See how the ball got rolling in DU's latest Epic Thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021634328

And we're not the only ones:


Yet. After last night, all bets are off.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/rocking-the-vote-meat-loaf-endorses-romney/


And for more fun, on Twitter there's #Mittloaf

> 1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

You can, however, legislate policies that make it less attractive for the already-wealthy to get even more wealthy by squeezing everybody else. We did these things in this country, and it worked out pretty well for most Americans and let them earn a middle class income.


>2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

So you understand the problems people have with hedge fund managers, credit default swap traders, Wall Street wheeler-dealers, CEOs with cozy relationships to those determining their compensation, and others who seem to worship at the altar of Maximizing Profit? Up to a certain point most of these people do provide a useful service in allocating resources for wealth creation, and deserve compensation. However, above a certain level they are extracting more wealth than their services are worth. It gets worse when that extraction becomes detached from how they make their money and to any outside accountability for how much they stuff into their own pockets.

In those cases they are "receiving without working for", and that removes resources available to those who do the actual work.


> 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

Get back to me on that one when you apply it to government contractors, especially ones for the Defense Department with cozy relationships with politicians and plenty of lobbyists. We spend more on our military than the next largest six countries combined, and most of them are our allies. You really think we're getting top value for all that money?


> 4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

Horseshit. You don't run an engine without "dividing" the lube. If it doesn't get to all the moving parts, it's going to break down quicker and harder.

If someone never changes the oil in their car, are they being thrifty and efficient? Or a short-sighted idiot?

>5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other
>half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does
>no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the
>beginning of the end of any nation.

So is believing that statement when it's not true. Acting on faulty information rarely produces the desired results.

Do Mitt, Rick Santorum, and Peter King think Thomas Nast was right?



http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010717281/


(more at link)
http://www.harpweek.com/09cartoon/BrowseByDateCartoon.asp?Month=May&Date=8

Below is a chart I made showing CPI inflation-adjusted tax bracket thresholds based on numbers from the Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History of The Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html).

This chart just shows the taxable-income levels where one rate changed to the next. (Perhaps someone with better graphic presentation skills can get a better version). It doesn't show the rates themselves (go to the link above for the charts).

What I mainly wanted to show when I made this is how we treated income levels in the tax system in the past, which is a separate issue from what the rates actually were. For instance, during Obama's presidency there have been lots of arguments about raising taxes on income over $250,000 (often framed as "is $250 thousand/year 'rich'?". In comparison, in 1955 there were 24 tax brackets (4 times as many as now). 16 of them, two-thirds of that number, affected taxable incomes over the equivalent of $250K. The highest bracket (the 91% one) affected income over ~$1.6million. OMG, Class Warfare! Socialism! Marxism!

And we know what sort of people were calling the president 'communist' back then. Birchers and other ranting cranks.

Just remember, Mitt uses horseshit instead of foam.

Investigative journalist Robert Parry writes yesterday of researching in the National Archives and finding some four pages of prepared "zingers" for Pres. George H.W. Bush in preparation for their Oct. 11, 1992 debate. Parry also goes into many of the early RW smears about Clinton that these played on. Most of these smears were ginned up by the Bush campaign itself, seeking to paint Clinton (the 'pro-business' "New Democrat" who made a point of not being beholden to traditional Democratic 'special' interest constituencies) as a some sort of radical (even a closeted communist). Parry goes into the background on some of those smears.

The excerpt below is a demonstration that "zingers" can backfire. When Bush tried to question Clinton's patriotism, he mangled it with his usual word salad, and Clinton had a riposte that hit him right between the eyes and completely derails any further "zinger"-usage by Bush.


http://consortiumnews.com/2012/10/01/when-debatezingers-backfired/

Preferably with a rating system, so we can get a real-time "like a lead brick" count.

Any sites or apps? Or just a local watch party?