Oh no! Move over Obama, Natural Disasters now causing Business "Uncertainty."

I never could understand the ridiculous "business uncertainty" meme pushed by supposed free market Republican advocates. 

But now Wall Street investors are lamenting the "uncertainty" caused by Hurricane Sandy. They've just jumped the shark:

WSJ/AP: Waterlogged from Superstorm Sandy and unmoved by a solid October jobs report, U.S. stocks fell sharply Friday. Rob Lutts, president of Cabot Money Management in Salem, Mass. (said) "I think the markets are trying to digest that and understand that, so there is a little bit of uncertainty."

Scott Walker is just Creepy...

Just looking at this tweet gives me the creeps...

...who believes this crap?

Tommy Thompson gets his News from Sean Hannity!!!

Sean Hannity is Tommy Thompson's go to guy for news and idiocy. The interviewers reactions to Tommy's answers are priceless.

From Hannity's positions on so many important wedge issues, to the latest news and fictions about liberals and Obama. Thanks to Sly in the Morning for capturing this wonderful moment:



Just for fun, here are a few forgettable moments of "Hannity outrage" over the most petty things, like children singing/free speech:



Here Hannity gets help from nut case paranoid David Horowitz to argue against limiting free speech, by advocating limiting free speech...really:



Hannity freaks out over Michael Moore's funny ad featuring seniors actually...swearing. Do they do that? Not in Hannity's world.

Mitt Romney's appearance at State Fair Park titled "Real Change from Day One." Should be "Real Change from One Day to the Next."

Brought to you by "Voter's against their own self interest!"

Willing "followers" of their flip floppy chosen "leader" reached new heights as adoring fans shouted "four more days." 

jsonline: In an address titled "Real Change From Day One," Romney told the crowd, "we're going to win on Tuesday night. What a great state, what a great welcome. This state is going to help me become the next President of the United States," Romney said.

Me, me, me.....

Obama/Springsteen new ticket?

Here's the latest on Obama's next Madison appearance:

WSJ: President Barack Obama's Election Day eve campaign rally in Madison will be held on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in front of the City County Building on Monday morning, local authorities told some office workers in the area on Friday.

Rock icon Bruce Springsteen will appear with Obama at the rally.

The president is expected to arrive at the rally mid-morning. People attending the event will enter through a secure area on Doty Street, office workers were told.

Ryan's new "Extreme Budget Shredder" video....

You gotta like this Onion story:

Republicans cry alligator tears for Delphi worker pensions and falsely blame Obama for cuts, when blame should go to Hedge Fund Owners.

This is the ultimate summation of how Delphi played a pivotal role in the GM and Chrysler bailout, how Delphi's hedge fund owners blackmailed the government, and turned a neat profit for Ann Romney. 

Check out the link for more of the details. Here's a short easy to understand sample:

The Nation-Greg Palast: Delphi, once the Delco unit of General Motors, was spun off into a separate company in 1999. Alone, Delphi foundered, declaring bankruptcy in 2005, after which vulture hedge funds, led by Silver Point Capital, began to buy up the company’s old debt. Later, as the nation’s financial crisis accelerated, Singer’s Elliott bought Delphi debt, as did John Paulson & Co. John Paulson, like Singer, is a $1 million donor to Romney. Also investing was Third Point, run by Daniel Loeb, who was once an Obama supporter but who this summer hosted a $25,000-a-plate fundraiser for Romney and personally donated about $500,000 to the GOP.

By the end of June 2009, with the bailout negotiations in full swing, the hedge funds, under Singer’s lead, used their bonds to buy up a controlling interest in Delphi’s stock. Just two years later, in November 2011, the Singer syndicate took Delphi public at $22 a share, turning an eye-popping profit of more than 3,000 percent. Singer’s fund investors scored a gain of $904 million, all courtesy of the US taxpayer. Yet without taking billions in taxpayer bailout funds—and slashing worker pensions—the hedge funds’ investment in Delphi would not have been worth a single dollar, according to calculations by GM and the US Treasury.  Then there was the big one: the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over paying all of Delphi’s retiree pensions. The cost to the taxpayer: $5.6 billion. The bottom line: the hedge funds’ paydays were made possible by a generous donation of $12.9 billion from US taxpayers.

