!

Wow, "R." That was constructive input.

Great!

Why there are elected officials that are called "Democrats" and the reason they "all" run for these offices in this party. The "Useless Idiots" vote for them with blind eyes and very little knowledge. The article below is a democrat and tells his own to get educated before making statements they don't know what they are talking about. Sound familiar? Do you have a next door neighbor like this?

http://itmakessenseblog.com/2011/09/17/democrat-james-carville-says-80-of-democrats-dont-have-a-clue-as-to-political-reality/

Hey John Q, guess you were listening to Chris Matthews and watching the thrill go up his leg! Give credit where credit is due, have an open mind about REALISTIC issues going on, don't be jaded by the boring and racist REGIME that the dems have created. Wake up!

"Queen Ann" - name calling - the last refuge of a lost argument.

Shellie, your comment has been deleted because masked profanity violates our Terms of Use. Feel free to repost your comment without the masked profanity.

I truly wonder if JFK was as persecuted for coming from a wealthy family? It's sad because the majority of our Congress and each of the branches of government are run by extremely wealthy politicians - some self made, others from humble beginnings. A lot of our congressmen and senators have not paid federal income tax - in both parties. President Obama and his wife are very wealthy as well. So sad that we let this distract from the real issues – instead we target race, religion, socio-economic status and whether their wives work. Hopefully this election will be won on greater principles.

Thank you Kathleen. Me either. The decline of the American Dream started with Ronnie Raygun, temporarily restored by William Jefferson Clinton, then smacked down again by Dubya. President Obama has tried his best to restore order against the most obstructionist congress ever and now they're using four years of their obstructionism to make it seem like he's done nothing. Americans who can think for themselves can see through that. Apparently Shellie needs dog whistles and FAUX News talking points to formulate an informed opinion. Wonder what the weather is like on her planet?

Don't get me wrong.. I'm not a huge fan of President Obama, but considering the alternative, he's the clear choice for me.

I'm directing this reply to Fairfax resident's post about JFK. I don't fault Romney for being rich. More power to him. But I find it unnerving that he won't share his taxes with us; it makes him seem like he's hiding something. My main problem with him is that he keeps changing his opinions and I have no idea what his plans or vision are for the country. He has changed his opinions as often as he changes his socks. He says he will create jobs: how? what kind of jobs? His views on abortion and contraception are disturbing to me. I know he has said he doesn't agree with Ryan on those issues, but Ryan is a heartbeat away from the presidency should they win. As for JFK, I think he was able, to paraphrase a quote "to walk among kings and princes and still retain the common touch." He and his brothers had a whole history of public service that Romney is lacking. So did Obama before he became wealthy. I think Obama has done an amazing job under extremely difficult circumstances, with a Congress that only says "no".

@ Carole Lewis - is reading your comments on both Romney and Ryan - the sentence that stuck out for me was the last one: I think Obama has done an amazing job under extremely difficult circumstances, with a Congress that only says "no"." Our political system was designed to have a series of checks and balances. Congress "supposedly" votes for what their constituents want - and as a people, we need to vote the ones into office that will support our views. I would like to see a lot more bipartisan effort and I'm encouraged by the bipartisan track record of Romney. He has created jobs in both the private sector and as Governor. A President doesn’t stand alone- his cabinet members also influence certain decisions (defense, foreign relations, etc…) and in a lot of those areas, I feel that President Obama made sound choices for his cabinet offices. I did like Gov. Christies comment that there is plenty of blame to go around. I just pray that this country can get back to a healthy fiscal environment.

To Dee: re Obama's work with a Congress that says no. I agree that our system works on checks and balances but I think this Congress forgot about the balances part. They made a commitment on Inauguration Day to deny Obama a second term and the way to do that was to not let him have any victories in legislation. If Romney is elected with a Republican Congress it will be quite easy for him to seem to be "bipartisan". I think that some Republicans in Congress have not done what the people elected them to do; I think they have acted solely on the imperative to defeat Obama and the country can go down the tubes if that is what has to happen.

Carol, Obama had two full years with both houses of congress in democrat hands. Please try to post something at least reasonably credible for crying out loud. Furthermore, as far as a record of public service, Romney's trumps Obama's--Romney not only served as governor of a state and collected no salary for it, he also stepped in to save the Salt Lake City Olympics without pay when his leadership was desperately needed. He is a bishop in his church and has devoted years of service through missions both overseas and here in the U.S., including personally getting physically down in the dirt to help during the efforts to aid wildfire victims during the last decade. His plan to bring back full employment involves getting the government out of the way of those who are the job creators, the entreprenuers and investors of society who take the risks and lead the way in the free enterprise system. You want more? There's more, trust me.

Mitt Romney using a chainsaw and getting down to business coming to the aid of fire victims:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNJZrJVDpbY

It was the VOTERS who got fed up with Obama's socialist stranglehold and rejected the democrats' total control of both houses of congress, electing the Tea Party in 2010 to try and stop Obama cold. America is not supposed to be a socialist country.

Women who want to evade responsibility for the unwanted consequences of their sexual escapades should pay for it themselves, not demand that others foot the bill.

Don Joy: How is rape a sexual escapade that a woman engages in willingly? Or incest?

Who said the former was? As to the latter, no comment unless it belongs in the category of the former. Sandra Fluke and the likes of her, and those who share her party affiliation and aggressive activism, claim that the resistance to the idea that she is "owed," as her "right," subsidies and supplies for her recreational lifestyle choices amounts to a "war on women." Give me a break.

Don one of these days I'll stop answering you but I have to say that you implied rape was something women engaged in willingly when you said "Women who want to evade responsibility for the unwanted consequences of their sexual escapades should pay for it themselves, not demand that others foot the bill." I also take exception to your charge that Sandra Fluke wants us to foot the bill for her "recreation". Insurance pays for Viagra, but not for birth control? Where is the logic in that? And why is it that men are sometimes not held accountable for their sexual escapades when they result in a pregnancy? I hope you don't have daughters.

Barbara G. - It's nice to read constructive input for both sides. This is the kind of contribution that I find informative and thought provoking. I don't necessarily agree with your points - but they are food for thought and worth researching to get a better handle on the issues that matter to the Commonwealth. Thank you!

I agree with you Barbara. Our governor has had a tough time of it because he knows that the Commonwealth of VA is doing well BECAUSE the federal government is a big employer in this state but then again he is part of the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan tries to tell us that Government is the PROBLEM! I think that he also knows that when President Obama talked about businesses not building things--he meant NOT WITHOUT GOVERNMENT HELP since schools paid for by the government educated them and the Infrastucture that supports them was built by the governemnt. Only the Native Americans built thier own busnesses! "It's hard to take Governor McDonnell's attacks on the President's policies seriously when he admitted recently that those same policies of cutting taxes for the middle class and small businesses, investing in infrastructure, and supporting education have helped strengthen Virginia's economy," said Marianne von Nordeck, Virginia press secretary at Obama for America, in a release late Tuesday night. "Under President Obama's leadership, our nation has gone from the brink of a second Great Depression to 29 consecutive months of private sector job growth, including over 120,000 jobs created right here in Virginia. The fact is that President Obama has put the middle class first, while Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would return to the same, failed, trickle-down economic policies that crashed our economy in the first place."

While I disagree with his actions on abortion, I fully support the Voter ID law, and wish that it had required a photo ID.

As for the supposed "gun show loophole", the FBI's own data shows that background checks inconvenience more law abiding citizens, than stop criminals from obtaining firearms. If bad people want to get firearms, they will obtain them, no matter the law. Personally, I support the removal of ALLl background checks on firearm purchases. Repeal of the 'One handgun a month' was also logical, as it did NOTHING to stop bad folks from obtaining firearms, and was exempted for the many folks in VA with their CHP's anyways. Since the repeal of the restaurant Conceal carry ban, I have carried into Many bars / restaurants concealed. (I'm almost always the DD, and I don't drink), what may surprise you is anyone could open carry into the restaurant / bar anyways... and what may surprise you further, is a bad person is going to carry a firearm regardless of the law. At least now, it is legal for good people to have the tools to protect themselves from bad people, regardless of where they choose to go, and dine.

Thank you, Barbara, I completely agree with your very well stated comments!

This is a reply to Mike re the voter ID laws. These laws in Va aren't so bad but in other states they are oppressive and obviously targeted toward the elderly, minorities, and college students. In Texas, students can't use their state college student IDs but people can use their NRA membership card! That's ridiculous. In Ohio the secretary of state wanted to extend voting hours in Republican counties and limit them in Democratic counties, until there was such a public protest that he ended up curtailing voting hours in all counties. I don't mean this to be inflammatory, but it seems to me that the voter ID laws are profane and un-American. We should be doing all that we can to get people to vote. How can we profess to claim to free other countries so they can vote when we restrict it here? It makes no sense to me. It seems that the Republicans aren't above cheating in order to win.

to Mike: Whoa....where to begin. You refer a few times to "bad folks." Just exactly who are they and why do you feel so threatened? What are you afraid of? I grew up in a hunting/gun owning family and have great respect for hunters. I would not, however, have a gun in my house. Your average citizen does not need a hand gun nor anything semi-automatic or automatic that shoots like 100 bullets. We always will have "bad guys" and folks with mental illness, but if we didn't let them so easily purchase a killing weapon, fewer folks would die thru this violence. Look at other "developed" countries that have stricter gun laws and they have fewer gun deaths. But then, the gun crowd doesn't normally like to look at facts. So I'm not gonna argue with you. And to Carol Lewis....good comments!

oldtowner, I carry a firearm just about everywhere I go, and I assure you, I am not afraid of anything. You don't have to be afraid of anything in particular to use your second amendment rights. Think of it as having a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, or wearing your seat belt when you drive. I don't hope / or plan on having a kitchen fire, or an accident in my car, but I have an extinguisher, and wear me seat belt in case I do. You say your 'average citizen' does not NEED "anything semi-automatic or automatic that shoots like 100 bullets", and I respectfully disagree. when you make firearms like that illegal, then only criminals will possess them. I would hate to be outgunned by someone that has no respect for life, and no respect for laws (even if any gun laws are unconstitutional IMHO). The last reason I would disagree with your assessment that no one needs those 'scary semi auto guns' is tyranny. Take a visit to the holocaust museum. Look at the faces of the millions of lives that were taken, because the government removed their right to keep, and bear arms. Without those 'scary semi-auto' firearms, Jews were lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

It's great to see thoughtful comments without the vitriol that so often appears in this forum when politics is discussed. Although not a Democrat the choice is clear to me as an American. Either vote for reason and sanity or vote for obstructionism and thinly veiled hatred. Two quoted that I like to share:
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis 1935
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
John Kenneth Galbraith

You might want to consider how "invasive, painful, and unnecessary" a certain procedure is for someone whose only offense is being inconveniently alive.

