WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED ON FACTS (OBOF)
Name | Published |
OVERVIEW | Dec. 28, 2010 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 1 | Dec. 30, 2010 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 2 | Jan. 10, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 3 | Jan. 17, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 4 | Jan. 24, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 5 | Jan. 31, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 6 | Feb. 07, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 7 | Feb. 14, 2011 |
SPECIAL ISSUE | Feb. 18, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 8 | Feb. 21, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 9 | Mar. 01, 2011 |
SOCIAL SECURITY PART 10 | Mar. 07, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 1 | Mar. 14, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 1A | Mar. 21, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 2 | Mar. 25, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 3 | Mar. 29, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 4 | Apr. 04, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 5 | Apr. 11, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 6 | Apr. 18, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 7 | Apr. 25, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 7A | Apr. 29, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 8 | May 02, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 9 | May 09, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 10 | May 16, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 11 | May 24, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 12 | Jun. 06, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 13 | Jun. 20, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 14 | July 05, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 14A | July 18, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 15 | July 19, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 16 | Aug. 03, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 17 | Aug. 15, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 18 | Aug. 29, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 19 | Sept. 12, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 20 | Sept. 26, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 21 | Oct. 10, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 22 | Oct. 24, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 22 EXTRA | Nov. 04, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 23 | Nov. 07, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 24 | Nov. 21, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 25 | Dec. 05, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 26 | Dec. 19, 2011 |
SS & MORE PART 27 | JAN. 03, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 27A | JAN. 05, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 28 | JAN. 17, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 29 | JAN. 31, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 30 | Feb. 14, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL1 | Feb. 21, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 30 EXTRA | Feb. 23, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 31 | Feb. 28, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL2 - 59 | Mar. 06, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 31 EXTRA | Mar. 07, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 32 | Mar. 13, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL3 - 1 | Mar. 20, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 32 EXTRA | Mar. 24, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 33 | Apr. 10, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL 4 - 2 | Apr. 17, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 34 | Apr. 24, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL5 - 49 | May 01, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 35 | May 09, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART CL6 - 19 | May 15, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 35 EXTRA | May 18, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 36 | May 22, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 36 EXTRA | May 25, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 36 | |
EXTRA II | June 01, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 37 | June 05. 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 37 EXTRA | June 07, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 38 | June 12, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 39 | June 19, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 40 | June 26, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 41 | July 03, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 42 | July 10, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 43 | July 17, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 44 | July 24,2012 |
SS & MORE PART 45 | July 31, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 46 | Aug. 07, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 46 EXTRA | Aug. 09, 2012 |
SS & MORE PART 47 | Aug. 14, 2012 |
IN THIS ISSUE
1. Opening Comments -- NOW WE KNOW.
2. Erasing W.
3. The Ryan choice.
4. Winners & Losers.
OPENING COMMENTS
NOW WE KNOW.
Yes, now we know. However, do we know what makes up the Republican Presidential ticket? The various comments, from both sides of the fence, are real interesting. The Republican Party seems to be elated, and the same can be said for the Democratic Party. Now, if that isn't an unusual set of circumstances, I'll eat my hat.
Ryan is young, enthusiastic, charming to the public, speaks well, and has been planning for this since 2007. Most think he is a game changer and will jump right in. He is intelligent, knows what he believes and knows how to express it. He seldom has a slip of the tongue, as Biden does. All that sounds like the ideal VP candidate. On the other hand, what will the voters think?
Here is how the Democrats view his pick as VP. As I just said, voters mostly don't know who he is. Ezra Kline, of the Washington
On Tuesday, the 14th, Newsmax reported that, a poll released by Reuters/Ipsos showed no immediate boost to Romney's bid for the White House, by naming Ryan as his running mate. Also, the survey showed that 51 % did not change their mind about Romney. Another 26 % said they view Romney more favorable. At the same time, 23% said they viewed him less favorable.
The point of all these figures is, they mean nothing at this time. What figures look like just before and after the Republican Convention will be more important.
~~~
ERASING W.
by ROBERT REICH.
