Why not go to Ryan's Medicare Lite plan right after the election?

If Ryan and Romney win, and the Republicans get control of the House and Senate, I don't see why they wouldn't just implement their Medicare Lite plan right away. Why wait ten years? The Tea Partiers all seem to think it is such a great idea for the country and for people 55 and younger. Why would they not let current seniors in on the fun right away? What would stop them?

The news media says that Republicans say Ryan is a bold thinker and straight talker. He must have a really good reason for delaying and phasing in the major improvements he wants to make in Medicare so that only people 55 and younger get them. Ryan and Romney probably assume that current retirees are much more selfless and willing to sacrifice their Medicare benefits than people 55 and younger. Older people are willing to wait for the Romney/Ryan Medicare bonanza. They would accept putting off the changes until ten years from now.

Well, I just don't think that is fair. Current seniors are entitled to the same good Medicare deal that Romney, Ryan, and the rest of the Republicans have in store for people 55 and under. And I'm sure that if Republicans get back control of the government like they had under George W. Bush, this wrong will be addressed. Current seniors will get the good Republican Medicare right away. Everyone will get the good Republican everything right away.

Wealthy shaking in their boots about Romney's taxes?

I'll bet the very wealthy, Romney's biggest backers, are apoplectic about the idea that he might be forced to release his tax returns. They won't let that happen. The last thing they need is for the American people to be educated on just how far the wealthy can go to avoid paying taxes.

It's not just that Americans would be so disgusted they wouldn't want to see Romney himself as president. They might raise a wholesale backlash against "Romney types." The whole shell game might be given away.

Romney isn't just hiding his own returns. He is hiding and threatening to expose the loopholes and chicanery of everyone like him.

The Real Reason Republicans Have Been Sabotaging America

It's not so much that Obama is black. That is a factor, of course, but that's not the biggest issue.

The real reason Republicans have been trying to sabotage Obama and the country is humiliation, personal humiliation. Their man, George W. Bush, was president for eight years, and their party also held majorities in Congress for most of that time. And the result? Well, to put it mildly, they basically peed their pants on live TV with the world watching. Republicans cheered Bush as he cut taxes. They whistled and applauded when he strutted around on the deck of that aircraft carrier in the full flight suit. They were riding high.

And then everything went horribly, horribly wrong. All on their watch. All in broad daylight. Afghanistan fell apart as Bush's unnecessary, ill-conceived, and falsely motivated war in Iraq dragged on. Osama was on the loose. Bush made a complete ass of himself in every news conference. And the whole country came apart at the seams in 2008. Republicans were wrong, and it was obvious. The whole Republican ideology was caught like a bug in a skillet, and they had nowhere to turn to avoid humiliation.

Now, they could have just backed off and taken a second look at their policies. Maybe tax cuts for the wealthy don't solve everything. Maybe someone should keep an eye on what the scamps in Wall Street do with the matches they seem to like to play with so much. Maybe war wasn't cheap and easy. Maybe going after Osama Bin Laden was worthwhile. In short, Republicans could have looked at revising their playbook.

Not these folks. The first thing these Republicans did was get angry. Like assholes in the wrong always do, they looked for any out they could find. Introspection? Reflection? Yeah, right.

It is important to remember that this humiliation was personal. It was not just an organizational failure. Individual Republicans across the country had been gushing and fainting over Bush since his first term began. These were real people with real families. How were they going to explain to their children and grandchildren? Their party, their president, their Congress had wrecked the country. They themselves had laughed while people at their convention wore purple band-aids, mocking duly awarded military medals. They had swooned over George W. Bush in his cowboy hat as he drove his pickup around "the ranch." Republicans, in short, had made complete asses of themselves.