Also, consider the quality of life here in Virginia (where criminals know there is a good chance of being confronted by an armed citizen) compared to mainly democrat-infested Maryland. Do I need to elaborate?

Romney's view on abortion:
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/values

My view on abortion:
I am glad my mother chose to have me.....some are not so lucky.....

I'm with you also except for your support for Obama. Obama should provide his remedy to tackle entitlements now and not wait until he is possibly reelected. What a cop out. I don't see anything Obama has done to help the economy or tackle the debt. Obamacare will greatly increase our cost of health care. He's in bed with his union supporters and unionism has been the leading cause of inflation since WWII. He has created an anti-business environment with his rhetoric that leaves businesses uncertain about what lies ahead. He campaigned on uniting the country, but he's so far to the left that he's dividing it. But I'm sure the far left will feel that way when Romney is in office which leads us back to our point of agreement-- we need more moderation in both parties.

Jody,

I still agree with you in terms of needing more moderation in both parties. The previous post in which I said, “Obama may be waiting to tackle entitlements until after the election,” were my words, not his. I was just guessing.

I do support “Obamacare.” That is one example of an entitlement (in some parts) that he did tackle, although I agree that more work could be done on it. One area that needs to be improved is its administrative effects on businesses. But I don’t agree that the whole thing needs to be repealed, as some politicians say. Just fix the parts that need fixing. That’s where moderate/reasonable politicians could come in – getting together to work on fixing the parts that need to be fixed.

Continued...

....continued...

The Affordable Care Act may cause expenses to go up for those who never had insurance before. Now they will have to buy insurance or pay a fee. But they will have choices of insurance plans, including “basic ones” (as opposed to “Cadillac” ones) which will cost less. The Affordable Care Act will correct two (amongst other) things: 1) it should decrease the cost of health insurance for all, because now there will be no one getting “freebies,” which causes the premiums for the rest of is to go up, and 2) since everyone will be insured, there will be more preventive care available, which will be a lot less costly than paying for the treatment of diseases/conditions AFTER they have already set in.

I can’t wait until someone is brave enough to step up and start addressing social security. Both parties avoid that one like the plague, even though everyone agrees it needs to be addressed.

1Ronald,
Although I do agree that Gov. McDonnell and Gov. Romney seem to have the same or similar positions on women’s issues (birth control, abortion, Planned Parenthood, etc.), I do not remember Romney ever proselytizing about his Mormon faith. Maybe I missed it. His religion of choice does not make a difference to me but his positions on policies do. I have heard many Christian politicians proselytizing. I have even had VA Assembly representatives of my own tell me that they cannot support certain bills “because of their religion.” That is very maddening. Representatives should not be legislating their own particular religions, no matter what that religion is.

Yes, 1Ronald.....no contraception, no Planed Parenthood, no abortion, but also cut education (including preschool), cut food stamps, cut job training, cut social support services, repeal Obamacare, ....so go ahead and have that kid, but then you're on your own. Oh, and let the states pay for their own infrastructure; gut environmental regulations while drillling for more oil and put more pipelines across the country. Remember the oil spill in the Gulf? Why should the feds have anything to do with those disasters? Hurricanes? Forget about it.....Yes, it will be a wonderful world.

Based on the quality of life, would you rather live in Virginia or Maryland? You folks keep voting and clamoring for the political, social, and economic culture of Maryland here in Virginia, and that's what you'll wind up with...high crime, bankruptcy, taxes out the wazoo...

Ahh, Satchmo, another "no value added" comment.....

ADSinNoVA - We went from having a good debate with a bipartisan flavor to another sucker punch. I do hope the voting public will be reading reliable sources and doing some serious back ground searches from bipartisan think tanks and not Disney stories about Pinocchio.

to Dee: If you did your own serious back ground searches, you should know the "4-Pinocchio" comment comes from the the Washington Post Fact Checker column, which rates comments/quotes/promises based on thruthfulness. The more pinocchios, the bigger the falsehood. So it is not a "sucker punch" to mention Pinocchios. The column is fairly well-regarded, as is the PolitiFact column. You should check them out.

Oh, those non-partisan, fair and unbiased "fact checkers" at the Washington Post and PolitiFact! As reliably honest as Jayson Blair!

PolitiFact is full of garbage, it is an obviously left-leaning, partisan agenda site.

As far as the truth about Obama removing the work requirement:

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/08/29/new-york-times-fact-checkers-bed-rest-is-work/

well folks, looks like Don Joy has fired up his computer and hit the internet....might as well forget about any rational dialogue...I'm gonna get outa here, but before I do, would like to note that Don Joy claims PolitiFact is full of garbage, even tho it has won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. To the contrary, Don Joy cites a website for Human Events, which says on it heading it is "Powerful Conservative Voices"...like Anne Coulter. So much for the "facts." Good night, folks. Might as well go watch Romney on tv....more lies. Good night, Don.

Nothing wrong with acknowledging one's political perspective when writing op-ed. Definitely something wrong with a hidden partisan agenda when promoting one's work as "non-partisan."

Kim,
Don't you see a connection between Medicare and the budget? Entitlements and defense are our biggest drains.

Entitlements dwarf defense in terms of total outlays.

Oldtowner,

You and I agree. I take offense (not to you, just in general) to the term Obamacare. It is the Affordable Care Act, or health care reform. My point was that the media has chosen sides. They add to the polarization/propagandizing of our system. What sells advertising dollars fosters false information among the electorate.

back to you, Kim Moore: That's interesting, because I only used the term "Obamacare".....I actually paused before I typed it.... because most folks don't even know it really is the Affordable Care Act. :) But I still think some in the media are more fair/objective than others....but I guess that's human nature. Too bad Walter Cronkite is dead, huh?

Oldtowner, Please note that McConnell's infamous comment was not made after the Inauguration but after the elections of 2010. This comment was made after two years of complete Democrat control.
Do I think it was an appropriate comment? No. However, it was a reaction to being ignored for two years. Do you remember the Health Care fiasco. Republicans were not even allowed to weigh in on it. Republicans were not invited to the table or asked to the White House. It was the Democrat table.

to Kathy Keith: Pls note that my comment said "their"....as "Their goal the day after Obama took the oath of office was to make sure he was not re-elected. They vowed not to vote for anything he proposed..." You are correct that Mitch McC voiced that after the 2010 elections, but that was their goal 2 years before, and he certainly knew it. Reference Robert Draper's book "Do Not Ask What Good We Do". It details a GOP dinner, literally on the night of Obama's inauguration, where they set out their goals...including basically blocking everything Obama tried to do; opposing him at every opportunity. Mitch McC was not there, but Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor were...so was Newt Gingrich! Check out the book for the details. Google it. :) Anyway, they decided that night to totally block anything Obama tried to do. So they had already decided to block anything Obama proposed with regard to health care reform....even if the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney had previously proposed the individual mandate, Whatever Obama proposed, they were against it. Great way to govern, yes?

The sad thing is that recently, reason has no place in Congress. Since we are in an election season, left and right extremism appears to be the keynote for all. Apparently moderation only applies to nutrition.

Great point Kim, my dvr is earning its keep! No political ads!

Agree with Kim and Barbara....but sometimes I wonder how we got to this point. Perhaps the schools could do a better job of educating our kids about government. Certainly the media, with the advent of the internet, could do better. Folks today are too willing to read/believe/forward all these vicious emails....and just assume they are true. I have seen the term "low information voter" used recently and sadly, I think that is a lot of citizens in this country now. Don't confuse me with the facts!!!

It's also a good argument for campaign reform, real reform. Limit ads to "I believe.." or "If elected I will..."type of things. The general election has degraded into a Virginia state race, which is not a compliment by any means...

http://www.accuratedemocracy.com/d_datac.htm

the turnout for the US is pathetic. I have voted in every election since I turned 18, and am proud of that. I have voted Democrat, Republican, and 3rd party. The important thing is I voted. At the minimum, I think not voting is a disservice and dishonor on my part towards those in the military, who defend our way of life with their lives.

Frankly, this country is not polarized enough apparently. While I agree with the silliness that is the Electoral College, I propose with change this dumb November voting time frame. It might have worked well in some pre-industrial revolution time frame, but it is silly now.

We should have elections on April 16th. I think you would see a dramatic difference in voter turn out if that were the case :)

Amen!

Very well said Jason

This article is indeed posted on several local Patch sites. You can unsubscribe to new comments below.

@Jody.....Obama did NOT apologize for the US

oldtowner, yes he did.

@Don Joy: I know you don't believe Politifact because they happened to win a Pulitzer Price....but they rate the apologize claim as a "pants on fire" lie. When did you or Human Events ever win a Pultizer? (Altho I know Rush Limbaugh thinks Human Events should get one....what an endorsement.) :)

The New York Times has won many Pulitzers, but that doesn't change the fact that they are the newspaper of criminal record--especially with episodes like the Jayson Blair fiasco, where they kept Blair on staff and writing even after his many lies were discovered. Oh, and Alex Haley won a Pulitzer, too, but had to give it back after his plagiarism was proven. But how many people are even aware of these truths? Hardly any, because of the Pravda-like nature of the contemporary mainstream media and so-called "non-partisan fact checker" scams...

@Don - From the other threads that I have seen you shut down I understand that addressing you is like having a conversation with a vending machine, but I have a hard time believing that you honestly think that ANY source that doesn't reflect your apparent cult-like following of conservative talk radio theology is corrupt. Tell me, are you a citizen or a propagandist? Can you stretch yourself to discuss actual issues, or are you only interested in parroting what you hear on FOX and NewsMax? Flooding local newspapers with propaganda just shuts down the democratic process, be it leftist or rightist.

Ross, you just really are annoyed that someone takes the trouble to rebut the usual leftist propaganda on these forums.

The truth about Romney and Bain is not to be found in the pages of Rolling Stone.

http://spectator.org/blog/2012/08/31/defending-bain-finally

You fail to make sense in multiple ways. Do you even know what the word oxymoron means? I know what you intended to say, and what word would have been appropriate, but you have not earned my instructive indulgence which would increase your vocabulary--so I won't tell you what the word is. That last remark refers, actually, to a bogus report which, even if having anything at all to do with a true event, reflects the actions of democrat operative plants.

