“…here’s the Good News: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions.”

The reason Romney could pretend he was a moderate is because what the base wants Romney to do is to berate, disrespect Obama and he did that with his I debate my 5 boys line. Remember, the Republican base loved the Eastwood/Chair conversation. They love Joe Wilson, Michelle Bachmann and the like. Orrin Hatch is fighting for his life. The Republican primary were full of contempt for Obama, not his policies (his policies were never presented in anything approximating good faith). It always goes back to:

“Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

The people in Obama’s inner circle may not get that, but that is what Republicans want their candidate to do.

Obama doesn’t need to throw back “liar” he needs to hit Romney on Bain/Let Detroit go Bankrupt/47% all debate and contrast that with his record. Reporting on Bain owned Sensata in the NY Time helps to bolster that:

It is often difficult to determine precisely how much Mr. Romney benefits from specific investments by Bain funds, since his money goes into a pool used to buy stakes in companies. In the case of Sensata, however, it is clearer because he reported a charitable donation of $405,000 in Sensata stock that he received as “partnership distributions” in 2010 and 2011, according to his tax returns.

Jiangsu Province, where most of the Freeport jobs are moving, is one of China’s designated “export bases” for auto parts. Asimco, the other auto parts manufacturer in Bain’s portfolio, also has factories in Jiangsu Province and three other regions designated as export bases.

The Chinese government incentives offered to companies in those “bases” set off a complaint from the United States to the World Trade Organization last month. The United States asserted that in 2011, China spent $1 billion on grants, tax preferences, lowered interest rates and other subsidies to increase exports of auto parts in violation of fair trade rules.

Mr. Romney has been critical of these types of Chinese incentives to bolster exports.

That complaint: set off by the Obama administration.

7.8% unemployment helps. Romney wanting to repeal medicare helps. Romney/Ryan tax cuts for rich while taking away deductions that many middle and low income Americans use helps. Stock market as high as it is help. Flip Flopping/lying allegations should be a supporting argument, not the main argument. Obama bet on American people, Romney bet against them. That’s the message. Period. No matter what he says, it’s what he will do that matters. The news media wants a confrontation, Obama needs to discredit Romney by crediting his record. Lead people to accept he is a liar.

Here are the Romneys calling Obama a child one way or another.

Mitt Romney:

Ann Romney:

Josh Romney:

Romney Was Severely Kidding About Past Positions.

Senator Scott Brown made an odd request of Elizabeth Warren in the Massachusetts US Senate Debate:

“Professor Warren, you have to stop scaring women”

source: Balloon Juice » Blog Archive » Elizabeth Warren / Scott Brown — Livestreaming Their First Debate.

Seems Brown is the reaper trying to kill the messenger. On tons of women’s issues, Brown’s Republican party has shown themselves to be actually scaring women. Warren is just telling them: you’re right to be fearful of a Republican senator.

So by talking about Republican policies, Elizabeth Warren is “scaring women”. Not the actual policies. Discussion of them.

Funny thing about Scott Brown, Guardian of Massachusetts Women-folk Before this debate, Harry Reid basically called Scott Brown a scaredy-cat for trying to actually dodge the debate by kicking it with his caucus around the capital:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was looking for an excuse to skip a Thursday night debate with Elizabeth Warren (D). Tussling over an amendment offered by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the Senate delayed a vote on a short-term spending bill that is expected to pass. Brown had suggested he might miss the debate if Democrats scheduled votes conflicting with its start time. “I’ve been to a few of these rodeos. It is obvious there is a big stall taking place. One of the senators who had a debate tonight doesn’t want to debate. Well, he can’t use the Senate as an excuse. There will be no more votes today,” Reid said.

source: Harry Reid: Scott Brown ‘doesn’t want to debate’.

Was Warren really scaring women or was she scaring Scott Brown who realized he had to debate Warren while fighting top of the ticket drag courtesy of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney?

Mitt Romney on the Mideast Conflict – YouTube.

h/t to Janet Novack in Forbes for breaking down the math:

But since I write about tax and budget issues, let me make a few serious points about the 46.4% of American households who paid no federal income taxes for 2011. First of all, according to the Tax Policy Center, more than 60% of those non-income tax paying households did pay federal payroll taxes—meaning Social Security and Medicare taxes. (Considering all Americans households, including those that owed income tax, 62% paid more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes.)

