Rose Parade Float Driving

This essay about driving a float in the Rose Parade aired over the weekend on the Milwaukee Public Radio Station and is on the WUWM 89.7 FM website here:

http://www.wuwm.com/programs/lake_effect/lake_effect_segment.php?segmentid=9992

Lake Effect: Tournament of Roses Parade: A Driving Experience

www.wuwm.com

Many of us watch the Rose Bowl parade every year, but we have a firsthand account of what it’s like to be in the parade.

People Use Guns to Kill People

This is a letter I sent to U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) yesterday that addresses some of the absurdities proponents of the little-to-no-gun regulations espouse. It points out some of the conclusions their arguments imply. If you agree with or want to use any part of the letter, please feel free to share anyway you like.

Sen. Ron Johnson

United States Senate, Wisconsin

517 East Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 408

Milwaukee WI 53202

Re: Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre

Dear Sen. Johnson:

For the love of God – and our children – I, as a parent, a grandparent, a school volunteer and a lover of children, beg of you to please support sane, responsible, effective gun-safety and gun-and-ammunition access laws that will stem the hemorrhaging of Americans’ blood in these ever-more frequent, tragic, traumatic and senseless shooting rampages.

Opponents of such laws constantly echo the NRA’s canard that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” If that were true, given that the United States has more than 10,000 more gun-related homicides annually than most other countries in the so-called developed world combined, that would mean that way more people in the United States are killers than in those countries. Do you really believe that’s true? Do you really believe that America has that many more criminals, mentally unhinged or maniacal individuals than the rest of the “civilized” world?

Children in the United States are 14 times more likely to die by gunshot than children in the rest of the “developed” world. Since NRA parrots insist that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” that has to mean than 14 times more Americans kill their children than do Britons, Scots, Israelis, Germans, Australians, Japanese and Canadians. Does that mean that 14 times more Americans hate their children and want to do away with them than individuals in other countries? Do you really believe that?

• First, those words were written 250 years ago before this country had extensive or effective organized law-enforcement agencies and little in the way of a standing army to protect its citizens. The “well-regulated militia” was akin to today’s volunteer fire departments in areas that can’t or choose not to fund paid firefighters.
• Second, what part of individuals stockpiling automatic and semi-automatic weapons that can fire multiple rounds in a few short seconds relates to a “well-regulated militia”? No,

Sen. Ron Johnson

Sandy Hook School Massacre

Page 2

        what NRA acolytes would have citizens of this country believe is that the 2^nd
        Amendment really means “Every man for himself.” That is antithetical to even the
        name of our country. We are the United States of America, not the Individuals of
        America.

•      Third, the twisted misinterpretation of that Amendment has turned this country into the exact opposite of what the Founders’ words, “being necessary for the security of a free state” say. Instead of being secure, this country has become a profoundly insecure state and society, with responsible, law-abiding citizens being held hostage by what has become a grotesque distortion of the Founders’ intent. No other country in the “developed” world has a higher homicide rate than the United States and the vast majority of homicides in the United States are gun-related. If you buy the logic that it isn’t guns that are killing people, but people who are killing people, then it follows that Americans are significantly more homicidal than residents of other countries. Do you really believe that is true?

Calls for teachers and/or school staff to be armed and, supposedly, at the ready to take down any invading gunman is complete lunacy. Anyone who proposes such an idea has simply not thought it through and/or has no concept of what such a real-life scenario is actually like. Three stark examples of how training and arming a teacher or school staff wouldn’t work is:

(1)   Four armed Seattle-area police officers were sitting in a coffee shop discussing their shifts and schedules when a gunman burst in and shot them all dead. All four of them. If being armed is a way to prevent such tragedies, why didn’t one or more of those officers pull their guns and shoot the shooter? Answer: they did not have time. Not just one didn’t have time, none of the four had time. Not because they weren’t well trained or weren’t competent. It’s because the gunman got the drop on them. On all four of them.

(2)   Four Army officers, eight enlisted personnel and a civilian physician assistant were shot dead and 29 other soldiers and installation staff were wounded by a single gunman at Fort Hood, Texas, a facility that has an arsenal of fire power. How could that happen? I’ll tell you how. The gunman took them all by surprise. He got the drop on them. No one had time to go grab his gun and shoot him.