Well-said, Jody. Obama and many of his abettors belong behind bars! Abrogating the rule of law to push their agenda and gain votes alone warrants prison at the least. Obama's crimes are manifold, really. Furthermore, it has recently been discovered, through newly released records in England from back when Kenya was a British protectorate, that Barack Obama Sr. had the birth of a baby boy recorded in Kenya on August 4, 1961. I've never been one who adamantly signed onto the hardcore birther argument in terms of where he was born, but I have firmly believed for years that he is ineligible for the office based on being born with what he himself acknowledges was dual citizenship, and hence divided natal obligations/partial loyalties owed to a foreign power...and I know that his proffered alleged birth certificate is a blatant forgery; it has been thoroughly proven as such. The controversy deepens with this latest revelation, but of course most of the media will run interference as always, and the so-called authorities won't touch it beyond token reluctance and ambivalence. We must remove him in November at the earliest, it now is apparent.

Besides, the plain evidence is that Stanley Ann Dunham posed in pornographic materials produced by Frank Marshall Davis, with whom she carried on an affair, and whom I believe was Barack Obama's actual biological father. In Obama's own book, he writes of some kind of unspoken deal(unspoken in Barack jr.'s presence, that is) he detected between his grandfather and Davis, an arrangement for Obama Sr. to step into the picture as the "father" to deflect attention from Davis as the father(grandfather Dunham did not want the FBI on his case any more than necessary, as Davis himself was already under their surveillance for his activism on behalf of the communist party and the Russians)...it is equally plausible that Obama's mother did not even know who the biological father was, given her counter-culture lifestyle...either way, a Kenyan birth is now more plausible even if Davis was the real father and she thought otherwise, or merely alleged otherwise to avoid political consequences. All thoroughly documented, btw.

OMG...Don Joy has played the birther card. When you have no valid argument, repeat old lies. Racist is as racist says.

oldtowner, I suggest you stick to the factual record--although I highly doubt that you've seen the newly released report of the British agency which kept records of births in the protectorate which later became the independent country we know as Kenya...

@ Don Joy states (and I quote): " Furthermore, it has recently been discovered, through newly released records in England from back when Kenya was a British protectorate, that Barack Obama Sr. had the birth of a baby boy recorded in Kenya on August 4, 1961." I confess, I am shocked....shocked!.....that Don would rely on anything from England... I mean, aren't they like....EUROPEAN?

If you know what a word means, then why did you use it in the opposite sense of its meaning? This is like trying to debate a democrat! Oh, that's right, that's what I am doing...and it's not a "red herring" to discuss the very real prospect that a usurper occupies the WH; the founders had a very specific type of person and situation, having to do with the genuine interests of our country as conflicted with those who do not inhere them completely, when they stipulated that only a natural-born citizen be eligible for president. By his own admission, Obama was born with dual citizenship based on mere paternity, and Obama is exactly the kind of person the founders were concerned about--it is painfully clear all the more when we see what his agenda has been all along. Yes, I do believe Obama registered at Columbia as a foreign student, which is the main reason he won't let us see his records, because--as with the fact that he wrote his own biography for his publisher's roster claiming to have been born in Kenya--he wanted to enjoy the cultural and economic benefits of special student programs and the exotic appeal that would enhance his mystique in selling books, etc, and that he never formally relinquished his Indonesian citizenship from when he was adopted in that country by Lolo Soetoro.

Why don't you comment on why MSNBC chose to cut away from the GOP convention speeches every single time a minority took the stage and podium? Seeing as you want to be fair and balanced and all.

I'm with you Cheryl... I used to be a moderate republican, but now the democrats are the new right wing with their surveillance state and endless wars, and the GOP has left the stage altogether. Their only concern these days seems to be to transfer wealth to their corporate masters. I couldn't care less what kind of mud people like Don Joy(less) want to sling... I want to hear some ideas that will motivate this country to pull together, and I want to see leaders rising up in our communities that care more about their neighborhoods than a political party, since BOTH of them seem to be owned by bankers and media moguls.

Ross, if you want a president who truly cares about our communities, I recommend Mitt Romney. During the GOP convention, did you witness the moving testimony of the many people who took the stage to tell their heart-wrenching stories of Romney's personal involvement in their lives and selfless dedication to helping when they faced dire health and family situations of life and death, and of the kind no government program could ever address? Did you? Do you even know the man? Do you have any idea about what he has actually done, the sheer amounts in the many millions he has given of his earned fortune (he gave away his entire inheritance) to charity over the years? Any clue at all?

Ross, if there was a moderate party that was economically conservative and more open to personal individual liberty, I would join it. However, in the real world I'm stuck with Republicans and their noble desire to bring morality and chasteness back to the US through their misguided platform to outlaw abortion that tramples on women's right to control their own childbearing. Obama is not open to compromise even with moderates. I do question his patriotism Cheryl. As much damage as he has done to our country, I have to try hard not to hate him.

Never mind the child's right to life, eh? Control over childbearing starts and ends with control of one's behavior before it becomes more convenient to kill a baby than it is to carry it to term.

We part company on this one Don Joy. If that mother can live with killing her own unborn baby so can I. It is such a life changing event for a woman that I don't think a man can even understand the issue. I care more about the woman's life than the unborn child's. If the religious right somehow suceeds in outlawing abortion and the day-after pill, we will have riots in the streets, women dying from back alley abortions again, and orphanages full of unwanted babies.

Pretty selfish, for a woman to emphasize that it's "life changing" for her. Snuffing out the life of another is a bit more "life-changing," I'd say.

But hey, I'm a man, what do I know, right? I guess all of the women whose testimony I've heard and witnessed after they've had abortions and experienced tremendous remorse, etc., that's all just part of the "war on women," right?

John McCain is white, and the United States senate saw fit to vet him to the point of actually passing a resolution as regards the issue of his birth/eligibility to be president. Chester A. Arthur was white, and the controversy as to his presidency, birth circumstances, and eligibility continues to this day. Similar controversies surround Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal to the extent that they were recently seen as potential VP nominees. If you were astute and diligent, you'd have gathered what MSNBC did without having watched the convention on their channel. To the point, you really have to admit that it is mainly because of Obama's "historic" racial aspect that he has been given a pass, mainly, on the issue of his ineligibility.

My information is that after MSNBC was called on the carpet for their unfair coverage following the second night of the convention, they then did show the diversity that is the GOP leadership on stage--but only because they were caught.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/28/msnbc-abandons-gop-convention-during-every-speech-by-a-minority/

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-vespa/2012/08/29/msnbc-omits-all-coverage-minority-speakers-racist-rnc-convention

You will note the specific mention of MSNBC's coverage of Nikki Haley's speech in the second link.

When popular Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz, the GOP nominee for Senate, took the stage, MSNBC cut away from the Republican National Convention and the Hispanic Republican from Texas’ speech.

MSNBC stayed on commercial through former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis’ speech, as well. Davis, who recently became a Republican, is black. Then, when Puerto Rican Governor Luis Fortuno’s wife Luce’ Vela Fortuño took the stage minutes later, MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews opted to talk over the First Lady’s speech. And Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval? Noticeably missing from MSNBC, too. Mia Love, a black candidate for Congress in Utah, was also ignored by MSNBC.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-vespa/2012/08/29/msnbc-omits-all-coverage-minority-speakers-racist-rnc-convention#ixzz25M4GdcLF

@Don Joy: ever heard of the internet? You can check coverage on your favorite channels. Turns out, FOX pretty much didn't cover the same folks that MSNBC didn't cover. Including, again, the First Lady of Puerto Rico....who can't vote for President anyway :) Don't let the facts get in the way, Don
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-falsely-accused-of-purposely-omitting-minority-republican-speeches/

oh, and Don....you reference that "your information" is.....what exactly is your information? Cite, please?

FOX did cover speeches by minorities from which MSNBC purposefully cut away.

Just how many links do you want, anyway? Oh, and did you learn about what your fellow lefties did to Mia Love's Wikipedia entry after her speech?

@Don Joy(less) I think FOX covered one "minority" speech that MSNBC did not.....wow....totally underwhelming.....

No, MSNBC cut away repeatedly from minority speeches in order to try to smear the GOP as racists.

He was born to, and bred by, anti-American, anti-Western communists his entire life, and has collaborated with them in every single activity he has been involved with his entire adult life, including his entire administration and czars--all packed with Mao and Che loving communists who don't even try to hide it, while the media runs interference non-stop!

Of course he is.

re: Don Joy(less)....and there's nothing Don hates more than a "communist" than a black communist....whose mother, per Don Joy, posed in pornographic materials. Too strange. Outa here....

Frank Marshall Davis was somewhat noted as a published pornographer(his book "Sex Rebel" was particularly shocking), and now even more, so seeing as the communist party apparatchik photographed the president's mother for various publications, and is almost certainly the biological father of Barack Obama:

http://www.obamasrealfather.com/breaking_news002/

I wouldn't necessarily call him a Communist although he was taught the Communist way of life from Frank Marshall Davis on through his adult years with Saul Alinsky.

I would call him a totalitarian Socialist.

I agree that hate is not the solution. I simply ask that you consider voting for Mitt Romney, as I do believe he has love in his heart for this country and for people like you and me, as well as the ability to help us find our way out of this division and economic morass. I really do.

That's why I'm trying not to hate him & just his policies. I wish so-called moderates wouldn't keep defending this president. It's obvious that we need to pull back from the far left and unfortunately it means electing the far right candidate and hoping that Romney will remain the moderate at heart that he really is and demonstrated he was when he was governor of Massuchusetts.

Amen Don, I believe that Mitt can be the leader we need.

A republican communist? Now THAT would be an oxymoron. Meanwhile, calling a democrat a communist nowadays is actually a redundancy, lol.

There are Republicans who are Socialists yes. The Tea Party has slowly been weeding them out of Congress. There are dozens of Progressives (Communists) who need to be weeded out too.

It is a two-way street indeed. That brings up the irony that the man has no say in whether a woman aborts a baby. Didn't mean to step in it like that, did you?

Now you're talking! :-)) I love the idealism of the Ron Paul crowd, but as someone working inside the federal government machine, I know you can't just "do away" with whole agencies in order to cut costs or "give the government back to the people". It just doesn't work like that. Instead, I think we simply need to create more responsible and mature citizens that are willing to do the work required to govern their own communities so Washington doesn't need to step in to "fix things", because that's when everything goes to pot. Admittedly, it will probably take a generation or two, but the natural state of government is to become increasingly more complex until it finally breaks. Governments don't ever downsize themselves - we just trade the steering wheel between different drivers every four years and throw rocks out the window at people who don't agree with us. Turn off your TV and read some history if you want to find out how this ride ends.

There is no alternative to the far-left or far-right candidate, that's the problem. We need Ross Perot :)

It is truly sad that I have to point out the irony of your bringing up men who were/are properly dealt with as murderers and deabeats, isn't it? You seem to have a feature of conscience missing.

