Friday News Roundup - Domestic
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-10-12/friday-news-roundup-domestic
Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan debate in Kentucky. The presidential race tightens in swing states. And the Supreme Court hears arguments on affirmative action. Ron Elving of NPR, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times and Naftali Bendavid of The Wall Street Journal join Diane for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
Guests
Ron Elving
Washington editor for NPR.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Washington correspondent for The New York Times.
Naftali Bendavid
national correspondent for The Wall Street Journal.
Friday News Roundup Video
"Clearly, there was an attempt to learn the lessons of the last debate," Naftali Bendavid, national correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, said. Our panel weighed in on last night's vice presidential debate.
Comments
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The response to Martha's question requarding how being catholic would guide their decisions should be of great concern to Americans. Ryan basically said his beiefs would have an impact. Biden said he is firm in his Catholic beiefs, but would not impose his religious beliefs on other members of American society. He also stressed it would not impact his choice for Surpreme Court justices. He voiced a concern of a packed conservative/religious court. The economy, unemplyment, the environment , foreign policy and other issues are of a great concern to me. But I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state. Religion should be personal and everyone should have the right to practice his own beliefs without improsition of others based on majority rule.
FUNDERMENTALISM whether Christian or Islam is a threat to all people and societies around the world. At present we are fighting the Taliban in Afganistan who are Fundermentalis Islamics who want to impose their beliefs on their society. Beware he Fundamentalist Christians who want to impose thier beliefs on American society.
I found it interesting that no one in the media and talk radio has brought up the topic. Are they afraid they will be criticised to discuss the subject?
Roger J.- excellent comment
Since Ryan will not provide specifics on which deductions their tax plan would eliminate, then consider an example.
Romney 2010 tax return:
Adjusted Gross Income $21,646,507
Itemized deductions $4,519,140
Deductions are 20.9% of gross income.
The Romney plan would have to eliminate virtually all his deductions to be revenue neutral. Is there any chance of this happening in a Romney presidency?
@ Phil
Let me make this easy for you (massive eye roll)....here are Romney's gaffes, all from this year:
http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/09/18/mitt-romneys-top-twenty-...
and to me, the worst one, was the lies he told on April 3rd claiming President Obama was attempting to establish a national religion called secularism. A bold-faced lie from a Mormon Bishop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCg-d7yRokg
This is your contribution to the discussion. What percentage Joe Biden gave to charity? Maybe if more of his income were taxed at the much lower capital gains rate (15%) Mr. Romney's was taxed at, he could have given more to charity. Of course, most of his charity went into the Mormon "black hole". Nothing wrong with that, but very interesting.
Twice in our history, Republicans slashed taxes on the wealthy investing class, the top 1% accumulated more than 40% of the nation's wealth, a massive investment bubble burst, and massive chronic recession ensued. Once we got the Great Depression. The other time we got our current Great Recession. Coincidence? Simulations show that most of this wealth concentration is due to our system of taxes. Billionaire Warren Buffett paid 11% "total taxes" (federal, state, local, corporate taxes) on $8 billion annual investment gains while a single minimum wage worker pays 37% "total taxes" from her $14,500 annual salary.
How do tax cuts for wealthy investors produce worse growth? The favored tax treatment for investments and the wealth concentration that resulted leads to the demand for investments exceeding the supply of worthy investments ... Any attempt at regulation is overwhelmed by "supply and demand" market forces (Econ 101) ... The price of investments MUST rise "artificially" and unsustainably ... Investment bubble ... Burst bubble ... Recession. See the third graphic at http://www.flickr.com/photos/88200571@N05/
For details, spreadsheets, and a tax proposal that would make the economy flourish for everyone, not just the wealthy ivestor-class, see this excellent site: http://fairsharetaxes.org
1dondraper wrote:
@ Phil
"Let me make this easy for you (massive eye roll)....here are Romney's gaffes, all from this year"
----------------------------
Good. You acknowledge that the "like to fire people" in context was an innocuous comment by Romney. How many people died from Romney's "gaffes?" Would that be zero?
You do know that Biden blaming the intelligence community for the Obama Administrations ever changing story on the death of four people is a total fabrication, yes?
1dondraper wrote:
"This is your contribution to the discussion. What percentage Joe Biden gave to charity?"
-------------------------------
Biden's contribution to charity is equal to conservatives contribution as hosts of NPR radio shows.
@Garyalvarezproj - You can't have it both ways. Seems like you are getting Biden's truthful, candid and passionate behavior confused with Romney's dishonest and I am entitled to be the master of the universe behavior last week?
Wow! Even Diane Rehm admitted that Biden's snorting, laughing uncontrollably and constant interruptions are "condescending."
AND...
