Romney is physically helping people in the video and just because a couple of jackasses are trying to harass him doesn't mean that he isn't in helping.

He is physically helping people in the video.

Physically helping people.

He will make a great president. As far as these "reporters" go? Why didn't they chip and start helping?

Pretty lazy. They were right THERE. They couldn't put politics aside for a minute and help those in need? Lazy idiots.

I'm glad Romney didn't sink to that despicable act.

That video was super underwhelming. He didn't dodge questions about FEMA - he wasn't answering ANY questions! It wasn't a friggin Q&A session! He's friggin loading cases of water onto trucks, while some stupid reporter shouts questions at him instead of helping.

Jesus - you HAD a great point about his stance on FEMA. But this video just makes you look like an asshole. I sure would't be smiling like that while some harridan shouted at me over and over.

"I mentioned this earlier"

Why not just edit the previous post to include the video? It's like 6 inches away on the blog. Stop spamming blogtown!

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/romney_cam…

Holy shit yes, what ROM said, a million times. Nobody gives a shit about your Romney spam here except for stjohnsrules. The only thing you are accomplishing is feeding a troll.

Try posting a credible source, not more distortions and lies from a divisive sycophant.

This isn't the only time Romney has helped people in his life. But the Merc won't cover that. Neither will the mainstream media. You all want to jump on his FEMA comments to try to make him look heartless. But you take his comments completely out of context and then act as if you are telling the truth. In essence, you are perverting the election to favor your own candidate as opposed to supporting a candidate for his good record. No matter what, you will lose in the end when you go that route.

Obama hasn't turned the economy around. He doesn't have a good record. He has divided America in many ways and there are those who want that. They don't want peace with their neighbors. They want their extremist views to dominate and they would sell their own soul to make sure they get it done. No matter how despicable the tactics. See Paul Constant's other bullshit columns and you will see that despicable pattern in full.

I'm happy to vote for Romney. He has a good track record in the public and private sector. He is far more moderate than Obama can ever hope to be. I understand why the attack dogs are out in force. It's because they are truly scared that they won't get their bullshit agenda passed anytime soon. Well, no matter what we will see what happens on the 6th.

I'll be there. Voting right.

Largest wealth disparity since 1929 (80% of wealth is controlled by 20% of households) and SJR says Obama has divided the country.

Oh god, not the Mainstream Media! I've heard a saying "If you sit down at the poker table and can't find the sucker, it's you". Well if you sit down at the tv, or walk by the news-stand, or start surfing the internet and can't find a news source that isn't "too liberal", it's probably YOU that is the extremist, not the overwhelming majority of American media.

Is this your first election? I guess "photographic opportunity" is new to you. Know what would have been remarkable? If Romney had done that without cameras around.

More importantly, I don't care if he volunteered to move some cans around. There are plenty of good people doing that that aren't fit to be president.

Ok, D&W, did you know this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/11/i…

President Obama may talk a big game about economic fairness, but his record on the issue doesn't quite match up.

There are lots of reasons to think so -- and we'll touch on several in just a minute -- but the most recent comes from Matt Stoller, blogging at Naked Capitalism, who points us toward a recent bit of number-crunching from Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Saez, who's known for his work on the income gap, has highlighted a surprising and discouraging fact: during the post-recession period of 2009 and 2010, the rich snagged a greater share of total income growth than they did during the boom years of 2002 to 2007.

In other words, inequality has been even more pronounced under Obama than it was under George W. Bush.

This news may not come as a shock if you're one of the many Americans who lost their job during the recession and couldn't find another that paid as well. It also might not surprise you if you're one of the 46 million people living in poverty -- a record number, as it happens -- or among the millions of Americans who can get by week to week, but would be ruined by a single financial emergency.

You might likewise not be surprised if you already knew that some household-goods companies are catering to this new reality by quietly neglecting their mid-price product lines, focusing instead on their high-end and budget offerings, since wages are diverging so much. Or if you knew that the U.S. ranks closer to China, Serbia and Rwanda than any other country in the developed world when it comes to income inequality.

On the other hand, if you've been listening to Obama decry the wealth gap on the campaign trail, and talk about the need to impose higher tax rates on millionaires, well, then you might be a little surprised.

It was only a few months ago that the Congressional Budget Office released a report illustrating how the very richest Americans have pulled away from the rest of society in the past 30 years.

But that report used data that was only complete through 2007. Saez's calculations go through 2010, suggesting that White House rhetoric or no, the trends of the past three decades haven't started to reverse themselves.

Here's how Saez's math breaks down, for the curious: In the 2009-2010 period, a time of modest economic growth, the top 1 percent of U.S. earners captured 93 percent of all the income growth in the country.

Got that? Now compare it to how the mega-rich made out during the Bush upswing years of 2002 to 2007. During that time, the top 1 percent of earners captured just 65 percent of all the income growth.

That means the rising tide has lifted fewer boats during the Obama years -- and the ones it's lifted have been mostly yachts.

---- That was from the liberal Huff Post. On that note, I have no problem with rich people being rich. What extremist liberals want to do is put the rich vs. poor which is completely despicable. You think income redistribution will work? Show me a credible source where that has ever worked in the world. This notion that the government will solve all of your problems is bogus, unless they are interested in rolling back restrictions to help our economy get going again (See Dodd/Frank). In fact, Obama hasn't done anything of note regarding the economy. And you want to give him a second term? Why? For your petty agendas? Well, go ahead and pass your agendas but when your plans don't work and people are even poorer for it, you'll have no one but yourself to blame. Tell it to the next guy in the employment line competing for the same job as you.

