Speak No Evil

How in the world Mitt Romney thinks he can go to South Florida and not say a word about Medicare or Cuba, is beyond me.  But I guess thinking it, makes it so.  Because he did it.  The emphasis is mine:

Mitt Romney mentioned the word Medicare only twice Monday in his first Florida stop in St. Augustine after picking a running mate, but no one doubts it will be a central part of the campaign fight in this must-win state. 

“The president’s idea for Medicare was to cut it by $700 billion,” Romney said during a morning rally in St. Augustine. “That’s not the right answer. We need to make sure we can preserve and protect Medicare.” 

On his second stop in in West Miami-Dade at El Palacio de Los Jugos, the Republican presidential nominee was greeted by a large, enthusiastic crowd where he gave his standard stump speech — absent a single mention of Medicare or Cuba, typical talking points in Miami’s exile community. 

He really is determined to talk about nothing during this campaign.  I know a lot of folks say there are many things he simply can’t talk about.  That he can’t talk about his religion, at risk of alienating an evangelical base.  That his not-so-nice comments in London about the Olympics, makes it harder for him to glorify his days with the Salt Lake games.  That in not releasing his tax returns, he risks making the unpopular elements of his tax plan a center of the campaign.  That in not addressing the issues related to his employment status at Bain, and questions of job outsourcing and business closures, the we-need-a-businessman-in-charge argument becomes a mockery.

And then all the things he won’t talk about it, at risk of reminding the American public of his propensity to flip-flop.

But going to West Miami-Dade and not a word about Cuba?  Sheesh.

I guess putting Paul Ryan – the great intellect and ideas man – on the ticket isn’t rubbing off on Romney.

Can’t You Do Better Than, That???

Funny all this talk about how Republican Vice-President-wannabe Rep. (and House Budget Chair) Paul Ryan is some brilliant, intellect.

NORFOLK, Va. — In the shadow of a military battleship, Mitt Romney formally named Paul Ryan as his running mate Saturday, saying that the 42-year-old Wisconsin congressman was the “intellectual leader” of the Republican Party with the experience to tackle the fiscal crises facing the nation and the temperament to be effective.

Funny all this talk about how everyone – on both sides of the aisle likes and respects him. 

People have always liked Ryan. The story of his political life has been his success in charming people — including a string of powerful friends in Congress, think tanks and the conservative media — in small rooms.

Funny all this talk about how this election is now a serious debate about “the issues.”

Thank you, Mitt Romney. Your choice of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan as your running mate might kick off the kind of serious fiscal debate the nation needs. Depending on how President Obama responds, such a discussion could set the stage for serious budget and tax reform in 2013.

Well then why-oh-why, could former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (and big-time Romney rah-rah man) do no better than this on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, last night?

 

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Nothing about how Ryan’s Medicare re-hauls are positioned within valid, intellectual political, social and economic frameworks.

Nothing about how Democrats might have disagreements with the plan, but still respect Ryan for his stances.

Nothing about this being a serious debate, where good people can disagree.

All because HE would rather have private insurance to a government run plan, any day. Because in that good Republican way, it’s all about ME!

Happy Weekend, All!

An ode to the V.P. Sweepstakes!  So spot on, in so many ways.



Enjoy the weekend!  And the endless punditry....

What’s Wrong With All of Them?

Ok.  Let’s start with the top.

Reince Priebus, the Chair of the Republican National Committee thinks “it’s ridiculous” that 63 percent of the American public thinks presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney should release more tax returns.

So now, the likes of me are “ridiculous” and to be simply dismissed.  No room for discussion.  No room for disagreement.  No room for intellectual debate.  Sixty-three percent of us are simply, “ridiculous.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney reminded us last week, that we are not Israel.

“It’s individuals and their entrepreneurship which have driven America,” said Romney. “What America is, is not a collective where we all work in a Kibbutz or we all in some little entity, instead it’s individuals pursuing their dreams and building successful enterprises which employ others and they become inspired as they see what has happened in the place they work and go off and start their own enterprises.”

Next up, he reminded us we are not Japan.

During his speech at a Thursday fund-raiser, the Republican candidate remarked, "We are not Japan. We are not going to be a nation that suffers in decline and distress for a decade or a century."

Who is next to insult, on the not-ready-for-prime-time tour?

Oh, and just call Senator Republican Leader Mitch McConnell – obstructionist.  From Greg Sargent over at Plum Line, in the Washington Post, quoting Michael Grunwald’s new book on the making of the stimulus:

Grunwald has Joe Biden on the record making a striking charge. Biden says that during the transition, a number of Republican Senators privately confided to him that Mitch McConnell had given them the directive that there was to be no cooperation with the new administration — because he had decided that “we can’t let you succeed.” 

Here’s the relevant passage, from page 207: 

Biden says that during the transition, he was warned not to expect any cooperation on many votes. “I spoke to seven different Republican Senators, who said, `Joe, I’m not going to be able to help you on anything,’ he recalls. His informants said McConnell had demanded unified resistance. “The way it was characterized to me was: `For the next two years, we can’t let you succeed in anything. That’s our ticket to coming back,’” Biden says. The vice president says he hasn’t even told Obama who his sources were, but Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania both confirmed they had conversations with Biden along these lines.

Now, on to the VP sweepstakes…

Thinking maybe there is one high-profile Governor from Louisiana who has been struck from the list:

Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers' dime. 

Under Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program, considered the most sweeping in the country, Louisiana is poised to spend tens of millions of dollars to help poor and middle-class students from the state's notoriously terrible public schools receive a private education. While the governor's plan sounds great in the glittery parlance of the state's PR machine, the program is rife with accountability problems that actually haven't been solved by the new standards the Louisiana Department of Education adopted two weeks ago. 

