Final thoughts

Still undecided, my friends? STILL?

Two days to go… Here’s the final word:

You say the President has not lived up to his promise? We agree. We might re-iterate the list of complaints, but you already know them. We could roll out the standard retort: “the Republicans have engineered his failure by opposing all that he has attempted.” OK, but a good “leader” rises to the occasion and brings factions together. Mr. Obama is not that leader. He has resorted all too often to executive powers to achieve his ends.

Here’s what he can take credit for, though:

●          An economy still afloat after the melt-down of 2007, with unemployment falling below 8% as of November 2.

●          “Adult” and reasoned leadership in the aftermath of the Bush years, even in the face of a continual barrage of silly and distracting challenges to his citizenship and legitimacy. Contrary to reverberating claims from the right, he has offered pragmatic leadership instead of ideological mayhem.

●          Meaningful healthcare reform bringing insurance to some 40 million otherwise-uninsured.

●          Financial services regulation to rein in our abusive and renegade banking system.

●          Restored excellence of our auto makers in world markets, with an almost unimaginable concession to fuel efficiency over the next ten years.

●          Reduced costs for student loans.

●          An end to the war in Iraq and scheduled pull-out from Afghanistan.

●          Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

●          While he has increased the rate of illegal immigrant deportation, he stopped deportation of young people brought into the country by their parents.

Republicans have sought to make this an up-or-down referendum on the Obama presidency, but we must see this as a choice between the two candidates.They don't want us to look closely at their man, whom almost every prominent Republican during the primaries cast as a bad (even the worst) candidate.

While Mr. Romney “appears” to be a composed and competent business leader who may be able to bring these skills to the office, these assumptions don’t bear scrutiny. We’ve had businessman-presidents in the past, including George W. Bush, and their record is not good. Generally, business leaders don’t have to be skilled in the political arena.

Here, Mr. Romney has shown himself to be feckless. He has reversed his positions and promises time and again on most important political and social measures. While this strategy, known as “flip-flopping” in Republican circles, is poison for Democrats, it appears to be condoned by their own. In any case, we really don’t know what the man stands for. We must take on faith that he will execute his office on behalf of all the American people. This seems unlikely, given that his tax and economic agenda is geared to the right and the wealthy. Beyond that, the election process has shown him to have an extremely loose relationship with honesty. He retracts or re-words a majority of his statements, while “fact-checkers” have a field day with the rest. Do we really want a president who we know won’t be telling us the truth? WE carry the responsibility, my friends, of keeping our government in line and on track. The only  way we can accomplish our responsibility is if we have the necessary information from which to make decisions. If our government officials give us distortion and lies, our system breaks down --- from the top.

Aside from that, Romney is on the wrong side of immigration reform, gay rights, abortion, birth control, taxation, “American Exceptionalism,” and military spending. His bellicosity toward Iran leads us to conclude he will launch another insane war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, his provocative statements toward Russia, China and our major trading partners portend trade wars and even greater threats to our currency.

The numbers that he has offered on taxation and our economy starkly refuse to add up, and he has not told us the programs he plans to cut to pay for increased military budget and tax cuts for the rich. He did mention axing FEMA, however, right before Sandy. Oh wait… no, he retracted that!

In sum, Romney’s constantly-modulation positions lead us to believe that the only thing he stands for is his own election. For those who criticize Mr. Obama for spending four years running for reelection (including the Robbinsense editorial staff,) we can take heart that for him that will not recur. For Mr. Romney, though, his often-stated promises for actions on “Day-1,” including repeal of Obamacare and all federal regulations passed in the last four years, we know he will be pandering to his voting base, running for reelection right out of the blocks.

It’s easy to say that inertia of government bureaucracy will constrain either candidate, but the greatest mischief that either can inflict is in Supreme Court appointments. The next president will likely have one or even two. If you like the 18-month circus of a $2 Billion presidential election brought to us by “Citizens United”… if you feel that poor women who can’t even afford birth control, much less travel to a foreign country for abortion, should be forced to bear children, vote for Mr. Romney.

