Aside from celebrating American independence from whatever country we won independence from – about 25% of American adults don't know – I have been overcome with some sort of sleeping sickness over the past week or two. I've always been a six-hours-per-night-will-do kind of guy and a nite owl to boot, but lately I sleep like it pays by the hour. That and the poorly placed holiday have combined to make this week a total blog fail. I'll get back on the ball tomorrow.
For now, check out this little gem from Mitt Romney last week (emphasis mine):
I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they're able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.
I used to think Mittens got something of an unfair rap for making tactless statements depicting him as an out-of-touch plutocrat who doesn't understand the little people.
That's unfair in the sense that it describes so many of our elected officials that I saw no real reason to single out Romney.
buy Tretinoin generic buy Tretinoin online over the counter
The more he talks, however, the more apparent it becomes that his "misstatements" stem from some combination of his privileged life and his Randian ideology. He should probably know better than to say things like this in public, and he doesn't because he's completely tone deaf.
Make no mistake, though: this reflects his underlying belief system. He believes in an America in which everyone gets to succeed in life based on what they can afford, as befits a man who has been trying to buy the presidency for half a decade.
The Mad Dreamer says:
I almost think the part after that's even worse.
"[I]f they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams."
Seems to imply that if you do not hold the right values (what are the right values, Mitt?), you do not deserve to be able to provide for your family and have a chance. Not only must the incorrect value-haver suffer, but any people dependent on him (because in Mitt's world, even those providers who do not have the correct values will be men) must also suffer.
The American Dream, ladies and gentlemen.
Middle Seaman says:
Even billions cannot buy Mitt understanding of the American dream. His dream was inherited and not dreamt. It's not that he doesn't hear; he doesn't have ears at all.
Xynzee says:
@Mad: I'm with you, but there's something more to it that's grating my nerves not sure what.
"They get as much education as they can afford" So if you can only afford up to third grade?
"with their time they're able to get" Meaning when you're not doing piece work in the family's sweatshop, farm or down the pit I guessing.
So much over 100yrs of public policy towards universal education, advances in child labour and the whole host of advances in that sphere. Of course none of these lead to America's "greatness" did they? Forget Guatemala. We can wave at Somalia as we shoot past them.
Both Sides Do It says:
The weirdest part is he made that statement as part of his "soaring egalitarian rhetoric" subroutine.
"I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot."
The only possible way to talk about education in the next sentence is to completely ignore the fact that uhm actually the fair shots are stockpiled in a couple dozen armories that you can only get into if you went to a good high school and paid a lot of money for extracurricular stuff and can only afford to pay for if you're rich or have the ability to shoulder enormous loads of debt.
Saying "as much as you can pay for" in that context completely gives the game away, because it directly contradicts the stuff that came immediately before it. You would not say "everyone according to his wallet" if you actually believed the stuff you said half a second ago.
Brian says:
This is of a piece with the broader trend in public education in the US for decades. The idea that education is a *public* good that benefits us all, and that therefore we should all support through taxation, is being superseded by the notion that education is a *private* good that primarily benefits its recipient, who should therefore shoulder most of the burden.
The provost where I work had the guts to say openly a couple years ago that it has effectively gone from being a state university to being a state-subsidized university. Unfortunately, saying that isn't going to change it.
Of course, our perverse way of funding public K-12 education through local taxes is even worse. Level playing field? Equality of opportunity? Very funny. Even Vermont's sharing pool, much as I admire the political resolve that it took to establish, doesn't solve the problem.
Tim H. says:
"As much as you can afford" Might be a clue as to how Mitt feels about public investment?
RosiesDad says:
My older daughter is starting college this fall and I have begun making the installment payments on her tuition plan. $40K per year after her merit scholarship package is nothing to sneeze at and my wife and I have spoken with her often about using her educational opportunity to set herself up with the chance of a career that will allow her to pay the bills and be self sufficient. Nurse, teacher, pharmaceutical researcher, I don't really care. But I don't want to see her come out with a degree that costs $160K and a career as a poor waitress. (Not that there is anything wrong with waitressing but she could begin that career now with her HS diploma. At least for a few more years until Applebee's begins requiring their waitresses have degrees in math or IT.)
I live in PA where the current governor is doing all he can to balance the state budget by defunding education, the state employees pension funds are a mess and our local district has had to reconcile its projected deficits with a determination not to raise property taxes. There was discussion of decreasing the salary scale for teachers who hold a PhD but that was eventually dismissed. (I snarkily wrote in to the local Patch on line paper suggesting that the district save money by hiring deli clerks from the local Wawa to teach AP classes as a cost saving measure.)
