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Romney just cemented the votes of some of the people that were going to vote for him anyway, will lose some by choosing the creator of "ending medicare as we know it", and at best may have guaranteed no more than a 50/50 split of undecided voters. A not very bold move for a candidate losing traction. Shot his wad before the convention.

F**k both running packs of assholes. I'm writing in Hillary Clinton's name.

That right there tells you he is slipping. Otherwise he would have waited for the convention.

Right, but it's not the whole story. Romney was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The news cycle has just killed him for the last 3 weeks. The only news for him was bad. The only two issues being discussed were his taxes and unfounded accusations that a woman's death was the result of what he did at Bain capital. (and before that, his disasterous trip.) Both were brilliant politics on the part of the Democrats. Both extreme claims that keep Romney looking bad in the news. His only choice was to change the news. Naming his VP running mate changes the news. It may stop the bleeding temporarily. But it doesn't change the landscape.

I'm a political atheist, but it seems clear to me that O is going to win fairly easily.

Romney's vp choice was great for O, but Romney was losing anyway

And this despite the fact that O has been actively destroying liberty and freedom, expanded an occupation war and lied about lots of campaign promises.

Perhaps they sense both sides aren't completely honest when discussing what they can realistically accomplish, so the "liar" point is a wash.

Romney says he would reduce or eliminate many taxes. He would extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, reduce individual income tax rates by 1/5 across the board, eliminate dividend and capital gains taxes, end the estate tax, repeal AMT.

Romney hasn't said how he would accomplish this without making the deficit worse - probably because it is mathematically impossible, according to Bloomberg.

And after the last 12 months, we know for sure that reducing the deficit is a top priority with Republicans, don't we? :-) Keep that in mind, because I predict that if Romney does win, the Reps will have a memory lapse on that point.

Mitt was never the independent boss he claims to be. On every issue, he will cave to the extremes in his party, who now control the agenda.

Allan said that an Obama win would be the best thing to happen to the Republicans who will then repudiate the extremes and move towards the center, to leaders like Huntsman.

I believe the opposite of Allan's prediction will happen. A Romney loss will entail recriminations by the far right and move to more even extremes. The reasoning is that if a governor from MA can't win, then the Republicans ought to nominate someone from Mississippi.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/pau...

A liar is a liar is a liar regardless of the context.

I laughed out loud when I read this.

Political atheists don't believe that "O has been actively destroying liberty and freedom." Only right wingers do.

In sports that's what you call a sore loser. It's a version of "my team sucks so we deserve to lose. But your team sucks also so your win has no significance anyway."

I'm really confused by the timing of the announcement. Saturday morning is when people make announcements they want to be buried. Companies announce good news on Monday morning and bad news on Friday afternoons.

Because the VP has so little impact on the overall election I'm leaning towards calling Ryan a wash, overall. I think he will help with fundraising, as the mega rich LOVE Paul Ryan, and these days they drive the money game. I don't think he can deliver Wisconsin; he's not a Senator or Governor who has shown he can carry a statewide election, and his name recognition is far from 100% in Wisconsin.

I think Ryan is "safer" than Palin was, but he's still a gutsy pick. He's a smart guy with a strong command of domestic policy issues, and there's not gonna be another Katie Couric interview. The big danger is the pick means there's going to be a lot more talk about tax policy and social security rather than jobs. Romney either has to criticize the Ryan Plan while praising Ryan, or defend the Ryan Plan, for all its warts.

Romney's biggest opening against Obama is the high unemployment rate. He needs to hit obama on Jobs, jobs, jobs if he wants to win. I know the Republican party believes in trickle down, but I'm not sure the american public, especially those in rust-belt swing states would agree that tax cuts for their bosses mean more money in their pockets. Bottom line, this election is going to come down to the Obama Plan vs. the RomneyRyan Plan.

Not necessarily. A true Libertarian might feel that way, even if they support things like gay rights and pot legalization. And many on the far LEFT are disappointed by Obama's record on civil liberties... they may not think Romney or McCain would have been any better, which is why they don't necessarily support either party.