Over the last two days the hype will be intense. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear that the Republican and right-wing media message is directed at your heart. Their words will drip with moral absolutes and apocalyptic warnings. They don’t want you to consider any message that is intended to make you think.

And when you hear a person say that in "4 more years President Obama will destroy America as we know it," this is coming from a person who 8 years ago almost surely voted for George W. Bush. Good luck.

The Republican Narrative

by Jackson Dave

You may be on the receiving end of a seemingly endless stream of emails passed around by right-ringers, espousing Republican “values,” endlessly castigating Democrats, liberals and the evils of welfare. Many are filled with hatred for President Obama, socialism, communism.

One of the fascinating aspects of this commerce is that it’s so difficult to get the sending parties to remove you from their mailing list---even though you may consider this person a friend.

We have one friend who’s been particularly persistent, on a five-year run. My neighbor and I pass notes occasionally, sharing our frustration, over the intrusion of his ideas, biases, hatred into our world. When pressed about particularly obnoxious mailings, he denies endorsement, but we know better.

Here are excerpts from the correspondence with my neighbor; the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The issue precipitating this exchange was Jack’s assertion that in scrutinizing political information, he had come to realize that he can’t trust what he hears from ABC or NBC. (The major networks have journalistic standards. One of the most distinguished journalists in history, Dan Rather lost his job at CBS in 2004 after reporting that George W. Bush had a poor service record in the Air National Guard. He was fired, not because the story was incorrect, but because the source was “unreliable.” Hate-filled e-mailers, concocting fanciful reports from their imagination and totally incredible sources have no journalistic standards.)

Yes, Frank, this is very troubling. Jack certainly seems like a good guy. He is fun to be with, generally. He is an exceptionally good conversationalist, witty and charming.

But he’s a little older than we, and perhaps he’s pulling baggage that he cannot---and does not want to---let go of. It seems clear enough that he’s part of the large movement that opposes the president because of his race. He endorses the writings of his right-wing correspondents because he agrees with them, but invalidates the networks because he disagrees with much of their material. He’s oblivious that mainstream media are also biased to the right, just not as far to the right as he would prefer. My God, they are all run by large corporations and Republican industrialists. There are endless examples of their rightward tilt…I have chronicled a number in my blog.

To some extent these messages are intended to distract meaningful dialog, but I think it goes beyond that. I get one or two e-notes per month from left-wingers over some political shenanigan, looking for joint laughs or countenance. Right-wingers, however, pursue a river of self-validation, I suspect, because they realize their message is so bloody inane. When people do something they know is wrong, or dumb, they tend to either hide it or actively pursue validation.

We are all compelled by our opinions; but some people hold them more tenaciously than others. I like to divide people into two groups according to whether or not they want to know if they are wrong about something. Unfortunately, it appears that the great majority fall into the latter group, and that includes many very intelligent people.

In a book called “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Can’t….” Jonathan Haidt studies our political divide. Republican “leaders” have institutionalized ignorance. By repeatedly lying about almost everything over and over, year after year, they have brought us to the point where a large number of us find ignorance a virtue and “facts” to be inconvenient and suspicious “truthiness.” According to Mr. Haidt, a person hearing a contradictory argument is able to discard this unwelcome information if only one person who claims to be knowledgeable steps forward to gainsay it. We can have 1000 experts, verses one “informed source,” and that’s adequate. This arrogance is then supported by the vast array of partisans who rush in to support the ignorant opinion.

The interesting thing about Jack, in regard to his persistence, is that he’s unwilling to engage in these matters directly. If you approach him face-to-face, he will regurgitate Republican boilerplate. You cannot get a conversation out of him. Never included in the endless mailings that he sends out is something that he has written or researched---something that he must answer to. He hides behind the writing of others. I have offered a number of times to “discuss” anything he likes. I once asked him why he sends us all this crap after being asked to desist. He became agitated, noticeably angry: “None of your business!” Well, actually it is.