@ Cheryl Darby: You are so correct. Just look at the Repubs voting record and what they have said recently. They want the child to be born, but....cut day care, cut child health care, reduce Medicaid, cut job training for moms/parents, cut education, cut food stamps, cut funding for domestic abuse....cut most social safety net programs....you're on your own after the child is born.

Did Christ teach voluntary love of our neighbors, and voluntarily cleaving to them in community assistance and family relationships which sustain each other--or did He teach using the armed force of government to violate private decisions and property, redistribute wealth, metastasize vastly wasteful and bloated bureaucratic federal programs, etc.? Really, which is it?

I too lost my father when I was 4, but my mother remarried and I was adopted by her second husband, who was a conscientious provider and worked 7 days a week. I never saw him take a vacation or a day off, ever. Kind of a weird guy, actually, in that sense.

The Communist Manifesto describes painstakingly that the goal of socialism is to destroy the family as the fundamental organizing unit of society, and replace it with the state.

Once you really read the Communist Manifesto, and reflect on what it says, really grasp the implications of all that the Left has so steadily and determinedly worked to achieve over the decades by stealthily infiltrating and taking over all of our schools, media, and institutions of government, then it becomes clear as to what has happened to our freedom and to our moral foundation as a society. I could literally write an entire book on the dissolution of the family in the West based on the principles espoused by the Left...subsidizing fatherlessness, encouraging and perpetuating government dependency, creating disincentives to marriage, installing incentives to illegitimacy, destroying inheritance, co-opting the role of parents, and so on...

Kudos to my mom for being shrewd enough to choose prudently when the chips were down.

As far as the social safety net goes, republicans are all about doing what we must to actually preserve the safety net that is in dire jeopardy of completely crashing if the runaway entitlement spending and rampant abuse of ever-expanding programs continues according to democrat agendas...Paul Ryan has a sound plan to SAVE Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

Furthermore, as someone wise has recently said, the safety net must not be allowed to become a hammock!

I'm sorry the left has convinced you with their propoganda that Republicans want to remove the safety net. No one is talking about getting rid of welfare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid etc. They are talking about making changes in those programs so we can actually make those programs solvent and get the states involved in solving some of these problems and tailoring solutions to their own citizens.

Cheryl, ' the far right agenda is to leave those less fortunate without any safety net.' is a false statement. Currently, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are going broke faster than people think and won't be there for you and I unless something is done. Where's the President's plan for reforming these three drivers of our debt?

It's not. What's difficult is trying to show you democrats that there is nothing loving nor merciful about government socialism, about using violence done by the state against private property to seize and redistribute other people's wealth according to the whims of bureaucrats at distant desks and of those hustling votes and get elected by trying to appear "compassionate." The sheer moral hazard involved in spending other people's money alone obviates anything resembling personal responsibility and careful, compassionate consideration of the circumstances of each case that requires loving assistance. Those decisions should be left to free individuals acting voluntarily, not under the gun of government force.

'Loving one another' does not mean Government has to steal my property to give it to someone else.

Love, chastity, prudence, charity, thrift, forbearance, fealty...just for starters...not the oppressive police state of socialism.

Inalienable individual rights are paramount. Inseparable from property rights, I must add. Once property rights are no longer protected, watch as all morality steadily, increasingly goes out the window. Once people realize they can vote themselves more and more helpings of other people's property in order to subsidize the consequences of their irresponsibility and wanton lifestyles, it's Katie bar the door and bye bye republic.

Democrat politicians and bureaucrats care more about increasing the number of people dependent on government programs than they do about actually helping the less fortunate, because they understand, cynically according to human nature, that the more looters and moochers they can rely on for votes, the more secure their offices are. They pander to and exacerbate poverty in order to exploit it. Republicans know that voluntary community organizations, churches, and individuals acting responsibly are the best way to approach economic problems, mainly, and the real function of the government should be primarily restricted to protecting individual rights from being violated by force or fraud, especially the force and fraud that takes place when a majority wishes to vote away the property rights of individuals for runaway redistributive schemes. After decades of Johnson's "Great Society" and decades of the "War on Poverty" we have spent trillions and trillions and have wound up with generations of broken families, a 65% illegitimacy rate, record numbers of people on food stamps, disability, and unemployment, our inner cities hell holes of crime and filth and violence...sheesh...

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/theclowardpivenstrategypoe.html

Cheryl, if you're saying that I've convinced you that in your heart you're actually a republican, that you're realizing that your beliefs really align with mine and that you'd vote for me, then I would count it as a breakthrough for both of us and I will have the confidence to run. The same thing happened to the current governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez. During the GOP convention she spoke from the stage and told the story of how she had been a democrat until two republicans invited her to lunch years ago, and although she had trepidation about it, she agreed to go with them. In the course of the meeting, the discussion made her realize that her beliefs really made her a republican, although previously she hadn't realized the implications of the issues and her inner thought processes, etc., but her entire family and friends, coworkers, etc., were democrats so she had just gone along and thought of herself as one, voted that way, etc.

"if you can spot it, you've got it." It's unfortunate that you see it that way. I really wonder which party spews more hatred and vitriol.

Anyone who wants to return to reduced federal government control and personal liberty and responsibility is unfairly labelled as a heartless racist by the left. This would make our country stronger. It would put responsibility back on individuals, families, churches, neighborhoods, counties, areas, and states. Getting the federal government out of the business of manipulating society would be a good thing. The unintended consequences of government interference in people's lives has never worked well. No one wants to dismantle the safety net.

The key issue with Greece was their lack of austerity and outrageous pay/benefits/retirement ages that people came to expect that bankrupt their country. Agreeing to austerity was the only way to get other countries to help bail them out. No one wants to roll back civil rights, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. The recession has brought the cost of non-rental housing back down to earth which is good. It has led to the self-deportation of illegal immigrants which is good. It has stopped the inflationary spiral of the cost of goods that always seems to outstrip the increase in wages and makes us poorer each year. The cost of health care wasn't solved by Obamacare. If we could really address health care costs, the outrageous amount companies spend to provide health care to their employees could once again go to increased wages or retirement plans. The stock market is a game that only enriches the brokers. How on earth did the market come back up to the same level as before the crash?? Market/broker manipulation.

Wrong. The ' the economic problem of the first decade' did not create our problem or bubble that we're going through right now. At least be honest. This has been building for about 80+ years now.

'Yes, for less than 2 years the dems did have control of both branches - and were held hostage by far right'

All it takes is a simple majority to get things passed so your statement is a bunch of hogwash.

Wrong. The reason lower revenue is although Bush lowered rates across the board, he also increased Government spending substantially as has been proven in the past that increased Govt spending destroys wealth.

You need to find out what the definition of revenue is.

Cheryl, Federal revenue declined in the early 90s only to pick back up again when Clinton cut taxes across the board after raising them three years earlier.

When Clinton signed that bill, the economy had been growing for 9 straight quarters, including by 3.4% annually over the previous six quarters. So the economy had built up a head of steam. Today’s economy, by contrast, rose less by less than 2% last year and may end up doing no better this this year or next.

1. The decade saw a big drop in oil prices, from $23 a barrel in 1991 to $12 in 1998, boosting real disposable incomes.

2. Government spending declined — meaning fewer resources as a share of the economy were being used unproductively by Washington — from 22.3% in 1991 to 18.2% in 2000.

[...]

[...]

3. There were really two 1990s. After the 1990-91 recession, the economy grew by an average of 3.1% a year from 1992 through 1995. That’s exactly how fast the economy grew from 1965-1991.

But from from 1996-2000, the economy grew by a spectacular 4.4% a year. This is the period that defines the decade in the mind of many people. Those years saw …

– a big tax cut, lowering the top capital gains tax rate to 20% from 28%;

– a big surge in private investment (of what you spoke of above), particularly in the software and business equipment category which contributed a full point to GDP during those years. Did the Clinton tax hikes cause that or was it a combo of the Internet Bubble, Year 2000 preparations, the cap gains cut, and the beginning of a computer networking and communications revolution?

It was because Clinton was continuing the 25 year Reagan revolution.

Yes, that's why we needed to address the high costs of health care and not pass Obamacare that will greatly add to the cost of health care. Any time the federal government and unions are involved, costs will increase. I do fault the Republicans for not proposing solutions before Obama came along. Everyone seemed content to let people go bankrupt and have to sell all they owned to qualify for Medicaid in the event of a catastrophic illness. People shouldn't have to become penniless to get healthcare. Unfortunately, the three good provisions in Obamacare don't make up for the massive new program that will only increase costs.

LOL!

Maybe that's why well over 500 economists - including five Nobel laureates - have endorsed Mitt Romney’s economic plan as the right choice.

If there are GOPers against the plan then they need to be booted out of office. Our kids deserve better.

You do realize that the Civil Rights Act was authored by Republicans don't you?

I'm a former Democrat myself and our problems today are not Democrat nor Republican - the real problem is Big Government. A Big Government that allows corporations to buy legislation under crony capitalism (a.k.a. corporatism). This is why Big Govt socialists and communists on both sides of the aisle in Congress need to be weeded out.

@Cheryl - you are not alone. I am continually amazed at the moderate/independents like yourself and Republicans of 30 years (including 2 who served in previous republican administrations) who are refuting the republican party this year - for exactly the reasons you state. You seem to be part of the trend this year. This GOP, I am told by these people, is not the GOP they recognize. They feel the pragmatism of the GOP of old has been hijcked by the far right, and this has been coming for a while (I harken back to a 1969 Life magazine article about the rise of the right in the GOP and not for the good of the party).

This drift to the far right has pulled the democrat party into the moderate, pragmatic middle. So, I guess, thank you republican party.

Wow, here we go calling anyone who opposes Obama a racist. No one is trying to deny anyone's voting rights! The Statue of Liberty was a gift celebrating our being a land of freedom. It has nothing to do with immigrants. We can't afford the costs associated with so many legal and illegal immigrants. There are people all over the world who want to live here; everyone can't move here, we need to control and manage immigration. Absorbing massive numbers of immigrants is costly and damages the cohesion we have in our communities. Obama is the one who is race baiting, talking about watching the RNC convention in black and white. There's no need to be so dramatic. Despite the propaganda, Republicans aren't monsters who want people dying in the streets.

Lee -- Oh please. So many people worked on that Civil Rights bill you can’t say one person (or party) “authored it.” What a stretch. Kennedy wanted it. The House majority and minority leader supported it. More revisions were made by Republicans. Kennedy had his own version. A Democrat committee made more changes. Kennedy was shot. Johnson got it to the Senate. After a filibuster a bi-partisan group of legislators offered a substitute bill. You know the rest.

