Let’s do some math.  Suppose I had an earned income of $10,000.000.  (Disclaimer:  I do not make $10,000,000 a year.)  At the present tax rate of 35 per cent I would pay $3,500,000 leaving me with $6,500,000 to live on.  Now if the proposed tax rate of 39.6 went into effect I would pay $3,960,000 meaning I would have to get by on a measly $6,040,000.  But some tax rate hike proposals exempt the first $500,000 meaning I would pay 39.6 per cent of $9,500,000 or $3,762,000 now leaving me with $6,238,000.  Now if, hypothetically, all my income was unearned (you know capital gains and dividends) I would pay only 15 per cent in taxes, so I’d pay $1,500,000 and have to scrape by with $8,500,000. The whole point of this mathematical exercise is that people like me who do not earn $10,000,000 a year and who dutifully pay their taxes have no conception of why enormously rich people are so adamant about not wanting to pay more in taxes.  Now the philosophical question is, do really rich people hate taxes all that much or is it because 1) Republican politicians are doing the bidding of the exceedingly rich donors who are greedy and do hate taxes or 2) Republican politicians are really dumb and have no other ideas to campaign on.  Those of us in the 98 per cent simply can’t understand why the one per cent does not want to contribute a little more for the good of our country. Warren Buffet excluded.

A Thanksgiving Story (or Stories)

Thanksgiving is often called the most American of holidays but there is something universal about it.  My daughter-in-law is Romanian.  Yesterday we spent Thanksgiving with her, son and granddaughter and 15 other people, a mix of Romanians and Americans.  The ages ranged from nine months to 75 years.  A soccer game from Eastern Europe streamed on a computer in one room and the Lions battled Houston on the TV in another.  The table held plates of turkey, beef brisket, ham, stuffing, baba ganoush, a lentil dish, stuffed cabbages and sever plates I could not identify but tasted wonderful.  It reminded me of a Thanksgiving many years ago when I took a new job in Chicago.  I had no one to spend Thanksgiving with so a co-worker of Italian descent invited me (I had lived in Italy for 12 years).  Her family, including grandparents who had come from Italy, served a huge traditional American Thanksgiving dinner--Turkey with all the trimmings--with the addition of a half-dozen bottles of Italian wines on the table and everybody was speaking Italian.  A friend who is actually in Italy right now decided to show her family there our tradition.  Her husband, she emailed, ordered the turkey from a local poultry store but made a little mistake in the weight conversion. Thinking in pounds he ordered a 13 kilo bird which is actually 28.6 pounds.  She managed to change the order to seven kilos which is a more manageable 15.4 pounds and she said she roasted her best turkey ever.  I hope you all had a very Happy Thanksgiving.

The Republican quest for the presidency was like a fairy tale.  Romney was the handsome prince who would ride his white horse into Washington and save the country.  So the Republican Party kissed his ass and he turned into a frog.  It is almost painful to watch the agonizing gyrations the Republicans are going through to justify or explain away what happened on Election Day.  The far right wing maintains that their anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Hispanic, anti-health care, anti-taxes, anti-regulations, anti-anything-Obama proposes, is absolutely the right way to go and they lost because the party chose the wrong candidate.  The prince-now-frog himself blames his humiliation on Obama’s giving gifts to all the voting groups he not only distained but insulted.   The Republican Imbecile-in-Chief Rush Limbaugh (among others) claims the loss was because Romney’s main constituency, angry white middle- aged and elderly males (the “white horse” the prince would ride to victory) did not turn out to vote.  Then some prominent Republicans like Bobby (Maybe I could run for President) Jindal maintains the only problem was that Romney did not explain Republican policies clearly enough.  Like if you carefully explain shit it turns into chocolate ice cream.  While many Republican apologists and pundits are claiming this is not the beginning of the end for the Republican Party, it can also be seen as just that.  More and more young Americans are realizing that Republican policies are not good for our country.  And old white Republicans are dying.  Unfortunately, they probably won’t take the party with them.

Would Mitt Romney please shut up!  You lost, Mitt, get over it.  Go to one of your houses and pout in private.  Our world-class liar, political opportunist, flip-flopper and former presidential candidate held a conference call with his top donors whining that his loss was due to "gifts" Obama made to specific groups of voters.  As the Associated Press reported, Romney told his money pit Obama won “because of the ‘gifts’ he had already provided to blacks, Hispanics and young voters and because of the president's effort to paint him as anti-immigrant.”  The AP also reported, “Among the "gifts" Romney cited were free health care "in perpetuity," which he said was highly motivational to black and Hispanic voters as well as for voters making $25,000 to $35,000 a year.” Doesn’t this sound like the same groups Romney denigrated during the campaign?  You know, the 47 percent of Americans who are moochers, misfits and bums who don’t take responsibilities for their own lives.  That’s Republican code for “blacks” and “illegal Hispanic immigrants.” This is but one more example of the underlying racism and bigotry which have become mainstays of Republican “values.”  Of course, if Romney had won, that same phone call to his donor fat cats would have confirmed that they voted for him because of his promised “gifts” of lower taxes on the rich, repealing  Obamacare and eliminating regulations so corporations can reap bigger profits by screwing middle class Americans.