After this latest mailing, about the usual crap: “we can’t give poor people welfare,” I returned an adult comment to his address list, which he carelessly included. He actually returned a quick apology, with the promise to never send me anything again.  Fine.  So I returned a simple, direct request to explain his priorities in this matter---something that he would have to consider and write down. Well, you can probably guess: no reply.

Right-wing “populists,” given voice by the Republican Party, have a narrative---a story that is intertwined within the myth of The American Dream. This story focuses on scapegoats and moves away from real issues of power and privilege. It’s a very compelling story and pulls at the unwary’s notion of “patriotism,” (see Patriots All).

The important factor here is that the Republican message goes straight to the heart; it has an emotional tag, and that’s what makes it so compelling. Democrats are inclined to counter this manipulation with facts and logic…heady stuff---boring, and for a less-than-intellectual, it goes right on by. We love to be told that we are victims. Liberals can’t seem to put together the catchy slogans that offer bromides to salve this open sore.

Beyond the allusion of “patriotism,” however, this all becomes very contradictory. There’s a “conservative,” religious sanction that has turned the Republican Party into a Church of Capitalism…in the name of Jesus. This is odd, considering that he was executed in part for overturning the money-changers tables in the temple. Those were the contemporary expression of capitalism, and the religious hierarchy extracted their cut from the commerce within their domain. Does this not cast Republicans in the role of the Jewish establishment that served Jesus up to the Romans?

Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer

300 Day Assessment

From a “liberal” perspective, the President’s record is anything but satisfactory. Our wars drag on, some have been dramatically expanded: Afghanistan, Pakistan. We are outraged over drone airstrikes, and consider them to be counterproductive. We are outraged by selective “killing” of civilians, including American citizens---. Beyond this, our government has become involved in a number of other struggles, as in Syria and Somalia.

There are endless other examples of failed policy on social and environmental fronts. The President was late on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” forced into moving on marriage rights by his vice president. This insane "war on drugs" still rages-- (aside from the toll that criminalization of drugs takes on our youth, who thinks that if the Canadian government outlawed tobacco products, our government would kill 70,000 of us to stop the flow of cigarettes across the Canadian border?); and he's been MIA on reeling in the financial establishment that has brought the world economy to its knees. These men should be in jail, not collecting record bonuses for their illegal practices (see accompanying article.)  Admittedly, much of candidate Obama’s “promise” was actually “expectations” on the part of the left wing. The president is a “Corporate Liberal:” he tilts left, but remains well within the bounds of the existing power structure. No corporate feathers are ruffled. Republican claims of liberal takeover and socialist decline are inane blather. (Comparisons with Hitler, Stalin, etc. are such vapid dribble that they magnify the irony: Hitler and Stalin were right-wing despots, not liberals. The Republicans have adopted and fully endorsed these leaders’ programs of propaganda/brainwashing, fear and hate mongering to gain political support.)

We can tell ourselves that if reelected, Mr. Obama will pursue the agenda that is really in his heart in his final years. But history has shown this to be unrealistic. Emerging from a triumphant, first term in 1996, President Clinton brought in enormous political capital, and many expected his second term to yield tremendous positive change. This was short-circuited by Republican exploitation of his personal foibles.

The real question looking forward to November is: which of our two candidates will make a better President for the next four years? While Mr. Obama is a known entity, we can only speculate about Mr. Romney. A more protean character has not been seen on the contemporary US tableau.

The Republican base, and the “Tea Partiers” in particular, have not lost their taste for the GOP promise to cut taxes, cut government services and balance the budget on the backs of the irresponsible, undeserving poor. The fact that this program has met with dismal failure every time it has been put to the test causes no caution or skepticism among this group of “believers.”

Mr. Romney has opted to 1) discard the conventional “shift to the middle” expected of general election candidates; 2) double down on expansion of our wars and our vast war-making capacity; and 3) glorify our nation’s position on the world stage, defying widespread international opposition, even among our “allies,” and fully re-endorsing “American Exceptionalism,” the primary source of the vast majority of our domestic insecurity and international mischief. Please re-visit our discussion of American Exceptionalism.