We have a growing homeless population, children living in abject poverty, and people dying because they can't afford medical care because of the Big Government liberalism policies that have existed for 80+ years now. Liberalism/Communism doesn't redistribute wealth, Liberalism redistributes misery & poverty.

BTW/ other nations such as France, England, Canada, Greece, Japan, Spain, etc are broke or are close to going broke because of national health care. What Liberals fail to realize is that someone has to pay the bill.

Yes, we need to the economy back on track. I'm sorry about your brother! I hope he immediately filed a complaint with the medical insurance board in Richmond to get help reversing their refusal. The insurance companies have way too much control over health care.

Wrong. more on that in a moment.

The origin of the 1964 Civil Rights Act can be traced back to the Reconstruction era. That was when the Republican Party enacted the first civil rights act ever, the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Never heard of it? Democrat history professors would rather you didn’t.

Senator Lyman Trumbull (R-IL), co-author of the 13th Amendment banning slavery, also wrote the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Republican support was nearly unanimous, while Democrats were unanimously opposed.

The law conferred U.S. citizenship on all African-Americans, according them “full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens.” Despite Democrat objections, Republicans made sure African-Americans had the right to own property, engage in business, sign contracts and file lawsuits.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was an update of Republican Senator Charles Sumner’s 1875 Civil Rights Act. In striking down that law in 1883, the Supreme Court had ruled that the 14th amendment was not sufficient constitutional authorization, so the 1964 version had to be written in such a way as to rely instead on the interstate commerce clause for its constitutional underpinning.

[...]

Chief opponents of the 1964 bill were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, of Watergate fame, Albert Gore Sr., and Robert Byrd. Senator Byrd, a former Klansman whom Democrats still call "the conscience of the Senate", filibustered against the civil rights bill for fourteen straight hours before the final vote. The House of Representatives passed the bill by 289 to 126, a vote in which 79% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats voted yes. The Senate vote was 73 to 27, with 21 Democrats and only 6 Republicans voting no.

The legislator most responsible for breaking the Democrat filibuster was a Republican senator, Everett Dirksen.

In 1960, Republican congressmen introduced a bill guaranteeing blacks equal access to public accommodations. The Kennedy administration countered with a weaker version of this bill, which then became the basis for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Let's not forget that it was a Republican federal judge who was most responsible for desegregating the South’s public schools.

@Lee - so what has the GOP done for us lately? It's been 50 years. Rolling back women's rights to choice and fair pay. Voter suppression laws. Anti-immigrant in a country founded on immigrants. Heck, I can't prove I'm here legallly. My grandparents names don't show up on any ship manifests. My one grandmother was born at home, so doesn't have a birth certificate and her baptismal certificate has been judged as insufficient - and she's 95. Heck, even I don't have my original birth ceertificate. I do have a replacement one that states "Certificate of Live Birth". Guess I've been lying on all my job applications and driver's license and passport - I must be an illegal immigrant.

So, Lee, what has the GOP done for me lately? The Great Recession and 2 wars. Those are accomplishments this country could have done without.

I never said the President doesn't have a plan. He has submitted a plan each of the last couple of years. Neither Democrats nor Republicans will cast a vote for it/ Why won't Democrats? Because, it is not a serious plan that deals with the real deficit problem that is staring our kids squarely in the face.

Actually, no, I don't watch Fox News. At work, we are force fed CNN. I used to be a Democrat until I realized Democrats are the ones most closely associated with Goebbels famous quote.

@Lee - Oh the Horrors! Watching CNN - the most centrist of all the cable news stations (and sadly, the lowest in ratings. No drama no ratings?). I suggest a steady diet of objective journalism. Your frontal lobe may cramp, but no pain, no gain!

to Cheryl Darby....no, the GOP and Lee Hernly et al would say he only walked "BECAUSE HE COULDN'T SWIM." That's the way they think.

President Obama's budget for FY2011, FY2012 & FY2013, neither of which has received a single vote. Where is BO's plan to deal w/ the real drivers of our debt - Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid?

Come on. We all know know what he was talking about. He's the master of the double entendre.

Wrong. Clinton and the GOP raided Social Security in the 90s to 'balance the books.' If that were true, and there was a surplus, why did BO scare Seniors by saying during the debt ceiling negotiation that a 'default' would stop SSA payments? Because the money is gone. It was invested in T-Bills and was spent by Congress in previous administrations. That is why we now borrow almost half of what we pay out in benefits. You ever see the portion called 'inter-governmental' debt which is part of the overall national debt? That is money owed to the SSA fund. It is running a deficit now many years earlier than projected.

Romney made a joke. A joke totally unrelated to race.

It was a joke Cheryl, a rather bad one at that.

to Lee Hernly: Once again, Lee H, check your facts. Here are some charts/stats from the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis.....charts are interactive and quite interesting in comparing recessions. Looks like this is the worst one....sorry, Lee.....
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/studies/recession_perspective/

OT - If you want to talk about specific factors, yes there are facets of this recession that are worse as in payroll employment and the jobs destroyer that President Obama has been. He started w/ a 7 million jobs deficit and has turned that into a 15 million jobs deficit.

The data at the Fed link says 'The 10 previous postwar recessions ranged in length from 6 months to 16 months, averaging about 10 1/2 months. ' However, the length of the early 80's recession was about 34 months. When clicking on the Fed data, it doesn't show that either. It also shows payroll employment recovering about 2 months after recession was over. However, if you look at the BLS numbers, unemployment got worse after the recession ended in 1982.

So, the Fed data is suspect at best.

If you want facts about the two recessions, the prime rate was more than six times higher in 1980 compared to today, core inflation in 1980 was six times higher than today, the unemployment rate in November and December of 1982 was more than a percentage point higher than the current rate, the 30-year mortgage rate in 1981 was almost four times higher than today’s 5 percent, the car loan rate in 1981 was 2.5 times higher than today, and real gas prices were 32 percent more expensive in 1981 than today. So before we start talking about the “worst economy since the 1930s”

As John Adams said, 'Facts are stubborn things"

oldtowner - don't engage Lee. I suspect that she has an excessive amount of grey matter in her right amygdala. Fed data is suspect - because they don't agree with what Lee is so unsuccessfully positing. Again, I suggest to all who find Fed data suspect (and anything with government) to please find a nice island to set up your own anarchist society that only YOU know is right. Buh buh.

oldtowner - ck out http://leehernly.me/

As a web developor, Lee, it is understandable why you do not and cannot understand economics, finance, or history. You cannot just read and pick and choose facts which fit your perspective. So, again, you're not to be taken seriously.

@Locally -

I know history, economics & finance well. As I studied them all in college.

Lee - so what, we all studied those courses in college. All it means is that you took the course. You cannot apply the knowledge. I took a religion course - doesn't make a theologian. I took biology courses - doesn't make me a doctor. I took computer courses - doesn't make me a web developer. Your logic fully indicates you are a linear thinker.

Why does it seem that some people who have a blog thinks they are experts on every topic? All it means is that you have an opinion - substantiated or not. Verbal vomit.

@Locally Involved.....thx for the tip about you-know-who's blog.....eeewwww.....I think I will just refrain from trying to engage in any type of discussion with that person

Romney's remark emphasizing being born in Michigan was perfect. The fact that he took the opportunity to say it was ironic(hence the laughter), but it wasn't a joke, and it wasn't a mistake. Obama's ineligibility for the office is highly relevant, as is the fact that his entire origins, upbringing, and adult life have all been ensconced among anti-American communists. Those have been his nurturers and collaborators. Do you really want to do this? You want me to start ticking off the list? The pornographic pictures of Stanley Ann Dunham posing for communist party apparatchik Frank Marshall Davis are not something I or anyone else made up out of hatred for Obama or whatever; they are matters of recorded fact concerning Obama's origins(Snopes.com even tried their best to refute them, but wound up scrubbing their article because they know they cannot run interference for Obama this time). Same with his longtime close collaboration with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn, Rashid Khalidi, Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Edward Said, Derrick Bell, and so forth.

Communism is an evil and immoral ideology and those who believe in and by stealth seek to bring it about(even more than they already have) here in America must be exposed, opposed, discredited, and defeated.

Don't even bother Cheryl - Mr Joy is a finely tuned product of Tea Party brainwashing. He would need to be de-programmed before you could have an actual conversation with him.

Of course it's not unnoticed that all you can do is attack the messenger, instead of doing anything to rebut the message.

We are demonizing what we believe he stands for as demonstrated by his associations, his government appointments, the legislation he has passed, his promotion of the unions (the tool of socialism), and his total disregard for anyone with a viewpoint different from his own. I'm sure there are crazies on both sides. Will people be rioting in the streets if Romney is elected? If Obama is reelected? Who knows; I hope not. Both parties and candidates should keep in mind that as many as half of all voters voted for someone else. That's why the Congressional races are so important. That's where we are more likely to see the real will of the people.

Multiple people who knew Obama as a younger man and who had in-depth discussions and debates with him over dinner tables and so forth have come forward in the last few years and described Obama's utter, unwavering dedication to a total communist revolution and overthrow of American capitalism. I firmly believe that he has had to adjust his rhetoric on various campaign trails once he began to manifest his desire for power, just as he learned quickly that he had to join Jeremiah Wright's church and be baptized by Wright as a box to be checked on the way to being elected in South Chicago. His true heart remains with Islam, and his true mind remains with Marx.

Our Constitution remains a barrier to his real ambitions, and he is on videotape saying as much at various times over the years. He complains that the Constitution is a set of "negative liberties" preventing the government from doing more for the people, and Obama hates the fact that the Constitution mainly is written as a means of limiting what the government can and is supposed to do. More recently he has repeatedly expressed his desire to circumvent the legislative branch to push his aims through, and in several cases he has done exactly that with abominable executive orders that flout passed laws. The press runs interference for him, but if it was a republican president that person would already be ousted and behind bars.

Don't you think that it's highly ironic and tragic that the person who race-hustled his way into the WH in 2008 did so in large part due to the success of a personal memoir mostly about race, which was ghost written by a man who led an underground domestic terrorist organization which actively sought the overthrow of the United States government so that a totalitarian communist regime could be installed(with specific plans to kill off the estimated 25 million Americans who refused to submit to communist re-education), and who to this day still wears a ring fashioned out of the metal from a downed U.S. fighter plane which was given to him by North Vietnamese military leaders(when he met with them in Cuba and Europe) as a token of appreciation for his efforts, bombings, assassinations, etc. that he carried out against U.S. government, judicial, and police targets here on our soil throughout the duration of the Vietnam War? Bernardine Dorhn was given a ring identical to that presented to Bill Ayers as well.