Enter the Tea Party. After finally and belatedly waking up at the economic switch and discovering that they had caused a catastrophe, the Republicans lost the election in 2008. The Republican Bush Fan Club—essentially their entire party—suddenly decided that Bush wasn't a Republican after all. In fact, neither were they. No one was a Republican. You say you are looking for the Republicans who caused all of this horrible damage to the country? Well, said the Republicans, we don't know this party of which you speak. What are Republicans? We are the Tea Party. We aren't responsible for what Republicans did. Who's George W. Bush?

The Tea Party dodge helped to throw off the bloodhounds, but then the Republicans had another problem. The Republican party still existed. It was their whole infrastructure. The Tea Party didn't have a single building, no checking accounts, no donor list, no elected officials under its banner. It was just a few travel trailers and some Founding Father kitsch provided by the Koch Brothers. Sooner or later Tea Partiers were going to have to be Republicans again.

It is kind of beautiful when you think about it. The most incompetent, most blameworthy, most idiotic Republicans dodged their identity as Republicans to become Tea Partiers. Then they came back and "took over" their party again. It wasn't the old Republican Party that had done all of those bad things to the country anymore, though. All that sin was washed away by the name change and the Uncle Sam costumes. The Republican party rose phoenix-like from the ashes. And all the old, bad ideas were now new and worse.

But they needed one more thing. They needed Obama to fail, and it was not because he was black. Republicans needed Obama to fail because Republicans had themselves failed so badly. America lost horribly under their leadership, and they were not about to let America win under someone else. It is as ugly and simple as that.

Rush Limbaugh said it clearly. He wanted Obama to fail. Mitch McConnell said it only slightly less clearly. Job number one for the Republicans was to make sure Obama was a one-term president.

Now would good Americans fail their country and then deliberately try to make sure no one else could succeed? Would good Americans take the country's economy hostage and play chicken with our national creditworthiness? Would good Americans put down American economic gains and business environment at every opportunity? I don't think so. Good Americans wouldn't do that.

Republican politicians would though. And, by the way, they want to run the country again.

I don't want to put down Mitt Romney's Mormon faith

I don't want to put down or bully Mitt Romney on his faith. That would make me a bully and an enemy of religious freedom. And that would be bad.

Instead, I would like to congratulate Mitt on his Mormonism. He is steadfast in his beliefs and a leader in his church. Mitt even rose to the level of Bishop. That is a great honor, and a testament to his faith and his mastery of the wisdom to be found in the Book of Mormon.

Those who criticize Mitt for avoiding service in Vietnam by, instead, going on a mission abroad to spread Mormonism don't understand. They don't understand the importance of Mitt's faith to him, and they don't understand how important it is to Mormons to increase the membership of their church. Only a cynic would think that Mitt was merely trying to avoid Vietnam service.

More trusting people realize that Mitt was actually engaged in a real fight at that time. Mitt was fighting for souls. He was doing everything he could to rescue people from non-Mormon faiths. Mitt Romney, Mormon soldier, was following his conscience and the teachings of his church to save people from being misled by the teachings of other churches.

Now, Mitt has a chance to become President and to put Mormonism squarely on the same level of power and social respectability as other Christian faiths like Southern Baptism and Catholicism. A Mitt Romney presidency would buoy the spirits of Mormons and firmly establish the validity of their church. And who would deny Mormons those long-awaited bragging rights after their long years of persecution, bullying, and ridicule? Certainly not me. If Mitt wins the presidency, the Mormons deserve to be congratulated on their good fortune, especially on the boost it will give to their efforts to recruit new members into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

President Mitt Romney. Good for Mormonism.

Mormonism. Good for the World.

Republicans Remind Me of the Egypt Air Co-pilot

...Again Batouti said, "I rely on God." Then two things happened almost simultaneously, according to the flight-data recorder: the throttles in the cockpit moved back fast to minimum idle, and a second later, back at the tail, the airplane's massive elevators (the pitch-control surfaces) dropped to a three-degrees-down position. When the elevators drop, the tail goes up; and when the tail goes up, the nose points down. Apparently Batouti had chopped the power and pushed the control yoke forward.

