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Mira

Mira's Journal
Mira's Journal
October 31, 2012

Chris Christie has a heart on

for our President.
It's written all over him as he stands beside him listening and nodding his head all the time as President Obama speaks from his heart to the country about what he has seen in New Jersey.

Who other than me thinks that one of two things cross Christie's mind:

a) thank GOD I have not voted yet, and can still pull the lever for this man

b) who can I detach to find my early vote and trash it

October 31, 2012

Stellar, fine and concise: "Politics /Religious System" LTE in Winston-Salem, NC

Many letters in our paper mention Billy Graham and his unfortunate son Franklin some pro, some con.
This one contains a reference as well, as overall it makes an intelligent concise case for self - and other responsibility.

This letter is, to me, a come to Jesus moment.

Political/religious system

Recently I saw where Mitt Romney paid a visit to Billy Graham. Graham pledged his support to help elect the Republican nominee.

I’ve often wondered why the religious right automatically favors the conservative agenda — small government, minimal social safety nets, limited programs for the less well off, etc. I’ve always had the notion that the Christian message was to help the poor and less well off. So I’ve always felt this disconnect with our political/religious system.

To be clear, I personally can live and thrive under this conservative agenda. I’m healthy, educated and have a pretty good work ethic. I do OK for myself. I was born into a nuclear family. My parents were blessed with a ton of common sense. They taught their children well.

But here’s the deal. Not everyone is as blessed as I have been. Members of a lower social and economic class usually have to overcome many obstacles. They often times need some assistance.

I want my government to help those people. I believe that ultimately, the whole of society benefits.

I am my brother’s keeper, I feel, and it sure seems to me that the Democrats embody that ideal.

No real offense intended to my conservative friends.

GARY McCOY

Winston-Salem Journal, Oct. 31, 2012

www.journalnow.com
October 30, 2012

Weather Forces Romney to Shift Lying to Other States as revealed by Andy Borowitz

October 30, 2012
Romney Says He Favors Abortion in Cases Where It Makes People Vote for Him


Posted by Andy Borowitz


KETTERING, Ohio (The Borowitz Report)—Hitting the campaign trail one day after the arrival of Superstorm Sandy, Republican nominee Mitt Romney tweaked his position on abortion today, saying he now supports it in cases where it makes people vote for him.

“I would make an exception for abortion in cases where the life of my campaign is at stake,” he told a crowd in Kettering, Ohio.

Sandy, which slammed into the East Coast last night, was such a powerful weather system that it prevented Mr. Romney from changing his position on abortion for twenty-four hours.

“It was important for Mitt to come up with a new position on abortion today,” said his campaign manager, Matt Rhoades. “It sends a message to the American people that in the aftermath of Sandy, things are getting back to normal.”

Mr. Romney made no reference to his comments about eliminating FEMA, which have been declared a disaster area.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/10/romney-says-he-favors-abortion-in-cases-where-it-makes-people-vote-for-him.html#ixzz2AoKjVb5b

October 30, 2012

AP photo of POTUS yesterday- it tugs at my heart strings.

After cancelling his appearance at a morning campaign rally in Orlando, Fla., President Barack Obama walks toward the White House in a driving rain Monday. Obama returned to Washington to monitor preparations for early response to Hurricane Sandy on Monday.

When I take a look at this, and think of the hours, the energy and care extended and the grueling work all the way around, it makes me humble and grateful to our President for his dedication to his obligations to the country and to us.
This photo shows that it is not at all easy, if you take it seriously, no matter how fancy being the President can look at times.
Just sayin'.






edited to fix typo
October 28, 2012

Obama and Dems 'Absolutely Crushing' Romney and GOP in Early Voting in Nevada

Obama and Dems 'Absolutely Crushing' Romney and GOP in Early Voting in Nevada
By: Sarah JonesOctober 26th, 2012



On MSNBC this morning, Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston said that President Obama and Democrats are “absolutely crushing” Mitt Romney and Republicans in early voting in the state. He’s right. Democrats lead Republicans on every metric: mail ballots returned, in-person early voting, and total ballots cast.


There are videos and transcripts / all fascinating and helping our worried souls
http://www.politicususa.com/obama-dems-absolutely-crushing-romney-gop-early-voting-nevada.html

October 27, 2012

Long Voting lines at my small neighborhood Library. It seemed like it is election day in NC

I was happily shocked at the lines of cars and people. A supervisor said it's been nonstop and unprecedented.

I took with me 3 art school students ( from left to right: a violinist, a visual artist, and a bass opera singer) to vote for their first time ever, here they are standing at my car displaying their "I voted early stickers" and pleased as punch to be old enough to vote in this election.

We delivered 4 votes for the President.


