Mitt Romney

Here's the next group of Ryan's follies from his answer to the President's 2011 SOTU.

On bureaucracy and innovation:

”Depending on bureaucracy to foster innovation, competitiveness, and wise consumer choices has never worked – and it won’t work now.”

That may be. But depending on the big banks and big US corporations to either get lending going again, or to bring innovation and jobs to the United States also won't work. What will work is for the Government to increase aggregate demand by deficit spending in areas of the economy we want to grow.

“Bureaucracy” is just a scare term. The big corporations that Ryan, the Republicans, and many Democratic Congresspeople serve are all just as bureaucratic, and in the case of the health insurance companies, even more bureaucratic than the Government. The dirty little secret of the social sciences is that bureaucracy comes with large size whether we're talking about private or public organizations. So, unless Ryan has plans to break up the large banks, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, telecommunications companies, and exporters he loves so much, he really ought to shut up about “bureaucracy,” because his precious private sector has absolutely nothing to crow about when it comes to that feature of large organizations.

If we don't like bureaucracy, then what we need is regulation that will break up large organizations, making them illegal beyond a certain size. Then perhaps we might create functioning markets and be able to shrink the Federal government too. But this kind of solution is off the table for Ryan and Romney since regulation is a no-no from the standpoint of their ideology. Read below the fold...

For me this is simple. We have a giant problem in this country. It's the elephant in the room! We're a Democracy on the edge. We're in great danger of transitioning to a plutocracy: a society, economy and polity controlled by the rich. Read below the fold...

Rick Perry's loose talk about Social Security being a ponzi scheme, is generating a lot of contrary ink, or electronic bits as the case may be. Cullen Roche has provided an excellent analysis, accompanied by a great discussion which begins this way.

”First of all, let’s get the definition of a ponzi scheme right. According to the SEC, a ponzi scheme is “an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors.” Quite simply, a ponzi scheme involves the promise of future payments that current returns do not justify.”

So, a ponzi scheme is:
-- an investment opportunity Read below the fold...

So reports are that Der Mittster is gonna speak to the wingnut-welfare kings of the ConservativePAC and announce that they are all bastard people and should go to hell and die* and he's quitting and going home.

The bet here: he'll sing the praises of John McCain, never mention the Huckster's name, and work out a VP deal. Unite the "moderate" and "real wackaloon-but-not-Jeebusite" wings of the party, etc.

Dogs everywhere don't know why but suddenly wag their tails and smile. Read below the fold...

Alright, maybe I should ahve been more bloggy and said fuck off. But I think "Go to Hell" is literalistly more correct. The New York Times publishes a long apologia by Noah Feldman which contains a string of lies and implicit assertions about fact which are verifiably untrue. These assertions, were a blogger or Democratic nominee for President make them would get a stern warning from teh serious people and the Village Idiots about sticking more closely to truthiness.

For example:

Read below the fold...

The romantics in the current Republican Party herald back to the 1980 Reagan coalition and his victory born of the “three-legged stool” of Reagan Conservatism: a strong defense, a strong economy and strong social values.

Now, over two decades later, the incongruity among those three ideals haunts the Republican presidential nomination process. As the plethora of Republican candidates stake their claims, the dissatisfaction of the Republican electorate over their choices reflects the fact that it is impossible to obtain all three of the Reagan goals simultaneously. Read below the fold...

DEAR MISTER ROMNEY, I really appreciate your steadfast commitment to your faith. I've heard people choose these types of ideologies because it grounds a person in morality and integrity and human values. And of course I can admire that. With all the hate- and fear-mongering filling the public square today, I welcome men of your caliber. Read below the fold...

I'm not sure what Mormons drink (Joseph Juice?), but it's potent stuff.

Mitt watched his father, George, throw the winning pass to Martin Luther King, Jr., leading the New England Patriot Sox to a World Series win. Or something like that.

Facts are stupid things. Read below the fold...

AP:

"[ROMNEY:] But I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far. It's just not the American way, and I think people will reject that."

Romney's running on his character as a religious leader; so is Huckabee. It's their platform, for pity's sake.

So, we can't attack what they're running on?

These are the guys who want religion in the public square. In fact, they want their religion to run the public square! Read below the fold...

Sez Willard (emphasis added):

"I'm paraphrasing something that's been said both by John Adams and George Washington," he said. "Which is that, in their view, for a nation like ours to be great and to thrive... that our Constitution was written for a people of faith and religion. It's a very extraordinary element and foundation for our nation. I believe that's the case."

Unsatisfied, another reporter pounced. "Do you think an atheist or non-believer or non-spiritual person can't therefore be a free person?" he asked.

"Of course not," Romney responded. "That's not what I said."

"But you said 'freedom requires religion'?"

Read below the fold...

Whatever entity, higher being or biological process that created human beings made a number of mistakes. Chief among them is our need for sleep.

So often we have more ideas than time. Of course, this is preferable to having too much time and no idea what to do with it. But if we just didn't have to do this "sleep thing" we could get so much more accomplished. Maybe insomnia isn't such a bad thing?

The idea of sleep elimination could be a bipartisan issue. Think of all the terrorist plots Jack Bower thwarts in only 24 hours when he doesn't sleep a wink. President Rudy or Romney could torture (or interrogate using enhanced techniques) around the clock. Imagine how safe we'd all be then! Read below the fold...

TechCrunch:

Governor Romney is strictly a Windows guy.

I assume he's pro-torture, then?

Let's just hope that's the least of his crimes... Read below the fold...