Being disappointed that he hasn't done enough on gay rights and pot legalization is a long way from thinking he's "actively destroying" liberty and freedom.

+1

Actually the news did come Friday night, so the CEO did deliver the news at its appropriate deserving spot.

His campaign was in panic mode. They had to go on offense, they couldn't risk another bad weekend.

Either way, O and Romney are bought, sold and paid for by the same elite/global corps.

At the very least, can we all agree on this?

...........

For those who don't already know this...

Rep. Paul Ryan, the GOP’s most outspoken advocate for cutting and privatizing Social Security, has already benefited from Social Security himself, in the form of survivor benefits he received after his father’s untimely death.

From the age of 16, when his 55-year-old father died of a heart attack, until he was 18, Ryan received Social Security payments, which, according to a lengthy profile in WI Magazine, he put away for college. The eventual budget czar attended Miami University in Ohio to earn a B.A. in economics and political science, and landed a congressional internship as a junior.

Ryan’s congressional ascent, all the way to the top spot on the Budget Committee, began with his Social Security-funded college education.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1d9Si)

And this:

“Ryan credits his father’s death and the care of his grandmother as giving him first-hand experience as to how social service programs work,” WI Magazine wrote, referencing his Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother, also a beneficiary of the social programs Ryan now opposes, who moved in with Ryan and his mother after his father died.

Raw Story (http://s.tt/1d9Si)

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/04/20/pa...

??

Odd statement.

I find it amusing that so many lefties are already calling the election for Obama based on the news they get from... wait for it... the left-wing media, which provides most of the news you see in this country.
NBC,CBS, ABC, CNN, NYT, Boston Globe, LA Times, San Fran whatever...: Obama rooters to a fault.

As a recovering Liberal, I am voting for Romney. We cannot tax our way to prosperity, and if it comes down to extremes, which lefties always think it does, I'd rather live in a country run by the rich than one run by the poor.

The poor are not more noble, dignified or honest than the rich. They just have less money.

Yes the poor have less money. I just feel pity for the poor riff-raffs of the red states who vote for Romney. They are poor and stupid at the same time.

First, I'm not a lefty, I'm quite comfortable with capitalism, and I'm not calling the election. We're still almost 90 days out, and a lot of things can change.

Interesting analysis of media bias in election coverage can be found here:

http://www.4thestate.net/liberal-media-b...

The data from the polling aggregators is pretty clear. Romney had a very bad few weeks and has dropped in the polls to trail by about 4% in the popular vote. They only way anyone can argue those numbers are biased is if Rasmussen is the only reliable polling outfit. And they're not.

But worse for Romney, the state polling paints a very difficult path for him to win the election. As each week passes, those numbers firm up, and changing direction is difficult. Again, it's not impossible, but the campaign is now down to a small handful of states, and Obama is leading in all but one of them.

Related to your comment that "we cannot tax our way to prosperity", you're right. And it makes for a good sound bite. But of course it's a straw man argument. Nobody has ever made the argument that we can.

The invention and propagation of the "liberal media" myth is the greatest political ploy of all time. Absolute genius on the part of the right-wing noise machine. The fact is that most people get most of their political information from the media. And if you can convince people that the media is biased against you, you can convince them that any news coverage of anything your side does that is lame/wrong/horrible has more to do with the media than anything that your side has done. And you can convince them the same about any favorable coverage of the other side.

Extremely powerful and absolutely brilliant.

The bias in media is towards incompetence. They rarely call lies, lies, because they're too busy looking at their notes for the next question, without listening to what's being said. When they do listen, they're rarely well enough informed to know the truth. And they constantly search for equivalence when there is none. It's not a pretty picture.

Concur. I used to figure (up til my mid-twenties) that what I read in the paper was pretty much accurate. By my mid-twenties I had learned enough about the field that I'm in to know when errors were being made. And I was shocked and appalled when I saw that they were inaccurate as often as accurate. So, obviously, I have to figure the same applies to other fields about which I know little or nothing.

