Sandy's shift in politics.

Big Storm could change politics in America. 900 mile wide
storm from a NASA  image.

Hurricane Sandy has upended the presidential race, forcing both President Obama and Mitt Romney to virtually suspend their campaigns in the final week before Election Day. However, while Romney waits and watches, Obama has some actual “There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement, that is a factual statement,” Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, said. He was right about the urgent need to talk about climate change; even if the origin of Hurricane—or rather “Superstorm”—Sandy is a mystery of weather randomness, it is undeniably true, as Cuomo put it, that “we have a new reality when it comes to these weather patterns.” (Elizabeth Kolbert has more on that.) But he was very wrong about another thing: what he said is a political statement, or ought to be. Refusing to have a political conversation about climate change now is akin to the insistence that the aftermath of a mass shooting is somehow an improper moment to talk about America’s gun laws.Hurricane Sandy, in the wily and savage way of natural disasters, expressed its full assortment of lethal methods as it hit the East Coast on Monday night. In its howling sweep, the authorities said the storm claimed at least 40 lives in eight states. The presidential campaigns aren't the only political operations trying to decide what to do after hurricane Sandy swept aside the final-week playbook of this election.The super-storm has upended some tight congressional races as well – putting a weather-related pause in some campaigns and steering others in new directions. In Massachusetts, Sen. Scott Brown (R) and challenger Elizabeth Warren (D) were scheduled to hold a final televised debate Tuesday night, but the event ended up being cancelled because of the storm. The race is one of the tightest Senate contests in the nation, as the two parties battle for control of the Senate in the next Congress.In Connecticut, too, Sandy's raging winds supplanted the fury of political campaigning. The storm prompted contenders in another close Senate race to go on hiatus, and focus on helping residents find safety and relief. The storm’s path along the Eastern Seaboard ripped across a wide swath of blue state America. The list of hardest hit states includes many of the states expected to deliver the biggest victory margins for the president this year — among them New York, which delivered a 2 million vote winning margin to President Obama in 2008. While the extent to which elections will be disrupted next week is unclear, the extensive power outages, flooding and wreckage from North Carolina to Maine are certain to have an impact on campaign ground games and could work to depress voter turnout in some places. That shouldn’t affect the electoral vote — New York, for example, will still deliver its 29 electoral votes to Barack Obama regardless of the damage to lower Manhattan — but in an exceptionally tight election, lower turnout in the most Democratic states increases the odds of a scenario where Obama wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote. With the presidential race essentially tied, even small changes to the electorate could influence the outcome. It is difficult to say, though, which political party is more advantaged by the storm, according to Peter Ubertaccio, associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science & International Studies at Stonehill College, Easton, Mass. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

In a break with recent history, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it has enough money to cover the initial response to Hurricane Sandy. But that doesn't mean FEMA is out of the woods -- and it certainly doesn't mean the storm will be an exception to the politics of disaster funding.

The agency faces about $878 million in cuts if lawmakers fail to avoid the looming sequester, according to an estimate the White House provided to Congress last month. Members of both parties have said they hope to prevent the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts -- which are slated to take effect in January -- but the path to an agreement is far from clear.It seems the U.S. has billions to spend on a decade of war, with NO clear objective, billions to spend on foreign aid that go to countries that hate us, billions to bail out companies that are mis-managed, so that those same companies can pay out millions in bonus money to their elite. Yet when disaster strikes our homes, business and threatens our life, there is a funding issue ?

Something is wrong with this picture If past is prologue, the FEMA budget will soon be the subject of partisan finger-pointing even as President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are holding their fire for now. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told reporters this week the agency has $3.6 billion to pay for the federal response to Sandy -- though it is too early to tell whether additional funding will be needed when the total cost of the storm is known. That's a contrast with last summer, when the agency found itself cash-starved during Hurricane Irene and forced to suspend some payments related to previous disasters in order to cover the gap. That led to a nasty fight in Congress over whether additional funds should be offset with cuts elsewhere.