This is all a far cry from my college years when one could get a world class education in the SUNY or CUNY system for a couple of thousand dollars a year and it changes the dynamic about how I think about my kids' post-secondary education. It's so costly that if they don't perform, I will pull them out and make them get a job and take classes at the local community college if they want to continue toward a college degree. Because it is just too expensive to use college as a place for your kids to hang out while they figure out what they want to be when they grow up.
I don't expect anyone as out of touch as Mitt Romney to make funding education a national priority; I think he would rather privatize the whole thing and leave it all to the market to sort out.
c u n d gulag says:
Mitt doesn't judge people by the color of their skins, just the color of their money – and if it's just the right height or not.
Mitt is the worst campaigner I've ever seen!
He's a product of the SC's "Citizens United" decision. He had the most money behind him, so he won the Republican Primaries – despite being a god-awful campaigner.
So, thanks to that SC decision, Obama, a gifted campaigner, is lucky, and gets to run against this malapropistic, rich, stiff fool. He'd have a really tough slog against a fairly good R politician.
But, lucky or not in having Mitt as his opponent, Obama will still have a battle on his hands, because Mitt's backers, people with with wallets just the right height – or higher – will contribute tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars each, to put their puppet Mitt in The Oval Office.
What, Obama's not corporatist enough for the richest millionaires and billionaires?
I guess not.
Why stay with Right-of-Center Democratic Corporatism-Lite, when you can spend what's basically some pocket change for you, and get your full-bodied Corporate Fascist Republican puppet into office!
HoosierPoli says:
God I'm going to miss Mitt Romney. He's such a gloriously terrible politician. He can't say more than five words without fucking SOMETHING up. He's going to get eaten alive at the debates.
anotherbozo says:
Ed's posts don't have to be long to be substantive. I like the Gallup writer who phrased it this way:
Four out of Five Americans Know Earth Revolves Around Sun
Now THAT's putting an obvious, er, spin on it.
@g u n d: Like you say. Still, Obama's campaign ads write themselves. Hard to screw up. Gist: get to know Mitt Romney, then run screaming!
These are interesting times.
Sarah says:
I've been thinking that the people who make the second proposal should, in the karmic sense, spend their twilight years in nursing homes getting their catheters changed by CNAs who were forced to drop out of college due to inability to meet the expenses, and are bitter about it.
paintedjaguar@mail says:
"He's going to get eaten alive at the debates."
Our last asswipe-in-chief was exposed as a moron in the debates. Look how that turned out.
freeportguy says:
How does one reconcile "where everyone has a fair shot" and "underfunding education" for those in the lower economic bracket?
So ironic for Romney to call Obama "disconnected"…
Major Kong says:
"He's going to get eaten alive at the debates."
If he does well, that will prove he's "Smarter than that Obama feller".
If he does poorly that will prove he's a "reg'lr guy and not an out of touch elitist like that Obama feller".
It's always heads-I-win tails-you-lose in GOP land.
xynzee says:
I'm trying to reconcile Mitt with the "puppet" caricature. I always considered a puppet to be someone who is clueless. Mitt knows what he intends to do, and how he intends to achieve it once he gets there.
Hint: it won't be good for us, but his backers will have to fight like a pack of hyenas over what's left.
@Rosies: Have you considered having your kid of to CC to learn welding? I read a report that said that there's a dearth of them at the moment. So even if something like the JOBS Bill finally goes through there'll be such a considerable lag time in qualified welders that either the projects will have to wait, or they're—the point of the article—going to have to import overseas labour. This way your kid can pay her own way through school, and probably get it at a discount by paying upfront cash.
xynzee says:
why don't my freaking tags not close? :-/
belle says:
Ed- make an appointment with a good internist right now. if you are still sleeping when the appointment comes up, insist on tests. just moving and changing your whole life should not do this.
yeah, Romney is an vole.
Major Kong says:
I'm just always amazed at how effective the right-wing media machine is at driving the narrative.
They were able to paint John Kerry as a rich, out-of-touch, elitist and make it stick.