John McCain, bless his heart, is too much of a doofus to have made the connection--himself languishing in the Hanoi Hilton and being tortured almost to death for years while the future political sponsors and ghostwriters and babysitters of the children of his 2008 opponent for presidential election met and collaborated with his very captors thousands of miles away...

Herman Cain, Allen West, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, or Alan Keyes would be fine with me. They are not anti-American, and they are the exact opposite of Obama in their economic philosophy.

In fact, it's not that much of a stretch to suppose that the rings presented to Ayers and Dorhn by John McCain's NVA captors were made out of the very metal from McCain's jet aircraft which was shot out of the sky over Vietnam and captured. Eminent forensic literary expert Jack Cashill has proven conclusively that accomplished author Ayers ghost-wrote "Dreams From My Father" when the unpublished Obama had severe writer's block many months after receiving the huge advance for the book; I think it would be possible(but of course highly unlikely to happen) for a metallurgist to analyze the material composing Ayers' and Dorhn's rings in order to determine which kind of aircraft they were made from, and see if it is the same kind McCain flew.

Never wrestle with a pig ... you both get muddy and the pig likes it.

"...nobody else knows." Many know the information I've posted. Of course, we are not the mainstream because the mainstream(80-85% of major media editors and staff are democrats) is interested in a different agenda than exposing the truth to the light of day; they are interested in promoting and protecting their candidate, Barack Hussein Obama. Having said that, a good investigator's job IS to find out what most do not know, by discovering the connections others refuse or are unable to discover.

The rest of what you said about Obama being some kind of neo-republican is preposterous. He's a neo-Marxist, period.

Romney is a truly moderate leader whose time to lead has come.

That's what I was saying about Romney earlier. He's not a radical GOPer. I'm ashamed that the GOP forced him to become anti-abortion in order to run and Republicans have to work harder to get our party back from the religious right. I want a hard-working, no-nonsense, non-idealogical leader who isn't afraid to make the possibly unpopular but necessary decisions that will ensure our country's freedom and prosperity. I have plenty of reasons for being against Obama. He is unlike any other Democrat I've ever seen. The Republican party represents most nearly what I want in government but would consider voting non-Republican, as when I voted for Ross Perot. (Who was correct about the deficit problem, by the way!)

Romney declared himself a "severely conservative Republican Governor." See this short video clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI8PlTtM7DU

Of course he did, he has been trying to sell himself to the Tea Party as an ally. He'll do.

They actually did approve it. They gave GW the authority to attack Iran if Saddam wouldn't give up his WMD. Not sure what this has to do with anything though.

Congress voted to invade Iraq with bi-partisan support. No declaration of war was made. Presidents do not declare war, congress does.

Stockpiles of WMD were both found inside Iraq and were detected being moved across the border into Syria.

Hmm...from the notoriously lefty media Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html where they reported on Charles Duelfer's findings in which he concluded that there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq.

Later reports from the field of discoveries of stockpiles of WMD and components were mostly buried by the MSM. Here and there you could even catch a snippet on CNN as to the discoveries, but by then most had already been hypnotized into the "Bush lied, people died" garbage, and the MSM wasn't about to upset that narrative. Regardless, WMD were only one of many compelling reasons for the invasion, and we debated this exhaustively already on another thread (or earlier on this one) and I'm not gonna indulge you further.

Yes, we did find stockpiles and components, somewhat after the MSM had already propagated the false narrative about the invasion. We debated this to death on another thread or further up on this one. Bush and Blair and the rest of the coalition of nations made the right call, given all of the factors. What was poorly carried out was the actual execution of the campaign itself--we simply refused to be ruthless enough to change the dynamic of the Middle East(which is what we were correctly thinking we had to do in the aftermath of 9/11), and instead of conquering our enemies we have acted as if we could make them love us. FUBAR

Some were found, but not what we were led to believe. Spreading democracy domino-style throughout the middle-east was a noble goal. But we should have known our enemies better. At least Saddam was a counter balance to Iran. But I don't really want to rehash Iraq either.

Bush's lack of ability to even articulate the good and compelling reasons for what was the right call--invading Iraq--merely evidences the same lack of understanding and execution that has caused him and us to waste so much blood and treasure in Iraq and Afghanistan--the error that we can make Mohammedans into civilized people, and make them love us if we only give them enough roads, water treatment plants, elections, schools, guns, computers, training, etc. For crying out loud we helped both those countries write ISLAM into their new constitutions as the supreme law of the land--nothing is changed! Ruthlessness is necessary to prevail in war. When one is not ruthless while one's opponent IS, you can figure out the outcome.

As far as "Bush's biggest regret" it depends on what you read. He has said Katrina response, and in another context he said not reforming social security. There may have been single-item intelligence miscues in the lead-in to invading Iraq, but overall there really was no intel failure. The panapoly of compelling reasons(umpteen UN resolutions and calls by countless democrats over the years, including both Clintons, endless violations of the cease-fire from 1991, etc.) for using force to remove Hussein are a matter of record.

It's not true. If she has a link or some kind of proof, she should supply it.

The Guardian published an interview with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janubi rafid ahmed alwan al-janubi where he claims to have lied. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam

Oh, that guy. I remember him now. Truth is, his spiel was only one sprinkle in the overall recipe. The UN issued many resolutions to remove Saddam by force long before 9/11, with Clinton and Gore and top democrats all chiming in in their most bellicose voices. Bush and Blair were the only ones who walked their talk when the time for talk was over.

DJ, we already established that you like UN resolutions, except for the ones you don't like. And you're bringing up UN resolutions again, as your first alternate reason to unseat Saddam, after the WMD? You've got to be kidding.

Everything I say is substantiated. You don't like to hear it, I know, but that is what you get in a diverse forum--you get exposed to truths which upset your status-quo mindset nurtured by the Obama-loving media and your friends in your Obama-voting echo chamber.

This came up again because, as usual, an Obama supporter couldn't stand the scrutiny of Obama and went back to the old bash-Bush distraction tactic.

Invading Iraq was the right thing to do. We decided to NO LONGER tolerate a standoff with a genocidal maniac who was paying the families of suicide bombers $20,000 each, and who was routinely firing on our planes enforcing the no-fly zone established after the first Gulf war, and violating numerous of the terms and conditions of that cease-fire.

The UN had already issued 14 or 19 resolutions to remove Hussein by force, and Bush and Blair were the leaders who finally said enough, and put teeth in those resolutions. Give me a break already.

So you would prefer a back-door-dealer-in-chief who would perhaps whisper to Medvedev that he would have more latitude to deal with arms treaties after the next election. I don't think Romney wants to be best buds with the Russians. They may not be our number one threat anymore but they stand against our interests. When has weakness ever been good national policy?

I accurately predicted what trying to "win hearts and minds" would result in. As I said earlier, unless one is prepared to be as ruthless as necessary in war, better not even undertake anything.

@ Locally Involved: I have thought for quite some time that Romney took the 2009 IRS tax amnesty....where he fessed up about his Swiss bank accounts(s). It was only offered that year and I think that's what he does not want us to see. He got an extension for his 2011 taxes.....shouldn't those be due soon? Wonder if he will release the complete 2011 return? I think he will find a reason not to. So sad.

Cheryl,
I, too, hate the name calling. But for four years, anytime anyone criticizes Obama, he is accused of being racist. The same is true of this campaign. A great example is Joe Biden's comment about "chains." Certainly, neither side is innocent in this. And, remember Obama's PAC has accused Romney of being a murderer (or, at least implying that he is). Unfortunately, this campaign will get much worse.
The birther thing is ridiculous--but, please remember, it was first brought up during the Clinton campaign in the 2008 primary. And, remember, Bill was accused of being a racist, too. Even kind (now, the late)Geraldine Ferraro was accused by the Obama campaign of being racist.
Have you read "Dreams from My Father"? I suggest you do so. Obama himself talks about his Marxist roots and discusses his relationship with "Frank" Marshall Davis-his mentor and a well-known communist. Is it any wonder people question his motivation? especially in light of his relationship with Jeremiah Wright who certainly has questionable beliefs.

I can't believe we're all still flailing this dead horse. I'm sick at heart but don't wear mine on my sleeve Cheryl. You obviously have no sense of humor or you would have laughed at my last line. I don't mean to upset or hurt you. But I do believe that Obama is waltzing us down the path to socialism which is what I said West probably meant to say. I don't consider that a personal attack on Obama, just my opinion. Republicans don't hate Obama, they hate his goal of fundamentally altering our form of government. Socialism isn't a bad word; Europeans obviously like socialism, as do union members, as do many people in our society who feel they should have have a high standard of living without having to "compete" for it or work their way up to it. I believe in a safety net, but not in socialism.

Cheryl -

As usual, you have your facts wrong. You do realize that in the late 50s & early 60s, 95%+ of blacks, including Martin Luther King Jr, were Republican. In the 60s, the Democrats started promising the world to the blacks which is why they have voted Democrat since. Republicans authored the 1866, 1875, and 1961 Civil Rights Act, A Republican judge ended segregation. A VAST majority of Democrats voted against Civil Rights including a Grand Marshall of the KKK Robert Byrd who filibustered the act as well as the voting rights act. As for voting rights, a great number of counties in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia, etc saw 100%+ in voter turnout (in some cases as high as 120-125% turnout) so, it's okay for people to vote twice? All the law is designed to is to ensure 1 person, 1 vote. In Virginia, the voting public is being sent a FREE voter ID card (How is that denying voting rights to minorities??).

The only people that a for the minority and want to protect the minority are Conservatives.

@Cheryl - how did that phrase go? ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Lee is a blogger who just likes to stir stuff up, so you'll just end up going round and round with him, facts are irrelevant only to the extent they do not support his position. It's a casual relationship.

To those that say we must move forward and not re-live the past - if we do no remember the past, we will surely re-live it. Today's actions that inhibit voting (despite the fact by every viable, reliable, respectable source that there ISN"T any, is an issue. Rolling back women's rights is an issue. Women are perfectly capable of making their own decisions (and to those of you who are married, dare I ask who makes the decisions? LOL!).

Freedom requires vigilence. And, today, the Democrat part represents that vigilence. Dems have learned from their errant views and keep moving the ball forward. While the republicans wish to keep their views firmly plants - wrong or right. When you stand in one place, you end up left behind.

And, I dare say, that is exactly what is happening with the GOP now. Good always wins over evil. Don't get me wrong, evil wins a battle every now and then, but never wins the war.

I missed Lewis's speech but it would bother me if he was trying to inject race into the presidential campaign. No one is trying to deny voting rights to anyone. We should all want to make sure the person voting is who he says he is. No one is being murdered because they're black. No one is against Obama because he's black. Injustice? What injustice? We all have equal rights under the law. That's justice.

