Romney vs Obama Sound Clip Compare

The most interesting part about the debate of the 47% Romney comment is the comparison of what the press did with reporting it and the leaked Obama tape.  They rallied the wagons around Obama and sent out the wolves (e.g. assassins) against Romney. But a second important consideration is what it exposes about the candidates.  For Obama it is an exposure of a core foundational belief.  For Romney it was an observation of a political reality.  A reality we will see is an actual claimed strategy for Obama.

Barack Obama speaking in 1998 at Loyola University http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0PUUpa5X4E

"And my suggestion, I guess, would be that the trick - and this is one of the few areas where I think there are technical issues that have to be dealt with as opposed to just political issues - I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution," he said, "because I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure everybody's got a shot."

It is not really a huge surprise, as Obama has made similar, admissions before.  From "you didn't build that", to Joe the Plumber, we see Barack Obama's deeply held belief in redistribution through government.  Forcibly taking from one segment of the population that he both despises and demonizes and yet has become a member of (but doesn't seem to suffer from the demonization or forced taking there of, unlike small business owners do), and encouraging the other segment to increasingly demand ever more taking.

NBC was actually refusing to air this until well after it was obvious it was Barack Obama, as is shown in the video of the event, that actually puts face to match the singularly well known voice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KusnNQBQkwo

Perhaps they learned more caution from the doctored tapes, fabricating a false story, they had created to demagogue those who didn't fit their ideology, with Zimmerman and then again with a previous Romney tape about his visit to a sandwich shop.

In his leaked tape, Mitt Romney's basic claim was:

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

It is clear that Romney had stated an analysis (one which the media has created a distraction argument about by over-analyzing the minutia), that has been often presented throughout our history.  And he was in good company in stating the issue.  In a phrase attributed variously to Alexander Tytler or to Alexis de Tocqueville

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing

Ben Franklin even presaged it with the answer

“A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it.”

Or Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." 

In fact Romney is simply explaining a statistical observation that Barack Obama describes as a actionable strategy in the complete version that same 1998 Loyola tape.

what I think will re-engage people in politics is if we are doing significant serious policy work around what I will label the working poor, although my definition of working poor is not simply those making minimum wage, but is also families of 4 making $30,000 a year.  They are struggling. And to the extent that we are doing research figuring out what kinds of government actions would successfully make their lives better we are then putting together a potential majority coalition to potentially move those agendas forward. One of the good things about welfare reform … it essentially desegregates the welfare population .. vs the working poor which are the other people, now we just have one batch of folks  …  that is increasingly a majority population

Perhaps some, like Obama, see this not as a serious problem facing the country, a problem that must be reversed to take people out of poverty by creating the environment for a dynamic economy with jobs like we had during the Clinton and Bush eras.  But as a goad to force ever more redistribution until everyone is "equal" (except the rulers, like Barack Obama), and no one has a job other than under the government.  That would be the ultimate in serfdom, as hinted by Franklin.  No avenue for individual initiative, no forward, no hope, no change, the realization of the dystopian society of "Metropolis".

Battle Royal in CD4, Tony Hernandez vs Betty McCollum

The first debate of the 2012 CD4 election was held at the State Fair Tuesday 8/29. The candidates for US House of Representatives are Tony Hernandez, Betty McCollum, and Steve Carlson.

Tony Hernandez is the endorsed Republican candidate who is the fiscal conservative candidate in the race.

"We need to figure out a way to reform our tax structure, lower our taxes, so that businesses want to come back to America in order to invest,"

Betty McCollum is the long term incumbent, representing the far left constituency of Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.  Betty McCollum is a staunch believer in government involvement and regulation of business.  And as she states in the debate,

The fiscal cliff, you know we shouldn't, we shouldn't be in this position we should not be there.  We should be having a discussion as President Obama is starting to have with John Behner about putting everything on the table.  Tax reform as well as "smart cuts".

Placing the blame on "the Republican Tea Party element" for the issue and the "gridlock".  In the debate you will hear "tax reform" translates to tax increases (revenues), and "smart cuts" appear to equate to cuts to the military, and most forms of military advertisement [from other sources here, here, here, here].

Steve Carlson is the returning Independence Party candidate that ran in 2010, as a far distant third, claiming to represent the Tea Party.

As reviewed in MPR's article, this debate centered on those fiscal issues that undoubtedly are primary in everyone's mind.  Job's, the economy, debt, and the Stillwater bridge.

Harry Reid - The New McCarthy

Harry Reid has reprised Joe McCarthy's "I have here in my hand.." with the unfounded and un-substatitated claim of  "I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years ".   As the advertisements say, there is no more ruthless collections agency than the IRS.  There is no way Mitt Romney could have conceivably not paid the entirety of the taxes due.  The IRS would have chased him down with audits and investigations.