With almost daily faux pas that would make G. W. Bush blush, frequent disclosures of his shady business practices, even shadier personal financial practices, frequent offensive remarks made to almost every interest group, daily reversals on policy positions, evasion of almost any kind of concrete proposal or policy stance, the candidacy remains afloat.

Romney comes from a political family. Father George was a long-time political activist, governor of Michigan in 1962, and ran for president in ‘68. His mother ran for U. S. Senate. Both were moderate, and pursued many progressive programs. As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt followed a moderate course and set up the archetype of “Obamacare,” which he now vilifies.

But in order to run as a Republican, he must run as an extreme “conservative.” (Extreme conservative is an oxymoron, my friends.) His base, the one that led George W. Bush to office, is incredibly active, angry and energized by racial hatred of our African American President. We believe that the dichotomy between his personal beliefs and the “conservatism” which he’s forced to profess lies at the core of why the man makes so many mistakes. His blunders are a reflection of the battle going on inside. This does not, however, explain his personal problems, such as his tax returns. The man has been running for President for probably six years, or more. Reputed to have wealth approaching ten figures, as a future presidential prospect, everyone knows that the public expects him to pay taxes! Certainly he can afford it.

The latest flap is a case study in the difficulty of the campaign. In a video clip produced by Priorities USA, a senior citizen whose wife died from cancer after he was laid off from a steel plant, perhaps displaced by Bain Capital, alludes to Romney’s culpability. To cast her candidate in a favorable light, Andrea Saul, Romney’s press secretary, stated that if the woman had been a Massachusetts resident, Romney’s healthcare plan would have covered her and saved her life. (Actually, the woman had private healthcare insurance.) But the Republicans want to distance themselves from Romney’s plan in Mass.  Ann coulter, Rush and the GOP establishment demanded Saul’s head for going “off message,” “message” being reiteration of the same meaningless and misleading blather over and over ad nauseum.

It gets better! The most intriguing thing about this flap is that the video clip was an allusion only. There’s no claim of Romney’s blame. More significantly, it was never commercially broadcast…it was a brief bit on the internet. The Romney camp took the bait and in their indignant zeal to repudiate Mr. Obama, they forced the issue to public attention---the clip goes viral.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is circulating ads referring to Romney’s personal and business financial practices. With Romney as head of their audit board, Marriott Hotels was running a “Son of BOSS” tax evasion scheme for several years in the ‘90s. The IRS sued and Marriott was hit for back taxes and a multi-million dollar fine. This coupled with Romney’s personal tax avoidance schemes present an effective negative ad campaign. The Romney camp hasn’t bothered refuting this ad.

Instead, he counters with the claim that: Mr. Obama is trying to “undo welfare reform.” This is false. He signed an executive order which allows individual states discretion in implementing welfare. Republicans are supposed to favor “States’ rights,” but really they simply oppose everything Obama does.

We might assume that if elected, Romney will revert to the moderate policies that have highlighted his career, but that would be naïve. The reality of modern American politics is that immediately after election, a first term president begins running for reelection. That will demand continuing gratification of his boisterous, right-wing constituency. Robbinsense believes strongly that the spectacle that we have seen, which prompted most prominent Republicans to dismiss him as the worst candidate that the party could put forward, will continue to play out on the national and world stage. Romney will become George W. Bush II, a better-educated, perhaps more polished version, but every bit as embarrassing and disastrous for our country.

We know that there are good people at various levels of government still holding onto the Republican banner, but it’s difficult to get behind any candidate pandering to this base. For the last three years Republicans have shown that they have no interest in advancing the welfare of our country. In fact, they have been up front with this, announcing to the public that their legislative and political agenda for the next 3 ½ years was to unseat the President. In the process, they have done everything possible to aggravate our recession, including opposition to any program that might create jobs or restrain businesses from exporting jobs. Much of the President’s moderate policies have been pulled right from the GOP playbook, yet they still oppose and revile the man.