What the next President Needs to do . 2013 AD.

Who ever wins . In my Opinion has to do these , or America will
sink by 2020.

Who ever get's to win this election . President Romney or President Obama , they are going to have to do what I am about to summarize . How be it to some of my readers who will think that my controversial statements here will stir the mind with apathy , but I have have it with how our American political system has disintegrated our the last "decade" . Over that last few debates I jotted down some points from either "political party" my IDEAS are cross Party , and some are of my own.

1st. The NEW President needs to address "job" creation , if our nation is going to  make it "globally" America has to restore industry here . Pay American workers a decent wage in order to make a living . Americans' average pay will trail inflation over the next three years, as it has for the past three, a slight majority of the economists say. The tight job market means many employers feel little pressure to raise pay. And rising prices for food and gas could swell inflation and reduce purchasing power . Get people back to work by making them work . This might be Socialistic , but FDR has a better record than Obama on this one , but it took him 12 years to do it.

2nd. Reinvent a new tax code , close those "loopholes" that allow jobs to be shipped overseas, so that American jobs are created here with a fair form of taxation for businesses .The next president, for example, could help lift growth and reduce unemployment by backing lower individual and corporate taxes and looser business rules, more than 70 percent of the economists say. They think such policies — the core of Romney's economic message — would be more likely to help than would Obama's plans for more spending on public works and targeted tax breaks for businesses. 3rd . Open up America for oil drilling , our nation needs to shore up it's oil supply as well as "invest" in other forms of energy . Work on expanding the "keystone pipeline" 4th. Create "affordable housing" while BIG GOVERNMENT bailed out the BANKS , the Little guy with his family was left with debt . I never heard either Obama or Romney for a matter a fact say anything about affordable housing . Yet 5th, we have had them both spout about "affordable healthcare" in America . Which Obama's health care plan is a Crock of Sh ** Sorry but how can you call it the affordable care act? When this last month Health Care costs just Jumped 9.5 % for no apparent reason . Insurance companies are blaming the Presidents plan to the rise in costs . My point here is I am sold on the "single payer " plan , and believe that Mitt Romney was right on letting the States set up their own Insurance plans , but the issue of bringing cost down MEANS NOT KISSING A to the insurance companies who are still reaping profits at the risk of patients. 6th . SECURE OUR BOARDERS .  It's not just illegals sneaking in , could be terrorists with nukes! 7th. EDUCATION  "revise NCLB" . Create Career orientated education , make Higher Education affordable. Stream line the big Department of Education .  8th .Whoever wins the U.S. presidential election will likely struggle to manage the biggest economic threats he'll face. That's the cautionary message that emerges from the latest Associated Press Economy Survey. An even more urgent threat to the U.S. economy, the economists say, is Congress' failure so far to reach a deal to prevent tax increases and spending cuts from taking effect next year and possibly triggering another recession. Yet as President Barack Obama has found, the White House can't force a congressional accord.And whether Obama or his Republican challenger Mitt Romney wins Nov. 6, he'll likely have to deal with one chamber of Congress led by the opposing party. Polls suggest the Senate will remain in Democratic hands after the election and the House in Republican control. 9th. We need to get off the "made in China" to "made in America " , why are American goods being made in China?  10th . Europe's recession will persist deep into the next presidential term, according to a majority of the 31 economists who responded to the survey. A weaker European economy would shrink demand for U.S. exports and cost U.S. jobs. Yet there's little the next president can do about it.An even more urgent threat to the U.S. economy, the economists say, is Congress' failure so far to reach a deal to prevent tax increases and spending cuts from taking effect next year and possibly triggering another recession. Yet as President Barack Obama has found, the White House can't force a congressional accord. And whether Obama or his Republican challenger Mitt Romney wins Nov. 6, he'll likely have to deal with one chamber of Congress led by the opposing party. Polls suggest the Senate will remain in Democratic hands after the election and the House in Republican control.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