Yes Virginia, voters will be getting a free voter ID card. It was designed that way to get DOJ to okay the law.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/20/virginia-to-issue-voter-id-cards-to-every-eligible-voter/

Despite strengthened voter ID law in Georgia 2008-present, minority turnout up in recent elections in Georgia.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/despite-voter-id-law-minority-turnout-up-in-georgi/nR2bx/

Yes, I firmly believe John Lewis lied in his rather absurd 2012 DNC speech.

Let's remember that the President is half-white. Democrats seem to forget that.

Cheryl, I just wanted to say, whatever your political persuasion is, that I'm sorry for what happened to you and your husband and your brother. It shouldn't happen to anyone and no one should live on the edge like that. I am an Obama supporter and I believe that Medicare will be there for you if he wins. But whatever happens, I've been touched by your story and I hope things improve for you and your family.

I'm glad Cheryl-- I was just trying to inject some humor & certainly don't believe anyone to be the anti-Christ!

I haven't been silent, I said I think he's a socialist. Some people may believe he's a communist based on his associations and people who have influenced him during his life that have been communist. They're entitled to their opinion.

Jody, if Obama is a socialist than so was Jesus.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all take care of ourselves! That should definitely be our goal.

I'm in the same boat, Locally. Thank you for your thoughtful comments. You articulate your views well.

Once again, thank you. We have to keep the faith.

As usual, Don Joy, you cite only partisan, right wing sites. I find it amuisig that you think being co-counsel AGAINSt red-lining is a bad thing. Good Lord, child, you've got demons.

So, here I am. Trying to 'talk' with an obvious crazy man.

But I do wish to share with this board, a real partisan site. WhiteHouse.gov.

yes. Let me point you back in time to June and October 2002. And, a little think called the American Dream Act.

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021015-7.html

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021015-7.html

Don Joy, If you want to call out some dirty little hands my friend, start at the top. My favorite line from this link is:

"And so that's why I propose and urge Congress to fully fund the American Dream Downpayment Fund. This will use money, taxpayers' money to help a qualified, low income buyer make a downpayment. And that's important. "

From there, our gov't agencies took their cues from their leader and took the reins off. Whee!

So, try as you may to take a lawyer and a community organizer (which is obvious you don't understand that job nor do you wish to) and give them such super powers as to plant the seeds for this crises - really? You're actually giving Obama more power than the actual President of the US, GWB? LOL!

Where should I send the aluminum for your tinfoil hat....

Locally Involved, I have said earlier and repeatedly that George W. Bush also shares blame, because he in many ways acted and spent like a socialist, and pandered to the have-nots to try in vain to get them to love him, and recognize him for working to bring help bring about the highest minority home ownership levels in history.

My point is that Obama is lying when he says that republican policies are what caused the housing crisis and economic collapse; to the contrary, it was because of people like Obama suing CITIBank when the Community Reinvestment Act under Bill Clinton was put "on steroids" and lenders were force to abandoned prudent lending standards and sound business models, that the entire financial sector became corrupted.

The corruption spread surely through the amplified moral hazard involved in the risky loans made, then how lowered standards combined with the no-questions-asked mechanism of FNMA/FDMC buying up all the bad loans and bundling them in with traditionally financed loans(Bush did try to rein in Fannie and Freddie at some point, but was thwarted by the Congressional Black Caucus and other democrats), the ratings agencies all pretending like nothing was wrong, the collateralized debt obligations derivatives markets spinning out into the wild yonder trying to mitigate all the bad paper with creative risk spinoff schemes, municipalities and even foreign cities and countries buying up the mortgage-backed securities thinking American mortgage paper was as good as it had always been, as good as gold...the house of cards was built by Obama and people like him, anti-capitalist "social justice" do-gooders who want to shake down successful ants on behalf of grasshoppers.

Obama should never be allowed to get away with saying that he "inherited" the mess caused by his Marxist philosophy put into action. He helped make the mess, as a senator and president he has made it worse, and only measures like Paul Ryan's budget discipline can clean it up.

You are quite welcome! Glad to meet a fellow Obama supporter!

The government involvement to make anything "affordable" makes it the opposite--unaffordable--health care, college, housing--because the interference at gunpoint(the force of government) distorts all voluntary supply and demand factors, utterly distorts them, leading to shortages and excess demand=higher and higher prices, etc.

Nor do I think insurers should have to cover(unless they freely choose to) birth control, abortion, sex changes, cosmetic surgery, various routine treatments, or anything they don't want to. If they want to cover it, it's their business to do so, or not.

Just imagine how much a pizza would cost if the do-gooders decided to dive in and get legislation and rules passed to make it more "affordable"...that $10 special that Pizza Hut has been running for like 2 years now or something, where you can get a large with anything on it you like, would instead be about $143.00 per slice, and all other competing food sources would also be sky-high, because the government would have to regulate and make them "affordable," too...wouldn't want any competition that would actually deliver quality victuals to alert, bargain-hungry consumers now, would we? Geez. Look at what almost-free market competition has done, you can get a whole large pizza just about anywhere in the country, loaded up, for only ten bucks! I say get the government away from more of our lives and watch things improve. You should listen to John Stossel.

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara desert, in 5 years there would be a shortage of sand." ~ Milton Friedman

That is about exactly how we run the scheme for providing medical services, only worse. Regulations and laws prevent interstate shopping for the best and best-priced plans for ourselves. And here we are, an entire nation of brainwashed Obama zombies, with sky-high medical costs, blaming the insurance companies for charging what they need to stay in business and trying to keep costs under control, when most of us are clueless about the actual reasons costs are so exorbitant. Government and socialist "do-gooders" are the cause. They push the idea that everyone has to have insurance for everything, by law, and they push the idea that even more middlemen, employers, are to be in the equation. FUBAR

The New York Times is full of lies, and anyway, this veteran says if benefits have to be cut to prevent our country going over the fiscal cliff, then cut them. Any veteran, who essentially signed a blank check to his country when we enlisted, willing to sacrifice even our lives, shouldn't be caught bitching and whining about having to do without. Our grandchildren deserve better than forbears who looted their legacy.

The GOP does have concrete, specific plans to move our country forward, and our candidates have been shouting it from the rooftops, Cheryl. Stop your whining about the fact that you and your party face opposition in this forum.

Protecting the integrity of our elections is not voter suppression, unless we are talking about suppressing the fraudulent votes of the kinds of democrats who like to cheat and steal elections, as in the case of Al Franken in the Minnesota senate race (177 election fraud convictions with 66 cases awaiting trial in that race alone, wherein 1,099 convicted felons voted in a race decided by 312 votes) that gave your party the one deciding vote that shoved Obamacare down our country's throats.

Wonderful article, Cheryl. Reflects the views of many of my GOP friends. These are friends, like the writer of the article, who have served GOP administrations and have found themselves in the same position with similar views. One friend recently posted an article he had found in his papers from Life magazine, circa 1969 called "The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party". Only, as they say it, they didn't leave the GOP, the GOP left them.

As for Don Joy, his rantings and disparaging remarks are irrelevant. He sees boogie men everywhere. Anyone that lacking in rational thinking is incapable of rational discussion. He knows everything, even stuff he doesn't know.

Artur Davis has some interesting and compelling remarks about why he left the democrat party.

Zell Miller and Ronald Reagan said the same thing about the democrat party; that they didn't leave the democrat party, the democrat party left them!

The DNC recently ran an Obama ad featuring testimonies from women who all claimed to have been republicans who plan to vote for Obama...the problem is, at least two of them have been debunked as poseurs--democrat activists who never were republicans at all, despite lying and saying they were. Typical.

Take a look in your mirror; what are the chances you'd snap out of your slavish acceptance of left-wing propaganda and change your mind?

The GOP ticket has actual, specific budgetary plans that will help make our country prosperous again--Paul Ryan knows the fiscal realities and the solutions called for backward and forward, and in his sleep. In his early twenties, and even in his high school years, when his fellow students were out partying he was burning the midnight oil poring over federal budgets and learning how the government actually works(or, in the present case, doesn't work). Meanwhile, Obama, Reid, and the rest of your party have not passed a budget for over 3 years. and Obama got not one single vote in all of both houses of congress, not even a single democrat, for any of the insane and laughable budgets ideas his White House put forth. Face it, the GOP are the serious adults and the democrats are the spoiled brats.

That's a flat-out lie Ms. Darby and you should be ashamed of yourself for that.

You were saying Ms. Cheryl??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/11/romney-greets-firefighters-in-chicago-observing-911-anniversary/

Reminds me of an FDR quote:
“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”

― Franklin D. Roosevelt

If we are going to talk voter fraud, please read today's Metro section of the Washington Post. You will find a Democratic candidate for the United States Congress just dropped out of the race because she voted in both Florida and Maryland for the same elections. Of course, the title of the story is that she dropped out for "fraud". You have to read down to realize that it was "voter fraud".
As far as Ohio--how about 2008 when Obama campaign workers who were not residents of Ohio registered and voted there? This is fact-not conjecture. There were convictions. And, let's remember, that the mess in Florida was in Palm Beach County--where the Democrats ran the election and the famous "butterfly ballot" that caused all the mess was designed by a Democrat. Then, the Democrats decided not to count the military votes, etc.,etc. And, the results of the FL election were announced by the media before the conservative Panhandle had voted. People who had not voted yet decided there was no point in voting as the Florida part had already been determined.

Furthermore, Kathy, Gore tried to have recounts done in only heavily-democrat counties, and the SCOTUS called him on it under the equal protection clause. Later on, after all the dust had settled, even the mainstream democrat media admitted that Bush won Florida fair and square.

Mr. Joy, have you found that loophole yet?

Cheryl, from what I gather, it isn't necessarily a question of which specific loopholes are to be closed (because Ryan is saying that they will remain for lower and middle income families), it is a question of who will be eligible for them. Romney and Ryan are proposing that loopholes only for the wealthy be eliminated, and they are proposing there be a public debate about how to do it. Beyond that, I'll have to refer you to more wonkish sources than yours truly.

Of course there have been cases of republicans cheating in elections, and there always will be, to some degree. But the point is that there simply is no equivalence in the prevalence of fraud between the two parties--the democrats are notorious for it, and give no indication whatsoever of remorse, nor inclination to clean up their act. Ed Shultz bellowed boastfully on TV not long ago how he'd cheat to keep republicans out of office, I can prove it to you with the video link. It is the democrat M.O., and unions, ACORN, SEIU, and so forth have it down to a science and an art. Meanwhile, republicans invariably purge our ranks of bad actors, instead of celebrating cheating like democrats do, and we are the ones trying to make sure that every voter's vote counts--is not cancelled out by another's fraudulent vote.