The effect was dramatic. The airplane began to dive steeply, dropping its nose so quickly that the environment inside plunged to nearly zero gs, the weightless condition of space. Six times in quick succession Batouti repeated, "I rely on God." His tone was calm. There was a loud thump. As the nose continued to pitch downward, the airplane went into the negative-g range, nudging loose objects against the ceiling. The elevators moved even farther down. Batouti said, "I rely on God."

Somehow, in the midst of this, now sixteen seconds into the dive, Captain Habashi made his way back from the toilet. He yelled, "What's happening? What's happening?"

Batouti said, "I rely on God."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/11/the-crash-of-egyptair-990/2332/

The Captain tries to keep the co-pilot from deliberately crashing the plane. The elevators were split. The Captain on the left control yoke pulled up, but the cracked co-pilot on the right control yoke kept pushing down and shut off the engines.

At one point, the Captain was yelling "Pull with me! Pull with me! Pull with me!"

Two thirds of people let Mr. Hyde do the voting.

One problem I see in Dem arguments is that we forget to "argue from evil." That leaves a lot of what we say falling on deaf ears among independents and Republicans. If we want to convert some of their votes, we need to make our good policies appeal to Mr. Hyde. This is essentially the opposite of what the Republicans do.

For example, take global warming. You could argue that nearly all scientists believe it is happening. You could argue that protecting the planet's climate is good for the future well being of humanity. You could argue that solving the problem will prevent human suffering and damage to nature and so forth. That argument will work on the vast majority of Dems and progressives. But it will turn off Mr. Hyde.

Hyde is paranoid, selfish, and stupid. Remember, Jekyll is the one with the advanced degree and morals. Hyde is an idiot who thinks more or less like an animal.

To get Hyde to vote for doing something, you need to make the argument appeal to selfishness, xenophobia, stupidity, etc. For example, you could use the Seven Deadly Sins and couch your argument to maximize them.

• Global warming may take the good climate from people who live on good real estate and redistribute it to people who don't deserve it
  
• The wealthy are giving jobs to foreign countries where people of non-white races live. And those people are buying up all of the world's gasoline.
  
• American kids aren't getting the educations they need to keep up the Baby Boomers' standard of living. Instead we are making more criminals and wards of the state.
  
• Rich people are over-educated. They think they're smarter than the rest of us.
  

When it comes to the so-called "job creators" aren't Republicans basically just lickspittles?

The Republican message is basically about bending knee and bowing to the so-called job creators. Listen to every Republican politician. You can't miss it. They say it over and over again. They spread their message of American helplessness every chance they get.

Republicans act and talk like America has nothing of value to offer, no standing, and no dignity. We don't have a great work force and work ethic. We don't have fantastic, taxpayer- and worker-built infrastructure. We don't have the world's greatest market. We don't have a legal system and traditions envied the world over. Not if you ask Republicans. They never talk about those things.

Republicans act like America has nothing we don't get from the "job creators." We dare not offend. Republicans counsel abject beggary.

Oh, and they want to represent us.

Thanks, American Motorists!

Dear American Motorist,

As a an oil speculator, I just wanted to drop you a line to let you know how much I appreciate the extra money. Your many contributions to my free enterprise success profits have "raised my boat." In fact, I just got a new one. It's called Sea Mitten. I named it after Mitt (heh heh, gotcha buddy!). But seriously, Mitt knows I respect him. His contributions to the world of finance are every bit as admirable as my contributions to the energy industry.

I was sorry to read that many of you are feeling the pinch at the gas pump, but I want you to know I am grateful for your courageous and willing sacrifice. It takes character to bow to the rights of others. Your respect for my right to make money without regard to how I do it...well (I'm choking up a little)...well, it's just swell. And look at it this way. That Big Mac, large fries, and large mocha Frappé weren't going to do your "bottom line" any favors anyway. Heh heh, burn!!

