THE NIT-PICKERS KEEP THE FOCUS ON THE DEBATE

Having criticized the candidates ad nauseam, the nit-pickers are now focusing on Jim Lehrer, the moderator.  Without a doubt, he scarcely moderated.  Near the end, it looked as though Obama was pleading for him to stop Romney who was totally ignoring Lehrer.  However, that didn't happen.  I will reiterate that I thought President Obama made the right choice to allow Romney with the 60 million audience to continue to lay out the lies which fact checkers and President Obama could point to the next day.

It is my contention that failure to attack Romney was a brilliant move, regardless of all the theories being laid out about his response being due to black men having trained themselves not to fight white men, to infer he is a wimp, to Sununu calling him unintelligent and lazy, among many other equally incorrect and disparaging remarks.

There seems to be a court stop to the Republican attempt to limit Obama voters.  Rachel Maddow talked about the court having stopped the demand for photo ID in Pennsylvania.  She had her staff call around Pennsylvania, only to find voting counties were still playing a taped message when the voting offices were contacted by people wanting to kn9ow if they could vote and what they needed. A day or more after the court ruling, that said they e message still said they couldn't vote unless they had a voter ID.  When caught, they said it was just an oversight not to pull the robot responder that had been on earlier.

Without question, history shows that there have always been battles during campaigns and lots of dirty tricks, often on both sides.  However, I don't recall any campaigns in my life time where one of the candidates (Romney) offered so little substance and told so many blatant lies. It would seem that some of the old advisers forget the media can play back tapes, and does all too often, of everything a candidate has ever said on a subject.  It does make one wonder why that seems so insignificant today to them.

Vote OBAMA and give the country back to democracy and make it what our founding fathers wished it to be. Do not let the Republicans take our rights away and make new laws that rid us of the laws we won after long and difficult pursuits.

MSNBC STAFF DROPPED THE BALL ADSSESSING THE DEBATE

     My favorite political station let me down totally last night. Rather than examining content, there was a knee Jeri reaction saying what each would have done had they been president (which they never will be nor are equipped to be).  Just because they control their TV hours and can browbeat their guests, they seem to think that the president should have done the same.  Instead, he patiently and meekly tried to get the moderator to show some measure of control of the Romney steamroll, with no success.
     Ed Schultz whose anger I can usually tolerate because it is personal to him when he sees egregious actions towards the middle class.  That rage did not belong in last night's debate.  Even Chris Matthews who, when he lets his guests answer questions without interruption, often makes sense, speaking as the excellent historian he is.
     Even Rachel Maddow, my idol, missed the boat and concentrated on emotion rather than content.
     The real problem is that too many are sports fans and think 'winning' is the game.  It is interesting that the pundits all have a used car sales mentality and do not understand that the debate was a first down, not the last quarter.
     President Obama did beautifully today in his response to Romney but he doesn't please the know-nothings with overblown egos.  For shame on most of you on MSNBC,  You all are currently a huge disappointment.  You jumped to plug Romney and criticized the sitting president as though you know better than he.  Only Toure seemed to accept his strategy.  SE Cupp came closer than her more seasoned peers.  What colossal chutzpah (and I'm not even Jewish but I can think of no better word to fit the occasion.)
     Debates are won only after a long enough time to see what the result of the discussion is.  A man who lies as Romney did (check with the fact checkers on BBC (of all places) cannot be declared a winner,  Cheating, when obvious, cannot be considered a win!  What are all of you using for brains right now?.

RONEY: RUDE, ARROGANT, AND DOESN'T RESPECT THE MODERATOR OR THE RULES.,

It was very difficult for me to follow the debates while trying to remain objective with Romney being rude, arrogant, and stomping all over the moderator. He was pompous and sounded, at times, like a tv-evangelist. He tried to make a case that Obama wasn't working in a bipartisan manner.  It inflamed me that he pretended not to note the obstructionism of the Republicans during the past four years.

Romney said he wanted to change the bad state in the past four years, making no mention of what this president inherited. His major theme is always to criticize Obama and still did not really talk much about what he plans to do in detail as to how he will achieve
his goal.

Steve Schmidt thought Obama had a bad performance.  Ed Schultz was negative.  Al Sharpton was far more critically diagnostic.  He\d was wonderful at pointing out Romney's lies.