@ Phil
Notice you had nothing to say about his blatant "secular" lie. Of course you want to follow a man who will lie whenever it is convenient, rather than man up to the truth. How can we trust a man who said he did nothing wrong when concerns were addressed to him about where he was a legal resident in 2002, while silently filing an amended tax return changing his domicile from Utah, so he could be governor. He has shown a history of prevaricatiig and all your tap dancing will change the FACTS!
1dondraper wrote:
@ Phil
"He has shown a history of prevaricatiig and all your tap dancing will change the FACTS!"
---------------------------
Are you saying my "tap dancing" is effective? Thank you.
Speaking about a man who will "lie whenever it is convenient, rather than man up to the truth," do you also condemn the President for lying about Libya and the cause of the deaths of four people?
1dondraper wrote:
"What percentage Joe Biden gave to charity? Maybe if more of his income were taxed at the much lower capital gains rate (15%) Mr. Romney's was taxed at, he could have given more to charity. "
On the other hand, maybe Mr. Biden is just a skinflint.
planetesh wrote:
"Paul Ryan's car crash story made me cringe--but Romney bestowing gifts (sort of like on that old tv show "queen for a day") doesn't work as a national policy....".
If that's what you think, then you completely missed the point. The point was that the Democrats have tried to paint Romney as a miserly guy who doesn't care about anybody but himself, much less the poor and/or middle class. The point of the story was, that is a FALSE picture of the man. He DOES care about people who are less fortunate and he is willing to step up and do something about it - even with his own money and not just with OPM.
@ Phil
So, I assume you accept the truth (no pun intended), that Mitt lied in 2002 and continues to lie to this day. Can see any refutation, only an effort to deflect. No surprised, because that is all the Republicans have been doing since it became a two man race. We can't reveal our plans because we want to work with Congress. We don't know how we would do anything differently, but we won't allow the UN determine our foreign policy (said the deer in the headlights Ryan)
@Joyce in Arizona: So you want to go there do you.... You wrote "The fact is Paul Ryan is a multi-millionaire thanks to his family's business which made its wealth mainly from GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS....
Let's see...
-90 Billion dollars by Obama/Biden to "green energy" firms who in turn magically donated heavily to the Obama/Biden campaign and then most of them went belly up. jobs - 0 return on investment - 0
You wrote: " and most recently $3.1 billion to Ryan, Inc. from the Obama stimulus for Illinois highway project."
Get the math right. It was 4.9 million not 3.1 billion and yes Ryan Inc. belongs to Paul's cousin. Paul did work there prior to entering office. Last time I checked, contracts awarded that are tied to govt. funding are awarded after 3 bids... (mandated by regs) you have to earn them by being lowest bidder.
So... the question is... you want Obama managing your nation's budget (wait, he has no budget!!!!) (wait, his policies have driven us farther into the abyss) or someone who actually knows his butt from a hole in the ground when it comes to business and the economy?
At the risk of defending Romney, I have to point out two errors by that caller who questioned Mormon “Socialism”.
First, if he’d seen the NBC documentary on being Mormon In America, he’d know that their charitable activities are open to everyone in need, not just Mormons.
(Yes, I’m relying on the nasty “liberal media”.)
Second, as the guests pointed out, this isn’t Socialism. That political and economic theory holds there should be no private property, no private businesses, and that all property and means of production should be held in common. Private charity isn’t socialism, but neither are government social programs (like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.). Furthermore, of course, neither is “Obamacare”, which actually operates through private insurance - the last thing a true “socialist” would support.
The caller’s confusion on this point is understandable. The right-wing has made it their policy to mis-use the word “Socialism” as a catch-all epithet for everything they disagree with. Of course, they are very selective in its use, and never apply it to their own programs. After all, what is the Romney-Ryan vouchers-instead-of-Medicare plan but a huge example of wealth redistribution, i.e.: Socialism!
@Joyce in Arizona: So you want to go there do you.... You wrote "The fact is Paul Ryan is a multi-millionaire thanks to his family's business which made its wealth mainly from GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS....
Let's see...
-90 Billion dollars by Obama/Biden to "green energy" firms who in turn magically donated heavily to the Obama/Biden campaign and then most of them went belly up. jobs - 0 return on investment - 0
You wrote: " and most recently $3.1 billion to Ryan, Inc. from the Obama stimulus for Illinois highway project."
Get the math right. It was 4.9 million not 3.1 billion and yes Ryan Inc. belongs to Paul's cousin. Paul did work there prior to entering office. Last time I checked, contracts awarded that are tied to govt. funding are awarded after 3 bids... (mandated by regs) you have to earn them by being lowest bidder.
So... the question is... you want Obama managing your nation's budget (wait, he has no budget!!!!) (wait, his policies have driven us farther into the abyss) or someone who can actually distinguish the difference between his butt and a hole in the ground when it comes to business and the economy?
