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The Hands on the Wheel
Author: BobR    Date: 2012-10-31 11:56:00

UPDATED 12:30 PM EDT to add link at bottom...

It was 2004. Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts. Heavy rains caused flooding in his state, which required him to request Federal Disaster relief funds. Later that year, the Massachusetts legislature passed a proposal to allocate $5.7M in state funds for a flood protection project. Then-Governor Romney vetoed it. In 2006, the town of Peabody was flooded again. Local officials blamed Romney for vetoing the funds that could've prevented it.

Fast forward to the current presidential race. Last year in June during the seemingly never-ending Republican primary debates, candidate Romney was asked whether FEMA should be eliminated. He was emphatic in his answer:
"Absolutely," he said. "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"
[..]
"We cannot -- we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids," Romney replied. "It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we'll all be dead and gone before it's paid off. It makes no sense at all."
[..]
The Washington Post's Greg Sargent adds: "There’s another nugget here worth highlighting, though. In that appearance, Romney also suggested it would be 'even better' to send any and all responsibilities of the federal government 'to the private sector,' disaster response included. So: Romney essentially favored privatizing disaster response."

Earlier this year, he continued to push the austerity idea further when he said America doesn't need any more firemen, policemen or teachers.

Of course - that was "Pre-Sandy". Now he is desperately trying to shake the etch-a-sketch and make people forget that Romney cares more about money than people.
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68 comments (Latest Comment: 11/01/2012 02:05:15 by Will in Chicago)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 10/30/2012 10:12:43

Good Morning.

Today is our 4,041st day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 2,144
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,069

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 387, 912, 100, 000 .00


With the storm bearing down on us, I've been a bit lax in my research and bookmarking the last few days. Nevertheless, I've got an archive full of things, so let's take a look.
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110 comments (Latest Comment: 10/31/2012 03:13:48 by Will in Chicago)

Stormwatch
Author: Will in Chicago    Date: 2012-10-29 10:00:18

As I write this, the East Coast of the United States is waiting for the merger of a Canadian cold front and Hurricane Sandy into what some are calling Superstorm or Frankenstorm. Some areas of the East Coast are expecting a foot of rain and some areas may get two feet of snow. The City of New York has shut down public transit as of 7 PM Eastern Sunday, other areas are taking similar steps – including Philadelphia and Washington D.C. An estimated 10.8 million Americans will face the closure of public transit. Meanwhile, the New York Stock Exchange is cancelling live trading on Monday. Some predictions call for billions of dollars worth of damage to the East Coast

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167 comments (Latest Comment: 10/30/2012 03:27:21 by Raine)

gRape Nuts
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 10/28/2012 14:21:36

Sorry I'm late this morning, I was having a bitch fight with some random friend of a friend on the interwebs. A guy that believes that "God" is in the Constitution. "Go check it yourself" said he. "I don't have to" said I. There is no mention of "God" "Jesus" "Christian" or the like in the mother effing Constitution! Hells Bells! If the founding fathers were actual Christians and wanted this nation to be built on Christian ideals, don't you think they would have mentioned Jesus somewhere in the Bill of Rights?

But I digress, as ususal.
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8 comments (Latest Comment: 10/28/2012 23:39:06 by livingonli)

Libertarian Saturday Returns!
Author: TriSec    Date: 10/27/2012 12:07:46

Good Morning.

Longtime readers of this space may remember the long-running feature "Libertarian Saturday" that went away after the 2008 elections. It's been an awfully long time, but with another election in the offing, I thought I'd take a peek around some of my old haunts and see what is going on.
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14 comments (Latest Comment: 10/28/2012 06:45:46 by livingonli)

Raping a Basic Right
Author: BobR    Date: 10/26/2012 12:51:32

If you turn on the political pundit shows these days, or watch discussion trends on Facebook, there's an awful lot of talk about rape. Rape, rape, rape, rape... It's both amazing and disgusting. Why is this? It's because of the discussions revolving around abortion and the exception for victims of rape and incest. Most any person with any sort of moral core would agree that a woman who becomes pregnant due to rape should not be required to carry the pregnancy to term.
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89 comments (Latest Comment: 10/26/2012 22:43:39 by Will in Chicago)

A Golden Web
Author: Raine    Date: 10/25/2012 13:53:39

A few days ago, I posted the following on my facebook page:

"I never saw a candidate so coddled by the media before in my life. Here is a man who dodged the draft, outsourced U.S. jobs, evades U.S. taxes, won't release his tax returns, banks offshore, invests in communist countries, destroyed hard drives, took his state from 36th-47th, hates half the country, and on TOP OF THAT; has no specifics or details on anything and his tax plan has been debunked every which way."

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71 comments (Latest Comment: 10/26/2012 12:41:47 by BobR)

14 Days
Author: BobR    Date: 10/24/2012 14:22:12

With only 14 days to go until the general election, candidates in all races are beginning to feel the heat of the looming "deadline". With the exception of the first presidential debate, the remaining 3 were all knockout wins for the Democrats. There's also the conflicting messages and gaffes from Republican candidates, which is unusual considering that they were a fairly unified party in previous elections.

The last two presidential debates showed a candidate Romney repeatedly in conflict with earlier positions and even statements on his website. They warned us that they would be shaking the etch-a-sketch, but it's still surprising and jarring that they don't seem to realize that they can't really erase past statements that he and his campaign have made.
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76 comments (Latest Comment: 10/24/2012 23:46:35 by livingonli)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 10/23/2012 10:12:41

Good Morning.

Today is our 4,034th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from on ongoing war, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 2,141
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,065

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 385, 595, 575, 000 .00


We'll stay on the home front today. With last night's debate about foreign policy, it would have been nice to hear from either candidate about some veteran's issues, but none were broached by either or the moderator. So once again, our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are swept under the rug except when it's politically convenient for them to appear.
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64 comments (Latest Comment: 10/23/2012 21:13:20 by wickedpam)

With Friends like these...
Author: Raine    Date: 10/22/2012 13:49:06

Darrell Issa needs to be removed from his position on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- immediately. Earlier this month, we learned that in his zeal to go after President Obama for the tragedy in Libya, he blew the CIA's cover
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122 comments (Latest Comment: 10/23/2012 03:04:44 by Will in Chicago)

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