(3)   A Newtown, Connecticut, woman well trained in the handling and use of firearms, including semi-automatic guns, was shot dead in her home where she had numerous guns. If being armed is the answer, why didn’t she defend herself with her guns?

What school teacher or staff member, going about her or his business – i.e. primary duties – of teaching or tending to the school operations when someone covered from ears to toes in Kevlar storms the building with guns blazing, is going to have time, once she or he realizes what’s going on, to get to where ever his or her gun is kept and get to the location where the gunman is shooting students and teachers and stop him – especially when that teacher/staff person is not protected by bulletproof gear like the gunman is? Even if the teacher or staff person has a loaded gun strapped to his hip, he is going to be on the losing end of the proposition.

Sen. Ron Johnson

Sandy Hook School Massacre

Page 3

NRA head, Wayne LaPierre, said today that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre “could have been prevented or stopped if there had been armed, trained security personnel on site” and that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Both statements are pure baloney as the four dead Lakewood, Washington, police officers evince.

Any armed, trained security personnel on site at Sandy Hook Elementary would have been mowed down in less than a second by the shooter who stormed that school – before they could have even gotten a gun raised to get a shot off at him. 

Mass shootings have occurred in other developed countries. Scotland and Australia are examples.

• On March 13, 1996, a man with four handguns walked into a Dunblane, Scotland, elementary school and killed 16 children and one adult, and injured 15 other individuals.
• On April 28, 1996, a gunman killed 35 individuals and wounded 23 in Port Arthur, Australia.

Both countries have proved that the only thing that stops a bad guy is to prevent him from having access to guns. Both Australia and Scotland imposed gun-safety laws after the 1996 massacres in their countries that have effectively eliminated the repeat of such carnage. The conservative prime minister of Australia, which prior to the Port Arthur killings had lax laws regarding firearm access, said in supporting strict gun laws that he didn’t want his country invaded by the “American sickness.”

If guns don’t kill people, what accounts for fact that no mass murders have occurred in those two countries since gun access was limited after those massacres? If it really is people who kill and not guns, what did Scotland and Australia do, aside from restricting gun access, to cause residents in their countries to stop committing mass murder? Don’t you think it has more to do with opportunity, i.e. the availability of high-capacity firearms and ammunition, than any change in the psyche, intent or motivation of those countries’ populations?

I heard a man say a few days ago that calls for more effective gun-safety laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook children’s massacre was a “knee-jerk reaction.” Surely a debate that has raged since the April 20, 1999, shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado in which two shooters killed 13 and wounded 21 – and has been reignited time and time again in the wake of the many subsequent mass murders in this country is anything but a “knee-jerk reaction.”

Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard was right. America is afflicted by a deadly sickness. And too many Americans and public officials are in denial about that sickness, just as so many substance abusers and mentally afflicted individuals are in denial about their addictions and psychoses.

Sen. Ron Johnson

Sandy Hook School Massacre

Page 4

One measure that might be a move toward addressing that sickness is to mandate a background check on any person who buys a firearm, no matter what the venue – gun store, gun show, over the internet, in a personal transaction or by any other means. And put teeth into that law by making any seller – whether individual or commercial enterprise – that does not conduct the required background check subject to the same criminal charges, prosecution and penalties as the person who buys a firearm that is used in a crime.

Again, I beg you to support laws that will serve as an intervention to those who are afflicted with America’s deadly disease and that will accurately reflect the intention of the 2^nd Amendment. By doing so you will be doing a tremendous public service by contributing to saving the lives of others – including little children – who otherwise will be victims in the next mass shooting in this country, and the next one and the next one and the next.

I thank you in honor of the memories of the 20 dead children and six dead adults of Newtown, Connecticut, and on behalf of all the children, teens and adults whose lives you might be able to help save.