Aestro: I'm a proud independent. Look at Paul Constant's posts and tell me that he isn't extreme in his views. I'm not the only person with that opinion even in the good ol' libbyland of the Merc. What I take seriously are those who are willing to sell out their country for their own ideology. The economy is the top priority that everyone in America must face. That is far more important than passing a divisive, selfish agenda any day.

That is exactly why Obama doesn't deserve a second term. Romney is far more moderate and has a great track record of working with Democrats. He is a much better candidate for that reason alone. That way, we can pass bi-partisan legislation that appeals to most people, not the petty, angry few who lie and cheat to get their way.

TL;DR

BUT HE'S PHYSICALLY HELPING PEOPLE!!!

Not really, in fact he's setting a terrible example to people around the country who may now try to send cans of food to the Red Cross instead of simply donating money. They're turning down his "donations" for a reason, troll.

If he wanted to help, he'd cut a phat check to the Red Cross and then get the fuck out of the way so they could do their job. It's kind of like walking in to a soup kitchen unannounced, washing some clean dishes and preventing the people who are actually PHYSICALLY HELPING PEOPLE from doing their job.

Oh wait, that was what Lyin Ryan did a month ago.

As long as there is an untouchable banker class getting off scot-free after bilking the country out of millions of dollars, there will be increasing levels of economic disparity. Obama didn't prosecute; he hired those economists who'd helped repeal Glass-Steagall in 1999 (which eased restrictions we'd had in place for 70 years and immediately resulted in bankers exploiting the system without any oversight or consequences). But I seriously doubt that Rmoney would have done jack to prosecute anyone. Wall Street wins, as usual.

Proving how lazy you are, D&W? No wonder you're for Obama.

GR: Hell, why help at all? Shit, dude. Just sit back on your sister's couch and roll a fatty, eh? Fuck yeah. That'll solve that shit over there in New Mexico...or New Dakota...fuck. Whatever, man. Spongebob is back on.

I don't know how you gathered I'm "for" Obama. A more accurate statement is that I'm acutely aware that Oregon will go for Obama and my vote for president is inconsequential, but I am also very aware of the disingenuous, craven and greed-fueled campaign of Mitt Romney and what that likely means for the very modest gains made on things like financial regulation and health care.

The only question now is which of your approaches you'll take to respond to me: misdirection by way of setting up a strawman to "prove me a liar" or accusing me of attacking you?

D&W: "Largest wealth disparity since 1929 (80% of wealth is controlled by 20% of households) and SJR says Obama has divided the country."

The article I posted, long as it was, addressed your statement. So what is your comment as to why the income gap got worse with Obama?

ROM: I agree with your banker statement except that the industry is now terribly over-regulated (Dodd/Frank) and therefore rich people are now hoarding their money and not investing until after the election, if it goes their way. If not, prepare for the worst because it will come. I'm not trying to use scare tactics here. I know about money a little bit myself.

We do need SOME oversight. I'm not advocating a free-for-all tight-fisted money grab that destroys the economy by the globalist elitist wealthiest demonists. This is my point. I believe that Romney knows the financial industry very well. Just because he is a wealthy insider doesn't mean he won't ease the burden on the middle and poorer classes. What he stands for is small business and he knows that when small businesses are overburdened and overtaxed to the point they can't grow, no jobs are created. Obama, on the other hand, is too busy attacking the trickle down economy from the very rich down to the poor while failing to properly address the restrictions put on small businesses. In short, he is barking up the wrong tree and not getting the job done. So Corporations will still do fine because they can hoard earnings to pay their shareholders. Mom and Pop? Not so much.

Here's a simple solution. Start a small business. Stay at your job long enough to earn a good amount and invest in your own talents. Then you reap all the rewards of your hard work and if you do it right, no one can fire you. Start out small. Grow your business steadily and be smart with your earnings, reinvesting as you go. Do not take out big loans with any financial institution unless it's a Credit Union, but even then be careful.

Then come back and tell people all about paying their "fair share".

On the other hand, Dodd-Frank does not over-regulate the market. The Volcker rule sort of brings back the regulation we so loved from 1933 to 1999 (Glass-Steagall). And Dodd-Frank attempts to check all the crazy, shady debt derivatives trading that pushed us into this mess. Many economists found Dodd-Frank to be nerfed legislation that is quite friendly to Wall Street. You may be exaggerating its impact on our investor friends.

Then why isn't the economy better, ROM?

Small businesses invest in the markets, too. Remember that.

I got shit to do tonight but I will write more later. Peace.

Happy Halloween, fuckers. As for that little SLAK above? FYMP.

Recovery doesn't occur overnight. The economy is better - many private businesses, of a variety of sizes, are doing better. My girlfriend was a small business owner in the mid-00s, and her business fell apart when the recession hit. She's doing very well now (she's in a highly skilled trade), and the new company she works for has grown tremendously in the last few years, and the owners ARE investing heavily (in their company). The side-job she held back then (exercise-related) faded as well, since clients weren't willing/able to dish out the money. But lately she's been getting calls from all over from those old clients, to see if she's still teaching. This is all anecdotal evidence, of course. But, we seem to be rebounding. I'm employed, but I'm still looking for new work. And I'm seeing a lot of skilled jobs out there.

We lost a lot of Federal jobs (500,000, I think?) due to Obama's massive cuts to the government. And training and education for new skilled jobs is lagging. Hopefully soon business owners will be more inclined to invest in their workers. The recovery was pretty weaksauce considering the scale of the recession - so say many many economists. But it was all that was politically feasible, given the all the nincompoops who believe the private sector alone can get us out of this mess.