From Hot Air "Reid: Romney is guilty of my evidence-free accusations until he proves himself innocent".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VOIFRH0Zgs&feature=player_embedded

He’s refused to release his tax returns, as we know. [Yes he has, all that are required, just not "all" of them to provide opponents with excessive opportunity for slander like Harry Reid] If a person coming before this body wanted to be a cabinet officer, he couldn’t be if he did the same refusal Mitt Romney does about tax returns. So the word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. We already know from one partial tax return that he gave us, he has money hidden in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and a Swiss bank account. Not making that up, that’s in the partial year that he gave us. Mitt Romney makes more money in a single day than the average middle-class family makes in two years–or more.



Wait, wait, let me get this straight -- He has money "hidden" in completely legal foreign investments?  But Harry "found them" on Mitt Romney's publicly released IRS submitted tax form?  Real investigative journalism.  That would seem to be the least well kept secret "hiding" of assets ever.  What is Harry Reid accusing him of? Hiding money offshore so it doesn't get taxed, when its ON HIS TAX FORM!   Mitt Romney's tax forms detail the foreign investments and the applicable foreign taxes and subsequent additional US taxes paid on those investments.  Hardly a case of tax evasion, as Harry Reid tries to impugn, more like full disclosure.

Harry Reid said these tall tales (otherwise known as dissembling or lies) from the floor of the Senate.  That give him constitutional protection from the possibility of suit for libel. A most despicable way of slandering someone without having to be accountable. If Harry Reid has seen unreleased tax forms of Mitt Romney, he has just admitted to a crime. 


When Mitt Romney's father died and he inherited the estate, Mitt gave it all away 
[heard on Hugh Hewitt's show from author of On The Brink].  More on Mitt Romney's altruism and generosity 
here and here.  He further eschewed and donated salary and other benefits as governor and head of the Olympics.  His altruism and dedication is a truer testament to the man than baseless accusations from well known serial dissemblers.

From HotAir.com


Reid, who also refuses to release his own tax returns, isn’t just a hypocrite and a slanderer.  He’s also a political idiot.  Until these attacks, Romney was on the defensive over his tax returns.  Now Romney can paint his decision to keep them private as a principled stand against unscrupulous opponents.  Reid has handed the high ground to Romney in this fight with his scurrilous lies.  Reid has all but ruined Obama’s strategy of making Romney look secretive and weird.



Politics is a full contact sport, but it shouldn't include libelous gutter snipe attacks of desperation.

What does Obama mean... I didn't build my business

I, like many others in the country who want clear, concise and factual information subscribe to the Heritage newsletter.  I got this missive in the mail this morning

Morning Bell: Obama Tells Entrepreneurs “You Didn’t Build” Your Business

Obama: Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/obama-if-you’ve-got-business-you-didn’t-build-somebody-else-made-happen


With this I immediately thought of a friend of mine who had left a corporate job and started a business in his basement.   He spent years there, developing the complete product with he and his wife's own genius, inventiveness, and sweat, before moving to an office.  The business grew but always had issues with regulations.  Whether obscure sales tax implications and penalties, or other even more painful ones. The last four years he has become even more vocal to me about his complaints of government intervention in the form of regulations.  His background is not one of a conservative family, in fact very, very, much the opposite, but he has come to a strong limited government viewpoint through his personal experiences.

While I often helped him in the early days with projects, work, and discussion, I never once thought of it as "I built his business"! The arrogance of such a statement, and the blind misunderstanding of how things develop staggers me.

I had planned on sending him the Heritage link, but he beat me to it in this email exchange.

From F: "What the…"
a link to Obama's speech.

From D:  I meant to send that to you this morning, but I wanted to see the reaction...  I couldn't quite hear it from here (7 miles away?) 

From F: No $#!+. You don’t want to be near me after reading something like that. I pray the People have enough sense to kick this President [deleted original word, sorry F. you went a little overboard] out of office in November before the country goes downhill any further.  My partner [his wife, hey its a small business] can't spend any time selling because she spends sooo much of it dealing with our governments BS.

There are many who have made negative (some down right hostile) comments to me about the belief that small businesses suffer greatly at the hands of this governments excessive regulations and do and will vote with their feet.  But the reality is, my friend has often remarked about the possibility of moving his business out of the country, the state is a growing certainty, even though it is basically a company of he and his wife.

Spending half your small companies resources on governmental compliance and regulations should be considered ridiculously unreasonable in anyone's book.  We need to replace any governmental representative who does not actively participate in reducing this burden, and denounce the attitude that the government built an entrepreneurs business because they voted to build roads. That means replacing progressives that stand for ever larger government.

Will Rossbach - Budget Misconceptions

Did you ever have your spouse buy something very expensive that overdrew your account? Then give you the reasoning that "it was such a good deal I just had to buy it"?  Well Will Rossbach had such a moment in a City Council workshop recently.

Maplewood Mayor Will Rossbach made an astounding comment as they were discussing the interest rate the city might be able to get for more loans.

"We could probably say however that if we did actually bond now we would get a rate that around what we got before? … And, umm,  you know its a little bit like going to Walmart I guess, but uh, the more we would bond for the more we'd save…If we're saving $20,000 a year on $4.3 million, we'd be saving 40 on twice that?"

From watching the video of the comment, I am not sure the city staffer giving the report knew what to do with that comment.  The truth is that you save by not spending money you don't  have.

Maplewood held the workshop on June 25 to reconsider the bonding bill they had proposed to spend $9.5 million dollars to build new fire (they just closed a couple that probably could have been updated much less expensively) and police facilities.  A petition had been submitted to call the bonding to a referendum vote by the citizens.  The City had dismissed the petition by disqualifying 70 signatures.  The bonding company however subsequently had significant concerns about that, and the petition, so the bonding for this year was put on hold.  Since they were essentially blocked on the bonding as proposed (either by the petition, or by other points in the presentation that said they really only had about $1.5 million left of their borrowing cap of $10 million bank qualified rate amount, the 1.7666% rate), they were considering two alternative ways around it.

The story is very similar to that of many other cities, among them the City of Scanton, which demonstrates where poor fiscal management can lead.

From CBS

"Sad that it came down to this," Pugliese [who has worked for Scranton's Department of Public Works for 26 years] said. "I can't understand how it could get this bad. I could never run my household down this low. Don't know how they could run a city down this low."
Amid a dispute with the City Council [Democrat] about raising funds for their cash-strapped Pennsylvania city, the mayor of Scranton faces a lawsuit from union workers after he cut their pay to minimum wage.

"We don't have enough money. That's what it comes down to," Doherty [Democrat, Mayor] told Quijano. After paying city workers, Doherty said Scranton only had $5,000 left and very few options.

Investors Business Daily Progressive City Learns Big Government Perils The Hard Way

But the mayor isn't necessarily a hero. A source in the Scranton city council who spoke on condition of anonymity said the big problem was that the mayor and the city council had agreed to borrow to cover the shortfall but a couple of consultants warned banks not to lend to the city until its recovery plan was approved.
The city council balked because it included a 78% tax hike on businesses [this and loans are part of the Mayor's plan], some of which are already leaving for friendlier climes.

And all from poor budgeting and debt policies.

Full video available from the archives at: Maplewood City Council Manager Workshop June 25, 2012

http://mwccw.nsacwebcasts.com/viewer.php?id=3763

VoterID at DFL Convention Discussed on Tim Kinley's Speechless Show 6/7/2012

On Tim Kinley's Speechless Show, he played the video where at the 2012 Democrat DFL State Convention the discussed vote fraud possibilities of a proposed amendment to their party constitution, and voted essentially for the "Voter ID" concept in their caucus presidential balloting.

A woman called in and spoke about her House District endorsing convention where she alleges the following:

Woman: The local DFL  convention that was held at North High I myself was participating there.  And when we were voting for endorsement for the new open seat for state representative in 43 Phil Trippler as a matter of fact ,  Chuck Wiger, and John Nephew were looking at everybody's ballots.  Ok.
Tim: Why would they look at the ballots? What, Why were they  ..
Woman: When we were voting you had to vote to vote for your candidate of of choice and on the back sign your name.  If you did not sign your name it did not count.  So right there the DFL was demanding voter id at their conventions, see.
Tim: You had to sign your name to the back of the ballot?
Woman: Yes you had to sign your name or it would not be counted. And Phil Trippler, I folded mine up so tiny you know and he sat there behind me and opened my ballot to see who I was voting for.  And then I was harassed and bullied to change my vote.  Now that's wrong.
Tim: Wow yes it is!
Woman: And the all know they did it. 

If this alleged action occurred, that would be a tremendous incursion into open voting.  It would go far beyond the Voter ID amendment to changing the secret ballot into an identified ballot, much like what card check for union voting would do.

We need voint integrity, we need Voter ID, and at its heart the DFL knows it!

SOS Mark Ritchie Speaking Against Voter ID at 2012 MInnesota DFL Convention

Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is a very vocal critic of the Voter ID Amendment.  He spoke strongly against it during the legislative process and is apparently campaigning around the state against the amendment.  Yet in the ACLU/LWV/Common Cause Minnesota Supreme Court lawsuit he is named as the defendant.  Attorney General Lori Swanson, who would also be "defending" the amendment, is also  against the amendment.  This could end up being the least well defended case in history.

In his speech Mark Ritchie stated

This is going into the Constitution, it cannot be fixed, it cannot be tweaked, it cannot be corrected, its forever.

Not the words of someone likely to put his entire, or possibly any, effort into supporting legislation that a huge majority, 80%, of Minnesotans want.

CBS

Minnesota Majority, a conservative group that’s backing the photo ID amendment, issued a statement predicting the petition will fail. The group’s president, Jeff Davis, noted that it names as defendant Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a vocal opponent of photo ID. He questioned whether Ritchie, a Democrat, would properly defend the case and said his group or pro-amendment legislators would likely seek to intervene.

We need to have our legislators step up and vigorously defend their work!