This guy makes John Kerry look like Larry the Cable Guy but we can never make it stick.
xynzee says:
Here it is:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/bringing_america_back/american-infrastructure-jobs-shipped-china/story?id=14592567#.T_WpEo7ajf4
A Teabagger I know—missing the point that we simply have no tradies—used it to bash Obama.
ladiesbane says:
So no matter how smart you might be, you only get (and the nation only benefits from) all the education you can afford. (Of course, we'll sell you a loan you *can't* afford the day you turn 18, and then have all the education you want.) It was your choice not to be born rich, of course.
It's the same logic that the thoughtless variety of libertarian finds appealing, and applies to any institution you care to name: all the medical care you can afford. All the roads you can afford. All the drug safety testing you can afford. All the firefighting you can afford.
But when poor people get sick and are turned away from hospitals, oh, the shame of it all! When firefighters watch a house burn down because a subscriber's payment was late, it's senseless! When people complain because the roads and bridges are falling apart, it's disgraceful! And always the government's fault.
But hey, it's all the government you could afford.
And why is it never "only as much military as you can afford"?
I think this particular trend to sympathetic magic started when Bush II decided to start a hugely expensive war and drop taxes at the same time. Once the Peepul swallowed that, the GOP finally stopped pretending to be fiscally conservative and just put a red light in the window.
bb in GA says:
@ladiesbane
I'm not thrilled w/ MR, but he literally gave away all his inheritance from his parents.
"But when poor people get sick and are turned away from hospitals…"
By law, if you show up at the hospital in the US, they must treat you w/o respect to your ability to pay. I have numerous examples in our ministry to prove that – the latest one – a 57 yo male living in one of our ministry homes developed bleeding on the brain. He, like all our people, are impoverished.
He had an ER ambulance ride, brain surgery, and is now in the ICU smiling and alert. He has had >>$100K worth of treatment so far (w/ more to come) that he will never be able to pay for….
//bb
ladiesbane says:
@bb: Under EMTALA, a hospital which takes Medicare is required to screen arrivals for emergency medical conditions, and if they are deemed emergent, to care for them until they are stabilized. Being sick is not enough. Some hospitals will do more, but they are not required to do so.
As for Mitt, I don't think endowing a center at BYU in your father's name counts as charity. Rich people often do such things rather than pay capital gains or inheritance taxes, and it's in their interest to do so. It sheds no luster on his name.
It's why he's not actually a flip-flopper in his heart; he doesn't hold anything sacred but making money for himself and his church (which needs to start paying taxes, incidentally, and opening their books, as do all business- and politically-oriented churches.) The only god he worships is Mammon.
c u n d gulag says:
bb,
Yeah, he'll never be able to pay.
Your ministry, despite all of its wonderful efforts on behalf of the poor, won't pay for him.
The hospital doesn't even really pay for him.
Everyone who has health insurance pays for him – and everyone like him. And me, since I don't have any health care right now either.
And that's one of the largest factors in the constant increases in the cost of it for everyone. I'd venture to say, far, far more than law suits against doctors, clinics, and hospitals – that dreaded tort reform the right keeps screaming about as a way to lower health care costs – which is only a tiny, tiny percent of the overall cost.
And the ACA will give pretty much everyone some level of insurance – even if it's only against something as catastrophic as this poor man went through.
That will lower the cost for everyone.
ACA ain't single-payer (aka: Medicare for everyone), but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Single-payer is the cheapest way to go. And, as I'm sure you know, there are NO "Death Panels." Whereas, up until now, there were – they're called Health Insurance Companies, who could deny you coverage for a pre-existing condition when you went to get it, or when you got sick and needed it. Or, just dump you outright.
Sarah Palin was actually right, for once in her life, about "Death Panels" – but, in typical Sarah fashion, she fecked it up.
It wasn't Government bureaucrats who'll kill ya – it's the corporate ones!
bb in GA says:
@ladiesbane
maybe Ed will revisit this topic of the 1st Amendment and church finances…
The Power to Tax is the power to destroy
The 1st guarantees the State will not "run" religion
Where is the line?
I don't know and it should be ultimately influenced by what YOU want and think is right..
After all, slavery was once legal and Constitutional….
//bb
Major Kong says:
@bb
The first also guarantees that religion will not run the state.
Before you try to come back with some 700 Club bs about it "only working one way" think about it.
Imagine some sect or religion that you really dislike. Maybe it's LDS, or the Catholics or maybe the (eek!) Muslims, or even those other Baptists across town, the ones you don't agree with.
Now imagine them with their hands firmly on the levers of power and the full authority of the government at their disposal.
Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?
There can be no freedom without separation.
bb in GA says:
@major
I have a lot of respect for your opinion.