When President Obama ran for office in 2008, he promised to fix the economy, but he didn’t anticipate two things. First, the economic mess that the Republicans left him was far worse than anyone thought. Second, he couldn't know that the Republicans in Congress, and at the state level, would oppose every effort to improve the economy for fear that it might help get him re-elected. In spite of these two things, he has managed to stabilize the economy and start it on the road to recovery. There is even evidence that the job market is improving. Do voters have such a short memory that they can be conned into electing a Republican who will take us back into another recession? "Consider the record. In 2011 and 2012 the House passed more than three-dozen economic or jobs-related bills and with only a few exceptions they died in the Senate without a vote. The bills dealt with regulatory relief, tax reduction, domestic drilling for energy, offshore drilling, a jobs bill for veterans, repeal of ObamaCare and many more. Many passed the House with significant Democratic support...""Then there is the Democratic failure on their constitutional obligation of passing a budget. House Republicans passed their budgets in each of the past two years in the spring...By contrast, the Senate failed to pass any budget in 2012. Or 2011. Or 2010. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in more than 1,200 days. Sorry, you can't blame that on a Republican filibuster, because it takes only 51 votes to pass a Senate budget resolution. In 2011 and 2012 the Senate Budget Committee never even drafted a budget...""The Senate also failed in 2010 and 2012 to pass a single appropriations bill. According to an analysis by Senate Republicans, that hadn't happened before in the 150-year history of the current spending process. This year the Senate even failed to enact a national defense authorization bill, which almost never happens. The House passed a bill to avert the tax cliff looming in January, but the Senate failed to act on that too."Now, tell me again which party you think did "nothing."

Read MY LIPS.

High gas prices , High Taxes , and more Taxes . OK Jerry . I think people are seeing through
the gimmick.

I am about to howl , and do my best at ranting on the anti-tax thing. You think as a "public employee" I am going to give them ( Prop 38    )  54 dollars more ?  Gov. Jerry Brown took on the air waves today .  Speaking his ultimatum. Meanwhile The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is up with its second radio advertisement against Gov. Jerry Brown's November ballot initiative to raise taxes, comparing Brown's tax campaign to street robbery.

"Hey, lady, hand over your purse or the schools get it," a voice at the top of the ad says.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/08/jarvis-groups-new-ad-calls-jerry-browns-tax-bid-street-robbery.html#storylink=cpy

Their even trying to tax low income people with this burden .  We are getting so "screwed" with taxes in the state of California . I can't believe that our Governor would sink so low on the education thing to hold schools hostage just to raise taxes . It's not just people who make  $ 250,000  a year , there going to tax . It's you and me . I fear that both Props 30 and 38 would pass together . As much as the 1/4 cent tax is , it looks meager by standards , but we have raised taxes for education during the last decade . We have a gas tax that in part goes for education as well as taxing smokers , and property taxes . I guess I can ask is where is all the money going ?  Proponents of Prop 38 say that these funds will skip Sacramento and go straight to local school districts, where parents and teachers will decide how to spend the money. It's also the only tax initiative that would deliver new funds to local schools. Yes On Prop 38 advocates claim that the average tax burden for incomes between $25,000 - $50,000 would be just $54.-----Well . ---Prop 30. Championed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Prop 30 would increase taxes on wealthy Californians (those who make over $250,000) for seven years.  Yet something is a bit off here . The CTA ( California Teachers Association ) is call calling for a NO VOTE on Prop 38. It might benefit the Teachers if they voted for Prop 38 rather than Prop 30 . Critics aren’t buying Brown's Proposition 30 . They say Democrats are bluffing and that the “trigger cuts” amount to a scare tactic that lawmakers will never enforce, while Mr. Brown insists he will follow through with the reductions. The governor and the Democrat-controlled legislature, they warn, will face irresistible temptations to use the revenue from Proposition 30 for their pet projects, not for the state’s schools. I guess the 90 billion dollar high speed rail .  That's the ultimate example of Sacramento's waste, lies (how many times has the price gone up?), and being completely out of touch with fiscal reality. So, Californians are ready to send the message to Sacto: "Live like we do; live within your means!"