Through out history, evil doers also came up with plenty of false trumped up charges to justify their actions.

--The 18th century drug cartel, the British East India Company, in the name of free trade, forced China open so they can freely push their opium.
--the Spanish Missionaries, in the name of God and fighting against devil worship, destroyed the entirety of the Mayan written language.
--the Japanese, in the name protecting a Japanese owned railway against terrorist attacks, invaded and occupied Manchuria.
--the Germans, in the name of protecting discriminated ethnic Germans in Sudetenland, invaded czechoslovakia.

The list can go on and on.

Creating a story of overwhelming media bias against the Right and the Conservatives justifies the creation of the propaganda machine AKA FOX News. Now we see the Union Tribune going down the same path. These "news outlets" are no better than the good old People's Daily and XinHua news agency from China.

Very astute observation. (i say that, maybe because it's an observation I've made myself.) The breadth of subjects that I'm qualified to spot errors is pretty narrow, but they happen, in all news media, so often that it makes me question just about everything else I read. (I think that's pretty much the same thing you said.) So it requires curiosity to verify or dispute things that just don't sound right. Critical thinking skills are essential.

I also agree with you that cutting spendings should be first priority. I also hated the bloated government but I think Obama is the far less evil than Romney/Ryan. The tax rate for the rich has fallen dramatically over the last 30 years to about 15% now. Mitt paid 14% last two years and probably far less for the previous years which why he refused to release his tax records. On the other hand, most middle class and upper middle class professionals pay well over 20% rates.

The tax cuts have disproportionately favored the rich. For example, if your income is $100 mil and you get a 5% tax cut, you saved $5 mil. If your income is $100,000 you saved $5k. However, with less government revenue the dramatic reduction of services in k-12, colleges, parks, libraries, Social Security, Medicare affected the middle class much more. The middle class ended up paying out of pocket more than the $5k that he/she saved in taxes through activity fees in k-12, higher college tuition, park fees, less Social Security received, high medical cost and dmv fees...etc. While the rich will most likely keep their $5 mil saved because they are much less likely to use these services.

The gap between rich and poor are ever widening and voting Rommney and Ryan will only make it worst. A strong country needs a strong middle class and a small income gap between the super rich and the middle class.

[quote=Brutus]
As a recovering Liberal, I am voting for Romney. We cannot tax our way to prosperity, and if it comes down to extremes, which lefties always think it does, I'd rather live in a country run by the rich than one run by the poor.
quote]

Really? I've NEVER paid >15% effective rate since I start working. Over the last few years after I bought my house, my effective rates were anywhere between 6-9%. The only way I can see you paying well over 20% effective rate is if you're in the 28 or 33%, have 0 deduction and put your retirement in Roth 401k instead of traditional.

For better or for worse, the Tea Party has gained control of the Republican party.

It's definitely a move by Romney to strenghten this ticket's appeal with the Tea Party.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/...

So much for the likes of Rubio, Portman and Hunstman in the Republican party. I said that when they picked Palin 4 years ago.

http://www.economist.com/node/21560261

Good Economist article on the subject. Obama has recently outspent Romney on ad's over 3-to-1 ($38m to $10m) to gain momentum. But that will soon change as Romney gets access to the war chest of cash after the convention.

Anyone (like Ryan) that has ideas to take on that "gigantic money sucking black hole entitlement program Asteroid" quickly headed for earth (called Medicare/Medicaid, that represents a huge chunk of the U.S. deficit), has some of my interest.

Any $5 trillion over 10 year spending proposal (disguised as tax cut) also has some of my interest, as should yours.

While I agree with what you said, may I point out at the risk of thread going OT and at at the risk of being labeled you-know-what, that the ethnic Germans in the above case did have a genuine grievance? It was not "made up" of any sort as cited by your other examples.
Ethnic germans being discriminated against in eastern europe and being caught in the wave of ethnicity based nationalism is very similar to the situation of Kurds being split up across 4 or 5 states today.

Wow. I guess they just don't know how stupid they are. Ignorance is bliss huh?