October 27, 2012

In a half hour, on with Bill Maher a line-up not to sneeze at

Barney Frank
Nate Silver
Chrystia Freeland
Eliot Spitzer and last but not least
Michael Steele.

All this, and Bill's take on debate number three.
I'm waiting for his take on horses and bayonets, ships that go under water and are called submarines, and ships that are landing places for airplanes.
And more.

October 26, 2012

The One Percent will eat the poor, and other prophecies by Hal Crowther

Whenever a new commentary appears from Hal Crowther my day is made.
I hope you, too, will appreciate this as a very good read.


The One Percent will eat the poor, and other prophecies 
by Hal Crowther





Photo illustration by JP Trostle; photo of Mitt Romney by Gage Skidmore/ courtesy of Creative Commons License

I've successfully immunized myself to the horse-race fever of presidential elections: the relentless polls and fundraising totals, the endorsements and lame speeches and could-be-fatal gaffes, worst of all the dim psychoanalysis and fanzine micro-dissection of candidates who always looked much alike to me. I was inoculated against most of this when I was fairly young, thanks in part to reading the convention reporting of H.L. Mencken, who took American democracy like a recreational drug and relished every hysterical high.

The political animal at his most ridiculous never amused me as much as he amused Mencken. His excesses can still reduce me to tears, even though I'm old enough to remember presidential candidates with actual convictions and commitments, instead of pollsters, bundlers and message-masseurs. It always catches me by surprise when the media resume their election coverage as if they'd learned nothing whatsoever from all the elections that came before. Are the media themselves now under such a state of siege, is the public's attention span now so brief that four years is enough to erase every scrap of residual wisdom? It looked that way to me when I read a news-service "think piece" in my local daily, an essay explaining "the stark philosophical differences" that separate Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

I groaned so audibly that my wife asked me if I was having chest pains. This writer, I thought, is he 12 years old? First of all, no one mentions philosophy in the presence of Romney, who embraces any philosophy his ambition finds convenient and will, before his race is run, embrace as many more as his handlers recommend. And Obama, vilified on right-wing radio as a cross between Jomo Kenyatta and Malcolm X, between Rap Brown and Toussaint L'Ouverture? This is a white woman's son with a rich white man's education, a cautious, pragmatic man of the middle, like most Republicans used to be—like Mitt Romney before the White House bug bit him, like his father, George Romney, before him. Obama is a mild-mannered white attorney with a slight genetic handicap. He loves golf. In every way except that inappropriate pigmentation, he's a country-club Republican (vintage, not current) like Mitt.

In another climate, another decade, another turn of the wheel of fortune, they could have been comfortable running mates—if the fastidious Obama could have put up with an awkward fumbler like Romney. Philosophy? Romney has no philosophy, Obama only as much as he needs from week to week. The American political system seems designed to feed celebrity-addled media, which focus on the forgettable faces and generic utterances of the latest candidates, never on the forces that produce them or the deeper issues that tear this country in two.
Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate, was featured in another front-page story presenting his intellectual pedigree. His infatuation with Ayn Rand was enough to convince me that he's an arrested adolescent, but there in bold letters on Ryan's list of mentors was my old schoolmate Bill Bennett. Sometimes we literally don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I chose to laugh. We will see these faces 10,000 times before Nov. 6. (I'd never stoop to the face game myself, but is Ryan actually Eddie Munster grown up and Nautilus-hardened?) Yet the only faces that matter in this election are the faces of the founders and dead presidents printed on America's folding currency. The U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens Uniteddecision is the Rough Beast whose hour has come round at last, unleashing evil billionaires and subterranean oceans of corporate cash, tidal waves of it, under which the American democracy may vanish like lost Atlantis.

to read the rest of it go to:
http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-one-percent-will-eat-the-poor-and-other-prophecies/Content?oid=3177107

This article appeared in print with the headline "Soylent Mitt."
October 25, 2012

POTUS - just as relaxed and funny as he can be

On with Leno:
Question: "Just what is the problem with Donald Trump, can you shed some light on the animosity towards you?"
Answer: (first envision the head tilting to the side and the incomparable smile lighting up his face "It's something that goes way back to when we grew up together in Kenya."

My second favorite funny was when Jay talked about Halloween and the first lady giving out fruit. The President sat up and said, again with that disarming smile: "Believe me, this year it is candy for everybody." Then he stretched his arms out as far as possible and rounding out a wide area he said : "But if you are from Ohio you will get the biggest possible Hershey bar just like this."

Considering his schedule and the travel and the pressure I cannot imagine him overcoming it and putting on an appearance that put Jay just about to shame.

He could run the Tonight Show when and if Jay ever retires again, and could do a wonderful enlightening and entertaining job of it.

IN FOUR YEARS.

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