NATIONofCHANGE / OP--ED.
Published Saturday August 11, 2012.
As Bill Clinton is resurrected by the Democrats, George W. Bush is being erased by the GOP — as if an entire eight years of American history hadn’t happened.
While Bill Clinton stumps for Obama, Romney has gone out of his way not to mention the name of the president who came after Clinton
The GOP is counting on America
Republicans want to obliterate any trace of the administration that told America there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and led us into a devastating war; turned a $5 trillion projected budget surplus into a $6 trillion deficit; gave the largest tax cut in a generation to the richest Americans in history; handed out a mountain of corporate welfare to the oil and gas industry, pharmaceutical companies, and military contractors like Halliburton (uniquely benefiting the vice president); whose officials turned a blind eye to Wall Street shenanigans that led to the worst financial calamity since the Great Crash of 1929 and then persuaded Congress to bail out the Street with the largest taxpayer-funded giveaway of all time.
Besides, the resemblances between George W. Bush and Mitt Romney are too close for comfort. Both, were born into wealth, sons of prominent politicians who, themselves, ran for president. They are closely tied to the nation’s corporate and financial elites, and eager to do their bidding. Both, are socially awkward and, as candidates, tightly scripted for fear of saying something they shouldn’t. And both, presented themselves to the nation devoid of any consistent policies or principles that might give some clue as to what they actually believe.
They are both, in other words, unusually shallow, uncurious, two-dimensional men who ran, or are running, for the presidency for no clear reason other than to surpass their fathers or achieve the aims and ambitions of their wealthy patrons.
Small wonder the Republican Party wants us to forget our last Republican president and his administration. By contrast, the Democrats have every reason for America to recall and celebrate the Clinton
Note from Floyd:
On the 11th of August, Romney referred to Obama's three (3) trillion dollar deficit in just a little over three years. He thought that was terrible, but no concern about the six (6) trillion dollar deficit George W. Bush brought about, plus, the squandering of a five (5) trillion dollar projected budget surplus, that was left for him when he came into office. That's a total of eleven (11) trillion dollars gone that we didn't have. WE CAN'T AFFORD EVEN 4 MORE YEARS OF THAT KIND OF GOP GOVERNING.
~~~
THE RYAN CHOICE
by ROBERT REICH.
NATIONofCHANGE/ OP - ED.
Published Sunday August 12, 2012.
Paul Ryan is the reverse of Sarah Palin. She was all right-wing flash without much substance. He’s all right-wing substance without much flash.
Ryan is not a firebrand. He’s not smarmy. He doesn’t ooze contempt for opponents or ridicule those who disagree with him. In style and tone, he doesn’t even sound like an ideologue – until you listen to what he has to say.
It’s here — in Ryan’s views and policy judgments — we find the true ideologue. More than any other politician today, Paul Ryan exemplifies the social Darwinism at the core of today’s Republican Party: Reward the rich, penalize the poor, let everyone else fend for themselves. Dog eat dog.
Ryan’s views are crystallized in the budget he produced for House Republicans last March as chairman of the House Budget committee. That budget would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over the next decade. The biggest cuts would be in Medicaid, which provides healthcare for the nation’s poor – forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million low-income people, according to the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Ryan’s budget would also reduce food stamps for poor families by 17 percent ($135 billion) over the decade, leading to a significant increase in hunger – particularly among children. It would also reduce housing assistance, job training, and Pell grants for college tuition.
In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts proposed by Ryan would come from low-income programs.
The Ryan plan would also turn Medicare into vouchers whose value won’t possibly keep up with rising health-care costs – thereby shifting those costs on to seniors.
At the same time, Ryan would provide a substantial tax cut to the very rich – who are already taking home an almost unprecedented share of the nation’s total income. Today’s 400 richest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together.
Ryan’s views are pure social Darwinism. As William Graham Sumner, the progenitor of social Darwinism in America
Is this Mitt Romney’s view as well?