The pundits were aware that Mitt Romney rolled over everyone and everything..Ed Schultz was emotional and furious that there wasn't more fury shown. If there are fact checkers, a couple of things should come to light.  Lawrence O'Donnell spoke with someone who listened to the debate without the emotion of the MSNBC pundits and made more sense.

For those who thought that Romney won, they have short term memories about his 'truths'.  Republicans thought their hero did well. Rudy Juliani heard what he wanted to hear and thought it was a game changer.  I sincerely hope the American people are not so easily fooled.

ROMNEY IS NOT ALONE HIDING MONEY TO THE DETRIMENT OF HIS COUNTRY

We have been taught as children that 'A penny saved is a penny earned'.  However, like all else, there is a feeling that hiding from your government to evade taxes should not be under the heading of 'saving'.  It is clearly avoidance of Federal taxes.

Smart accountants who know the IRS ins and outs have saved money for their clients for many years.  Romney has taken advantage of all of them.  Should we admire him as being a smart saver or or be ashamed of his lack of patriotism.  I choose the latter. To understand that America is not alone in this greed, click here. 

The greedy people of the world continue to cheat their fellow countrymen out of playing with a level field.

WEAWAIT THE PRESIDENTIAL SPITTING CONTEST

The Romney side of the campaign has the sophistication of a Middle School student.  Even William Kristol of the Weekly Standard seemed disappointed in the Romney performance.  Kristol is a staunch Republican.  To read this article (if you happened to miss him when he was interviewed on MSNBC a couple of times) click here.

At this point I am having a great deal of difficulty watching any of the major media channels.  Fox News would ruin me forever if I could force myself to watch more than a few minutes on it. MSNBC calls itself the station for Politics.  I believe it.  The world could be crashing around us but they will drone on repeating, not without accuracy and validity, poll numbers and other interesting statistics, mostly good for about ten minutes before they change.

Perhaps I was on idle for too many years.  I do not recall all legislative business being conducted on the basis of trying to undo all the laws it took so many years to enact.  The game goes on.  The new team does not get to set all the rules and still call it the same game. ... .

WHILE TERRORISTS GO ON, SOME PEOPLE TRY TO ENJOY LIFE

An entire hobbit-like village will be built in the archipelago of Stockholm, on the island of Muskö, for people to live in just like the English author J.R.R. Tolkien's character Bilbo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, tours to Hobbiton in New Zealand are being offer tours from Australia and Aickland offer tours too the Hobbit village and movie set from Lord of the Rings. The movie set tour must be lovely.  I'd love to take it if it were a few thousand miles closer.  Here we have much natural beauty and are

fighting those who want to take it and make it their own to get every possible penny available out of it and close it off to the middle class for whom Teddy Roosevelt fought so hard to leave it as a lasting legacy to the citizens.

Tolkien wrote about Middle Earth as a reaction after WWI and industrialization tearing apart England's beauty and natural resources.  Sometimes it is nice to see through the eyes of sadness, that an author can make the cause one to last forever.  We need another Tolkien for today to make us aware of the evil in our world and the beauty and happiness it threatens. 

IS KARL ROVE, MASTER MANIPULATOR, FAILING THIS TIME?

Karl Rove had had a book written about him during Bush's presidency, as Bush's Brain.  That didn't come as a surprise because the lack of substance in Bush was quickly apparent in his oral output and all the decisions that were bad for the economy and the country that he was talked into supporting.  His goal has never been made clear to me other than the power he held and the company he kept.  Clearly, Mr. Rove is not for the middle class but sustained by very large dollars which he has been able to wrest for those willing to 'invest' in his vision of the US 'future government'.  He has set up the Super PACs though he still is not getting the results he wants.

Craig Unger has written a thought provoking article on Rove  The Tea Party and the Right: Is Karl Rove Losing it?  

It is strange to hear just who has really been running the country behind the scenes on so many aspects.  We have heard much about the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Grover Norquist, and some others.  0Naive people think that Obama is in control of whatever should, does or does not happen.  That is so far from the truth.  Apparently the average person is totally out of the sphere of the real powers that make decisions. That makes most voters totally unaware of exactly what they really get when they vote. 

Please do not waste your vote for more of the years when people are lied to and left powerless.  Vote for Obama,,,he may not be perfect but he is the best of the choices available to us with his goal to make a better America for all and a level playing field.