Obama hired Steven Rattner to head the task force that would negotiate with the troubled firms and their creditors to avoid the collapse of the entire industry. In Rattner’s memoir of the affair, Overhaul … in March 2009 Delphi, now in the possession of its hedge fund creditors, told the Treasury and GM to hand over $350 million immediately, “because if you don’t, we’ll shut you down.” His explanation was corroborated by Delphi’s chief financial officer … Rattner likened the subsidies demanded by Delphi’s debt holders to “extortion demands by the Barbary pirates.” Once the hedge funders, took control of the firm, they rid Delphi of every single one of its 25,200 unionized workers.

Of the twenty-nine Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker. Romney’s “job creators” did create jobs—in China … leaving the company with 5,000 employees in the United States (versus almost 100,000 abroad).

Even before the hedge funds won their bid for Delphi’s stock, they were already squeezing the parts supplier and its workforce. In February 2009, Delphi, claiming a cash shortage (which they were not), unilaterally terminated health insurance for its nonunion pensioners. The savings to the hedge fund billionaires of dropping retiree insurance was peanuts—$70 million a year … But the harm to Delphi retirees was severe.  Bruce Naylor had been forced into retirement at the age of 54 in 2006, when Delphi began to move its plants overseas. Naylor’s promised pension was slashed 40 percent, and his health insurance and life insurance were canceled.

During its years of economic trouble, Delphi had been chronically shorting payments to its pension funds—and by July 2009, they were underfunded by $7 billion. That month, Singer’s hedge fund group won the bid for control of Delphi’s stock and made clear they would neither make up the shortfall nor pay any more US worker pensions. Checkmated by the hedge funders, the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation agreed to take over Delphi’s pension payments. The PBGC would eat the shortfall.

With Delphi’s new owners relieved of its healthcare and pension obligations, its debts to GM and its union contracts—
and now loaded with subsidies from GM funded by TARP—the company’s market value rose from zero to approximately $10.5 billion today.

President Obama needed to be blamed for the pension disaster. Of course, it wasn’t Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The Romneys were invested with Elliott Management by the end of 2010, before Delphi was publicly traded. So, in effect, they got Delphi stock at Singer’s initial dirt-cheap price. When Delphi’s owners took the company public in November 2011, the Romneys were in—and they hit the jackpot … even if the Romneys were blind to their initial investment in Elliott, they would have known by the beginning of 2010 that they had a massive position in Delphi and would make a fortune from the bailout and TARP funds.

Republicans Rejected Congressional Research Service Report that found No Correlation between Tax Cuts and Economic Growth!

You would think news this big would be a major factor in the presidential election. The idea of a supply side/tax cuts for the wealthy economic system, is nothing more than a totally debunked model now:

NY Times: The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory, after Senate Republicans raised concerns about the paper’s findings and wording. Sen. Mitch McConnell and other senators “raised concerns about the methodology and other flaws.” 

It's always something isn't it? But typically, this was another missed opportunity for Democrats, who ignored the rejected report, until now:

“This has hues of a banana republic,” Mr. Schumer said. “They didn’t like a report, and instead of rebutting it, they had them take it down.”

The rise of the tea party was the result of soft media coverage of the radicalization of the Republican Party. This downward slide continues as the media allows the GOP to successfully discredit every source of professional legitimate criticism. 

The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical.

Fact checkers be damned policy: The Bureau of Labor Statistics released (the) unemployment figures for October, a month after some conservatives denounced its last report as politically tinged to abet President Obama’s re-election. When the bureau suggested its October report might be delayed by Hurricane Sandy, some conservatives immediately suggested politics were at play.