The Republican Party tosses the terms “liberal” and “conservative” around like pillows at an adolescent slumber party. “Liberal” comes from the root: liberty. The classic liberal is one who advances freedom, generally through change in social and political processes and institutions. “Conservative,” in contrast, is one who resists change, or strives to conserve the status quo. It doesn’t take much to see how the modern Republican Party has stood these terms on their heads.

While extolling the virtues of “understood” American freedom and “liberty,” the GOP pursues an agenda that actively suppresses our freedoms: freedom to vote, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, the right to an abortion, freedom to control the size of our families (through birth control), freedom to practice any religion (except GOP-favored Christianity) and freedom to conduct our lives in a style that is different from their norm. They claim they want government “out of our lives,” but actually, they demand to have it in YOUR bedroom, monitoring your private affairs. This hypocrisy should not be tolerated.

While Robbinsense is dissatisfied with the record of the president, and recognizes that progress on any number of fronts toward reforming our society has been poor, the prospect of a Romney presidency is even worst. We advocate reelection of President Obama.

More Mayhem Among Money Mavens

by C. O. Jones

Jon Corzine was a star, a shooting star: CEO of Goldman Sachs, U. S. Senator (D.NJ), spending $62 Million of his own money in the 2000 election, recipient of the coveted Enron Prize for Distinguished Public Service in 2005, Governor of New Jersey in 2007, (another $38 Million). Corzine made things happen; he was a prince of the revolving door.

Returning to the public sphere in March 2010, he was appointed CEO and Chairman of MF Global, a multinational futures broker and bond dealer. With experience, political connections and a veteran of the revolving door, he was expected to turn around this mid-level company with a struggling balance sheet.

Always known as a risk-taker, Corzine took personal control of investment decisions and surreptitiously began buying European “sovereign bonds,” i.e. he began betting on the bailout of troubled European economies.

“Accepted" accounting procedures for these nefarious instruments allow profits to appear immediately after purchase of the bonds. Investors began taking notice that the firm was making a profit, and stock prices rose; but “customer” funds, as required by law, were kept aside.

 The cycle was augmented by pulling in funds from other sectors of the company through a highly risky and discredited financial practice called “Internal Repo.”  This led to the inevitable growing pyramid of profits: as long as the funds came in, more of these highly risky derivatives could be purchased, which led to ever greater profits shown on the books. With the funds leveraged to 40:1, staggering profits might be realized with a swing of a mere 2 or 3%. This, of course, promised enormous bonuses for Corzine. Conversely, a drop of 1 or 2% would produce margin calls from J. P. Morgan, Global’s banker, and trouble for investors---but not for Jon Corzine!

Finally, with Euro Bond holdings exceeding $6 Billion, word started leaking out, investors became nervous, and the bubble burst. MF Global now stands as the 8^th largest bankruptcy in US history. With $1.2 Billion in customer funds “missing,” we speculate that the funds were slipped into margin calls.

Testifying under subpoena at a House Agriculture Committee hearing, Corzine professed ignorance about the massive shortfall that emerged as regulators and federal investigators began probing MF Global's Oct. 31 bankruptcy. Though several committee members still thanked Corzine for opting not to cite his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying, others appeared somewhat irritated by his carefully chosen answers. Several described the financial jeopardy now faced by farmers and other agriculture constituents who were MF Global customers.

This sad, troubling tale comes four short years after the previous, massive collapse of the financial services industry, generated by industry fraud, and bailed out by government and future taxpayers. The point here is that the nabobs who run this industry know no bounds in greed and duplicity. The Obama administration has not brought justice to the men who cooked up the myriad of fraudulent schemes from the last mess, any more than it has brought Jon Corzine to justice.  There have been no trials, no jail time. In fact, the same people who brought down the world economy are still pulling the strings, and claiming even greater salaries and bonuses than before the crisis.

In another, recent financial corruption case, United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, a threesome of bit players on Wall Street got convicted of obscure antitrust violations. This just-completed trial in downtown New York against three faceless financial executives, over 10 years in the making, allowed federal prosecutors to make public for the first time the astonishing inner workings of the reigning American crime syndicate, which now operates not out of Little Italy and Las Vegas, but out of Wall Street.