MOVING on to another Topic Today that Caught my ear was the First and foremost because there’s no element of surprise here. Colin Powell announced his support of Obama . Powell is Obama's Trump card . How can this make a  difference ?  The National Polls show a vary " Dangerously" close numbers , and it shows a great deal of the national divisions in a two party state of America . Powell could have been the next Pres. if it were not for his mistake in the WMD fiasco. Meanwhile Sen. John McCain said on Thursday Gen. Colin Powell has “harmed” his “legacy even further” by endorsing President Barack Obama and defending his foreign policy. “All I can say is: Gen. Powell, you disappoint us,” McCain said Thursday on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade and Friends.” “And you have harmed your legacy even further by defending what is clearly been the most feckless foreign policy in my lifetime.” This RACE is close as ever , I would not be so shocked if we have a repeat of the Gore- Bush 2000 tie ? What happens if the electoral vote ends up in a 269-269 tie? From a total of 538 electoral votes, at least 270 are needed to win the White House. The current configuration of battleground states with places such as Iowa and Colorado being hotly contested means that in a number of outcomes, Republican candidate Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama could tie at 269. In one tie scenario using the current battleground states, Romney carries Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, but Obama wins Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire.  In this kind of scenario, the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution says that if no candidate gets a majority of the electors, then the House of Representatives chooses a president from among the top three vote-getters.  This would be done by the newly-elected House, not the current one. There is a narrow scenario in which neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney would get the 270 electoral votes required to win. For that to happen, Romney would need to win Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Nevada. And Obama would take Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. If Obama were to win the White House via an electoral vote majority while losing the popular vote, it would be the reverse of 12 years ago. That was when agonized Democrats saw Al Gore garner over 500,000 more individual votes nationally than George W. Bush, even as the Republican won by one electoral vote more than the 270 minimum, after the Supreme Court halted a recount in Florida.But the GOP also points to another possibility outlined by political analysts: Romney and Obama ending up tied, with 269 electoral votes apiece, and the election settled by the House of Representatives — currently under the control of Romney’s fellow Republicans.

The Eye's of the Last Debate.

The last debate , 16 more days .

The Last Debate came . As I write this piece . I found Obama all charged up , while Romney took a slow less argument approach to the debate. Obama served up more Whoppers last night than Burger King did. Yes, Obama may have won the last debate , but he already is a leaking bucket .I couldn't stop looking at how much he was blinking also. He also had a look on his face like he was getting ready to pounce. For the first half of the debate, President Obama frequently looked down while he was speaking, while Governor Romney looked straight at the moderator and President Obama. He looked confident, comfortable in his skin, and on the ball. He did not falter in the least. President Obama, on the other hand, betrayed his mood with eyes, which frequently looked worried, angry, sometimes sad, or even a hint of haunted. Between Obama and Romney there is a great fact check problem . Obama held his own on Foreign Policy (why Benghazi wasn't brought up is beyond me), and Romney kept pelting him with the Economy (in which Obama had no real response if one at all).  Obama has plenty of flubbs and I caught a few since he did more of the speaking than Romney did .If a Republican had said the same thing Obama said, the media would mock him for equating horses and bayonets with the ships that the navy needs to project American power into future crisis points like the Straits of Hormuz or the Syrian coast. Perhaps Obama wouldn't have had to wait so long to intervene in Libya (prolonging the revolution there and giving more influence to the kind of violent armed militias that mounted the attack on the consulate in Benghazi) if the U.S. had had more ships in the Mediterranean.