Republicans have also tried to discredit the private Tax Policy Center ever since the research organization declared that Mitt Romney’s proposal to cut tax rates by 20 percent while protecting the middle class and not increasing the deficit was mathematically impossible. 

And as things get worse in the U.S., Republicans will use the bad news as proof more needs to be done their way to turn things around.

Congressional aides and outside economists said they were not aware of previous efforts to discredit a study from the research service. Economist Jared Bernstein said, “I’ve never seen anything like this, and frankly, it makes me worried.”

If Romney wins, and/or the senate is taken over by Republicans, can we say at this point we were all appropriately warned? The reports shocking conclusion couldn't be clearer:

The Sept. 28 decision to withdraw the report was made against the advice of the research service’s economics division … The report examined the historical fluctuations of the top income tax rates and the rates on capital gains since World War II, and concluded that those fluctuations did not appear to affect the nation’s economic growth.

“The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie,” the report said. “However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution.”

Jobs Up, Unemployment numbers show more people are looking.

The monthly jobs numbers are up again, and the previous two months of jobs numbers were increased as well. But why not try something different, go in a different direction, see how that works out?

According to CNN: 

Obama argues that he's more than made up for the number of jobs lost since he inherited the crisis. Romney underscores that it's not the quantity, but the quality of those jobs, which have been lower-paying and have offered fewer benefits than those lost.

Huh? Romney wants us to compete globally, against Asia and China, with higher paying jobs? Really? How can any politician promise big paychecks when the free market will decide what really happens? This is one of the big lies repeated by Romney and more often by Paul Ryan. Very nostalgic but now a fantasy.

Mitt Lies Again about Jeep, and the Real Story about Manufacturing.

Romney and Ryan's record on the auto industry is dismal. In fact Mitt Romney decided to mislead Ohioan's about the offshoring of Jeep's jobs.

Chris Matthews interviews the Car Czar Steve Rattner, who details Fiat's deal with Chrysler, and the author of "Once Upon a Car's" Bill Vlasic, who explains that all automaker's build their cars in the countries they sell cars in:

Chris Christie, friend of Obama or Foe?

I thought this little Chris Christie video, before and after, was more than interesting. From the Daily Show:

Will Wisconsin Really Send a Right-Wing Kook to the U.S. Senate?

Do you trust this crazy, out of control right wing tea party fanatic with your life? This ranting tea party lunatic, Tommy Thompson, will destroy America.

Okay, I may be joking, kinda, to make a point about the screen captured headline below, but seriously, they're kooks. Just more conservative projection, from a party too intolerant to allow an opposition party to exist in the U.S.!! I think they call it a dictatorship. The story below passes as news:  

Wagner shows off his incredible attention to detail and political acumen with this sharp biting observation:

Next Tuesday, we find out whether Wisconsin voters will really send an extreme Left-wing hardcore Madison nut job to the U.S. Senate? Can a State that elected Scott Walker(and overwhelmingly rejected an effort to recall him last June) really elect kooky Tammy Baldwin?

Wow, TMJ is a showcase of radio genius' like this.

Really, the Journal Sentinel is willing to pimp Thompson's Empty "Tammy missed a 9/11 Vote?"

How desperate is Tommy Thompson?

Thompson has been resorting to one last desperate ploy; in the words of Samuel Johnson, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Tommy is questioning Tammy Baldwin's patriotism. This "patriotic" horse and pony show in congress over symbolic resolutions that have nothing to do with a representatives real job, is all Tommy has left sling.

It also seems odd jsonline's Dan Bice is writing this useless trash too? The headline blames Tammy for missing a vote on one isolated 9/11 resolution, but down a few lines Tammy explains she was sick that day. So...no story right? Wrong. It calls into question Tammy's patriotism. Pathetic.

