Rick Perry... sounds great -- ha ha ha!

[Dino Velvet]

Bachmann & Perry may very well spilt the far right vote and let Romney gain some traction, but Romney has many folks at the GOP nervous because he is more McCain than Bush. I think when the smoke clears in the primaries Bachmann, or Perry will win. Just my

Romney is the only guy I'll consider voting for. As an Independent, I don't vote in primaries. The loudmouth Texas bullshit doesn't impress me.

If your predictions are correct with Bachmann or Perry, count me out. I might be an Independent but I'm still a fairly consistent Conservative. The GOP should want my vote too.

How do you feel about the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana, prostitution, and gambling?

[Erika1487]

Romney is the only guy I'll consider voting for. As an Independent, I don't vote in primaries. The loudmouth Texas bullshit doesn't impress me.

If your predictions are correct with Bachmann or Perry, count me out. I might be an Independent but I'm still a fairly consistent Conservative. The GOP should want my vote too.

How do you feel about the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana, prostitution, and gambling?

We want your vote Dino we need your vote out there in Cali.

Marijuana is still illegal in many states including my own, pesonally I perfer it stay that way, but many enjoy marijuana where it is legal and thats fine too.

You don't have to even ask about the prostitution thing I am a part time escort on the side so I am 100% for legalization there, or at least regulation and taxation.

Gambling is a not a big deal for me either no harm no foul.

[Ben]

The government plays a big role in the economy. A more apt description is: State Capitalism.

No Ben, No. State capitalism is where government replaces private enterprise; a mixed economy is where private enterprise flourishes while government or the state finances those parts of the economy that the private sector will not -or is not allowed to touch. For example, in the UK when the state owned the railways, coal mining, broadcasting, steel and so on, the economy was mixed -hence the term 'privatisation' to explain 'returning formerly state-owned enterprises to the 'free market'. North Korea is State Capitalist today, to give one example.

When citing Adam Smith, as you so often do, try to remember that he was a revolutionary thinker in his own times; his description of the early years of industrial capitalism is of course unrivalled, but remember that in his day free markets did not exist as a national phenomenon in the UK. The Crown continued through the govt to rake in receipts from taxes on agricultural produce; only a certain number of 'market towns' had been given a licence to trade freely -one example would be Stratford-upon-Avon, given its status as market town by Henry the Eighth, which is why by the time Will Shakespeare was born there it was a prosperous middle class town with excellent schools. Free trade was at one time a radical concept, as indeed was the United States of America around the same time...

Your enthusiasm knows no limits, but sometimes you veer all over the place. I can't always keep up.

Stavros, you write and I quote: "... but sometimes you veer all over the place. I can't always keep up." Sorry about that.
But it's good and healthy to have ideas and opinions bandied about. You learn... and, too, rethink your positions on various issues --
Life is a learning experience --

[Dino Velvet]

We want your vote Dino we need your vote out there in Cali.

Marijuana is still illegal in many states including my own, pesonally I perfer it stay that way, but many enjoy marijuana where it is legal and thats fine too.

You don't have to even ask about the prostitution thing I am a part time escort on the side so I am 100% for legalization there, or at least regulation and taxation.

Gambling is a not a big deal for me either no harm no foul.

You need more than my vote in California. Even if I vote GOP in 2012, I'm just exercising my right knowing how outnumbered I am too.

Seems like on marijuana, prostitution, and gambling, you might be OK with letting the states decide. That's fine by me.

For it's own sake, I hope the GOP evolves with the rest of the country. There are good things they stand for but they chase so many lost causes that cost elections and credibility. I think your involvement is a plus and you can change people's minds. Good luck.

[Faldur]

See, he's for raising taxes too. Governor Perry is calling for a Tax Hike.

You are spot on Trish, Governor Perry is going to raise taxes. He FULLY supports a tax hike, immediately upon entering office. He wants to raise taxes on 1/2 of all Americans!! Can you guess which half will see the tax increase?

Shared sacrifice, you gotta love it... skin in the game baby!

[trish]

Of course I can guess. And 75% of those tea baggers are going be surprised when their taxes go up and their benefits go down.

