Why I am voting for Romney

Romney was not my first choice. Hell, I do not even think he was my second choice. Then my first and second choices decided they were not going to run for President this year, so here we are.

Then I started reading about him. His story is impressive. Gave away his massive inheritance, ran a state, saved the Olympics and started a wildly successful company.

Then you read a little deeper and he is really impressive. He has a record of doing things that would probably  lead directly to canonization if he had a different letter after his name.

He is a good person who cares about the less fortunate in ways other than just other people's taxes.

There are a lot of specifics that I like about Romney's plan.

I love his energy policy, approving the Keystone pipeline and reaping the benefits of the millions of jobs and cheaper power that makes every purchase made by every household more affordable. I love that moves in this direction will not only be a massive economic boom but will greatly weaken petro-sponsors of anti-American and Western thought throughout the world. Plus no more wind energy, because when you have the chance to invest in an inefficient method of harvesting power than requires 100% redundancy, why not spend billions of tax dollars on it? Right?

Education reform. This is massive, taking control of the schools away from the teachers unions and putting it in the hands of parents and teachers. Spending more money on better teachers rather than siphoning it off to fund Democrat campaigns, union officials and massive administrative bloat.

Slashing corporate taxes to bring more companies to our shores simplifying the tax code foe individuals and small business makes far too much sense not to happen.

All these are positive things, but basically window dressing. I am wildly patriotic and care desperately about this country. I am the grandson of a plumber and the great grandson of a goatherd. My Dad was the first from his family to go to an Ivy League school. I want kids one day and I want to be live the American Dream and provide for them an opportunity to be more successful than me. The debt that Obama is running up is a clear and present danger to that prospect. I am old enough to remember a Presidential candidate saying that adding 4 trillion to debt in 8 years was "unpatriotic" He has not responded with a request to comment on 6 trillion in 4 years.

And, from the horses mouth, there is no plan whatsoever to address this

This is fiscal child abuse. Whereas Romney and Ryan have proposals to address this, Obama's plan involves more "investment" in the "Jobs of the Future" because he has such a great track record.

Spending like this, over a trillion in deficit spending a year, is reducing the future available to my unborn kids. This is unacceptable and the main reason I will be voting for Mitt Romney.

I am old enough to remember

When anemic economic growth was a bad thing for an incumbent

h/t James Taranto

Two Papers in One!--II

• "President Bush smiled when he learned this week that economic growth during the third quarter reached a surprising 2.7 percent, almost twice the previous rate. But his smile shouldn't be broad. The new figure almost certainly exaggerates the health of the economy, which continues to creep along at a painfully slow pace. Even the 2.7 figure is half the normal rate of recovery and not enough to bring down unemployment."--editorial, New York Times, Oct. 29, 1992
• "The slow pace of the nation's economic recovery has picked up a bit lately. In the third quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent, beating expectations and the dismal 1.3 percent growth in the second quarter. Over the past year, the growth rate has been 2.3 percent. At that pace, there's enough momentum to keep unemployment, currently 7.8 percent, from getting much worse."--editorial, New York Times, Oct. 27, 2012

This, combined with networks allegedly sitting on emails that contain the "Stand Down" orders from the White House and audio from the SEALs, who ignored orders and risked their lives to save the consulate staff, crying for air support and help and being denied is just laughable. 

NYT and WaPo ran Abu Ghraib on the front page every day, painting Bush with the same brush as the idiots who were mistreating prisoners non-stop. How many front page headlines have been dedicated to Benghazi?

Honestly, I think this is a huge issue. Even if Obama wins, after he is impeached for Benghazi then we are stuck with Biden as President. I certainly am old enough to remember how an unqualified, erratic and mentally unstable person should reflect poorly upon the top of the ticket.

They told me...

if I voted for Mccain/Palin we'd get "eye candy" who struggled with middle school math concepts

AND THEY WERE RIGHT

On helping kids with homework and whether he struggles with any subjects, Obama says "the math stuff I was fine with, up until 7th grade."

Too good not to steal

h/t Jim Treacher

read the whole thing

What is the big deal about Benghazi anyway?

“Come on, you guys. It’s only an American ambassador and three other Americans who served their country, murdered by Islamic terrorists on the anniversary of 9/11. In a country our president invaded unilaterally and, arguably, illegally. And our government only ignored the copious warnings of an impending terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi, and actually reduced security there, despite the since-murdered ambassador’s entreaties. And our president has only been lying about it for over a month because it reflects very badly on his self-evidently disastrous foreign policy. It’s not like it was a hotel break-in.”

Austerity for thee

The two biggest climate warriors I know have pretty strong views. One worked for the Climate Exchange that tried to get off the ground in Chicago and one is a non-profit lawyer.