I just came across this phrase in Bob Dylan's great song "Sweetheart Like You," with a few extra lyrics that describe Romney to a T:

New Marquette Law School Poll; Obama up by 8%, Baldwin up by 4%

Marquette Law School Poll: October 25-28 2012

Baldwin 47%, Thompson 43%

Obama-Biden  51%, Romney-Ryan  43%

The Tea Party? Favorable 30%, unfavorable 43%, haven't heard enough 20%

The tax cuts should; Continue for all 35%; Continue for those earning less than $250,000 42%;

Expire for all 12%

This was an interesting take on Wisconsinites hope for Medicare:

Medicare in the future:  Option A: Medicare should continue as it is today, with the government guaranteeing seniors health insurance and making sure that everyone gets the same defined set of benefits.

Option B:  Medicare should be changes to a system in which the government would guarantee each senior a fixed amount of money to put toward health insurance.  Seniors would purchase that coverage either from traditional Medicare or from a list of private health plans.

Option A  64%, Option B 28%

A few odds and ends: 

Gay couples should be allowed to legally marry?  Or, Gay couples should be allowed to form civil unions but not legally marry?  Or, There should be no legal recognition of a gay couple’s relationship.

Allowed to legally marry 44%, Civil unions 29%, No legal recognition 22%

Abortion: Legal in all cases 29%, Legal in most cases 32%, Illegal in most cases 23%, Illegal in all cases 12%

No Romney Plan: Do you think Romney as or has not provided enough details about the policies he would pursue as president? Has provided enough 39%, Has not provided enough 57%

WKOW:

Time to say No to Disaster Victims? Next thing you know, they’ll want food and health care.

Add another few million to the “takers” list under Obama…

theGrio: Republican Iowa Representative Steve King has said he doesn’t want to sign off on federal Hurricane Sandy relief unless a specific plan on how the money will be spent is set in place. He supported his statement with claims that money provided during Hurricane Katrina was spent on “Gucci bags and massage parlors.” King said, “I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and this sand and the ashes and the death that’s over there in the east coast and especially the northeast … But they need to come with a plan on how to spend it.”

Here's a video someone put together that shows this total disregard for life and the American ideal. Simply put, it's hard to imagine anyone thinking and talking like this.



So would Mitt Romney just let the states handle this? Chris Christie reacts, and Rachel Maddow wonders what the Mittster would say, despite being asked 11 times:



Even the Wall Street Journal chimed in on the horrors of helping homeless hurricane victims:

Newsmax: Liberals are mistaken to argue in the wake of super-storm Sandy that it proves the need for more government, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial. “The larger liberal fallacy here is that effective government requires bigger government,” Journal editors write. “Americans expect a government, at whatever level, to do its core functions well. But the bigger and more costly the government, the more likely it is to do more things poorly.” Romney was right to say that the federal government should allow states and cities to handle disasters to the extent that they can … “Energetic governors and mayors are best equipped to handle disaster relief because they know their cities and neighborhoods far better than the feds ever will, and they know their citizens will hold them accountable. The feds can help with money and perhaps expertise.”

Sykes continues to defend Racist Billboards.

Charlie Sykes doesn't like being corrected. He was caught lying and promoting the race baiting billboards posted mostly in minority area's throughout Milwaukee. He also knows the billboards were used to gin up anger and paranoia among conservative voters in outlying areas so they would be sure to go out and vote.

Sykes is scrambling to defend himself now that he's been exposed, just like Mark Belling was when he used the term "wetbacks." Milwaukee conservatives love their racist radio talk hosts because they legitimize and offer cover for their own deep seeded racist inclinations. Check out the map below of billboard locations warning voters they'll go to jail if they commit voter fraud. We're not stupid.

Sykes and his loyal listeners are claiming that of the 85 posted signs, a whole bunch of billboards were in outlying areas, offering them supposed political cover. Not a chance Charlie, only your listeners would believe that. Just look at the predominately red area below as proof;

Twisting and spinning, Sykes can't run from the obvious, though he tries:

The entire attack on the voter fraud billboards and the philanthropist who paid for them boils down to the charge that they were "racist" because they were only placed in central cities. But that charge is factually false ... the charge is based on an easily refutable lie. Here is the map of the sign locations. You can easily see that signs were placed in Ozaukee, Washington, and Waukesha Counties, as well as Milwaukee County suburbs.

