In Political Debate Numbers Matter

The Daily Show segment Picking Winners & Losers comes with the description:

At Bain Capital, former top-notch venture capitalist Mitt Romney could pick investment failures better than the federal government.


As with any Republican candidate, you always have to check the numbers to see if they have the arithmetic right. They rarely do.


Obama Drops the October Surprise on Donald Trump

In this interview with Jay Leno, President Barack Obama breaks the big news that Donald Trump warned us about.


This has certainly got to be a bigger bombshell than what Trump actually came up with.


Mitt Romney Adopts Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy

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.)


Stephen Marks: 2012 Election by the Numbers – Why I am Voting for Obama

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 Optimal-Gate

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.


Romney Endorses Obama’s Foreign Policy

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.


Employees of Romney Family’s Secret Bank Tied to Fraud, Money Laundering and Drug Cartels

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 Wants You To Volunteer

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.