Respectfully,

Jerrianne Hayslett

C:       Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States

Dianne Feinstein, Senator, California, United States Senate

          Tammy Baldwin, Senator-Elect, Wisconsin, United States Senate

Gwen Moore, Congresswoman, Wisconsin-Fourth District, United States House of Representatives

Tom Barrett, Mayor, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Pogo Would Recognize Us

My hometown newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, often publishes a column or editorial from elsewhere as a counter, parallel or completely unrelated view of the paper's editorial position, which the JS labels "Another View". Such was the case in its Nov. 30 edition.

The paper's editorial headline that day was "GOP claims on tax effects overstated and misleading". The subhead said, "We're not persuaded that a slight increase in the top marginal tax rates will ensnare many 'job creators'." http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/gop-claims-on-tax-effects-overstated-and-misleading-pj7rhcc-181450841.html.

The other view, "Obama's demeaning ways don't help the 'job creators', (http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/obamas-demeaning-ways-dont-help-the-job-creators-q57relj-181450851.html) was written by a man named Peter Rush, who was identified as the author of Class Tax, Mass Tax. Rush's book bio says he is chairman and CEO of Kellen Company, a global professional services firm and that he has worked as a journalist, teacher, public relations executive and small business owner.

The word that got me was "demeaning," which I considered pejorative and, frankly, whining. Here's the letter I sent to the Journal Sentinel, as yet and probably forever, unpublished:

We have met the job creators and they are us. That play on the "We have met the enemy and it is us" epiphany of Walt Kelly's wise comic character, Pogo, came to mind when I read Peter Rush's "Another View" on Nov. 30's editorial page. Mr. Rush and so many others who have bought into the notion that rich people are "job creators," thus mustn't be taxed too much, (i.e. equal to the rest of us), don't seem to realize that without us, the consumers of goods and services, the wealthy would not be. It is consumers' buying power that enriches corporate owners and CEOs, hedge funders, entertainers and sports stars and rewards them for their talents and good fortune. Rather than demeaning the people Rush, etal, place in such elevated strata, President Obama is recognizing the value and contribution of the "real" working Americans, whom Rush, etc., do demean and don't acknowledge as being the engine of true job-creation power; American workers who deserve to be dignified with adequate pay and benefits. 

An Assault is Not a Fondle

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel didn't publish my letter, but that was no surprise. It was highly critical of the newspaper's editorial judgment in characterizing the assault of a female jogger as "fondling" -- not just once, but three times in the first three paragraphs of the story.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/regional-news-briefs-1j7n99q-180080571.html

Here is what I wrote:

  

 “To handle tenderly, lovingly, or lingeringly, caress, to show affection or desire by caressing.” Those are the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definitions for the word “fondle,” which the Journal Sentinel used three times in the first three paragraphs in a story today (Nov. 20) with the headline “Other bike trail sex assaults reported.” I can assure Journal Sentinel editorial staff that the woman who was attacked while jogging last week on the Oak Leaf Trail did not feel like the attacker was being loving or showing affection when he assaulted her. For any newspaper, much less a major daily – and the only one for Milwaukee County residents, to use such outrageous and retrograde language regarding a crime committed against a woman is a disgraceful reflection on your news organization in particular and on journalism in general. Perhaps your reporters, copy editors and editors need a class in what you might consider the passé concept of consciousness-raising.

I don’t know if, even though the letters editor chose not to publish my letter, it at least got somebody’s attention or if (hopefully) the paper received other complaints, too, but the terms used to describe the assault in a follow-up story when a man was arrested was “groping” and “fourth-degree sexual assault.”

3 Women Have Much More to Fear from Romney

Three women who looked to be 35-40 were overheard recently ragging on President Obama and carrying on about how he's from Kenya and a Muslim and that the country is going to h.e.double hockey sticks (my euphemism, not theirs) if he's re-elected.

Not only do these women obviously rely exclusively on Fox and other right-wing media for information and "news", they are worried about the wrong thing.

I am sure that there's not a chance in the world that President Obama is likely to break into their homes and assault (euphemism for another word) them.

I can't same for Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and their Republican friends, such as Missouri Congressman and Senate candidate Todd Akin who claimed that women who are victims of what he described as "legitimate rape" have some kind of magical ability to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant as a result of that rape.