Please accord me a measure of the same by not putting words in my keyboard (i.e. 700 club bs) I agree the 1st runs both ways.
//bb
JohnR says:
1. @lb: "..the thoughtless variety of libertarian" Surely that's an unnecessarily long way of saying "libertarian".
2. @bb: "maybe Ed will revisit this topic of the 1st Amendment and church finances…"
Oy; can of worms time again. "The Power to tax", is it? Seems to me the lunatics on the right-wing have found a remarkably effective power to destroy, and oddly enough, without taxing. You do "blind men and the elephant" much? Tunnel-vision onto one piece of the puzzle all you want, but that's where we get "Communism can't fail; it can only be failed."
I think, given human nature and its bottomless ability to lie, cheat, steal and generally take the more corrupt road when presented with a choice, that churches should be taxed just as any other corporation is. At as high a rate as is possible to levy. I'm a big believer in Franciscan-style 'vow-of-poverty' Christianity, and I'm just as willing as the Roman Catholics and the Mormons (among others) are to let others freely choose my path, or else.
ladiesbane says:
@bb: I take your point, but I believe that when a church becomes a big business, or becomes a political mover, it needs to be treated accordingly. My fellow lefties who agree with me on this tend to go quiet when I stress that it should apply to left-leaning / liberation theology / get-out-and-vote type churches as well — but I think those little churches have little to fear. It's not as if they are multi-billion dollar corporations funneling major money into politics (or their own pockets) without much oversight. (Hey, let's call anything we want to a "church"!)
Churches that act and function as corporations get a free ride (and too much privacy) because anything marked "God" in the U.S. has a "Do Not Disturb" sign attached. If flocks of sheep — take that either way — want to add to the personal wealth of hucksters like Joyce Meyers and Joel Osteen, I don't care. How different is it from Kickstarter or Indiegogo? It's not. Except that money received through Kickstarter et al. is considered income, and taxed accordingly. It's not charitable donations devoted to feeding the hungry, it's personal income devoted to personal purposes. Why should it be unlike any other personal income? Because they are preachers? Not good enough.
bb in GA says:
@JohnR
I am still working on my unified field theory of everything :-)
I will post when I have a first draft…
//bb
tybee says:
churches need to be taxed (destroyed) like the rest of us.
it's a bidness just like madam rosie's palm reading is…
Ballyho! says:
"Single-payer is the cheapest way to go. And, as I'm sure you know, there are NO "Death Panels." Whereas, up until now, there were – they're called Health Insurance Companies, who could deny you coverage for a pre-existing condition when you went to get it, or when you got sick and needed it. Or, just dump you outright."
Or, as in what I'm dealing with right now; I've got a fairly alarming medical condition going on. I pay roughly $800/month for health care coverage every month. I called my doctor's office this morning to report a worsening of symptoms only to be told, "We have no open appointments in July; want to shoot for the middle of August?" My options are at this point to live with a likely-worsening situation, or hope and pray I get to the point of death, at which point if my family begs hard enough, I can go to the emergency room and the insurance company might possibly cover half the cost after making me jump through hoops for months and deal with calls from collection agencies from the ER visit.
Major Kong says:
Sorry bb. Sometimes I forget I'm not at Huffington Post. It's a better class of commentors here.
mel in oregon says:
we have to look at what romney says he will do, such as his, "believe in america: mitt romney's plan for jobs & economic growth." so after you've waded through his nonsense (160 pages), you can boil it down. he wants more free trade agreements & less regulation of everything corporate. so those two points alone mean less employment because of more outsourcing, & much more environmental destruction. he also will attack china fiscally as a currency manipulator. hum, you think china might hold some leverage, since they hold over a trillion dollars of our debt? he also says he will repeal obamacare & dodd-frank. does this foolish old man (he's 65), think he holds that much power should he win? the last president with good business skills was herbert hoover. we saw how that turned out. plus mitt romney hasn't even shown he's a good businessman, what he has shown is that he is a good vulture capitalist, good at eliminating american jobs, & thus improving corporate bottom line. of course this is the last thing we now need as a country from a president.
c u n d gulag says:
Ballyho!,
I sorry to hear that, and I wish you the best.
Also, maybe you need a new doctor or specialist – one who recognizes that a worsening medical condition means making some room on their schedule earlier – perhaps by rescheduling some other less ill patients.
I don't know if your plan will let you do that.
You might also consider some medical teaching colleges or universities, if there are any nearby.