For one, of the 119 (mostly Christian) participating schools, Zack Kopplin, a gutsy college sophomore who's taken to Change.org to stonewall the program, has identified at least 19 that teach or champion creationist nonscience and will rake in nearly $4 million in public funding from the initial round of voucher designations.

And please, please, please make it Wisconsin Representative (and House Budget Chair) Paul Ryan.  For one, conservatives seem to really think they can manipulate Romney into making the pick – which says a lot about Romney’s relationship with ALL sectors of the Republican Party.  No one seems to believe he stands for ANYTHING.  From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal:

The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election. More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest group dominated decline. 

Against the advice of every Beltway bedwetter, he has put entitlement reform at the center of the public agenda—before it becomes a crisis that requires savage cuts. And he has done so as part of a larger vision that stresses tax reform for faster growth, spending restraint to prevent a Greek-like budget fate, and a Jack Kemp-like belief in opportunity for all. He represents the GOP's new generation of reformers that includes such Governors as Louisiana's Bobby Jindal and New Jersey's Chris Christie.
As important, Mr. Ryan can make his case in a reasonable and unthreatening way. He doesn't get mad, or at least he doesn't show it. Like Reagan, he has a basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity.

Let’s see.  Decimating Social Security and Medicare vs. “basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity.”  We’ll see who can win that one.

And the Wall Street Journal isn’t the only conservative mouthpiece on board with Paul Ryan.  The National Review, here.

For a long time now, I have thought for sure it would be Ohio Senator Rob Portman.  Now, I am not so sure.  I am starting to think Mitt Romney really wants someone he likes and gets along well with, on the ticket.  And yes, someone who is a lot like him.  Alike.  Sort of like Clinton-Gore. 

That just might be former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

You Just Don’t Understand!

From wannabe-President Mitt Romney today:

“I just don’t think the president, by his comments, suggests an understanding of what it is that makes America such a unique nation,” Romney said. “Why people have come here for hundreds of years. It’s because this is the land of opportunity. We welcome people here with dreams and say to them, ‘Come build it.’ Not, ‘Come here because government will give it to you.’” 

Because, after all, why would the son of an African man from a small village who managed to get a graduate degree in economics from Harvard, understand what makes America such a unique nation.

Because, after all, why would the son who watched his single mother obtain a PhD, understand what makes America such a unique nation.

Because, after all, why would that same son (of that same single mother) who succeeded in getting one of the best educations this country could offer, understand what makes America such a unique nation. 

Because, after all, why would this country's first African-American president, understand what makes America such a unique nation.

Because, after all, fill-in-the blank…

Happy Birthday, Woody Guthrie!

This week, famed American folk singer Woody Guthrie would have turned 100 years old.

And this week, a number of famed Republican lawmakers gave us a very, very good idea of where they think the country should be headed. In reality, it’s not that they don’t have solutions to America’s problems. It’s just that they think American has, well – very few problems.

California Republican House member David Dreier does not think being diagnosed with a tumor while uninsured is a problem America needs to deal with.

"While I don't think that someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars of health care provided, I do believe there can be a structure to deal with the issue of pre-existing conditions," Dreier said. 

Some schmuck’s problem, yes. American’s problem? No.

If you had any questions about what real Americans do, they dodge taxes. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham:

Mitt Romney shouldn’t be criticized for using off-shore tax havens because “it’s really American to avoid paying taxes, legally,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday. [...] 

Graham argued that Congress is responsible for tax avoidance because it has crafted such convoluted rules and said he was fine with Romney’s taking advantage of the loopholes. 

“As long as it was legal, I’m OK with it,” Graham said. “I don’t blame anybody for using the tax code to their advantage. I blame us for having it so complicated and confused. Pick a rate and make people pay it.”

Now let’s see him try to do something about the loopholes.

And if you can get into Harvard but can’t afford it, it’s not the country’s problem. What are the chances it’s the poor, Ivy League graduate who is going to find the cure for cancer, anyway?

On the campaign trail Wednesday night in Virginia, Mitt Romney took on the topic of education. While extolling the virtues of America as “the land of opportunity for every single person,” Romney said that he believes students should only be able to get as much education “as they can afford”: 

I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.

Not sure who this land was, is – or will be made for. To that end, happy birthday, Woody Guthrie. Seemingly, we hardly knew you.

Crossing State Lines

A few days ago, Florida Republican Senator (and maybe wannabe-Republican-Vice-Presidential-candidate) Marco Rubio said “RomneyCare” was not nearly as bad as the Affordable Care Act because if you didn’t like the individual mandate in Massachusetts, at least you could leave the state. The only option now – if you disagree with last week’s Supreme Court decision, is to leave the country.


Yeah, right. Leave your home state. Leave your job. Your home. Your family.

Today, Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott said his state will opt out of parts of the Affordable Care Act:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Rick Scott has decided to opt out of parts of the Affordable Care Act that are optional for states. 

That means Florida will not expand its Medicaid program to cover an extra one million Floridians. Plus, the state will not create an insurance exchange to help people find health coverage.  

Gov. Scott believes those parts of the health care law will raise the cost of living for Floridians and hurt the private sector's ability to create jobs.   

"We're trying to do things that help the state grow jobs. We're trying to help Floridians who don't want their cost of living to go up and these pieces of legislation from Obamacare don't help those goals at all. In fact, they probably hurt those goals," said Scott's spokesman, Lane Wright. 

Just waiting for Sen. Rubio to tell the good citizens of Florida to leave the state, if they disagree with Gov. Scott’s decision…