But then, that wouldn't explain me. I don't live in a red state and never have.
My wife and I both have Masters degrees.
I'm self-employed.
I was once a Liberal, when being a Liberal meant standing up for liberty, not killing the goose to dig out the last golden egg.

I believe that what's good for me and what's good for the country as a whole can often be different things. I vote for what I believe is good for the USA, not just my own self-interest.

And I believe that the people who pay most of the taxes should get to run the country, not the people who pay no taxes.

If I had my way, people who paid no Federal income tax would not be allowed to vote in Federal elections, and people who paid no State income tax would not be allowed to vote in State elections.

Poor people are generally too stupid to vote for anything but their own narrow self-interest.

The latest:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/...

Every Democrat candidate wants to raise taxes, as if that one thing is the cure-all for every problem. They want to raise taxes on tobacco, the rich, hotel rooms, restaurants, DMV fees and on and on until it makes you sick.

But, like the "Honorable" Senator John Kerry, they will do whatever they can get away with to avoid paying the taxes they VOTED for.

Remember the nice, expensive, new yacht John Kerry parked in RI to avoid the taxes he would have had to pay by bringing it into Massachusetts? Is there a situation that is more illustrative of the Democratic mentality than THAT?
Is there, ANYWHERE, a Democrat that votes in lock-step with his Liberal constituents more than John Kerry? Is he the perfect definition of a hypocrite?

Yes, he is. Just like the rest of his fellow travelers. A rich, Brahmin holier-than-thou hypocrite.
He is disgusting.

Other than that, I have no opinions on the subject of Liberal hypocrisy.

And I believe that the people who work (LABOR) and create the value that is then taxed -- and which creates the capitalists' "capital" in the first place -- should be the only ones who run the country.

With you 100% here. I feel the same way. I'm amazed at how I can predict how someone will vote based on how the vote will best serve them. It gets me angry, really.

Wow. You've went off the deep end here. Rich does not equate to smart and it especially doesn't equate to being fair and just in their outlook.

There are a number of very intelligent people who are poor. They don't consider wealth a high priority in the grand scheme of things. And they just might be right.

Point taken. While ethnic Germans did have legit grievance, the Nazis did take advantage of it as the pretext for an invasion. And in the end, the Germans were systematically cleansed from CZ. Which was probably what the Czechs wanted all along.

People that pay the most taxes, aka the 1%, already rule by proxy. You just want to make it de jure. Ok, understood.

Actually, most of the poor can't even vote for narrow self interest. They get swayed by by contrived issue of the day. For example, a poor white family in the Central Valley who depends on Medicare and benefits from illegal driven agricultural economy will vote against Medicare and the Dream Act.

If the poor who do not pay taxes can't vote, the 1% can't get elected.

Depends on what you include in your tax rate. Do you include or exclude California Income tax? Do you include or exclude Social Security Taxes? Do you include property taxes or exclude them? What about Sales Taxes? That's the problem with measuring effective tax rates in our complex tax system. You can get your federal income effective tax rate pretty low but you're probably paying taxes somewhere else to do it.

Federal by itself is probably around 15-20% for upper middle class with few deductions, but add in CA income and Social Security and you easily get over 20%.

I didn't add anything. Just straight up federal tax rate. I agree our tax code is complex. The richer you are, the more opportunity you have to take more deduction. I agree with you that our tax system is complex and set up in a way that richer people can take more deduction and pay less effective tax rate. But that's what happen when you have all sorts of deductions and a very complex tax code. This is why I in full support of simplifying our tax code. Removing a lot of the deductions to "widen the base and lower the rates". WRT to comparing capital gain vs ordinary income, over the last 60+ years, there were only two years where capital gain tax was equal to ordinary income tax. That was when Reagan slashes ordinary income rate to be equal capital gains rate. Not raises capital gains rate to match ordinary income rate.