What of the 18.1% of U.S. households that paid neither income nor payroll taxes? More than half of them were headed by a senior–in other words, by someone who paid payroll taxes and likely some income taxes too, in the past. (No, the amount the elderly have paid in does not cover the cost of the Medicare benefits they are now getting. And that is true despite the fact that in a Romney TV adattacking Obamacare’s cuts to the growth in Medicare spending, an announcer seems to suggest otherwise, intoning: “You paid into Medicare for years, every paycheck…. So now the money you paid for your guaranteed healthcare Is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you.”)

Of course, it goes without saying, that those folks who aren’t paying federal taxes are almost all paying state and local taxes—state sales taxes, real estate taxes (either on their homes or built into their rents) and possibly state income taxes too, since those taxes tend to exempt fewer poor families than does the federal income tax. If they buy gasoline, liquor or tobacco, or have telephones, they’re also feeding the federal purse.

Yes, there’s a serious tax policy issue here. The percentage of households owing federal individual income taxes has fallen in recent years in part because both Republicans and Democrats have looked to provide help for working families through the child credit, the earned income tax credit and other “tax expenditures,” rather than through more direct spending programs. That might not be the best way to do things. But note again that the largest group excluded from paying income tax because of special tax expenditures are seniors, who get a bigger standard deduction than younger folks and more importantly, special tax treatment for their Social Security benefits.

source: Memo To Mitt Romney: The 47% Pay Taxes Too – Forbes.

Nothing Romney says is elegantly stated and a lot of it is just plain stupid. That bold in Novack’s article was mine: Only 18.1% pay no income or payroll tax and most of THESE households are elderly.

And look, here’s the real deal…the states with most non-income tax payers:

Fiscal Fact No. 229
Southern States Have Highest Percentages of “Nonpayers” (taxfoundation.org)

Also, remember “red states” get more tax money in than money paid to the federal government.

Any way you put it the real people he’s arguing against a lot of members in his base. He represents tax revenue protectionists, not tax revenue cutters.

Mitt Romney’s Mom Says his Dad was on Welfare – YouTube.

Mitt Romney is basically saying all the Obama 2008 voters who will vote for him again are broke, lazy freeloaders:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

source: SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters | Mother Jones.

That means when he spoke to NAACP (blacks 95% behind Obama) or NALEO (latinos 66% behind Obama) or Women (52% behind Obama) or Asians and Pacific Islanders (62% behind Obama). Obama also holds solid leads with LGBT demo and Millenials.

Romney thinks your all not worth worrying about. If a “President Romney” comes to be, basically: he’ll be happy to ignore all those groups.

What a consistently condescending prick this Romney is. It matches up with “I’m not focused on the poor”:

Donate to President Obama’s Campaign here.

These strikes are not just about teacher benefits, tenure and career security. They are often about availability of:

1. Manageable Teaching environments
2. Facilities (Libraries, laboratories and gymnasiums)
3. Supplies (books, writing materials, utensils)
4. Fine Arts, Phys Ed and Extra-curricular activity
5. School safety and security
6. Student Health Services (mental and physical)
7. Professional growth
8. Career security

Mr. Farmer quotes Director David Magill’s September 2nd Address to Returning Faculty of the University of Chicago Lab School where Penny Pritzker and Rahm Emanuel send their children to be educated:

I believe that the “business model” of improving education will fall on its own sword.

It is unfortunate that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation developed primarily by politicians and enacted in 2002 morphed into what many refer to as a “business model” of improving education. Measuring outcomes through standardized testing and referring to those results as the evidence of learning and the bottom line is, in my opinion, misguided and, unfortunately, continues to be advocated under a new name and supported by the current administration.

[…]

Listen to this from Ms. Ravitch:

We must honor those teachers who awaken in their students a passionate interest in history, science, the arts, literature, and foreign language. Such teachers (if acting today under NCLB) would be stifled not only by the data mania of their supervisors, but by the jargon, the indifference to classical literature, and the hostility to their manner of teaching that now prevails in our schools.

Without a comprehensive liberal arts education, our students will not be prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, nor will they be equipped to make decisions based on knowledge, thoughtful debate, and reason. . . . Not everything that matters can be quantified. What is tested may ultimately be less important than what is untested, such as a student’s ability to seek alternative explanations, to raise questions, to pursue knowledge on his own, and to think differently.

And to that, I say AMEN and thank you, Ms. Ravitch, for seeing the light and for cracking the armor of the “business model.” Because of her and others like her, I believe this disturbing chapter in American education history is coming to a close.

source: University of Chicago Laboratory Schools: News » Detail.

Note: David Magill who got his start teaching in Kensington here in Philadelphia.