@ Ecgberht
Well, it did not sound like he cares about those people when speaking to his $50K dinner folks. He said exactly what he felt and his first response was not to apologize, but rather let us know he "may" have been "inelegant" in expressing his opinion. Not that it was wrong. Then a couple of weeks later, after the debate on Fox news he lets us know it was wrong. Once again, the flip-flopper has shown us who he really was. I was for it, before I was against it. Even you have to admit it is incredibly hypocritical to act as though those comments were anything but what was truly in his heart and to equate them to be Obama supporters, when it was clearly shown 58% of those people are his supporters was comical. The man is a snake oil salesman who changes his positions like a chameleon. Abortion, Healthcare (let the states decide...and what an excellent job they were doing when we had 50 million without healthcare...but suddenly they are going to take up the mantel)...it goes on and on from there
The RIGHT WING NUTS have this pathetic pattern that reminds me of a two year old throwing a tantrum, if we just keep screaming louder it doesn’t have to make since - we will all just say yes to make them go away. This is their same strategy they have with the media – just label them all as liberal when they disagree with your RIGHT WING LUNICY and then later they will be intimidated go easy on your radical views.
Rodger Junk has nailed it FUNDERMENTALISM!!! Every time I hear EVANGELICAL the first thing I think about is the TALIBAN. I see very little deference in what they are trying to achieve – remember the Bush line “ I only answer to one father”
• Hand over the courts to the religious right
• Hand over our economy, military and foreign affairs to the corporations and the privileged
The effect, a court system like the Middle East and an economy like Latin America.
climatewiz1 on October 12, 2012 @ 1:05 pm wrote: “Get the math right.”
Yes, please do, and while you’re at it please define what the word “most” means to you.
Normally, that term indicates a majority, as in “most Americans belong to one version or another of the Christian faith”. It never means a minoity, as in “only a minority of Americans are Jewish”.
Which brings us to TRUTH (something absent from your comment about “green energy firms”). Only three out of the 26 recipients of loan guarantees have filed for Bankruptcy. That’s about 11.5%. I’d hardly call that “most” (unless, of course, one is using the kind of “fuzzy math” that Romney-Ryan are fond of).
Source: http://mediamatters.org/print/research/2012/09/07/study-one-year-later-m...
Furthermore, if we talk about the amounts involved, those three companies account for only 4% of the total loaned. Again, hardly “most”.
Source: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/10/numbers-schmumbers-9-about...
(I believe your comment about who received the loan guarantees is also wrong. But given the history of sweetheart, no bid, contracts doled out to Bush supporters like Halliburton, with Republicans cheering, do you really want to go there?)
However, I agree with you on one point. Whether someone is rich (even a multi-millionaire) tells us little about their fitness to be President, or even Vice-President.
Consider: two of our greatest Presidents were Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt. They were hardly children of poverty. So, the real issue is whether a person can look beyond their “class”, the bubble of wealth and privilege in which they lived, and understand the needs of the country and the “common man”.
Both Roosevelts did. I’m highly skeptical about Romney-Ryan.
TO BE CONTINUED
PART TWO
And the point Joyce in Arizona was trying to make (clumsily) is valid. Ryan admitted being a beneficiary of the very same “big government” so-called “socialist” programs he denounces and would like to eliminate. I’d call that hypocrisy! (But at least he’s being true to is “idol”, Ayn Rand, who also took “socialist” government help when she needed it to survive.)
Funny, isn’t it, how different life looks when you need the government’s help?
P.S. - And I wouldn't be too quick to praise the Romney-Ryan budget plan. Ryan's budget (the one actually submitted to Congress) was filled with deficits, and numbers that didn't add up. Romney's plan? Well, we don't actually have it, do we? Since they are avoiding specifics like the plague. However, once again, people who "do the numbers" have stated that his great promises don't add up either. Forgive me if I refuse to buy "a pig in a polk" - even if it's wearing lipstick!
Let me add how disappointed I am that the show waited until literally the last moments to discuss the meningitis tainted drugs fiasco. If ever there was a demonstration of the need for "big government", and regulation of health care at the national level, this is it.
I hope everyone commenting here goes back and either hears, or reads the transcript of, Thursday's show about this. People are dying because of a failure to regulate - the very thing Republicans, especially the Ayn Rand besotted Paul Ryan, love and advocate.
Can government regulation be burdensome? Yes. Can it sometimes be unnecessary (or, due to changes over time, become obsolete)? Of course. But the solution isn't to mindlessly rail against "big government", or to employ the rest of the empty rhetoric the right-wing spews. The answer is to approach the problem with facts and reason.
(Something I must admit the left-wing also avoids at time. Witness the idiotic New York City "soda cup" limits. Now there's an example of the "Nanny State"!)
