Romney pens fatally flawed op ed

This evening, Romney released an op-ed piece discussing culture as a determinant of economic development and prosperity.  He hits all the big buzzwords you'd expect, and he singles out Israel for praise, writing:

Like the United States, the state of Israel has a culture that is based upon individual freedom and the rule of law. It is a democracy that has embraced liberty, both political and economic. This embrace has created conditions that have enabled innovators and entrepreneurs to make the desert bloom.

Sounds good, right?  Unfortunately for Mr. Romney, such praise for Israel is wholly inconsistent with his opinion of Obama's economic platform.  Romney and his fellow Republicans decry an increase in the top tax rate from 35% to 39.6% as an affront to freedom, but Israel has a top tax rate of 48%, a Value Added Tax of 16%, set to increase to 18% next year, and a progressive payroll tax structure.  Their health care system is Obamacare on steroids, including mandated coverage, strong government control of policies and prices, and bans for-profit insurers from participating.

You can't praise Israel's economic structure in one breath and denounce Obama as a socialist in the next.

Romney praises Israel's government-run health care

While speaking in Israel, Romney praised the nation's ability to keep health care costs down, spending only 8% of their GDP on health care, compared to our 18%.  This article points out all the ways that Israel's health care system is essentially Obamacare on steroids and that their success in cost-controls are entirely due to massive government involvement.

What's the plan once technology makes manual labor obsolete?

As technology improves, workers adapt, learning marketable skills that are more economically performed by a human than by a machine.  In this way, even though improvements might make a worker's current economic role obsolete, workers are able to stay employed and keep food on the table.

But what happens when improving technology results, as it inevitably will assuming our future isn't a dystopian hellscape, in devices which are capable of outperforming most of humanity in any conceivable way for a cost below starvation wages for a flesh-and-blood worker?  Without any economic incentive to hire people, what happens to the people?  Some number of intellectual/creative people's skills will remain in demand, at least until technology replaces them, too.

For a liberal or socialist system, taxes will be levied on the owners of technology to provide for people's needs.  But what would be the conservative alternative?

Chick-fil-A and voting with your wallet

Chick-fil-A has gotten itself in hot water recently after its President announced opposition to same-sex marriage.  Some people have decided to no longer eat at Chick-fil-A as a result, and others make a point to support the chain.  Such actions are necessary in a post-Citizens United world, where one must consider what might be done with the money they shell out for whatever widget they may be considering.  Chick-fil-A gives millions to anti-gay groups.  Money spent at Chevron or on Stainmaster carpet might wind up in a right-wing attack ad funded by the Koch Brothers, or money at Starbucks might go to providing benefits to the same-sex partners of employees.

Consumers have the right to know where their money goes.  So it's disheartening to see the failure of laws which require the disclosure of Super PAC donor lists.  I'm all for recognizing the right of a citizen to say with a clear voice that another person is a charlatan and a scoundrel, but the identity of the accuser should be disclosed.  Allowing anonymity encourages the sort of negative smears we seem to be getting.  If it were public knowledge that Corporation X were behind one particular smear, the fear of a consumer backlash might temper the impulse to attack.

Wanted to watch a replay of the Opening Ceremony tonight...

...but couldn't, even though I had an internet connection and a username/password for a cable TV provider.  For shame, NBCOlympics.com.

Romney campaign destroys own trip

Romney's over in London burnishing his foreign policy cred, which is an odd time for one of his campaign's top surrogates, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, to say "I think the focus needs to continue to be on what’s happening here at home. That’s what’s important to voters".  They are forced into taking this contradictory approach due to the awful day Romney had today.

Why is this news?

This was the main headline on the Drudge Report overnight was this little gem.  Why is this news? We knew he was a grad student, and grad students often get federal help.  But the conservative media is never one to miss an opportunity to reinforce their readers' anti-spending biases, so we get treated to this headline.  More out of control government spending, or something...

Fox News at it again

From Fox News's website today:

As discussed yesterday, Republicans are trying to score points on a statement by Obama to small business owners that "you didn't build that."  Now, as a generally rational person, you might ask what exactly is the identity of "that".  Is he telling small business owners that they didn't build the Grand Canyon?  A child's laughter?  How could we find out what he meant?

You might start by looking at the context of the statement.  So here it is:

If you are successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

It immediately becomes clear that the President is referring to the common goods of infrastructure, an educated work-force, and such.  Romney's claims that Obama was telling small business owners that they didn't deserve credit for building their businesses is wrong on its face.  There can't be any legitimate dispute over this.

But Fox News chooses to clearly pick sides in the dispute, supporting the Republican position.  For starters, the structure of the headline puts Obama in a conflict with a a "small biz widow", and the ground on which the conflict will be fought is her dead husband's business.  Then we get a picture of the old dead guy himself.  They follow that up with a truly stunning subheadline, "Eileen Vento answers Obama's statement that small business owners - like her late Joey - 'didn't build that'".  The subheadline accepts as fact the Republican misreading of Obama's statement.


The linked article continues  the assault on the truth, quoting Vento and others who chose to take offense.  Besides giving unopposed views of people who don't know what they're talking about, the text of the article, written by a supposed news reporter, includes pearls like "The president's slight of entrepreneurs also riled David Ruff, owner of..."  Again, the "news" article presents as fact a Republican talking point which is demonstrably false.


All of this would be fine if it were an opinion article.  Fox should be ashamed to call such lies "news".

Romney trying for The Big Lie

Romney continues to harp on Obama's "claim" that business owners didn't build their businesses.  Of course, Obama said nothing of the sort, and instead was referring to the economic and physical environment in which businesses exist.  But why let what Obama actually said get in the way of a good attack.  Romney hopes that by continuing to spout the lie, the link between Obama and discrediting businesses owners might stick.  It's another in a long line of ridiculous attempts by conservatives to portray Obama as "other".  He is, at most, a center-left politician, who hasn't done anything much to deviate from previously accepted orthodoxy on the ways to run the nation.  That doesn't motivate the GOP base, though, so they have to create a bogeyman where there just isn't one.

What's up with skipping the convention?

Prominent Democrats like Sen. Claire McCaskill (MO) and Sen. Joe Manchin (WV) are making a point of not attending the Democratic Convention this year.  I just don't understand the motivation for such a maneuver.  It's not like voters aren't going to see the "Democrat" next to their name right on the ballot.  Voters know McCaskill and Manchin are going to vote for Harry Reid for Senate Majority Leader.  So  their decision to skip the DNC therefore has no real benefit.  But it inflicts a real cost on the party they supposedly represent.  These Senators represent rather conservative states, and they fear being tied to Obama and the national party if they attend the convention.  Refusing to attend the convention gives a signal that the party is somehow so extreme that they can't even soil themselves by talking with the rest of their party for a few days.  This puts pressure on other candidates, as Democrats who do go the convention are now labelled as more "left" than even other Democrats.  Once it becomes a thing to not attend, it slaps an unfortunate label on those who do.

So I would love to ask the Senators just what the Democratic Party has done that merits such a response.  How are they so disenchanted with their party that they can't even attend the convention and, I don't now, try to save the party from itself?  If you're doing to have a D next to your name, along with a promise to vote for a Democrat for your leadership, then suck it up and go to the convention.