One wanted laws against SUVs for soccer moms and the other was violently opposed to Keystone Pipeline. He accused me of "spouting right wing talking points" and being "completely uninformed" about the facts of the matter. When I asked him to inform me we had a very cordial and friendly discussion. My point was this.

The oil that is being extracted from the Canadian oil sands will be refined and used. This is just a fact. Our choices, as I saw it, were:

1.) Transport by pipeline to America. Refine and distribute here

2.) Sell internationally, most likely to China

My argument was that pipeline transportation is far more secure than piping to coast, loading on to oil tankers, trans-ocean shipment, offload, and pipe to refineries. EVEN IF nothing happens to harm the environment through those (unnecessary) steps, the standards for pollution in oil refineries are astronomically higher here than in China. Aside from the obvious economic boon to us with this high paying, blue collar jobs that will be created, environmentally it seems like the Keystone option is a HUGE winner for the environment. He hoped that first nation groups would all agree to stop the drilling and refining to happen. Meanwhile, in the real world, this oil is being shipped to China.

This oil could be used to fuel his car when he drives up to Wisconsin every other weekend to go mountain biking.

The SUV zealot also happens to be the most widely traveled person that I know. He has been to every continent and is always in the process of planning his next trip. Why should Soccer Moms change what they want to do when he is not canceling his globe trotting in the eyes of this crisis? Why does he know better than them what is judicious and right? Maybe she is carpooling and is actually saving the planet by taking 5 kids in one trip rather than separate cars? Maybe she feels safer with more metal between her kids and the road? Maybe it is none of our business? Maybe these high minded technocrats do not know what is best for everyone else?

DOE Secretary Stephen Chu rhapsodized about European gas prices as they forced people to drive less. Obama said that electricity prices would "necessarily skyrocket" under his plan and that we cannot "Drive our SUVs or keep our houses at 70 degrees"

Energy is the biggest regressive tax around. Every regulation, closed oil well and mandated alternative energy minimums increase the cost of everything bought or sold in the entire country. Poor people lack the cushion that these better off liberals have in their budgets to make up for every trip to the the grocery store and gas station cost  incrementally more. They do not have that luxury. And these are the ones that beat their chests about how people could only vote for Republicans because they hate poor people and minorities.

I like this take by from Indiana Jones

I will start treating this like a crisis when the people who lecture me about it start acting like it is

Party of Wall Street

The picture that should prevent Obama from being re-elected

From the last debate

OBAMA: Governor Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. That’s been his philosophy in the private sector, that’s been his philosophy as governor, that’s been his philosophy as a presidential candidate.

This is a great talking point that I would like to explore. It has populist appeals that tug on the heartstrings. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, the scrappy hockey team with the disgraced lawyer/former hockey star coach looking for redemption against the cake-eating Hawks.

I get it, and it sounds great. The problem is that is a crock of bull.

For those of you who do not know, the man warmly embracing Obama above is Jon Corzine. Former Goldman exec and Governor of New Jersey. Let's get some background on him from our President and Vice President, so I cannot be accused of putting words in their mouths.

According to Biden, literally the first person we called on financial advice.

Helped craft Obama's stimulus

One more time, this time with Megyn Kelly

Why is this a big deal?

Because Jon Corzine is a bigger crook than Bernie Madoff.

Madoff operated an investment vehicle as a Ponzi scheme. While this is dishonest, everyone investing, including my great-uncle who invested his mesothelioma settlement with him, knew that there are inherent risks with any investment. Madoff lied and was a criminal but any time you give your money to other people to invest you have to know there is a non zero chance that things could go horribly wrong.

MF Global, in addition to taking positions on their own behalf, was a clearing house for other, smaller trading shops, hedge funds and private investors. This means they hold cash or securities as collateral and work between trading shops and the exchanges to assure the execution, confirmation,  and settlement of trades. So the money that these people had on account with MF was not there for Corzine and others to make bets with, only to allow them to trade on their own account.

Corzine dipped in to that money when his massive bets started going South. So in addition to losing all the money his firm had on available to invest, he also lost millions of which he had no right to even touch.

But he walks free, continuing to bundle for Obama. This class warrior, opponent of corporate excess, rule-breaking and greed does not really square with the fact that Obama has raised more money from Wall Street than Romney.

I wonder what the price of Corzine's get-out-of-jail free card was? $500,000? A million? Maybe it helps that MF Global was a client of AG Eric Holder's law firm? God knows the DOJ is not busy going after Fast and Furious info so one would think that they have plenty of time. Maybe the other murky connections between MF, Holder and the Obama campaign prevent action.

How Obama can harp on people playing by "a different set of rules" after his biggest campaign bundlers and contributors seem to get massive sweetheart green energy loans, subverted bankruptcy laws and immunity from criminal prosecution in fraud cases over a BILLION blows my mind

Everyone should watch this

I would vote for this guy for President