Another Republican Romney buddy, Indiana Senate candidate and Romney endorsee Richard Mourdock claimed that pregnancies that result from rape "is something that God intended to happen."

Then there's Wisconsin state assemblyman Roger Rivard, who's running for re-election and had been endorsed by Paul Ryan when he said in an interview that his father once told him, " 'Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.'"

So, while Messers Romney, Ryan, Akin, Mourdock, Rivard or any of their ideological brethren won't be personally breaking into the homes of the three overheard anti-Obama ladies or personally assaulting them, they are in far greater danger should those men attain/retain positions of leadership in this country of being revictimized many times over should they or anyone they know be unfortunate enough to be raped by anybody. 

I'm a Socialist? Thank you!

The theme of Public Radio's "This American Life "this week was "Red State, Blue State" and included stories of friends (or former friends), relatives, elected official and co-workers who had differing political views. It included sisters who could hardly speak to each other, one man married to the sister of another man's wife who said if his sister-in-law's husband votes for President Obama, he wasn't going to let him eat any of his astoundingly good barbeque, tri-tip steak, pulled pork and prime rib sandwiches for the four years of Obama's second term.

In most of the interviews, the biggest insult the conservatives could unload on liberals was "socialist." Oddly enough, none of those who were so labeled thanked their antagonists for putting them in such august company since Jesus could be considered an uber socialist.

Matthew 25:35-40 – ³⁵“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? ³⁸And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? ³⁹And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ ⁴⁰And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

Mark 12:13-17 – ¹³And they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians, to trap him in his talk. ¹⁴And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion. For you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” ¹⁵But, knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” ¹⁶And they brought one. And he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” ¹⁷Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they marveled at him.

Charity -- "Socialism" by Any Other Name

In a story on NPR's "Market Place Money" this weekend, a Hoover Institution economist, Paul Gregory, and a man named Scott Wilderman who was described as a conservative, agreed that government programs and "handouts" make people dependent on those programs and less resourceful and self reliant. 

Wilderman was interviewed by "Market Place Money" when he was at a regional food bank where he was picking up food for his church pantry. 

"Every week we give food out at our church," said Wilderman. "Food stamps is socialism and we're not a socialist country."

But wait! The regional food bank where Wilderman was picking up food for his church to give to the poor and hungry is funded in part by the federal government. 

So what's the difference between people who rely on government for handouts and charities/churches that rely on government for hand outs?  

Why Democrats Can't Win

The 2012 election for the Democratic Party and democracy itself is in grave peril.

Despite strong indications that Democratic candidates from President Barack Obama down the ticket should win in a majority of jurisdictions across the country, they have an almost impossibly steep uphill slog. The reason has little to do with policies, plans, campaign rally turnout or gaffs and everything to do with a long-term annihilation strategy that has been in development for the past several decades and got two huge gooses two years ago.

One was the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, which completed the groundwork of transforming elections into sales that was laid by the 1976 Buckley vs. Valeo Supreme Court ruling. That ruling, in essence decreed that money is speech. Citizens United, in essence, says that corporations are persons and thus have the same speech rights as individuals.

The second was the emergence of the Tea Party, which, despite the protestations of some of the ostensible TP founders, became the tool of and ground troops for plutocratic interests, redirected the Republican Party toward a right-wing cliff, and turned political discourse and elected officials' town halls into uncivil, hate-filled, vitriolic screeds.

Those two factors have capped decades of right-wing think tanks perfecting effective messaging, infiltration of academia, use of wedge issues, and the disingenuous and exploitative partnering with religion -- particularly fundamentalist and evangelically leaning sects.

That has set the stage for finishing the competition off.