(By the way, the Marine Corps -- or "Marine Corpse," as Obama once read it off his teleprompter -- recently spent over four million dollars buying 120,000 new bayonets, which, given the size of the American military before U.S. entry into WWI, is probably more than we had in 1916.) Fact checkers got a shout out Monday night from President Obama when he declared that Republican challenger Mitt Romney had repeated "the biggest whopper that's been told during the course of this campaign.""Every fact checker and every reporter who's looked at it, governor, has said this is not true," the president pointed out — correctly — during Monday's debate after Romney charged that Obama went on an "apology tour" during his first year in office.Indeed, Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst with the the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Obama was definitely apologizing. He co-wrote an analysis on the topic: "Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower.""Apologizing for your own country projects an image of weakness before both allies and enemies," Gardiner said. "It sends a very clear signal that the U.S. is to blame for some major developments on the world stage. This can be used to the advantage of those who wish to undermine American global leadership."John Murphy, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies presidential rhetoric and political language. He said Obama used conciliatory language for diplomatic purposes, not apologizing."It's much more a sense of establishing of reciprocity," Murphy said. "Each side says, okay, we haven't done great, but we have a new president and we're going to make a fresh start and move forward. I don't think that's an apology." ** Another point about this debate is that Mitt Romney seemed to "agree " with Obama 47 % percent of the time . ( I am not kidding you! ). Here is an example : “We can’t kill out way out of this mess,” says Romney. “We must have a comprehensive strategy.” Few national security officials in either the Obama or the Bush administration would disagree, but their experience has showed that delivering that is fraught with complications operational and political, and ramping up drone attacks has been the tangible go-to option. Will Romney explain how his approach differs from either the Bush or Obama administrations? And how he would pay for them? Can Obama explain an approach that goes well beyond targeted killings to address a more diffuse terrorist threat? Mitt seemed to agree with the controversial drone attacks . Again  Romney seemed rather passive . Mitt Romney's tactical decision to tie himself as much as possible to President Barack Obama's foreign policy may have been a safe way to avoid making a major foreign policy gaffe. But it also had the added effect of angering a whole bunch of conservatives, from the far right of the spectrum to the center, who wanted him to present a robust contrast with Obama.

NOTES AND COMMENTS :

 ** She said Obama's words fell short of an apology, mostly because he didn't use the words "sorry" or "regret." "I think to make an effective apology, the words 'I'm sorry' or 'we're sorry' always have to be there," Bloom said.

Obama's remarks were really non-apologies, and they're not good in business or personal relationships, Bloom said. The one area where they can be useful: international diplomacy.

"Gov. Romney is trying to appeal to the inner John Wayne of his readers, and that has a certain emotional appeal," Bloom said. "For the rest of us, a level assessment of less-than-perfect human behavior is perfectly reasonable."

 We spoke with Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a professor who tracked international human rights issues via the website Political Apologies and Reparations. Many of the apologies in the database relate to genocide or slavery.

"To say the United States will not torture is not an apology, it is a statement of intent," Howard-Hassman said. "A complete apology has to acknowledge something was wrong, accept responsibility, express sorrow or regret and promise not to repeat it."

Obama's Cairo address in particular was a means of reaching out to the Islamic world, not an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, she said.

Benghazigate.