Some people would be angry at me, but not you. In some quarters I won't mention there are people who want to coat me with chum and throw me in the ocean. I'm glad you aren't like that, all bitter.

In closing, I just want to add a shout out to my true loyalists. You know who you are. You are the solid, salt-of-the-earth folks who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me every time you fill up. You, my friends, put the blame on Obama. You get that inexplicable something about him. Well, it saves me boo-coo dollars in Republican SuperPAC contributions, and I just wanted you to know that it "works for me." I know I speak for Iran too.

Stay in touch "y'all". Heh heh.

Your Pal,

JSU IV

"They" are taking something from you and giving it to "somebody else"

The idea that someone is taking something from you and giving it to someone else is a big play in the Republican handbook. It's one of the keystone techniques in the Republican "sales pitch." Since it is a technique and not an argument, the information payload need not bear any resemblance to reality. It has a gut-level appeal that bypasses real thinking. "Government is taking my hard earned money and giving it to welfare cheats." Simple syntax, simple idea, sonorous, easy to remember, emotionally charged with anger, miniscule grain of truth...it is a beautifully constructed little mental virus. You can even skip the grain of truth and it will work on a lot of people.

So Romney can say Obama wants high-priced gas and to destroy Social Security, and Republicans in general can deny global warming with impunity—as long as they get the chord structure of the jingle right. It is very easy to push people's minds into gut-level mode and then just basically tell them anything you want to tell them. It's a shame, because normally, if the Republicans were not willfully lying to try to retake power, gut-level thinking can be a good, healthy thing.

In a sense, Dems need to take a page from the Republican playbook and fight fire with fire. I definitely don't mean we need to start lying, because I fervently believe the Republicans are going to get severely gigged for it in November. What I mean is that we should not forget that it is primarily the Republicans and the people who are funding them who are taking something from Americans and giving it to someone else. We can and should sometimes use the gut-level technique Republicans use except with the truth as an information payload instead of lies.

For example, if we are talking about global warming, we can talk about how Republicans and their backers are denying something that is taking the "good climate" away from some people's land and giving it to others. Republicans and their backers are standing by and even blocking action. They delay while climate change happens before their eyes, creating a devastating and permanent form of wealth redistribution.

When it comes to jobs, Dems can talk about how Republicans and their backers twist the true meaning of capitalism in order to "justify" taking away American jobs to give to other countries. Republicans parrot capitalism in the same way the Devil quotes the Bible.

When it comes to energy, we can talk about how Republicans and their energy corporation backers are selling more and more of the world's oil to other countries. We are paying more for gas because other people are using the jobs that Republicans and their backers took from Americans to buy up gas.

We can even talk specifically about the truth itself. We can talk about how the level of lies Republicans are currently using in their politics deprives Americans of their traditional sense of honor and even their ability to trust their own gut. We can talk about how a climate of trust is important, and how people should not have to be vigilant against boldface lies. Lies ruin golf, basketball games and countries.

Finally, we can even talk about the government bugaboo that Republican politicians so much want us to fear and hate. Far from taking things away from Americans, that government is actually the vital check-and-balance needed to prevent Republicans and their backers from taking away jobs, oil, and Social Security and giving the proceeds to themselves and to foreign countries.

By talking about Maher, the Republicans are defending Limbaugh.

It's a lame defense of course. Take your average woman and have her watch a few cases of Bill Maher calling bomb-throwing "Mama Grizzly" Sarah Palin a naughty name for laughs. Then have that same average woman watch several minutes of Rush Limbaugh over three or four days—piggish, snarling, mean, and far from funny—going for the jugular of an average woman.

I guess some Republicans are trying to bet their political careers on women not noticing the difference. In short, some Republicans are idiots. There is absolutely no way they are going to make that sale.

But why are they trying to make that sale at all? We need to stop and ask at this point why so many Republicans are grasping at straws and dissembling to defend Rush Limbaugh after what he did. Kind of shows you how they think. Kind of a true colors moment.