Cheryl, The point is that the Dems keep telling us that voter fraud is not a problem when there is proof that it is a problem. Anytime someone votes fraudulently, it negates someone else's vote--therefore taking away that person's "right to vote".

Hey you over there, why never any comment about the Al Franken stolen election, with rampant democrat voter fraud and convictions galore, many cases still awaiting trial?

Hey, you, Cheryl...

@Kathy, just because there have been instances of voter fraud does not mean voter fraud is a problem. Voter intimidation and voter suppression are, on the other hand, HUGE documented problems. That is where the concern needs to be. I myself was caught in voter intimidation just the other week at a voter registration table outside the West Falls metro station. I simply needed to fill out a change of address form. Both myself and the person working the table were subject to a very conservative, brusque (to put it politely) "man' accusing us of voter fraud. It took all I could do not to smack him against the back of the head and ask him if that's how his mother raised him. So, no voter fraud. But voter suppression and intimidation has always been an issue.

New Black Panthers and DOJ civil rights division voting section are the worst offenders. Ask J. Christian Adams, for one, and Bartle Bull...

I think he said that the loopholes like mortgages will NOT be removed for the middle class. Only for the wealthy.

I'm all for a flat tax. You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

@Kathy - has Romnney defined "wealthy"? Is it HH greater than $250k? $1MM? $10MM?

As unfortunate as it is, the two largest contributors to the deficit is mortgage tax credits and employer tax exempt medical. And, in order to reduce the deficit, both would have to be completely unlimited - not just for the wealthy (whatever that is, it seems to be quite relative).

Wrong, largest contributors to the deficit are runaway entitlement programs.

@ Locally,

Wrong again, the largest contributors to the deficit are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The Democrats see no problem whatsoever with the big three even though 78M people are on the verge of retirement.

Right now, 36.5% of the working age population aren't working (highest since the 40s). On top of that, 47% pay $0 in income tax. See a problem?

That's my whole point, doof--fundamental accounting. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

Play games with taxes all you want, it doesn't change the fact that even if we confiscated all the wealth and property, 100% of it, from all the "rich" people in our country, it would only pay for a few months of the leviathan liabilities inherent in the entitlement programs, and unfunded promises made. We'd still have to borrow vast sums every second to just keep pace with the interest payments on what we've borrowed already! The clock is ticking, people, and no matter how much class warfare garbage you sling, you cannot escape the basic reality that sooner or later, socialists eventually run out of other people's money, as Margaret Thatcher famously said. The hour is late. Do you plan to be clueless your entire lives?

Oh yes Locally, let's not forget how much revenue will be raised by increasing taxes on the wealthy (those making over $250K a year). The answer? $40B. That's it. That isn't much help when the annual deficits are running $1 Trillion + each year.

Washington has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

That equal pay nonsense is absurd. Why shouldn't the actual wage payer get to decide what an employee is worth to the firm? Besides, women are only making it worse for themselves when they bleat on incessantly about equal this, equal that, yet simultaneously insist on special this and special that..."when women gained their equality, they lost their superiority." If I'm looking to hire someone, along with the questions of skills and experience and fit, etc., the fact that they may get pregnant and leave has a bearing on my view of them in terms of how much of an asset they may be, or how much of a liability, etc. All of the various factors that go into such decisions must be left to the actual wage payer, not the Marxists who seek to co-opt that process.

I see when compassion was bestowed, you were absent that day. I am speaking my own mind, thank you. I am proud to be a Democrat. Accusing my party of being the cause of every bad thing that ever happened in the history of this country might make you feel better, but it just isn't true.

Every time some democrat finds the name of a deceased person who is still on the voter rolls, and then goes and votes posing as that person (without having to show picture ID), and also votes as themselves along with whoever, a legitimate vote is "suppressed."

That was just to give one example of the rampant fraud out there. And what about the many heavily democrat urban areas, where voter registrations far exceed the actual census? How do you explain that? Unacceptable. The election outcomes in all those races are highly suspect, and many cases are actually investigated and exposed to be democrat chicanery.

Like when the Black Panthers tried to suppress the vote in Philadelphia eh Cheryl? The fact is, voter ID laws have not suppressed votes one iota as has been shown in Indiana & Georgia.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/despite-voter-id-law-minority-turnout-up-in-georgi/nR2bx/

In Virginia, everyone is due to receive a free voter ID card which is how the Commonwealth of VA passed the law so the DOJ would approve the law?

How is giving voters a free voter ID card suppressing the vote?

Republicans are not "suppressing" anyone's vote by advocating for voter ID. Come off it already. What a bogus and desperate race-card b.s. argument. Armed, snarling Black Panthers blocking the entrance to a polling site, hurling invective at white voters ("You about to be ruled by da black man, cracka!!") ARE an example of the kind of voter suppression going on these days, especially when their actions are essentially supported by Eric Holder and Barack Obama and the entire anti-white civil rights division of the DOJ, which has made no attempt to hide the fact that they will do nothing to enforce civil rights law in a race-neutral way.

So anyway, when are you going to admit that Obamacare is invalid, because of the utterly egregious election fraud that put Al Franken in office to provide the last vote needed to ram it down our throats, against the will of the majority of the people?

Classic Democrat response there Cheryl. When your party has no record of success whatsoever, play the race card. You do remember President Obama is half-white don't you?

What you really mean to say is that you're at loss because you've never actually heard rational opposition to your leftist echo-chamber rhetoric before, and you don't know what to say in reply except to attack the messenger. You have no experience having to come up with a valid counterargument on certain topics.

Why don't you tell me why you think it's anyone else's business what a wage payer deems any given employee is worth to the firm? What if an employer wants to pay women more than men, because that particular employer prefers women in a certain role, job, etc., and wants a certain environment or skill set, whatever? Are you going to scream "unfair!!" and beseech pressure groups and lawmakers to make sure that the employer is forced to hire men, and that the men are paid the same as women? Sheesh. Freedom of association, and the prerogatives of preference, are the very heart of inalienable liberty.

Good thing a certain chicken sandwich restaurant chain never had to cope with such hateful vendettas by democrats or anything like that.

@Cheryl - initially, yes, the local tea party felt 'betrayed' - since the small business owner is a registered Republican.

But since then, oh my! There has been overwhelming support with well wishes from all over the country, orders coming in nationwide to his place and people coming in his doors asking for hugs! Good always wins. It seems the only ones boycotting are the far right. S'okay. They have Dominoe's and Papa John's. Guess who's supporting the small business owner... Oh, yea. surprise surprise. it's the dem party that is the party and voice of the people. Fear not. The people always win. Just ask the Founding Fathers. Now, go give a tp'er a hug. It's what they need.

As many Democrats I know did, they voted for Obama in 2008 because they didn't want to be deemed 'racist' (I actually wrote in Hillary myself...). In 2012, these same Democrats are voting for Romney because they feel stupid now for voting for Obama in the first place.

Cheryl -

Please know we do not live in a democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic. There is a difference.

You have nothing to say when it is pointed out that ID is being provided for free, despite the fact that almost no one is without some kind of acceptable picture ID already. That crap about people not having it is absurd, they need it to get all those benefits.

You still have no reply to my insistence that you admit that Obamcare is invalid based on the appalling election fraud that got the last senate vote--Al Franken's--to ram it down our throats. Scared?

@Cheryl - you need to take that letter (keep a copy for yourself, a scan it if you can at a local business services store) and file a complaint with the VA State Board of Elections - here's the website for more info:

https://www.voterinfo.sbe.virginia.gov/PublicSite/PublicMain.aspx

Also, send a scanned copy along with your letter to the Attorney General's office of the US. Both will find out what party is sending this out and hold them accountable.

Don't confuse vote counting precision with accuracy. There are many things that result in voting error (machines, poll worker errors, lines at precincts, other forms of voting fraud, election fraud). When elections are decided by 300 votes, thems the breaks. (Looking through your sources there wasn't any other real data about fraud, just antecdotal complaints but if you do know of any actual fraud claims please send them to news@news21.com)

We'd be far better served by a focus on the other actually measurable sources of error between what the voting public wants and what the vote tally says.

Hi Cheryl -

Your voter letters may be coming from the group mentioned in this article:

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/news/2012/jul/27/tdmain01-civic-groups-to-va-allow-voter-forms-ar-2087702/

Your assumption that the ACA is invalid is erroneous. Perhaps Al Franken would have won by a greater majority without the alleged felon vote.

Cathryn gets Franken's history wrong.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163#.UE_O_itYvo4

If they want to vote, ID is being provided for them. Bush won fair and square both times. What's your problem? Admit that Obamacare is invalid based on (among other things) blatant, proven election fraud, and quit dodging you coward.

Cheryl, you're quite right that many do not have the photo IDs that are required. My husband served in Korea and in Viet Nam and yet he couldn't use his military ID because it has no expiration date on it! Fortunately he does have a driver's license so he can vote, but I cite the military ID to point out the absurdity of it all. Also, what does early voting have to do with voter fraud? Many states want to eliminate early voting, knowing that Democrats are most likely to use it. Are people who vote early more likely to cheat? In Ohio the sec of state there wanted to shorten voting hours in Democratic counties and extend them in Republican counties! That addresses fraud in what way? As for Mr. Joy, there is no convincing him of anything. He is right and we are wrong, period. He corrects our spelling, redefines our words, and tells us how to properly respond on Patch. His comments are offensive and abusive. He thinks we're stupid, but as you said in an earlier post, we're not crazy, nor are we mean. His personality doesn't jibe with his name.

Just what I was thinking, on both counts!

Cheryl, oddly enough I could us my dependent's military ID to register because it has an expiration date on it but my husband cannot! I guess the logic is that once it expires I have to renew it and prove once again that I am who I am, whereas since my husband's does not expire, he might not be who he is....? The logic fails me. In Texas, students cannot use student IDs from state universities as ID but gun owners can use their gun registration and their NRA cards! It's insane and it's profane, to obstruct our right to vote in this way.

Obama's statement: "While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants"

THIS WAS THE FIRST STATEMENT FROM THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION:

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/us-embassy-condemns-continuing-efforts-misguided-individuals-hurt-religious-feelings-muslims_652183.html

Bye.

Hillary Clinton's statement: "Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet," she said. "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

Mr. Joy, I know you're not following this thread but, to say Obama should be arrested for treason, is so ridiculous! After that, I now feel free to say you should be taken away by men in white suits and given intensive therapy. You really have let hatred take over your life. I feel sorry for you.