Romney was trying to sell a lot of snake oil in his debate with the President.  Here's a great example:

He absolutely insists that he has no plan to raise taxes.  However, one of his aims that he has repeatedly stated over the last few months is that he is going to close loopholes and deductions.  One of the loopholes he has said he wants to eliminate is the mortgage interest deduction, in which someone buying a house can deduct the cost of his mortgage interest from the calculation of his income.  He wants to end this practice.

Let's do some calculations.

If you are paying $1,000/month in mortgage interest -- and I bet this is a low amount for most Americans -- you don't get to deduct 12 (months) x $1,000 from your reported income.  If you still manage to stay within the 15% tax bracket, your paper income increases by $12,000 and you are taxed an additional 12 x $1,000 x 15% = $1,800.  It doesn't matter if Romney keeps your tax rate the same.  He is now forcing you to be taxed on a greater amount.  Who cares whether it is called a tax or what ?  A greater amount still has to come out of your pocket.

"I don't care," you say.  "I rent my house,"  So your landlord has to pay more, and he will simply increase your rent to cover that cost increase.

Romney snake oil.

Solving California's Fiscal Crisis

I don't pretend to know how to completely solve California's fiscal crisis, but we know one step that could be taken to help the process. Examine every lifer in tyhe California prison system for possible parole, and give the deserving ones their freedom. A lot of them deserve it.

This isn't an idle, uninformed comment. I spent full-time for six months reading parole hearing transcripts and other official documents relating to the Board's activities and what I found made me think of Alice in Wonderland. In the end, I wropte a 12-page friend of the court brief proving beyond any doubt that the members of the Board were not doing their legislatively-mandated task, actually considering whether or not inmates deserved parole. It became clear that the Board had been instructed by Governor Gray not to grant parole except in certain cases -- when the applicant was a friend of a well-connected Republican, or was an ex-lawman.

At the time, the victims of crime were a strong lobby with the Prison Guard's Union.  The San Francisco Chronicle once called the union "The Invisible Government."  Their greed has costs the taxpayers of the State of California billions of dollars, and if their wings could be trimmed, this would help bring the California budget under control.

Has you read the article in the latest issue of Harper's Magazine called, "Why Vote ?"  It is subtitled. "When Your Vote Counts for Nothing"  and is by Kevin Baker.  I quote the opening paragraph here:

"The heroic narrative of modern society has always been that democracy would prevail in the end.  We believe that democracy somehow has an infinite resilience, that it is a bottomless reserve capable of being tapped whenever necessary, that in times of crisis not only will great men be recognized, called forth, and elected to office but that we,the people will rise to the occasion when required to do so. We have long counted on democracy to be the safety brake on our worst impulses, to be the countervailing force against fanatical ideologies, to serve as a check on the routine excesses of capitalism.  But we can no longer count on democracy as some sort of natural force or secret weapon, for today it has been turned against us, its very institutions now reinforcing the triumph of money and fueling the growth of nihilistic and antidemocratic movements."

I urge you to read it.    Whether you support Obama or (God forbid) Romney, you will agree with much that Baker has written.     See Harper's Magazine, October 2012

Sarah has been around long enough to have established record of behavior.

My take on Palin comes from what I have seen and also from facts that I believe are true.

First, she is a shrewd person. I think she has considerable intelligence, particularly in how to manipulate and maneuver. If the saying is correct that what a man believes can be determined not by what he says but by what he does, we can determine certain of her values. Note that after she emerged from obscurity thanks to McCain, halfway through her term as governor she quit, and then went on the lecture circuit where she cleaned up in speaker's and appearance fees. This is a woman who knows how the financial cookie crumbles, and who values her own personal financial gain over commitment and public service. Her behavior shows that.

That she can be quixotic in her behavior can be seen by her educational record, where she shifted around from college to college for a number of petty reasons (she said she left the University of Hawaii because she didn't like the weather). This kind of erratic behavior reveals something important about her.

I was in Ivory Coast, West Africa, leading up to and including the night of Obama's election. For weeks up to McCain's loss, she always appeared holding her retarded baby, trying to demonstrate what a devoted mother she is. However, the kid practically disappeared after McCain's loss when his appearance could no longer garner her sympathy votes. Have you seen him lately ? I haven't. The devotion was evidently short-lived, lasting less than the span of an election

Sarah's defining moment, however, and one we should all remember despite her cagey and manipulative winks, came when Katie C was interviewing her as they walked along. Katie asked her what she read, thinking this would give us a better grasp of her interests. Remember the minute of stunned silence in which she could not give an answer ? This told me everything I needed to know about whether she was qualified to be vice president or president.

Regrettably I am reminded by her actions and by her family of a term I think accurately describes the bunch of them: "White trash."

Here is a list of five lies that Paul Ryan told when he gave his speech at the Republican National Convention last night. Every single news outlet should report on these lies.

1. Lie: President Obama is the "greatest threat" to Medicare.

Truth: Obama didn't make any cuts to Medicare benefits; he made cuts to provider reimbursements, to improve cost efficiency and extend the fiscal security of Medicare by eight years. According to the Medicare actuary, "[Obama's] Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook."¹

But Ryan actually does want to cut benefits. He proposed dismantling Medicare and replacing it with a voucher system, leaving millions of seniors to come up with more money to pay for care out of pocket.^2,3

2. Lie: President Obama didn't save a General Motors plant in Wisconsin.

Truth: First, Obama wasn't even in office when the GM plant closed. Second, Obama never made a promise to save it.⁴

3. Lie: President Obama ignored recommendations of a bipartisan debt commission.

Truth: Paul Ryan actually sat on that commission. And he led Republicans in voting down the commission's own recommendation. So the commission never gave a report to Obama, because Ryan himself voted to kill the report before it could.⁵

4. Lie: President Obama is responsible for the downgrading of the U.S. Credit Rating

Truth: House Republicans, including Paul Ryan, held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to try to ransom it for trillions of dollars in cuts to social programs without increasing taxes on the wealthy one dime. Standard & Poors said specifically, "We have changed our assumption on [revenue] because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues." That's why our nation's credit rating was downgraded.^6,7

5. Lie: Ryan wants to protect the "weak."

Truth: Ryan's biggest feat in his political career was proposing a budget with dramatic cuts to programs benefiting the poor. He'd cut Medicaid by one third, take away health care insurance from 30 million Americans, and cut Pell Grants for 1 million students. All so that he could give more tax breaks to the rich.⁸