Obama's 9-11 was Benghazi, he has no way out of it. Remember Pres. Bush faced fearsome criticism  in regards how much  ** the Bush Administration knew of the 'terrorist' plot to hijack airlines , we had a 9-11 commission report that underlined exactly who , how the plot was 'hatched' by Osama bin Ladin . More than a month after terrorists attacked the US embassy in Libya on Sept. 11 and assassinated the US ambassador and three others, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton now takes full responsibility for the security failures that permitted the attack.  But the questions remain as to why a YouTube video was blamed for an obvious terror attack.For any neutral person with no stake in this election , it’s disgusting to hear baseless, sinful accusations of a cover-up. If everyone in the government admits 1 month after the attack that it was the work of Al Qaeda, then it only shows that they are incompetent.   (Mrs. Clinton cannot take responsibility for the president's "The Video Made Them Do It" screenplay, nor can Susan Rice be made the fall-gal for the president. He made those statements, and he made them long after he ought to have known better --and probably did.) We probably shouldn’t make comparisons between the lies and cover-ups surrounding the Benghazi massacre and Watergate. After all, nobody died in Watergate. Watergate was a low-rent break-in and a moronic decision by a paranoid presidential administration to attempt to run up the electoral score by rifling through the Democrat National Committee’s files. Nowadays, the Watergate break-in would happen as a result of hacking into the DNC’s server, and if anybody really believes the parties don’t do that to each other regularly you guys are a lot less cynical than we are. Benghazi is a lot different than Watergate. Benghazi was an administration that treated foreign policy as though reality was a function of what they wanted to believe rather than what it was. And as a result they deliberately ramped down security around our ambassador in Libya because they wanted the Libyans to perceive that everything was normal there; armored American convoys traveling through the streets would have upset the situation, so we’d go without them. @ That was a decision made in Washington, and it was a decision neither requested nor appreciated by the folks on the ground there, who knew their lives were forfeit to Libyan perception. And the Libyans perceived it, all right. They recognized what a juicy, easy target our people were. And as a result there were security incidents on an ad nauseam basis until finally, on September 11, the local Al Qaeda affiliate decided they’d just run a full frontal attack at us. Which they did, and as a result we ended up with a dead ambassador and three dead support people – two of which were former Navy SEALS there on a mission to get back the very weapons the local Al Qaeda affiliate used in the attack. Because we had armed these people in the first place. The Watergate investigation brought down the President of the United States. The Watergate break-in took place during the election year of 1972, and was swept under the rug until after Nixon defeated McGovern. But, here is one big difference: four men died in Benghazi. No one died in Watergate.Lies were told by the White House in both situations. Cover-ups occurred in both situations. congressional hearings were held in both situations. Nixon tried to protect his top aides to the very end of his presidency. From Michael Hastings at BuzzFeed: “The jaw-dropping testimony at the House Oversight Committee Wednesday completely shredded the  ## Obama Administration’s original story about what happened in Benghazi, while offering damning evidence that the State Department ignored multiple, urgent requests for better security at the American outpost in eastern Libya.” , But the nit-picking over whether Obama said the word "terrorist" or "terrorism" reminds me even more of several other abortive "scandals" from the last couple of years. For example, when President Obama announced that the United States and European countries were joining the Libyan rebels in attacking Khaddafi, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Right over the way he made the announcement: "He didn't abort his South American trip!"  "He didn't address the nation from the Oval Office!"

NOTES AND COMMENTS:
** the fact that the Bush administration had been explicitly warned that al qaeda was planning to take down the WTC with planes and did nothing about it.

## it is supremely important to find out what Obama was hiding by waiting for an investigation, but I just don't see what the issue is.

@ The latest in a string of damning information now indicates that the State Department even rejected embassy staff’s request for additional security prior to the attack and that security threats were present in Libya for months prior to September 11, when U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, two Navy SEALs and another American civil servant were killed.

Aggressive Debate . Analysis.

Obama learned lines  from Joe Biden's rule book. I am Undecided who won this debate.