Good luck!
anotherbozo says:
Re: not today's topic, but yesterday's, I found Ed's Christmas present:
http://www.amazon.com/Know-Your-Rodent-Ziggy-Hanaor/dp/0956205313/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
J. Dryden says:
@ Major Kong: I was going to write a substantial rebuttal to your assertion that Mitt Romney could ever–*ever*–be successfully spun as a regular, non-elitist guy–I was going to point out how utterly and completely that dog would not hunt. How there could be no way that someone who is *that* rich (not just "has a lot of money" rich, but "acts like his family has always had a lot of money" rich) and lame and blinding-in-direct-sunlight white could be believed to be regular. Impossible, I was going to say.
But then I remembered that many-bordering-on-most Americans think that Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th century. And that George W. Bush was a man of the people, and a reformer with results. And that Sarah Palin is a stateswoman.
So…yeah. Comment deleted. Carry on. As you were. I'm just crack open this fifth of Glenlivet and cry myself to sleep.
Andrew Laurence says:
@freeportGuy: Simple. A "fair" shot means that if you can pay for it, you get a shot, and if you can't, you don't. To someone like Romney, who probably pleasures himself to Ayn Rand, what could be fairer than that?
BZBee says:
Gulag, thanks for the kind wishes. The bottom line is that the insurance company that takes $800-plus of my dollars every month covers very, very little. I do have a specialist for a related condition: the appointments last about 10 minutes, for which I have a $60 co-pay and about $300 in bloodwork my insurance doesn't cover. The specialist wants to see me every 3 months; it's simply not in the budget. A specialist for this issue would entail a $650 fee that my insurance will not cover because, well, shut up, that's why.
But it's not just the big stuff where American health care breaks down. There's all kinds of hysteria-trolling about Canada's and England's long waits for care. Last winter I sliced open my thumb on a frozen metal door and quickly realized I'd need 1) a tetanus shot and 2) stitches. My insurance-mandated primary-care physician's office informed me they couldn't see me for seven weeks. My insurance company refused to authorize an ER visit because my primary-care physician's office was technically open (even if they refused to see me). I ended up going to one of those walk-in doc-in-a-box places that did a phenomenal job putting 18 stitches in my thumb and sending me on my way for less than my normal co-pay with my insurance company.
c u n d gulag says:
BZBee,
Typical.
How very typical.
Well, you can rest assured, and look for comfort in the fact that, your/our economic and "moral" betters are getting, "The Best Health Care in the World!!!"
Seems a small price to pay, no?
Feckin' sociopathic idjiotiotic animals, supported by feckin' idjitiotic moronic voters.
BZBee! says:
Thanks! Yup, I can sleep at night knowing that Ann Rmoney can deduct $77,000 in taxes for a dressage horse to 'treat her MS' (how is the horse treating MS when it's being ridden by someone else over in England at the Olympics??!?!) whereas I can't get a cut-open thumb treated for seven weeks unless I go out-of-network and pay from my own pocket while simultaneously paying big bucks for insurance I can't use because they can't see me. How can this possibly be considered the best healthcare if you can't get any even though you're paying for it?
Edward says:
"…about 25% of American adults don't know "
The survey that produced this number also found that 21% of Americans don't believe the earth orbits the sun. Actually both statements in the survey
Earth revolves around the sun
Sun revolves around the earth
are technically incorrect. In classical mechanics you would describe their motion in the center of mass reference frame, an inertial reference frame, in which the two objects orbit their common center of mass. Actually, without making stipulations about the reference frame, there is no strictly "correct" answer.
Haydnseek says:
Uh, Edward? Are you really this much of a pedantic asshole all the time? Seriously. Do you REALLY think that's the answer anybody thinks of when this question is asked? Actually, without making any stipulations whatsoever, you can go fuck yourself.
Edward says:
Apparently I am this pedantic an asshole, just as you are a vulgar person.
"Do you REALLY think that's the answer anybody thinks of when this question is asked? "
That's exactly my point. Its ironic that a survey meant to test ignorance includes a question the surveyors don't understand.
Ulla says:
@Edward
I believe our vulgar friend was attempting to say this:
You don't need to give a frame of reference when one is commonly understood. Both bodies may actually be revolving around points that are neither the Earth, nor the Sun, but I believe that the simplified definition of orbit = "one object moves around another object in relative space" works, regardless of the motion of the central object or the overall motion of the set.
You don't need to clarify a base-10 on EVERY math problem.
In summary I also think you are being pedantic. On the internet. THE HORROR!