The defendants in the case – Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm – worked for GE Capital, the finance arm of General Electric. Along with virtually every major bank and finance company on Wall Street – not just GE, but J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Wachovia and more – these three Wall Street thugs spent the past decade taking part in a breathtakingly broad scheme to skim billions of dollars from the coffers of cities and small towns across America. The banks secretly colluded to rig the public bids on municipal bonds, a business worth $3.7 trillion. By conspiring to lower the interest rates that towns earn on these investments, they stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes – from “virtually every state, district and territory in the United States,” according to one settlement. And they did it so cleverly that the victims never even knew they were being ­cheated. No thumbs were broken, and no cement goulashes were recovered, but lots of money disappeared, and its manner of disappearance had a familiar ring: organized crime.

In fact, stripped of all the camouflaging financial verbiage, the crimes the defendants and their co-conspirators committed were virtually indistinguishable from the kind of thuggery practiced for decades by the Mafia, which has long made manipulation of public bids for things like garbage collection and construction contracts a cornerstone of its business. What’s more, in the manner of old mob trials, Wall Street’s secret machinations were revealed during the Carollo trial through crackling wiretap recordings and the lurid testimony of cooperating witnesses, who came into court with bowed heads, pointing fingers at their accomplices. The new-age gangsters even invented an elaborate code to hide their crimes. They spoke in thieves’ cant, or as Italian mobsters talking about “getting a button man to clip the capo.” On tape after tape these Wall Street crooks coughed up phrases like “pull a nickel out” or “get to the right level” or “you’re hanging out there” – all code words used to manipulate the interest rates on municipal bonds. The only thing that made this trial different from a typical mob trial was the scale of the crime.

Some progress is being made. Last month the SEC announced a $150 Million refund to Capital One credit card customers for abusive, misleading, even fraudulent lending practices. OK, this is nice, but it represents hardly even a wrist-slap to the managers who carry out this chicanery. 

On cue, the international system brings us TIBOR, or LIBOR. This bank scandal is so large that Barclay’s Bank set aside $300 Million just for litigation. Fines for Barclay’s alone are near $500 Million. This scandal involves massive collusion, among the largest banks, worldwide, to manipulate interest rates (as in the Carollo case) to suit the individual bank’s portfolio.

While the fines here may reflect the magnitude of the crimes, the important factor is that Barclay’s share holders will shoulder the burden of the penalties. Those who committed the crimes go scot-free. These people belong in jail, for God’s sake, not idling around watching for the next big opportunity for a killing. Our political leaders don’t have the gumption to go after the criminals. We need new laws---a return to Glass Segal. We need regulatory teeth to enforce our existing laws. Legislative injunctions to prevent fraud and collusion are impossible because the bankers control our politicians.

Millions in this country alone live in crushing poverty. Scores of Einsteins and Mozarts live in squalor without a chance to present their gifts to the world. Bankers, who contribute nothing, control our politicians, travel the oceans in yachts and hide their millions/billions in foreign tax havens. We need to be aware, my friends, of the faceless threat from the reigning oligarchy that controls our country, our public dialog and us!

As we move toward what looks to be a pivotal election in November, consider the likely positions of our two candidates on confronting this threat to our democratic structure. We can conclude from the last 3 years that if re-elected, President Obama is unlikely to take dramatic steps to control the banks.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, refuses to be specific on any policy issue. From what he does say, however, we can assume that he will continue the trend of taking the teeth out of regulatory agencies. Given that these are the only things that stand between us and the rapacious bankers, we must conclude that under his government this disturbing trend will continue unfettered. Take your pick.

C. O. Jones is a Robbinsense staff writer

Conservatives All

In a relatively short February campaign speech, Mitt Romney used the word "conservative" 26 times. Does anyone know what that word means? Conservatives don’t know? For some reason they just want to hear it.