Wow wee! Pres. Obama defiantly got aggressive , but I fund a few weaknesses on Obama's part not as much to say to Romney who still has a lot of dust to settle . The fist debate Mr. Obama looked spaced out as far as being there .  Mr. Obama showed up for his second debate with Mitt Romney on Tuesday, and at moments their town-hall-style engagement felt more like a shouting match than a presidential debate. Here Mr. Obama took lines from Joe Biden's rule book . The two men challenged each other on the facts, talked over each other and stalked each other across the stage. Furthermore I could see that Obama looked "pissed off" , and displayed an attitude which I could sense Pres. Obama coming close to saying " That's a bunch of malarkey " .  Moderator Candy Crowley of CNN faced a difficult task all night in trying to keep to the intended format as both candidates insisted on answering nearly every charge from his opponent, regardless of the time limits The Moderator was herself "rude" to Mitt Romney cutting him off and trying to prevent Romney from getting an answer out. Crowley felt that if she could win one for Obama and change the election. Romney was debating both Crowley and Obama being cut off numerous times before he could make his point. Crowley even sided with Obama on Libya that he did call it a terrorist attack in the Rose Garden. But why Candy did he take two weeks to come to that conclusion. Why did Obama on the view state that he didn't know if it was a terrorist attack he had to investigate. Why did Ambassador Rice state Ambassador's Stevens death was the result of a you tube video. Why did Obama apologize six times at the United Nations for the you tube video? Mr. Romney has charged that the administration has been slow to acknowledge that the Benghazi attack was carried out by terrorists, and he again challenged the president about his remarks the day after the attack.  That brought the strongest retort of the evening from the president who said he was offended at the suggestion that his foreign policy team would engage in politics when national security issues were at stake.  Mr. Romney then pressed on about the president’s remarks the day after the attack in the White House Rose Garden, challenging the president’s assertion that he had mentioned acts of terrorism.  Most of the debate focused on the economy, the president’s “Achilles Heel,” and a major point of success for Mr. Romney in their first debate.  Mr. Romney continued to make his points about jobs, the deficit, government spending and energy, but he didn’t seem quite as crisp as he was in the first debate two weeks ago.  Maybe it was the format.  Mr. Romney has often had problems relating to voters and questioners in settings like these and he didn’t seem as comfortable as the first time around. By contrast, the president was much more forceful, both in defending his record and trying to make a case for another four years in office.  This has been an area of weakness for the president, with many commentators complaining that he provides little in the way of concrete plans about where he wants to take the country if he wins a second term.  Mr. Obama didn’t offer much new in this regard. But it was the way he presented himself, with authority and conviction, that at least gave the impression he does want a second term after all, something even some of his supporters were openly questioning after his first debate debacle. Mr. Romney has his own dust to settle , I must say that Mitt has some qualities , but my concerns are . Taxes are important because it's  the tax dollars that also cut down the national deficit that Romney keeps graciously harping on.  The fact is this money has been owed forever and yes it is getting higher but it could a portion of that be his and other billionaires fault for placing there money in a country where they don't actually live.  Is that patriotic...highly doubt it. Mr. Romney caught Obama on this same question , where Obama also has investments in China . He said Obama, through his pension fund, also has “investments in China.” Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, did invest in firms that specialized in outsourcing during the years Romney ran the private equity firm. In using the term “pioneer” Obama was referring to a story in The Washington Post that detailed early investments made by Bain in companies that would become major players in outsourcing to China and other countries. In addition, Romney has a stake in a Bain investment fund that owns Uniview Technologies, a Chinese firm that produces “infra-red” cameras and surveillance gear. That investment did not occur until late 2011, long after Romney left Bain Capital. Obama deflected questions about his own investments in China with a joke. But independent reports have shown Obama holds shares in mutual funds that invest in Apple, Wal-Mart and other U.S. firms with operations in China. More serious questions about Obama’s record on outsourcing have been raised from critics on the left, which were not addressed during the debate. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 I am UNDECIDED  here folk's , We HAVE two RICH guys running for Office . Obama could have turned up the heat even more. The five-point plan with no details. The lack of specifics on loopholes. The challenger's "plan" for what he'll do in place of Obamacare. The 47%. All were mentioned tonight but should have brought more into focus. On the other hand, Romney pressed the same attack points he's been hitting for weeks, if not months (the one exception being Libya). Obama has the potential to do much more in exploiting his opponent's vulnerabilities and on substantive issues. Romney can only repeat the same old. The question is, will Obama realize the potential and act on it?The debate was a joke, all planned questions on the few differences that the two corporate parties have. No mention of NDAA, no mention drone strikes, no mention of the bank bailouts and wall street cronism because both parties are agreed on those.What the independent network Democracy Now is doing, expanding the debate to allow third party candidates in would really test the two main party candidates and be far more interesting to watch. Third party candidates are people who aren't just interested in maintaining the status-quo, people who really care about the environment and see the dead-end destructive way of fossil fuels, and people who really care about human rights.The debate last night was basically two men stretching out their minor differences to make it look like they are not almost glued to the hip when it comes to policies.