What would you consider as upper middle class? Why would upper middle class people not take advantages of the various deductions? Someone who are in the upper middle class obviously have the opportunity to take numerous deductions. If one chooses to pay more taxes by not taking deduction, then that's their choice. It's not like you can't. This is why people call the tax code as a mean for social engineering. If you're fighting the government and not do what they want you to do, then, of course you'll pay more. However, you don't have to. Talking about using the tax code as a tool for social engineering, one example is why long term capital gains is taxed at a lower rate than short term capital gains.

Well said, ocrenter. I'm going to steal your last sentence and use it later. ;)

Brutus is a little confused.

In reality, as a agregrate, Democrats tend to be more well-to-do, better educated than Republicans. Want the data? All we need to to is look at an election map. After the elections, we can look at the election map and drill down by county.

I personally know some people who don't have health insurance but are vociforously anti Obama-Care.

On guy was around 60, and had a heart attack before he could qualify for Medicare at 65. He had to liquidate assets to pay for medical bills. He moved from La Jolla to Florida. Serves him right.

In America, the choices are stark when it comes to Medical expenses: 1) Either you don't have assets and go to the emergency room when you get sick. Then you can default on your medical debt. 2) You get medical insurance out of pocket or through an employer.

As far as Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, John Kerry being very rich, that's all the better. Who says, you can't be liberal and filthy rich? I admire rich liberals (like Warren Buffet, Steve Bezos, Hollywood and Silicon Valley executives) who would raise taxes on themselves much more than rich selfish conservatives.

Wait, aren't "Right wing of GOP has Mitt by the balls" and "Liberals are celebrating" the same answer?

Do you know why you never hear about the total tax percentage (as opposed to the federal income tax percentage)? Because democrats are lame at marketing. If they had the noise machine that the right does, you can be sure that it would be out there. What's the actual total tax paid as a percentage of income and who pays what percentage?

Any income over $110k is not taxed for social security. So a guy making 110k is taxed at 4.2%. But a guy making 110m is taxed (for social security) at 0.0042%.

Gasoline tax, sales tax, liquor tax etc. The rich, in almost all cases, pay a far lower percentage of their income for these taxes.

Overall, if you count all the taxes paid as a percentage of income instead of just federal income tax, the difference between what the rich pay and what the middle class pays looks different.

I say this not to suggest that they should pay a different percentage than they do. I say it to further illustrate the manipulation of the discussion by the right. If the left had a noise machine like the right, you'd have hundreds of blowhards on the radio and tv screaming about how unfair that is. And you'd have millions of people buying it, whether their point was valid or not. Just like has been happening on the right for over a decade now.

I think with Ryan as VP, everyone is happy. Both Liberal and Conservatives are happy by the nomination.

Finally, first the first time, everybody agrees! =)

Maybe there will be peace on earth for at least 2 more months :-D.

I don't think that moderate Republicans are happy with the Ryan pick. They would probably have preferred Huntsman or Portman.

The Tea Party is happy because they now control the agenda. Their hard work paid off.

the moderate Republicans do not matter, they lost their party years ago. Plus Washington is run by the extremists anyway.

I'd consider upper middle class as the top 25% by income. I don't buy the "$200K is barely middle class in San Fran, New York, etc.". That's a choice and the expectations are just different. Middle class in general has changed dramatically over the years. Middle class was once 1 car, maybe a couple TVs with an antenna on the roof, a home phone and maybe a computer. Now it's flat screen TVs in every room, Cell Phones for everybody in the family, internet service provider, cable providers, multiple cars, etc. A lot more stuff and the costs associated with that stuff. The question becomes is our life really all that better with that stuff.

As for why don't you take advantage of tax deductions, usually most tax advantages come with a significant cost. If I bought a house at the peak of the bubble my federal tax rate is pretty low but I'm not better off financially because of it. I know the government wants us to have children, get married, buy homes, and dump our money into the stock market, but I'm not going to rush into those major decision just to get a tax break. I feel bad for people that do.

That's a pretty good definition.

Middle-class has always been a nebulous term.

In England, middle-class are professionals, and business people, but not nobility.

Yes, better to have neither expense nor deduction.