SAR #12242

Politics is a series of ever less defensible choices.

Convenience: Behind the podium in Tampa there's a giant debt clock so folks can see the continuing effects of the Bush tax cuts, the Bush wars of aggression, the Bush TARP stimulus spending. It does not include the added deficit that would be caused by the trillions in additional tax cuts Romney/Ryan promise to inflict on the country. Remember, the Republicans inherited a budget surplus from Clinton.

Excuses, Excuses: A new study reports that eating a chocolate candy bar once a week could lower a man's risk of having a stroke later on by 17%. Do Reese's count?

Shibboleths: Using the mask of "free trade", the Trans-Pacific Partnership (NAFTA for the Pacific) will be used to override domestic laws in a way that would be impossible through the normal legislative process. It will benefit large corporations. That's all you need to know to understand it won't be good for the working folks. We'd discuss it further, but the text of the agreement is secret. Secret from the people, but not from the corporations and their Wall Street friends. Why haven't you heard about this in detail? Ah, that's where the devil is.

Teaser: Pending home sales rose 2.4% m/m in July, up 12.4% y/y. Now if these folks can just get financing and sell the place they own...

Asked & Answered: Do Americans care about the civilians killed by American drones? No, they're foreigners and foreign deaths don't count. What are you, a troublemaker?

Let Me Count the Ways Lies: The R's claim: That Obama said individuals do not build their own businesses. That Obama gutted Medicare. That Obama abolished the work rules in welfare. That Ryan's plan will balance the budget. That Romney has a plan for economic recovery. Not a one of these is true.

Précis: Ann Romney took the podium to announce that some of her best friends are middle class. And she shops at Costco, too.

Future, Tense: “[B]y the mid-2020s, even with the most optimistic assumptions about economic growth, current trends indicate that the average American’s wages will drop about 20 percent.”

Monkey Business: Romney's Victory Council – those who have raised at least $1 million for The Mitten – held a party on a 150-foot luxury yacht that flies the flag of the Cayman Islands.

The Empire Strikes Out: The financial burden that will bankrupt the US is not Social Security or Medicare, it is the world-wide overreach of the American military empire.

Business Plan: Romney's business acumen is shown by his ability to borrow large amounts of money to buy up companies, loot them, and leave the debt for others to pay. Throwing people out of work, shipping jobs overseas, and closing plants were secondary.

Ounce of Prevention: In Alaska, poll workers have been schooled on the importance of the security seals on vote tabulation computers, and told that if they find a broken seal they are to immediately put on a new one and get on with the voting.

Vaccine: The Republicans go happily on their way, making up stuff – which they can do because their ideology insulates them from any contact with reality.

Porn O'Graph: Labor's got the blues.

The Parting Shot: