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Menu There is no diplomatic solutionIsrael should declare three nos;
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
no to nuclear Iran, no to two-state solution, no to bi-national state
@ Wallace Brand:
I have heard that a number of times, and I am not so naive that I don’t understand it. However, Almighty God has sent us His salvation, and it is still up to us to accept it or reject it. And like the person who didn’t take the salvation that was afforded him, we still stand in the same position.
@ Alanjo55: Yet another lie that Romney corrected when Obama repeated it during the Romney/Obama debate. It was repeated by Biden in his debate with Ryan. That is the proposition that Romney’s tax plan would require a $5 million increase in taxes for the lower and middle income class.
On the $5 million difference:
“”Last night, the Obama campaign blasted out another email claiming that Mitt Romney’s tax plan would either require raising taxes on the middle class or blowing a hole in the deficit. “Even the studies that Romney has cited to claim his plan adds up still show he would need to raise middle-class taxes,” said the Obama campaign press release. “In fact, Harvard economist Martin Feldstein and Princeton economist Harvey Rosen both concede that paying for Romney’s tax cuts would require large tax increases on families making between $100,000 and $200,000.”
But that’s not true. Princeton professor Harvey Rosen tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD in an email that the Obama campaign is misrepresenting his paper on Romney’s tax plan:
I can’t tell exactly how the Obama campaign reached that characterization of my work. It might be that they assume that Governor Romney wants to keep the taxes from the Affordable Care Act in place, despite the fact that the Governor has called for its complete repeal. The main conclusion of my study is that under plausible assumptions, a proposal along the lines suggested by Governor Romney can both be revenue neutral and keep the net tax burden on taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 about the same. That is, an increase in the tax burden on lower and middle income individuals is not required in order to make the overall plan revenue neutral.
• Wall Street Journal: Princeton Economist Harvey Rosen on How the Romney Tax Plan Can be Revenue Neutral Without Increasing Taxes on Lower or Middle Income Americans.
@ Stanley J. revich:
For the unemployment number to go from 8.1% to 7.8% in that short of time the economy would need to be growing at 5%. The economy is growing at less than 2%. When those of us in the financial industry saw the numbers come out we just thought someone made a large reporting mistake and the correct number of it staying at 8.1% or nudging up to 8.2% was going to be reported soon. They probably know that most people don’t understand how the numbers work and are being deceptive to get their votes.
@ Donald freyman:
What a self-centered, lonely and naive life you obviously must live…
Oh, and as far as your other post about polling, Romney is winning Independents by anything between 5-10 points depending on the polls you look at (and its really every single one, feel free to try it*), while Democrats are under-registering from 2008 numbers at about a 10-1 ratio against Republicans and are self-identifying near the record low.
But go ahead, believe the media polls which take the very real data they find showing no possible way the President can win yet still somehow manage to deliver a +2-10 Obama ‘lead’ for the headlines – I’m sure its totally sound…
*I’ll even give you a perfect example: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/10/01/rel11a.pdf
In that CNN poll you will notice, way on page 16, this:
Obama, Total= 50%, DNC= 93%, IND= 41%, GOP= 4%
Romney, Total= 47%, DNC= 6%, IND= 49%, GOP= 96%
Thats Romney +8 point on Independents and +3 on DNC/GOP differential… yet they have Mitt losing by 3?
Now what should that poll really look like? Rasmussen is generally considered the best at party identification, and they have it currently at:
37% Republican
34% Democrat
29% Independent
…so do the math on that CNN poll again ~ I think you will find it to be 52% Romney to 45% Obama.
Making it worse for Obama? That poll was done before the Debate beatdown…
…and if you also somehow question Rasmussen’s Identification, check the 2008 identification – they predicted a +7.6 Dem advantage that turned out to be roughly 7 at the booths. But we could even go farther then that too if you want; lets say Rassmussen is flat out wrong and its really flipped to 37Dem, 34GOP, 29IND – you still get Romney 50% to Obama 47%!
The only way Obama gets close to winning is if somehow he manages to get back the enthusiasm he held in the perfect storm of 2008 when no one knew him, everyone was mad at Republicans and a recession hit on GOP watch. In other words, yeah right…
@ Nina Lawrence:
A simple test. Amputate your leg, pray fervently for the restoration of your lost limb. The next morning you will surely have both legs, as good as new. Try it, guaranteed to work. It worked for me.
@ Nina Lawrence:
@ Ted Belman:
Yes Romney will definitely win. He has the woman’s vote , the black vote, the anti war vote, the elderly vote, and I am Maria of Rumania.
@ birdalone:
Probably due to the 800 calorie diet his wife has him on. My dog eats more than 800 calories a day. Maybe I should put her on a diet?
Same interesting, optimistic Romney, and same listless Obama, both spoke on Sept. 25 at ClintonGlobalInitiative
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/ourmeetings/2012/webcast/archives/player.asp?id=61
And, fwiw, that was the first time I did NOT hit the mute button when Romney spoke.
Apparently, only I saw the two speak that day because the Oct 3 debate was not such a surprise to me, altho I was surprised at Obama’s terrible closing statement. all I heard was something mumbled like ‘well, vote for me, whatever…’
Romney absolutely changed the trajectory, but four more weeks, and who knows? I still fantasize that New York is in play.
as for the Biden/Ryan debate? One thing about Biden – he does not gaffe during a real debate. It should be a robust match.
@ Nina Lawrence:I am 82 years old. You must not have heard this story:
A religious man is on top of a roof during a great flood. A man comes by in a boat and says “get in, get in!” The religous man replies, ” no I have faith in God, he will grant me a miracle.”
Later the water is up to his waist and another boat comes by and the guy tells him to get in again. He responds that he has faith in god and god will give him a miracle. With the water at about chest high, another boat comes to rescue him, but he turns down the offer again cause “God will grant him a miracle.”
With the water at chin high, a helicopter throws down a ladder and they tell him to get in, mumbling with the water in his mouth, he again turns down the request for help for the faith of God.
He arrives at the gates of heaven with broken faith and says to Peter, I thought God would grand me a miracle and I have been let down.” St. Peter chuckles and responds, “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, we sent you three boats and a helicopter.”
@ Wallace Brand:
@ Wallace Brand:
I am almost 77 years of age, and I have relied on The Almighty, and He has never failed me. You can call it whatever you like,
but God is still God, He always was God, and He will be God. And everyone of us is going to one day have to stand before Him.
I guess Ted missed the post debate interviews with dumb voters who couldn’t tell who won the debate.
@ Donald freyman:
Peron used the same style of fabricating unemployment “numbers” weeks before elections.
Mr. Obama was, is and will always be a Chicage machine product sucking a teleprompter.
A mediocre JHS debate team runt would make a better show.
Everyone is leaving one thing out of the equation. look at the insane statistic that the Obama-controlled Bureau of labour Statistics came out with yesterday — employment rate down to 7.8%! Hurrah! How many people out there will actually take the time to delve into how those number are produced? By polling! By statistical “tricks’ in which numbers are pulled, for all practical purposes, out of a hat. The govt. says that out of the blue Sept. produced over 600,000 PART TIME jobs and glory be we are on our way to full employment thanks to the ONE. Do not forget that the Democrats will do ANYTHING to win this election and that means, unfortunately the likely scenario of even a small scale war, a supposed peace, fraud, stuffing ballot boxes, anything at all, to keep Obama in power.
There have even been reports that Iran will suddenly announce a “temporary” ban on further nuclear refinement thanks to a plea from Obama. This ban of course will be reversed the day after the election. Oh there are lots of ways this whole business can play out if you have a willing media.
@ Donald freyman:
Anyone who believes the just released unemployment figures not only believes in Father Christmas but also the tooth fairy.
The unemployment figures were just released. Good news. Obama just won the election.
@ Nina Lawrence: Turning to God is fine, particularly for determining moral standards, but relying on him is not. Remember God helps those who help themselves.
I am not American, I am Canadian. However, I feel that our country, the U.S.A or any other country must turn back to Almighty God. Otherwise, it doesn’t really matter who wins in the U.S.A. I pray that Christians, both American and Canadian will pray as never before. God is still on the throne, and my prayer is that America and Canada, will turn back to God with all their hearts.
@ Jerry G:
All American politicians are populists.
If they ever told the American people the truth they would never be elected.
Obama more than any president in modern history is nothing more than a Hologram (A projection). Yet around 50% of all voters who vote will vote for him. Around 60% still like him after 4 years.
Speaks more about Americans than it does about Obama. Romney was the pick of the Movers and Shakers of the Republican Party and they are not related in any way to the Tea Party or the Libertarian wing of the Republican party. They aren’t conservatives either.
Romney is their Boy this time around. McCain was sacrificed because they did not believe any Republican after Bush could win.
@ Vinnie:
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence and political acumen of the American public.
I understand the deep desire of most commenters’ on this blog to want Romney but most want him because they hate Obama like my best friend who lives part time in Mexico, he emailed me this:
I say why vote at all? Voting legitimizes the election and if you don’t like or agree with any of the candidates why vote. In such cases voting is immoral.
“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
H. L. Mencken.
I am neither a Democrat or a Republican but a cynical political atheist. I looked at who was betting on Obama and put up their $$$$$. It’s the who’s Who rouges gallery of most of those who are responsible for the debacle America finds herself. Last time most went for Obama. You expect with Romney things will improve. I don’t!
The debate as viewed from Taiwan. Apparently one part was eliminated — Romney’s taking a chain saw to Big Bird.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNhUI8ktHuw
No, Romney has not won yet.
Yes, Romney won THIS round, thankfully. But the fight is still far from over.
Many people – such as most of the participants in this forum – think the foreign policy debate is going to be a cakewalk for Romney. I’d be careful about getting overconfident.
First, there’s Romney’s own limitations. This recent debate was on Romney’s home turf: economic issues. The man lives, eats, breathes, sleeps this stuff. As he said in the debate, he’s been involved with business for 25 years (versus zero for Obama). Not only is Obama’s record bad, but on this topic, Romney was more than equipped to run circles around him on these issues, being able to tell him why he’s failed in ways that Obama not only would not know, but could barely comprehend.
But Romney does NOT have much knowledge or experience pertaining to foreign policy. Obama didn’t four years ago, either, but now he’s been president for four years, so he does. Romney says some nice things on this topic that sound good to folks like us, but he impresses me as being shallow on this issue. A sitting president who has actually conducted foreign policy – no matter how badly – has an inside track.
There is also a larger issue here quite apart from Romney, as this relates to the matter of foreign policy. What people of our persuasion miss is that an awful lot of our fellow American voters just do not see the world the way we do. Obama polls surprisingly well on foreign policy, as amazing and confounding as that may seem to folks like us.
But it shouldn’t come as such a big surprise; Americans are more isolationist now than they’ve been since probably the 1930s. Many LIKE the fact that Obama got us out of Iraq – never mind that we lost – and is getting us out of Afghanistan – never mind that we’re going to lose. He’s bringing the boys back home, he’s withdrawing from the world…and that’s just dandy as far as quite a lot of Americans are concerned.
Romney runs a very big risk if he starts waving the “American Exceptionalism” flag around in such a way that it starts to smell to voters like he may get us into another war. He’s got to be careful about that.
I still expect Romney to win. But there are some major pitfalls for him ahead. I hope he’s smart enough to avoid them.
@ Ted Belman:
No doubt.