General Election Tax Hikes!

Read Your Ballot Booklet. California is going to raise your taxes ,
Locally as well.

This WEEK I spent going through the CALIFORNIA GENERAL ELECTION booklet . Reading everything line by line as I do . We have so many crucial issues in this election . I have to say that the vast majority of the propositions this year are geared to raise taxes on all of us . This includes By a 7-0 vote, the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency based in San Jose, moved ahead with placing the "Safe, Clean Water and Natural Flood Protection Program" local Measure B, which would extend an expiring parcel tax for an additional 15 years to fund programs aimed at reducing water contaminants and bracing for floods or other natural disasters. The measure was placed on the ballot by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. before Santa Clara County voters this fall.If the measure passes, the tax, currently $54 a year for the average home, would continue through 2029, increasing at 3 percent a year, rather than expiring in 2016. As a property tax payer I dread paying for something that in long run is not about money going for your safety but rather to the pockets of the CBO's of the Santa Clara Water District . Another problem is that San Jose is also trying to raise another set of taxes on us in the guise of "supporting education" as reported Starting with the statewide Proposition 30 – which would institute a temporary income tax hike for those making more than $250,000, in addition to a one-fourth cent increase on sales and use tax – the Council decided that the need for new revenue outweighs concerns about new taxes.The Council voted 9-2 to support the measure, based on the local objective “to ensure the necessary funding for front-line public safety.”While the bulk of revenue from the new taxes would go to education, the Council report states that the money would also fund a new $20 million grant program for city police departments. They say it would also help avoid budget cuts to other community police programs. If YOU read the lines carefully you going to be 'Taxed' twice , first for your YES VOTE on Brown's Prop 30 , and at the same time Voting YES on local measure A would double dip into your wallet on raising taxes in the guise of "Supporting Local Safety and Education" . Politicians and Legislators , and City Council are Crooks.   And most honest Californian's are being taken to the cleaners . Who want's more taxes? Taxes are always a matter of contention in California's annual budget standoff. Do we pay too much? Should we pay more to maintain some level of government infrastructure and services? Last year, the governor and legislative leaders cut a deal that included significant tax increases. NEXT year Gov. Brown is trying to ask for more the lucrative way.  One reason that California spends and taxes more per capita than other states is that both incomes and the cost of living here are above the national average. As incomes rise, state and local governments spend more, partly because government employee salaries are higher in states with higher salaries in the private sector. State and local taxes in California were roughly 11.7% of personal income in 2008, compared to 11.0% for the entire U.S.  That is, for every $10,000 in income, Californians pay about $70 more in state and local taxes than the average for all states. California does not have the highest taxes in the U.S. The state with the highest taxes is New York, where taxes account for about 14.5% of personal income. Additionally, California’s personal income, corporate income, unemployment, and disability insurance taxes are significantly higher here than elsewhere.California spends about $11 billion more than the national average (accounting for population differences) on public safety, including police, fire, prisons, and jails. The state spends about $12 billion more than average on government-owned utilities, including state and local departments of water and power.  We also exceed the national average in spending on public insurance, health care, public employee pensions and community development (including housing). Californians spend below the national norm on many other programs, including schools (per student spending now ranks near the bottom in the nation), higher education (support for community colleges, CSUs and UCs has dropped dramatically over the past few years), welfare and public roads.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 Comparing California's taxation with other states is a complicated task. It seems each state has stitched together its own crazy quilt of revenue sources. With concerns about comparative costs of living and state competitiveness, we have untangled the numbers to reveal how California stacks up in the big categories and in total. We use 2009 per capita numbers as the best way to calculate what Californians pay and to compare with other states. Total tax numbers are taken from the U.S. Census historical data set, which runs from 1951 to 2009. Population figures are taken from the U.S. Census annual data sets for 2000-09 and the bureau' shistorical timeset for 1960-1995.