“Conservative” used to be a personal style, connoting a relatively staid demeanor and opposition to change. Republicans applaud Teddy Roosevelt, who championed conservation and reined in corporate greed.

As recently as the sixties, the philosophy was relatively clear. There was no question about what “conservative” meant to Barry Goldwater, in contrast to Lyndon Johnson. They were both eloquent in drawing out opposing visions for this country.

What a “conservative” stands for now is vague at best. He claims he will shrink government, but actually expands it, without raising taxes; he says derogatory things about government, wanting it out of his life, but into your bedroom; he seems to endorse solid, American values like baseball, lapel pins, apple pie, Chevrolet and guns, oh, and war, and is very responsive to corporate issues. In campaigning, these conservatives carefully say nothing specific about policies; they only smear their opponents, be they Democrats or fellow “conservatives,” who oppose their electoral objectives.

In scrutinizing politics, the editorial staff of Robbinsense has never before experienced anything like what has occurred in the last six months. Politics on our national stage has turned into comedy. One cannot tune in to the national news, be it CBS, MSNBC, CNN, or FoxViews, without being stunned into laughter.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive candidate, doesn’t fill squares for the "Tea Party" a loosely-packed bunch of whackos, most of who don't like black people and are resentful that we have a black president. While pandering to these offshoot zanies, the Republicans have presented a parade of marginal candidates, who have then been systematically shredded by each other, who are all awash in money presented by the Supreme Court, which seems to be the “legal branch” of the Republican Party, courtesy of "Citizens United.”

In response, Romney has contorted himself into the laughing stock of the country. He has chosen both sides of almost every important issue, sometimes contradicting himself in the same sentence: abortion, birth control, war/peace in the Middle East, bank bailouts, the Blunt Bill, health care, gay rights, Presidential apologies for American international atrocities. The only things that this man has not changed course on are 1) his insistence that he will undermine Social Security, 2) his determination to “balance the budget” on the backs of the poor, and 3) a defense of “American Exceptionalism.”

The up-coming election should be one of the most interesting in history---no “Tweedle-dee” and “Tweedle-dum” here. Obama is a known commodity: a measured, conservative man, with a slightly liberal agenda, driven by political expediency. The Republicans present a fascinating turn-around in their politics over recent times. Twelve years ago, the GOP cared only about winning. They stampeded behind George W. Bush, with a prominent pedigree and a hefty war chest, who promised to be a bland, conservative technocrat, but he turned out to be a radical in every sense of the word---and arguably the worst president in the modern era. Romney, aside from shamelessly pandering to his base and proposing the same policies as Mr. Bush, is literally promising to be more radical and an even worse president than he was! We know that a hard core of 20% to 30% will vote the Republican ticket no matter what. It will be interesting to see how many of the American people can forget this circus, and come to consider him as a viable candidate to lead our country. Good luck!

The Face of Tragedy

by C. O. Jones

In all the hoopla over the tragedy of Trayvon Martin, perhaps the most cynical comment comes from (would-be) news correspondent, Geraldo Rivera: “Parents, don’t send your children out with hoodies.” WHERE is the national, political, social outcry (in the face of the NRA during an election year) suggesting that parents: “Don’t send your children out with guns!” This includes our 15, 28 and 60-year-old children! There are millions of “George Zimmermans” out there whom we cannot order off the streets. George Zimmerman, and those now stepping forward to vouch for his “sweet” nature, is not the problem. The problem lies with US! We allow people like him to prowl the streets with guns. States like Florida, with comical laws, even encourage it. Arizona has gun laws now more permissive than the law whose enforcement led to the legendary gunfight at the OK corral in Tombstone in 1881.

Florida gun laws endorse a “vigilante” system of bounty hunting, with tacit immunity to what would otherwise, clearly be second degree murder. This self-promoted “protector of the community,” was clearly instructed by the police dispatcher to stand down. This incident is one more piece of a puzzle in which violence in our culture has become more and more accepted, to the point of veneration. Our street thugs who find glory in pounding each other to a pulp now make mega-bucks on TV in (respectable?) “Ultimate Fighting” leagues. I would rather watch a cock fight. Young people attend “slam dances,” in which violence is part of the fun(?) The U. S. Army now endorses “cage fighting,” in which many of the women, encouraged to participate, are carried off on stretchers.