In the Foreign Policy one Obama will basically only have two real ‘attacks’
1 – “Russia is our greatest enemy” which Obama will try to insist makes Romney look like he is living in the past. Romney will have to come back with the facts; Russia test-firing long-range weapons and saying they have no problem going right back into the Cold War if Obama continues his effort to try to protect our allies in Europe from possible attacks (even after Obama gave Russia Britain’s nuclear secretes in an dastardly attempt to satisfy them), Russia’s continued supplying of weapons and uranium to Iran in the middle of Iran dismissing the UN and building a nuke, Russia’s involvement in Syria including their supposed telling Syria to execute the Turkish pilots which seems to have been a driving force for this weeks Turkish shelling of Syria, Russia’s having submarines patrolling the Golf Coast and planes continually flying along the Canadian side of our Northern Border, Russia’s recent forceful crackdown on descent and freedom showing the KGB-like tactics are being employed once again, and on and on and on (those are just off the top of my head) – Romney should be able to stress pretty easily that Russia is saying one thing and doing another, apparently unafraid of our almost naive, “I’ll have more flexibility after the election”, Appeaser in Chief
2 – “There wont be Peace, Palestinians dont want Peace”, to which Romney really only needs to say “how many times have you gotten them to come, and stay, at the negotiation table, Mr President” and follow up with some of the endless excuses they give as to why they wont plus their insistence to work more and more with well-known terrorist group Hamas who insists Israel not even exist. It will also provide a spring board for Romney to go off on Obama’s “1967 Borders” stance, and countless other attempts to undermine and make demands of Israel despite the endless PA games.
Otherwise he will try the “he has no foreign policy experience”, to which Romney merely needs to reply with something to the effect of “neither did you, and I’m not sure anyone can do much worse then you have with the world chaos you have brought in your Carter-like appeasement diplomacy”
Obama’s straight toast, and at this points its merely a matter of how burnt he is left on election day – Carter level embarrassment, or more along the lines of a Ford ‘you tried’ exit?
The election is a farce. Not a word from any Republican, the so called opposition that Obama is ineligible for the presidency not only because of birth but also the numerous felonies he has committed in obtaining the presidency and the crimes he has committed while in office. The plain truth about Obama is that he is a foreign born Marxist, Islamist usurper who belongs behind bars, not in the White House.
@ blahblahblah:
Absolutely. In the Foreign policy debate Obama will be a sitting duck. Keep in mind that Obama can’t make the next debate about Romney. Romny has virtually no record of positions on Foreign policy. But Obama will have to justify Bengazi, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Nobody can do it, least of all him.
Romney has proven himself to be an excellent debater, a good communicator and presidential. Obama’s policies will get slaughtered. Obama won’t be able to defend them.
Furthermore we can see the Democratic spin after this dabate, i.e., Romney lied (that is a tough sell). So it want be about Obama’s weakness but about Romney’s “lies”. As Krauthammer pointed out, the Obama on display in the debate is the only Obama.. The spin also includes the idea that Obama was too soft on Romney and in future he will be more aggressive. I don’t think so. Obama is a wimp, a wuse. He cannot stand toe to toe with Romney. He is incapable of being more aggressive. If he tries, it will turn out badly for him. Romney will dominate him.
He is correct because of 3 main reasons
1 – Romney proved he is not the “evil, extreme, uncaring, unhinged, racist, out-of-touch, idea-less, etc, etc, etc…” the President and Democrats have been insisting he was the last 5+ months. This was almost a given no matter what he did with how horrible they painted him, but he did it extremely well
2 – Romney proved he is not afraid of the President, and is more then capable of presenting himself as actually stronger (while the Obama “weakness” has been front and center the last month+ and was pitifully on display all night)
3 – Because of the two above, Obama didnt even have a way to attack. Had he attacked with the far-left out-of-context non-sense, he would have been beat down with reality (he mainly stayed away from this). Had he attacked on policy (which he did try a bit) he gets his own horrific failures thrown back into his face with force (as happened a couple times). He continued to try to attack on “lack of specifics” despite Romney giving actual specifics in the debate, making Obama look oblivious and even more as if he wasnt even really there. Meanwhile, Obama had no specifics himself that he hasnt repeated since before he took office, and doesnt really have a single accomplishment to hang his hat on (trying to brag about GM or Bin Laden is even removed now with GM again on its last legs, again, and Laden/AQ growing stronger and attacking our territory everywhere, again). All he really had was “its a clear choice between our visions”
Its almost a mirror image of what we saw in the Carter v. Reagan election. The undecideds were almost certainly going with Romney anyway because they generally do every time; but they still needed to make sure he wasnt what the Dems and Media endlessly claimed he was. The countless polls and focus-groups showing undecideds overwhelming saying they are leaning/would go with Romney after this backs this up.
