Politics

Seems like Mitt Romney is out of touch with the rest of America. His money flaunting habits and greedy persona doesn't resonate with the people of this country. Unlike other famous entrepreneurs such as Walt Disney and Steve Jobs, Romney is missing that humble side that Americans seem to connect to and love. So do we dislike Romney because his money? No, but we dislike him because of his attitude on becoming wealthy. Bill Maher, in a rather funny sound bite, sheds light on Romney's money loving persona and even compares him to the in-your-face artists of hip-hop. Take a look.

I was told this evening that anonymous people from here, I presume, complained to Laura Leslie (why her I have no idea) that I post as "others" on this site. I am me on this site and unafraid to use my name and say what I think as I know many others do. I know many others who post as themselves. And I know a few who use other names. I do not agree with the latter because I do not think you hide behind anonymity to lob bombs at people.

I have complained on here (because if you are going to complain, use your name and put it out there) about anonymous comments that come very close to slander here and at a minimum are character assassination which has nothing to do with "blue" or "nc"

After months of waiting for the Legislature to officially end the 2011 Long Session, the NC League of Conservation Voters released its annual Conservation Scorecard. NCLCV has been scoring NC Legislators on environmental issues since 1999 and this year’s scores are the lowest they have ever been. The Scorecard is a valuable tool voters can use to evaluate which legislators best represent their environmental values. The Conservation Scorecard gives each state legislator a score of 0 to 100 based on his or her votes on key environmental bills in the recent session of the General Assembly.

The American elections perpetually televised by our Kleptocracy-controlled media are a smokescreen of false choices distracting attention from even more false choices. At the presidential level and likely others, our election results are predetermined: If not by the billions poured into brainwashing voters through the media, then by rigging the voting machines and if necessary having a tainted judiciary overrule recounts:

Psywar: The Real Battlefield is Your Mind
http://www.openfilm.com/videos/psywar

Hacking Democracy
http://www.hulu.com/watch/192687/hacking-democracy

Peace!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/177439/peace

I got a weird little story about my friend Blitz Krieger to bring to you today.

He’s had a crazy car problem, he has, and over the past few months he thought he had found a solution – in fact, he thought he had found the solution of his dreams – but in the end, he’s discovered that the things you dream about often don’t go according to plan.

The way it’s worked out for him so far, it’s been a lot of anticipation followed by a sudden wave of frustration, but I feel like he’s a lot better off having his particular problem with his car…because if he’d had cancer instead, he’d surely be dead by now.

After doing a bit of mountain hiking a few days back, I had a chance to get involved in a great afternoon conversation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing’s Mike Wessel, who also serves as a Commissioner with the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission; the conversation was about how we’re doing when it comes to our relationship with China.

As it turns out, the two events went well together, because what I’m hearing from these guys is that we have a great big ol’ mountain to climb if we hope to get back to a level playing field in our interactions with this most important country.

There’s news to report across a variety of issues; that’s why today we’ll be talking about trade, human rights, cybersecurity, poverty and development, and the methods by which you can apply “soft power” to achieve hard results.

The entirely unanticipated result: all of this will reveal the naïveté of Ron Paul when it comes to foreign policy; we’ll discuss that at the end.

http://clclt.com/theclog/archives/2011/11/09/news-analysis-nc-democratic...

A piece from for Creative Loafing of Charlotte:

Democrats were able to celebrate across Charlotte last night after reelecting Mayor Anthony Foxx, improving their majority on the City Council, and getting two of their preferred candidates elected to the school board. To statewide Democratic leaders, those results were not in a vacuum — they were part of a trend with huge implications going into the 2012 presidential race.

“What happened in Charlotte is a very, very, big deal,” said David Parker, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party. “Pat McCrory handpicked those candidates, particularly for City Council, and campaigned for them. And the whole McCrory-Tea Party axis got shot down."

In 1968 President Nixon officially launched the “War on Drugs” in response to what was seen as a growing problem of drug use in the United States. At that time, approximately 1.3% of the U.S. population was considered addicted to drugs and the “War” was waged through measures such as heavy policing and arrests for drug possession and trafficking, building more prisons to house drug offenders, and harsh penalties for users. Over 40 years and 1 trillion tax dollars later, the rate of addiction in the U.S. holds steady at 1.3% and drugs are cheaper, purer, and easier to get than ever before.

I’m going to be really honest with you: after all the fights at the mall to get just the right present for everybody and the giant hassle of going to the Post Office so I can get the perfect stamps for my cards – and then worrying that I left someone off the list – I am just not in the mood to do a 9/11 story.

And it’s been getting worse every year. I mean, just like the “It’s Christmas Every Day Store”, I know there’s one of the “9/11 Every Day” stores open, in the all-too-human form of Rudy Giuliani, and I’ve learned to live with that, but it seems like they got started with the 9/11 earlier than ever this year – and by the time the TV memorials and analysis and retrospectives are all over, to paraphrase Lewis Black…I’m going to hate freedom.

In an effort to stave off this fate, we’ll be headed in a different direction today: I have three stories to pass along; each is important enough that you really should know about them, and yet they’re each very much bite-sized and easily digestible.

It’s all good stuff…so let’s get right to it.

It was just a couple of nights ago that Keith Olbermann was challenging us, in one of his “Special Comments”, to rise up in the streets and take back this country.

He pointed out that the only way those on the left were going to be able to fight against those who are looking to get all “Tea Party” is to be as angry and as organized and as aggressive as the Tea Party community, and if we’re smart, we’ll take him up on that challenge.

But if you really want to push “professional” Democrats to the left, most especially this President, and you want to do it in time to impact the ’12 cycle, the only way to do it is to run a candidate in primary contests that either moves the conversation your way…or leaves you with a surprising new Candidate.

And right here, right now, we actually have a chance to do exactly that – and that’s why, in today’s discussion, I’m going to challenge Olbermann right back.