Mr. Sardonicus
"Let me add how disappointed I am that the show waited until literally the last moments to discuss the meningitis tainted drugs fiasco. If ever there was a demonstration of the need for "big government", and regulation of health care at the national level, this is it."
There is sufficient regulation. What was lacking was the oversight to effectively enforce it. That is a FAILURE of government, not a lack of it.
1dondraper wrote:
"Well, it did not sound like he cares about those people when speaking to his $50K dinner folks. He said exactly what he felt and his first response was not to apologize, but rather let us know he "may" have been "inelegant" in expressing his opinion. "
You're going to believe what you want to believe. The essential point that Governor Romney was making is that 47% of people pay no Federal income taxes. That is a fact. Indisputable. It is also a fact that the dependence on government by many of these people has risen dramatically in the last four years - count it in those collecting UE, food stamps, or whatever metric you want to use. (Some have suggested that this increase is not a coincidence, but is, in fact, a strategy). When the government, particularly the current Administration is the one putting bread in your mouth, you're going to think twice before you vote them out of office. So yes, he stated it inelegantly, but that was the essential point. And he was right.
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
I'm sure you've heard the quote, incorrectly attributed to Alexander Tytler the Scottish historian ... but none the less a notion based in common sense.
@ Ecgberht
Maybe you should learn to read before you respond. Had you read what I wrote, there would have been no need to state, I am going to believe what I want to believe. Mitt can not have it both ways. You can't say I was inelegant in what I said, but I believe it to be true, then the day after the debate tell Sean Hannity, I was wrong about what I said. Even you can see the contradiction in those statements. If not, i am sure there is a school you can attend that will explain it for you. As to you second point:
Do you seriously think people want to stay on Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance? Would an intelligent person want $405/week in a state like New York? Do you think you cn really eke out a living on that meager sum in a high cost place like NYC. Oh, but you say the Food Stamps might be the elixir that will make them vote for Obama. The combination would make a person happy and one of his supporters. How absurd is that analysis. Even Romney's #2 said getting people like this a job would be the best thing. Many in this category have jobs, but the rules of taxation (credits and deductions) make it so they do not have to pay Federal taxes. However, they do pay other types of taxes. I wish individuals like you would get up in arms about the corporations that pay no Federal Income taxes despite making enormous profit because they game the system. All we hear are crickets on that front. You logic is pretty faulty on the U/E and Food Stamp crowd.
@ Etaoin Shrdlu: I see the problem... you are getting your info from Media Matters and Mother Jones.
As for your request that I quantify "most" when refering to failed green energy firms that received stimulus money? You say there are only 3 or just over 11.5%??? Let me give you a partial list for your review:
Evergreen Energy, Amonix, Beacon Power, Ener 1, Solyndra A, Razertech, Abound Solar, AES Eastern Energy/Energy Storage, Azure Dynamics, Babcock and Brown, Energy Conversion Devices Inc. / Unisolar, Konara Technologies Inc, Spectrawatt, Stirling Energy, Thompson River Power and to date there are 11 more as we speak, headed quickly down the drain.
There aren't many left out there when you subtract these from the list which means that these I have listed must represent...."most".
1dondraper wrote:
"Maybe you should learn to read before you respond. Had you read what I wrote, there would have been no need to state, I am going to believe what I want to believe. "
Oh, I can read perfectly well. That's why I said, "you're going to believe what you want to believe". Because you don't post chapter and verse, what you post is your impression of what Mr. Romney said on two different occaisions gathered from who knows where. Post quotes in context and we can go from there. By the way, how do you know "the day after the debate he told Sean Hannity, I was wrong about what I said"? Did you see the show? Is that an exact quote? Did you bother to read an exact quote? In fact, I KNOW what he said in BOTH contexts and they are not at all incongruous.
"Oh, but you say the Food Stamps might be the elixir that will make them vote for Obama. The combination would make a person happy and one of his supporters. How absurd is that analysis".
Actually, elixir, was your word, but an incentive for sure. "Food stamps are an elixir", "The combination of Food Stamps and UE would make a person happy" are examples of the "strawman" argument. I said no such thing. Obviously these people would rather have jobs, or have better jobs. But when one cadidate promises you bread and paints the other as taking it away, whom would you vote for?
"I wish individuals like you would get up in arms about the corporations that pay no Federal Income taxes despite making enormous profit because they game the system."
I am and have been up in arms about corporate taxes. Maybe we could start with GE ... run by Jeff Immelt ... you know, the President's Job Council head. In fact, if I were king I'd cut out the red tape and make the corporate tax rate ZERO. You would see companies and jobs flooding back into this country so fast it would make your head spin. Do you know how much revenue comes from corporations, don?