I wouldnt be surprised if this put rather shocking states into play; it was that bad of a performance by Obama and perfect way for Romney to present himself to the world. And remember, Dems were already skipping out on registration at a 10-1 Dem to GOP ratio BEFORE this beatdown – you think Obamas showing will energize them even more? Nah, election is pretty much over at this point and now its merely a question of if its Carter-level embarrassing for Obama (almost every poll has Romney winning Inds already, and the polls are only close overall because they are generally using the +6/7D from 2008. At this point, we could very well see a +2/3 GOP come election day while Obama-leaning Indies could very well even be tempted to go Johnson (esp in WestCoast states from NewMexico to Washington and Oregon), and that means a gigantic swing from the current ‘tie’ polls into massive Romney win territory – again, like Carter v Reagan)
I would also point out that the next Romney/Obama debate will be a tough one for Obama, there will be so much pressure to shine because of this massacre that he will quite likely over-do it and come off as a bit pitiful or worse, start producing self-damaging gaffs. Biden is also almost a lock to say things he shouldnt, and can only hope to come off as loveable. I just dont see how they can overcome anything here, at best Obama will be able to show he is strong enough to deserve to even be in consideration but then one goes back to his failed 4 years and he still doesnt get the vote.
Team Obama is in a horrific spot between multiple rocks and a hard place at this point. Even the “sitting President” benefit is slipping away when most feel Romney is leading narratives and acting more Presidential already despite technically having no power what so ever.
A single debate victory does not a president make. The sentence structure is inelegant but the truth of the message is.
Obama just proved affirmative action does not work. However white guilt may put him again in office.
“The worst guilt is to accept an undeserved guilt—and that is what
you have been doing all your life. ”
Ayn Rand
Surely you cannot imagine that a single debate assures the election of a contending candidate against an incumbent US president? First, you must consider that this was only first of four debates when you include the lone vice presidential debate, in which challenger Representative Ryan will try to accomplish the same success against Vice President Biden and Governor Romney did against President Obama last night. I expect Ryan to beat Biden, but one can never accurately predict victory in any such high level political debate.
Obama will have two more opportunities, although Romney could well repeat his roundhouse knockout from the first debate at the one in which the the foreign policies of the two candidates will be fought over by Obama and Romney. This campaign is not over until the polling places in Alaska and Hawaii shut down in the early morning hours of November 7, 2012.
I am actively supporting Governor Romney against President Obama, but I have no expectation this will be anything other than a close election.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
EVERY TIME I GO ON THE INTERNET I SEE DISTURBING ARTICLES IN REGARD TO OBAMA SUSPENDING THE ELECTIONS,
HOMELAND SECURITY RECEIVING ONE BILLION FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION, TWENTYSIX HUNDRED
SNIPER RIFLES AS WELL AS MANY OTHER MILITARY FIREARMS. ALSO THERE ARE PICTURES OF MILITARY TYPE
VEHICLESTHAT LOOK LIKE TANKS WITH WHEELS ROAMING THROUGH URBAN AREAS OF THE COUNTRY.
WHY DOES HOMELAND SECURITY NEED ALL THESE THINGS? WILL THEY DARE TO COMMIT TREASON AND USE
THEM AGAINST THE AMERICAN PEOPLE? THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT WITH THAT GUY IN THE WH.