I swear that I had not seen The Daily Show clip Mitt Romney Adopts Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy until today, 2012/10/24 at 10:26 PM. I wrote my previous post Romney Endorses Obama’s Foreign Policy 2012/10/23 at 7:16 AM.

The fact that the above type of video clip worked for me yesterday was apparently an aberration. To view this video I had to use the MTV/Comedy Central bug work-around link to see the video today. (Well, I just discovered that the video plays in this post, it just didn’t work when I went to see it on the Comedy Central site.)

RichardH has recommended that I post this video.

I responded to some of the comments posted on YouTube about this video.

If we are dissatisfied with how far Obama has taken us down the road of recovery, I cannot for the life of me figure out why we would want to put back in power the people who took us to near depression in the first place.

However hard it has been to get a recovery going from the last disaster, I can guarantee you it will be orders of magnitude harder after we elect people to give us another disaster.

One thing that I cannot guarantee if we elect Romney is that whoever tries to rescue us after Romney, that person will be able to maintain the U.S. as the dominant economic power in the world.

As inadequate as you may think Obama has been, re-electing him may be our last chance at keeping the American empire going.

You may or may not think that keeping the American empire going is a good thing. Whatever side of this question you are on, you should go into this election with your eyes open about what to expect.

Here is RichardH’s recommendation.

Around Oct. 15, I read an essay by Steve Marks titled, “The 2012 Election by the Numbers – Why I am Voting for Obama.” The essay presents information that you and your blog readers already know but he presents it in a very compelling way. I congratulated him on his fine essay and suggested that it might have wider and more significant impact as a YouTube video.

Not only do you get a message, but you get to hear Sharon’s favorite song of 1964.

The Real News Network deserves some credit for posting this.

In the video clip, Not Optimal-Gate, Jon Stewart analyzes President Obama’s remarks in a previously aired interview on The Daily Show.

Perhaps Jon Stewart has a better take on this situation than I showed in my previous post, Obama Referred To The Death Of Four Americans In Libya As “Not Optimal.” – How Sensitive Is Your Bullshit Detector?

Apparently someone has finally solved the problem of MTV serving Adobe Flash Video to Firefox and a number of other browsers. I no longer have to give you a work-around link. Well, at least it works for me. If you now have problems viewing the above video, ler me know, and I’ll put the work-around link back in.

In my previous post Scott Brown Finds Trouble In Sturbridge, I explained that I was having trouble with lawn sign thieves.

I have taken steps to make sure that my freedom to express my political preference shall not be abridged in Sturbridge.

You can see the following photo album at Large Elizabeth Warren Sign.

Hours before the debate, I had predicted to a group of people that Romney would come out as the peace and love candidate in the debate.  I had also predicted that Obama would be so surprised by this turn of events, that he would be completely flummoxed.

This morning, I found this response in an email from CarolG to me.

You were right, Steve!

What I find fascinating about these debate tactics that Romney uses is the tacit admission that his own policies are not acceptable to the majority of the voters, and that Obama’s policies are the ones to promote. The sad part is, that in last night’s debate, Romney put forward a stronger explanation of Obama’s vision than Obama did.  (I suppose Obama could have responded, “Yeah, that’s right.  Everything you said.”  Or maybe, “I am so glad you have come around to seeing my point of view.  Your description of my ideas is pretty accurate for one who opposed them so vigorously before.”)

Perhaps Obama rallied in the second part of the debate.  We were too disheartened by the first part, that we just could not watch anymore.

Given my past history in  predicting the public reaction to these debates, Obama must have won handily, because I thought his performance sucked.

As Sharon has just explained to me, perhaps Obama is just so worn down by the need for constant battle with the Republicans, that he’d just as soon turn the mess over to them and let them take the blame.  Of course Obama has no foresight this time either.  The Republicans can spend four years blaming Obama for everything that has gone wrong or will go wrong.

What do you make of the article Employees of Romney Family’s Secret Bank Tied to Fraud, Money Laundering and Drug Cartels on truth-out.org?

As previously reported in by the Columbus Free Press, the Romney family, namely Mitt, Ann, G Scott and Tagg Romney, along with Mitt’s “6th son” and campaign finance chair have a secretive private equity firm called Solamere Capital Partners. This firms ties to Romney’s campaign and bundlers is already well documented, along with its connection to the manufacture and distribution of voting machines. What is not as well documented is a subsidiary of that private equity firm hiring employees of a failed firm tied to a Ponzi scheme that has a long history of money laundering for Latin American drug cartels and to the Iran-Contra scandal.

Is this just a tawdry attempt at guilt by association, or is this something to concern the voters who are thinking of voting for Mitt Romney?

Al Franken came to our area in support of Elizabeth Warren. We saw him in Worcester where this video was shot, and we saw him in Southbridge.

For all of you how are dying to see details of how Romney is going to cut the deficit while increasing tax cuts by $5 trillion, have I got the link for you 🙂

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

Don’t forget to look at the bottom of the page for an additional link.

Don’t ever say that I don’t give you equal access to both sides even though I make no claims to balance. 🙂

Thanks to RogerS for bringing this to my attention.

A thoughtful but conservative friend sent me an email in which he said:

Romney talked about “the 47%” essentially being a waste of his time. Obama referred to the death of four Americans in Libya as “not optimal.” Without either of us offering further qualification or context to those remarks, could we agree that both statements were outrageous?

Responding as he requested with no context, I said:

Taken without context, referring to the death of four Americans in Libya as “not optimal” is so insensitive that I must believe there is some context around those remarks that is essential to understanding what he was saying. (My bullshit alarm goes off when you pose the question the way you did. Do you have a bullshit alarm?)

That is my first reaction, before looking up the quote. I will now go over to Google to find out what he really said.

I, mean, I cannot understand why you would want to react to someone’s remarks without understanding what he intended. That is how I always get in trouble with interpreting many of your remarks before I find out what is behind them.

Follow the link

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

listen to the video with an open mind and tell me again why it is that you have taken such a dislike to President Obama.

I took a chance by stating the beginning before I did the research. I think that the result of my research shows that my bullshit detector is working just fine.

I later remarked to this friend:

Before your email, I had been unaware that this piece of crap was causing a stir. With your help, we may be able to nip this in the bud before Faux Noise turns this into an issue.

I find it rather silly that Jon Stewart could try to make such a big deal out of the fact that Obama was open enough to the American people to let the information out as it was being gathered. If he had been more political, he would have tried to suppress the information until he had all the facts. Of course, if he had been more Republican he would be out declaring war before he knew the facts.

Do you like politicians who react before they have the facts? I am not saying you do, I am asking a serious question.

The way Obama describes how he works, is exactly how I described an engineering approach to politics. Find out what happened, and then if something is broken, figure out how to fix it. Do you do your engineering some other way?