Here are the winning tactics that will lead to Republican victories in this election:

• Employer intimidation -- Pressuring their employees to vote for candidates they support, or their jobs could be at stake.Can you imagine workers, who already have the jitters about their jobs, running the risk of losing them if they don't vote like the boss says?
• Church indoctrination -- Pastors using their pulpits to influence how congregants should vote, and at least one Catholic bishop instructing priests in his domain to preach anti-Obama sermons at Mass.
• Voting machines -- The Romney family owns substantial stock in the company that makes a large number of electronic voting machines that are being used in this election. And it has been demonstrated again and again how easy it is to manipulate and hack these machines.
• Conservative media -- Pervasive right-wing take-over of the mass media, from Fox TV, to Limbaugh and other right-wing radio programming, to corporate ownership of newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, to growing and increasingly influential Internet sites, such as The Drudge Report, Breitbart.com news syndicate and Journal Communications' new right-wing multi-platform group headed by a Milwaukee WI conservative radio personality, to billboards owned by right-wing advertising and communications conglomerate Clear Channel.
• Contracting voter access -- Whether repressed by newly enacted over-reaching photo ID requirements, reducing early voting days, issuing erroneous voting information or intimidating prospective voters via advertising and poll watchers -- all tactics target likely Democratic voters. 
• Decimation of unions -- Republican-controlled legislatures and state houses have worked tirelessly to kill off unions, in both the private and the public sectors, which historically have supported Democratic candidates. The amount of campaign contributions from unions has shrunk to a fraction of previous elections while corporate and special moneyed interests contributions to Republicans have burgeoned, plus super-PAC, which are overwhelmingly Republicans, such as Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, have flooded the airwaves with political ads.

So polls, not withstanding, which even veteran pollsters say are not only all over the place, but increasingly unreliable, I think the Republicans' strategy of intimidation, indoctrination and election fraud is just very likely to overcome

Captives Grateful to Captors Rationale

When I hear people wonder why women vote for Republicans these days, the only rationale I have been able to come up with is Stockholm Syndrome. I was about to post something to that effect on Facebook, then my son showed me this.



Affirmation.

Treatment Needed, Whatever The Cause

Refusing to acknowledge climate change or do anything about it because you don't think it's caused or exacerbated by human activity is like refusing to do anything about the cancer you've been diagnosed with because you don't know what caused it.

Romney Should Put Own Money Where His Mouth Is

Instead of having aides spend a measly $5,000 of Romney campaign money on canned goods at Wal-Mart to hand out to acolytes when they arrived at his "relief event” in Ohio for the purpose of a photo opp of Romney accepting said acolytes' "donations" then forming a link in the bucket brigade to load said donations onto a truck, then said truck rushing said canned goods to New Jersey (hopefully with a manual can opener) and then Romney urging his acolytes and TV viewers to contribute generously to the Red Cross for even more storm relief -- why didn't Romney tap his own vast fortune and give generously of that to the Red Cross or telling his audience that he would match their donations dollar for dollar? Wouldn't that have been akin to the kind of "privatization" of emergency relief Romney touts as being so much better than a federal agency like FEMA to manage natural and national disasters?

If Romney Were President

If Mitt Romney were president today, 60 million Americans facing $20 billion in "Sandy" damage would be SOL -- or hoping that the state they live in could somehow help them out. That's because disaster relief would no longer be a function or responsibility of the federal government and FEMA would no longer exist, thanks to Romney.

The state of New Jersey, for instance, which brought to its knees by that storm, being solely responsible for preparation, rescue and recovery from the horrendous damage "Sandy" wreaked is about as ludicrous as expecting a patient that has open-heart surgery to sew him/herself up and assume her/his own care, including vital-sign monitoring and IV drips.

"Sandy" made NJ Gov. Chris Christie a true believer of the need for FEMA and other federal assistance. This is what he said:

  Christie told news outlets that the president’s response had been “outstanding,” said that coordinating with the administration had been “wonderful,” and remarked that “the president has been all over this and he deserves great credit.” He even told Fox News the president had done a “great job for New Jersey” while staying above the fray about politics. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/in-superstorm-sandy-new-jersey-governor-chris-christie-praises-president-obamas-crisis-leadership/2012/10/30/89769e32-22b5-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html

  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie thanked President Obama for his help in the face of Hurricane Sandy, and praised the president’s leadership Tuesday. http://www.examiner.com/article/governor-christie-praises-obama-s-leadership-aftermath-of-sandy

That's just one of the reasons I'm voting for President Obama. Others include:

• Middle-income Americans' mortgage, education, child and other vital tax deductions will NOT be at risk, like they are likely to be under Romney.
• Pay parity is more realistic.  The Lilly Ledbetter Act, which enables women to know if their male counterparts -- same work, same experience, same training -- are being paid more than they are, and to sue their employers if they are, is a start. Obama will sign into law the Fair Pay Act, which will ensure that women are paid 100% of what their male counterparts earn, not just 73-77%, which is now the case.
• Women's access to healthcare, preventative care and screening for breast and cervical, including reproductive information and pregnancy prevention methods will not be eliminated as they are likely to be under Romney.
• Insurance-company ban on from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
• Stopped the country’s plunge off the economic cliff and ended the Great Recession created by GWBush and Republican Congress fiscal irresponsibility.
• Substantially cut taxes for working Americans -- twice.
• Private-sector job growth for the past 36 straight months.
• Robust and increasingly profitable U.S. auto industry and related businesses.
• Tough on terror and terrorists.
• Strong leadership regarding natural and national disasters.
• Ended Iraq war, ending Afghanistan war, strong leadership in not starting any new wars.
• Protecting consumers from predatory financial industry tactics by creating the Consumers Financial Protection Bureau.
•  Will keep intact the Affordable Care Act (ACA)/Obamacare with provisions that:   

Ø     Provides healthcare coverage for millions who previously were uninsured, including people under 26 years old who can stay on their parents’ insurance plans.

Ø Reduces a major reason for skyrocketing rise in healthcare costs – insurance premiums – by requiring 80 percent of premiums to be spent on actual care.

Ø     Ends insurance-premium discrimination against women.

Ø    Extends viability of Medicare and benefiting those who use the program in at least two ways:

      Covering preventative procedures such as annual physical exams, which Medicare previously didn’t cover, and other screening procedures, all of which is much less costly than trying to treat chronic and acute diseases after they have become advanced and create collateral damage

      Closing the prescription drug “donut hole” and allowing price comparison

      All reforms paid for by reductions in costs, not by increased fees to users or costs to taxpayers

·         Being able to achieve major accomplishments despite a Congress that will do nothing that he proposes – even measures that were, in fact, initially Republican proposals, such as the ACA insurance mandate, which was part of Newt Gingrich's 1994 "Contract with America" – that would benefit the country for fear that it might help his re-election.

Here’s proof:

Ø  Republicans have mounted the worst filibuster record in Senate history, blocking bills that would have increased employment and blocking key appointments, including judges, to the detriment of the justice system

Ø  The McConnell rule, which Mitch McConnell articulated two years ago as “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” That’s the Republicans’ #1 priority.

      Not create jobs

      Not reduce the unemployment rate

      Not improve the economy

      Not national defense

Ø  While defeating President Obama might be the Republicans’ political objective, making that their number one governing objective has not been and still isn’t in the best interest of the country or the People

It is beyond me why anyone, and certainly why any woman, would ever vote for a Republican and not vote for President Obama.

Americans ARE Better Off, Thanks to Obama

The chart below showing Pres. Obama to be anything but the big spender his critics would have voters believe him to be sparked quite a discussion on Facebook, including this comment from "Ronnie":

"prices of gas are higher food bills higher utilities higher and pay is less tell me how we are better"

I don't know about "Ronnie" but I sure had no problem coming up with several million Americans who are definitely better off thanks to Obama, such as:

Those who were hired to fill the nearly 5 million private sector jobs created in the past 3-1/2 years, the 43 million previously uninsured people who now have healthcare coverage, most middle-income Americans who realized significant tax savings (the tax policy center calculates an average of $3,600 per typical family -- my household's was more than $5,000), the millions of Americans who will no longer be barred from healthcare coverage because of 'pre-existing conditions' that had become as ridiculous as having been pregnant at sometime in their lives, women who now have the right to sue employers for pay discrimination, women who no longer pay higher insurance premiums than men, millions of Americans who invest in a stock market that has more than doubled since Obama took office, thousands of auto industry workers and thousands more in related industries who didn't lose their jobs because of Obama-approved loans to GM and Chrysler most of which have been paid back -- with interest -- and many more Americans who have and still are benefiting from Obama's policies. 