On this Veterans Day, it’s appropriate to discuss how Americans feel about our men and women who wear or have worn the uniform of the United States.  Following 9/11, Bush’s immediate invasion of Afghanistan, which has now dragged on to be the longest war in our history, his unjustifiable invasion of Iraq which cost us too many American lives and enormous amounts of borrowed money, our military has been elevated to some kind of Godlike status.  We gush all over our men and women in uniform who have all become automatic “heroes” and we all feel smug and full of ourselves because we are “honoring” them.  Let’s rewind back to Vietnam.  I have a dear friend who fought in that war earning several medals including two purple hearts.   He tells of returning to the U.S. where his fellow Americans spat on him and called him obscene names as he walked through the airport.   Americans have short memory spans so now returning soldiers are thanked when they walk through airports and I’m sure a lot of those who hated our soldiers then are waving flags at Veterans Day parades now.   Of course we had the draft in the Vietnam era so a lot more Americans had some stake in the war because a loved one or friend fought or died there.  Now Americans are like a lot of beer-bloated, face-painted football fans cheering on their military team but God forbid one of their kids should be down on the mud-soaked field.   It eases our collective conscious to say how much we love our military.  But let’s remember ALL of them on this Veterans Day not only World War 2 veterans who  clearly fought to preserve our liberty, but also all our fine young people have been used to do our politicians’ dirty work ever since.  They have done so with honor and commitment and deserve all the praise they get.  And for the record, I am a veteran and very proud of it.

Whatever happened to Mitt Romney?  I know, I know, you are asking which Mitt Romney:  The one who passed a law as Governor of Massachusetts requiring people to purchase health insurance and when it morphed into Obamacare he denounced it?  Or the one who was a devout, severe conservative who transformed himself into a center-rightist a couple weeks before election day?  Or maybe the world class liar who, among other whoppers, told his cheering crowds in Ohio that Jeep was moving all it’s production to China which, of course, was a big “liar-liar pants on fire?”  Whichever Romney du jour you preferred, the American public has relegated him, as they say, to the dustbin of history.  If Romney has any legacy at all, it is as an ambitious, sleazy opportunist who wanted to realize his American dream of becoming President of the United States. Some future playwright my use him as a tragic figure in theatre, a kind of Willie Loman of politics.   The every-politician who is willing to do anything, believe anything  or say anything to reach his prize and failed.  As Aristotle might put it, his misfortune was not brought about by vice or depravity, “but some error or frailty.”  Romney will join George W. Bush as a pariah for the now and future Republican far right to completely ignore.  Romney can’t go back into congress like Paul Ryan and begin a 2016 Presidential campaign.  Of course, Romney doesn’t have to worry.  He is 65 and can collect Social Security and Medicare because he and the Republicans didn’t destroy it.

We have reached the final day of reckoning.  Today Americans vote not for a man to become President but to determine if our country will continue its dangerous slide to the right.  Since Regan, who declared war on government, Republicans have been shifting America to the political right culminating in the disastrous George W. Bush presidency which brought the nation to the brink of ruin.  Let’s look at just a few of the Republican policies that have nearly destroyed us:  Bush’s far right neo-cons--Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz--pushed him into an unnecessary war that the Washington Post estimates has cost us $3 trillion.  Note that Bush borrowed most of this money which contributed immensely to the deficit.  Trickle-down economics—giving enormous tax breaks to the rich which supposedly would “trickle down” and produce investment to spur the economy and create jobs—does not work as has been discredited by nearly all economists.   Eliminate regulations and the market will resolve all problems itself.  This Republican article of faith allowed the banks to run wild, rake in enormous profits for themselves and came close to destroying the world’s economic system.   There are more examples, such as dismantling Social Security and Medicare, but these will do.  Romney has clearly indicated he will continue these policies.  Unfortunately, many Americans are either hopelessly naïve or incredibly stupid and will vote Republican because they oppose gay marriage or hate black people.

Whether you like President Obama or not, you know where he stands and he won’t do anything crazy.  With Romney it’s a crap shoot.  And it is scary. When campaigning in the primaries the Mittster was severely conservative because he needed the support of his party’s extreme right to get the nomination.  In the third debate he swerved so far so fast to the center he certainly surprised me as well as many in his own party and we saw yet another of the many faces of Mitt.  We have heard the question, “Who is the real Mitt Romney?” since the beginning of this campaign and on the eve of the election, we still don’t have an answer.  What is truly frightening is that he is such a liar and so opportunistic now, do you really think he will suddenly change if he gets elected?  A lot of people will be calling in their markers.  The Tea Partisti and the neo-cons have not gone away and if Romney wins they’ll push him to the far right and you can bet the neo-cons will pull out the same old policies they foisted on George W. Bush.  That’s why a President Romney is dangerous.  Romney has a track record of going whichever way the wind is blowing.  When the neo-cons start manipulating him as they did Bush, we could be headed for big trouble.  Do your remember the scenario of a middle east country with a ruler we didn’t like who was developing “weapons of mass destruction” but claiming the nuclear program was peaceful.  Mix that with a President who wants a bigger defense budget and believes we are supposed to lead the world and you have a very frightening mixture.  I think America would be better off going with Shakespeare on this one and “rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of?"

If you really need a reason why Mitt Romney should not be President of the United States, try this one:  He is a despicable, opportunist, two-faced liar.  How can you trust a man with the most important job in the world who is a shameless liar and has changed his position on issues so many times nobody can be sure where he stands on anything? When it comes to the Mittster’s flip-flopping, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg made that clear:  “In the past he has taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care — but he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the very health care model he signed into law in Massachusetts,” Bloomberg said. When it comes to lying, yes Obama and Biden have had their share, but let’s look at Politifact’s finding. (By the way Politifact is generally considered right-leaning.) Obama/Biden’s statements were found True and Mostly True 45 percent of the time.  Romney/Ryan were found to be honest only 29.1 percent.  When it comes to the lying categories of False, Mostly False and Pants on Fire (really bad), Romney/Ryan were lying 43.9 percent of the time compared with Obama/Biden 28.8 percent.  Now get this: Romney/Ryan had four times as many Pants on Fire lies than Obama/Biden and the Mittster alone has well over half of all Pants on Fire, more than all the other candidates combined!  You wouldn’t even buy a used car from a shyster like Romney, why the hell would you elect him President?