[trish]

Oops! Grover Norquist's no-tax-pledge isn't going to allow you to do anything about that 50% that worries you so. Perhaps you can give them a tax break instead since they do pay payroll taxes toward SS and Medicare. Too bad you can't give GE a tax break, 'cause it's already paying absolutely nothing...nada...zip...zero.

[Ben]

[Ben]

Perry and Romney: Rivals in Love With Plutocracy

Tuesday
Aug 16, 2011

By Roger Bybee

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has entered the GOP presidential nomination race with both guns blazing, playing simultaneously to an extreme wing of the Christian Right while also pandering to the Corporate Right.
Boasting that Texas has accounted for 40 percent of job growth in the United States since 2009—a claim that major media have incessantly reported without examining the quality of the jobs—Perry thunders, "I have been a pro-business governor and I will be a pro-business president!”
But Mitt Romney will not be easily out-done in this duel of plutocrats who advocate more profits, power, and privileges for corporations. At the Iowa State Fair, Romney was recently faced with a heckler who insisted that big corporations ought to pay more in taxes. Romney memorably retorted: “Corporations are people, my friend.” (This despite the fact that the notion of corporate “personhood” is rejected by 80% of Americans.)
Almost as if directly answering Romney, the populist William Jennings Bryant argued in 1912 that corporations, unlike humans, have no conscience to inhibit their conduct as they strive ceaselessly drive for maximum profit:

Man acts under the restraints of conscience and is influenced also by a belief in a future life. A corporation has no soul and cares nothing about the hereafter…

That pretty much describes the way Romney's venture capital firm Bain Capital has operated, buying up firms, shedding large numbers of workers, closing plants and walking away with profits. (Romney co-founded the firm in 1984 and left it in 1999.)
Similarly, Rick Perry’s Texas is a laboratory for plutocracy—rule by the rich—where corporations are free to act without “the restraints of conscience.” With “right-to-work” laws crippling the growth of labor unions (management can easily choose to hire anti-union employees who will refuse to join and eventually vote out the union) and lacking a progressive income tax, Texas has become a paradise for corporations and the rich, while huge numbers of Texans remain stuck in minimum-wage jobs with no health insurance and little hope that their children will receive a quality education to escape poverty.
Public funds have been massively diverted from public education to corporate tax breaks and incentives, often for distinctly non-needy corporations including GE. The outcome has not been a new burst of shared prosperity for Texas, but a continuing growth of jobs that keep workers impoverished.
“Of the 211,000 jobs added last year, 37 percent (or more than 76,000) paid at or below minimum wage, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” reports David Mann of the Texas Observer. According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, "one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation."
But inside the mind of Rick Perry, it is corporations who are being ruthlessly victimized by an evil federal government hostile to Texas-style economic growth. Perry has declared he intends to take back the country “from the grips of central planners who would control our healthcare, spend our treasure and micromanage our businesses.”
The governor's mentality was revealed when journalist Ruben Navarrette Jr. had the temerity to mention the case of one Texas corporation supposedly hounded and harassed by the U.S. government while interviewing Perry a few years ago. The firm, a foundry, had atrocious safety practices—which produced a number of deaths—that were exposed by the New York Times. As Navarrette explained at nytimes.com last month,

Concerned about government regulators, the company would only do business in two places: developing countries and Texas. I asked the governor if he was bothered by this fact. He wasn’t, to put it mildly.
“Well,” Mr. Perry said in his trademark drawl. “I don’t take direction from The New York Times.” Then he changed the subject and proceeded to make the case for why many other companies had moved to Texas.

The foundry's CEO could surely have made the case even more powerfully than the governor: Perry’s economic strategy has resulted in Third World-like wages and working conditions into Texas.

[Nicole Dupre]

Overzealous Republican haters, priests, etc always have secret, often predatory, sexual lives. It's just basic human psychology for them to point fingers. It's nothing new at all. "M'thinks the lady doth protest too much".



Bachman married a gay guy (trust me, he's gay), and Perry is definitely going to get outed as either being gay (which I totally thought he was, even before the rumors last year) or at least banging hookers (perhaps a sad attempt to sexually self-medicate).

Just look at who the most rabid Republicans on this very forum are, and it's obvious how easily they'll flirt hypocritical danger.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/...entry_id=95718





This shit is going come back to bite them all in the ass. Just watch.