Some believe Romney chose Ryan solely in order to drum up enthusiasm on the right. Since most Americans have already made up their minds about whom they’ll vote for, and the polls show Americans highly polarized – with an almost equal number supporting Romney as Obama — the winner will be determined by how many on either side take the trouble to vote. So in picking Ryan, Romney is motivating his rightwing base to get to the polls, and pull everyone else they can along with them.
But there’s reason to believe Romney also agrees with Ryan’s social Darwinism. Romney accuses President Obama of creating an “entitlement society” and thinks government shouldn’t help distressed homeowners but instead let the market “hit the bottom.” And although Romney has carefully avoided specifics in his own economic plan, he has said he’s “very supportive” of Ryan’s budget plan. “It’s a bold and exciting effort, an excellent piece of work, very much needed … very consistent with what I put out earlier.”
Romney hasn’t put out much but the budget he’s proposed would, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, throw ten million low-income people off the benefits rolls for food stamps or cut benefits by thousands of dollars a year, or both.
At the same time, Romney wants to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, reduce corporate income taxes, and eliminate the estate tax. These tax reductions would increase the incomes of people earning more than $1 million a year by an average of $295,874 annually, according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center
Oh, did I say that Romney and Ryan also want to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law, thereby leaving fifty million Americans without health insurance?
Social Darwinism offered a moral justification for the wild inequities and social cruelties of the late nineteenth century. It allowed John D. Rockefeller, for example, to claim the fortune he accumulated through his giant Standard Oil Trust was “merely a survival of the fittest… the working out of a law of nature and of God.”
The social Darwinism of that era also undermined all efforts to build a more broadly based prosperity and rescue our democracy from the tight grip of a very few at the top. It was used by the privileged and powerful to convince everyone else that government shouldn’t do much of anything.
Not until the twentieth century did America
We designed regulations to protect against the inevitable excesses of free-market greed. We taxed the rich and invested in public goods – public schools, public universities, public transportation, public parks, public health – that made us all better off.
In short, we rejected the notion that each of us is on our own in a competitive contest for survival.
But choosing Ryan, Romney has raised for the nation the starkest of choices: Do we want to return to that earlier time, or are we willing and able to move forward — toward a democracy and an economy that works for us all?
~~~
WINNERS & LOSERS
by FLOYD BOWMAN, Publisher.
Opinions Based On Facts.
Published 14 August, 2012.
I have been watching some of the Olympics. I have been watching items and events regarding the upcoming November elections. I have, for the past 2 1/2 years, been watching the happening, or lack there of, in Congress, Wall Street, Foreign Affairs, the Economy, Taxes, Jobs, and many other things that affect our nation.
As I have watched all these things, I started to think back of everything that I know about, in my lifetime of 88 years, and even back to biblical times. What have I found that relates to ALL these things to winners & losers?
There have been and, I think, always be WINNERS AND LOSERS. Now, that is not much of a profound observation by any standard, but it does bring up questions.
For example, what do both Republican and Democratic candidates try to tell the voters? Both try to convince us that they want to improve our lives. With FACTS, that is what Democracy tells us. It is suppose to be a standard of governing that will provide the best possible solution for everyone, when it is earned with their individual contribution to the system.
The problem in making the system work is, that in addition to the fact, that there has always been winners and losers, there has always been greed and power, to varying degrees, within everyone. Again, this goes from the present, clear back in biblical times.
History shows us, that at times, greed and power have gotten out of control and winners, in the past, have, in most cases, lost their power that they had obtained through greed and then the losers start to be winners. Gaining a balance, I guess, is what we mostly want to try to achieve.
There will always be emotional glee and sorrow, laughter and tears. Today, we have winners & losers in the Olympics; in people who are loosing their homes, mostly not of their fault, in ways that our political candidates tell us they can improve our situation.
While there will always be winners and losers, I think the goal is to try to help the losers, as best we can, if they are willing to do there fair share of contributing to make the system work. And to see to it, that the system is not abused by some of the winners, as they try to satisfy their greed and need for power.
~~~
If, the good Lord is willing and the creek don't rise, I'll talk with you again on Tuesday August 21, 2012, if not before.
"GOD BLESS YOU ALL
&
GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Floyd
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