Violence in sports runs the gamut, from the NBA, where it’s strongly discouraged, to the NHL, where it’s openly encouraged….to attract more fans. Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, was praised for his tough stance against the New Orleans Saints coaching staff for imposing stiff sanctions in a “bounty hunting” scandal. Fines and suspensions? Am I missing something? We’re talking mob violence here, with bosses and goons. These men, passing out “contracts,” are guilty of assault and battery at least. They belong in jail, banned for life! Hey, Pete Rose just had a gambling problem; he wasn’t hurting anybody. Instead, our prisons are filled with people who want to smoke an occasional joint…or with kids whose only hope to escape inner-city madness is the drug culture.

Our children are encouraged to sit in front of television sets from age 1, where they watch violence and mayhem that makes Roadrunner Cartoons look like “.…a Jolly Holiday with Mary (Poppins.)” Is it any wonder that we, (THAT’S YOU AND I) are tolerant of our government conducting multiple wars all over the planet, killing thousands of innocents including assassination of our own citizens, for the sake of protecting commerce and our prerogative to dictate to these people how they should run their lives? Our so-called “liberal” president is just as guilty as the last ignoramus we ran out of office, with the help of term limits.

Take note, my friends, of the many forms and the degree of violence that permeates our culture and take a stand against it.

C. O. Jones is a Robbinsense staff writer

Immigration "Justice"

Jackson Dave,

reporting from Los Angeles

Many of you may have missed this. Akio and Fukado Kawashima came to Southern California from Japan in 1984. They (legally) operated three popular sushi restaurants in The Valley and Thousand Oaks. Like many good citizens, they under-reported their income in 1991. For this they paid a hefty $245,000 for back taxes, interest and penalties, along with four months in prison. Nothing too interesting here.

Where this picks up steam is, in mid-February the U. S. Supreme Court, our Uber-watchdog of Republican (Party) interests, handed down a 6 – 3 ruling which allowed the INS to declare such a miscue an “aggravated felony.” Aggravated felony includes crimes of “fraud or deceit” that cost the miscreant more than $200,000; this subjects the offender(s) to automatic deportation.

The couple’s appeal went through the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court. Still sounds pretty ho-hum, you say? Well, speaking for the court was our own Prince of Darkness, The Honorable Clarence Thomas, Esq., Mr. Mum: “…the Kawashimas knowingly and willingly submitted a tax return that was false and therefore had committed a felony that involved deceit.” ---off with their heads!

Ok, the kicker: six months ago, the IRS discovered that, Virginia Thomas earned over $680,000 from that venerable, conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, over five years, a group says. But Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas did not include it on their financial disclosure forms.

"It wasn't a miscalculation; he simply omitted his wife's source of income for six years, which is a rather dramatic omission," Gillers said. "It could not have been an oversight."

The Supreme Court is "the only judicial body in the country that is not governed by a set of judicial ethical rules," Gillers added.

Some quick mental calculations give us unreported income of $680k, with a marginal tax rate for a couple in this bracket around 30% Federal, would yield a tax of approximately $204,000, plus five years of compounded interest and penalties. Get the picture? Justice Thomas should be deported to the closest Federal penitentiary and impeached for high crimes and “aggravated felonies.”

Number One: Thomas should have recused himself from the case.

Two: This man rarely speaks out on anything. What sordid irony would bring him to announce the decision?

Three: This man is a menace to our country, if not our society.

Four: What will it take to bring this court to its robed knees?

Five: For those who think George H. W. Bush was a pretty decent president, think again. Thomas is still only 63.

Regrets due here, as your editor is speechless in the face of indignation that accompanies this story: “Words fail me, my lords. Nothing that I might utter could possibly match the depth of my feelings on this matter.”

Jackson Dave is a Robbinsense staff writer