Speaking of gas prices, remember $4 and higher per gallon during GWBush's term? And he was one president who really could do something about gas prices, thanks to his in w/the Saudi royal family, but even he couldn't keep prices from going through the roof.

Some who are certainly better off than Mitt Romney would have them believe are Jeep workers whose jobs are NOT being sent to China -- contrary to what Romney told a crowd in Ohio, where a lot of Jeep employers live and work, gun owners whose rights have been EXPANDED under Obama (unlike what Romney did as governor of Massachusetts when he signed the most restrictive gun law in that state).

Some who might not be better off are former Delphi employees whose jobs Romney's Bain Capital shipped overseas, Sensata Technologies workers in Freeport, Ill., whose jobs Bain is shipping to China next week, and the millions of former manufacturing workers whose jobs have been shipped to other countries by corporations seeking ever-higher profits, some now making record high profits, yet still get federal subsidies that the GOP-controlled Congress refuse to end.

Nothing Honorable About Detroit News Endorsement

A Facebook Friend posted this. It is so worth reading and sharing.

If Undecided 2012
I WAS DISGUSTED TO SEE THAT THE DETROIT NEWS ENDORSED MITT ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT. THIS IS THE COMMENT I SENT 
TO THEIR EDITOR:

"I once was proud to be a Detroit News paper-boy back in 1960-1965, when I was 13-18 years-old. Back then I respected the newspaper that I sold. But as we both have aged I hav 

e seen The Detroit News become increasingly conservative -- finally reaching the point where I no longer respect my former employer.

In the second paragraph of your editorial endorsing Mitt Romney you describe the current election as a decision between two "honorable" men. In my opinion your choice of words is either grossly incorrect, or intentionally misleading. You also say that you "find Romney to be ... not bound by rigid ideology." I find that to be a creative but tortured euphemism for describing a man who displays only one guiding principle: "The end justifies the means." Mitt Romney grasps onto whatever beliefs he feels are necessary in order to curry the approval of whomever he is speaking to at the moment, and then blithely changes them at his next campaign stop to fit his new audience.

Lastly, I see nothing honorable about a man who cavalierly buys often-profitable companies, plunders them for personal gain, hides his untaxed profits overseas, sends American companies to places like China were he can pay them 99 cents an hour -- coldly casting the company's former American workers onto the scrap-heap. If you support such a person for President, then you -- like Mitt Romney -- appear to possess no sense of fairness or decency, and no honest concern for the well-being of this country and its workers. Shame." --Brian Enright

For All Women, No Dilemma

An undecided female voter called Tom Ashbrook's "On Point" program today. Her dilemma: She thinks voting for Romney might be better for the economy and help her get a job. But she wants to vote for Pres. Obama b/c he will protect her personal and civil rights. 

The obvious, but unsaid, answer is that she should vote for Obama. With Obama, her personal and civil rights are protected and economic progress is on track to continue. 

Romney's multiple and fluid economic plans might or might not succeed. But the continued Republican assaults on women's rights and the guaranteed appointment of at least one ultra-conservative Supreme Court justice would doom Roe v. Wade and possibly access to any form of contraceptives. 

As some people have noted, this is a family issue, not just a women's issue, that will affect not only the "On Point" caller, but all families in America for generations to come. 

For this undecided voter or ANY woman, what is the dilemma?

More on Obama Not a Big Spender

Who Is The Smallest Government Spender Since Eisenhower? Would You Believe It's Barack Obama?

Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Check out the chart –

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/ 

Isn't freeloading on others by looking for ways to not have to pay taxes, even though you benefit greatly from government-provided services, infrastructure and laws unAmerican and unpatriotic? Why should we have to carry this man's freight, not to mention want him to be president of this country that he skates on?

Romney Admits Cayman Islands Accounts Used To 'Not Be Subject To Taxes'

www.huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON -- Some tax experts are alarmed by Mitt Romney's apparent 

Lindsey Graham says (legal) tax avoidance is the "American way."