To distract, Sykes is outraged at jsonline's Dan Bice for omitting a line in their paper version:

The phrase "though some were posted as far out as Waukesha and Washington counties." was edited out of the dead tree. Why? Who took it out??? Bice replied, saying that no one had taken it out, but rather that the print story had been taken from an earlier edition of his blog post.

What really rankles Sykes is that he's have been exposed. Sykes' rabbit defense of the Einhorn's is desperate and pathetic:

Here is what is disingenuous:
Your [print edition] subhead suggests that the Einhorns are racist;
You [the print edition] include(s) a quote that accuses them of racism.
Your editors highlighted that charge of racism in the pull-quote.
And the one phrase that is exculpatory [for the Einhorns] appears nowhere in your print-edition story.

Tired of Bronco Bamma?

Here's a video making the rounds that pretty much appeals to the inner child in all of us:

Tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney: This is my four year old daughter, Abigael, after hearing one too many mentions of the election.

Republicans see Hurricane Sandy as "political opportunity," not horrific natural disaster.

To be a Republican, you only have to keep your eye on the political prize; winning. But governing, working for ALL the people and solving problems...that's just an annoyance. They'll complain that 47% of Americans are freeloaders, but then blatantly freeload themselves by relying on pre-written legislation from think tanks and ALEC, that support a purely ideological agenda.

So is it any surprise that the massive devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy is being viewed by Republicans as "a political opportunity?" This is how they think and govern:

click to enlarge

Think Progress: A day after criticizing President Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy in a Denver Westword interview, former FEMA Director Michael Brown clarified his comments Tuesday…he had no substantive objection, but felt he missed out on a political opportunity.

Brown suggested that Obama could have taken more political advantage from the hurricane to squeeze “more mileage out of” the tragedy … “In other words, he peaked too soon.” 

How politically tone deaf of Obama? Don't even get me started on the opportunistic campaign rally's disguised as food drives for hurricane victims, by Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney. The Red Cross said they won't take food donations. But Republicans continue to see a political silver lining from other peoples pain:

Newsmax: Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is predicting a boost in the polls for President Barack Obama as Election Day approaches, due primarily to his strong response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. “The biggest change in the race is to Obama’s favor — and that's been this storm,” Barbour said the hurricane, from a political perspective, was “like manna from heaven” for the president.

When Walker makes cuts to Badgercare Providers, he's a taxpayers friend. When Obama does it, he's killing Medicare.

I thought this headline was a bit odd in Forbes:

“In Wisconsin, Obamacare to Increase Individual Insurance Premiums by 30%, Says Obama Adviser”

Turns out, the increase covers 4 years, which means they've got nothing to really complain about. A 6 percent increase in premiums is low. But then, I know something about health care.

One of Obama’s key health-care advisers, Jonathan Gruber, found that by 2016, individual premiums in Wisconsin will increase by an average of 30 percent.

But check this amazing complaint about the cuts Medicare makes to providers:

In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage … And 27 percent of Wisconsin physicians say that they will place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare patients.

But the guy who wrote this whiny trash, outside adviser to the Romney campaign on health care issues Avik Roy, should first ask Gov. Scott Walker why Medicaid (Badgercare) providers are dropping coverage in the state. Could it be because Walker also made cuts to health care providers to hold down costs? Just asking.  

If it doesn't affect Dumb Ron Johnson, who cares!

Remember when Roll Call reported how Johnson was "someone who has talked more than he has listened?" Guess they weren't kidding.

Johnson is talking so much he's missed the war on women too.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said on Sunday that the issue of abortion will not play a role in the elections next Tuesday, despite media attention to it. "I've had one person talking about the abortion issue during this entire campaign ...