I too am curious to the First Read Point about Booker and Clinton going off-script and that being news, but that it is not news when Murkowski does the same. THIS IS WHERE THE OBAMA TEAM IS LOSING THE ELECTION WAR RIGHT NOW. For the past month the RW organization is controlling the stories being played in the media, while the Obama team is on the defensive. That went the other way in '08 and the RW constituency whined about the unfairness of it all, claiming media conspiracy.

Let me be clear - I am NOT whining. It is not the media's fault. This is all a part of the political football game, and right now Obama may have the lead, but Romney has the ball and the momentum.

its a marathon and not a sprint. Right now we have a bad week and its the end of the world. The public does not like Willard. The economy is all the RepubliCONS have- the job of the President is to show that with 180+ and counting filibusters the RepubliCONS have been running for over two years on lets do everything we can to weaken the President regardless of impact on the country.

Remember what their olitical motto was in 2008- Country First. From demint tweeting "we will break him" in Jan 2009 to the Republican leadership meeting the night before the inauguration on devising strategies top defeat Obama their intent is clear

demtothebone is going to be demtotheboneIcouldhavevotedforRomney when Obummer loses in November

You forgot OBummer raised $15million in one nite from pole smoking Hollywood butt pirates in exchange for endorsing their sordid behavior.

Now the libturds want to make it legal for 40-50+ year old perverts to seduce and sodomize 17yo boys AND get a tax credit for doing so!

Now that is the party of FAMILY VALUES.

Bye bye OBummer 2012!

Jello heads!

Unforgiven: You will never be forgiven for your racist rant.

Wow.....sloppy joe.......unforgivens' Mother was a Mexican Ho'??? Would you like to change your handle to sloppy Seconds Joe????

AffinityGW...Hi. Welcome to the WORLD of Grover. He is coming to Your Town. I'm Grover, and I am going to kick Obamas' arse to the curb in November, and into the gutter where he came from, along with those thugs, Cabinet Members, AG Holder, Rev. Bullfrog, the SEIU, ACORN, UAW and AFL-CIO and AFSCME Thugs, Biden the Bigmouth BASS-turd, Chris matthews, Ratchetmouth madcow, Ed the talking horse SChitz, et al. Count on it. Cleaning the White House from the stench and anti-American filth that is there now.

BTW...Obama likes Sesame Street for all his Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Palestine, Pakistan and Syria. Likes it so much that the American TaxPayer pays for the Production and Telecasting...Just like a Phucking Socialist...spend someone else's cash.

Have those ACORN middle aged poor ladies scared you again? Watch out for the Women's League of Voters. They are still registering voters after 90 years. What if they contribute to democracy? The ACORN army's weapon is a floor mop. They are coming to mop you up like any accident.

That's the best you can do???

Nazawrong

Question: How many Mormons does it take to change a light bulb

Answer: Zero. Mormons, like Willard, don't use light bulbs because they can't see the light

Being an Unforgiven evil Demorat will land one in Hell!

Egad, a live genetic accident with a microbrain, and an evil disposition. Isn't that what is called white trash, or white noise, or pond scum? Thank God that your brain is normal after this. Don't become a naziright.

We will Definitely be voting for Romney come November. Bye now, loser.

I thought my commode was legal? Does it use too much water? Please don't tell Obama!

Don't flush your brains.

Close your fly.

I would not put it past Obama to have taken down the helicopter carrying Seal Team Six.

The easiest source for the NYT is to read the Chinese Govt. hackers blogs or India's web sites. Who do you think built and programmed most of our DOD security systems? Assembled in U.S.A. from foreign parts by Texas sub contractors.

So 1776.. You're looking for thee story of how Duhbya and the Dick outed an undercover CIA Agent??

bush or cheney never outed any cia agent.

....plame was outed by her boss, richard armitage, to bob woodward...who then told robert novak...who then printed it in an op-ed piece.

...armitage went on cnn wolf blitzer and admitted to being the original leaker of plames identity (it's on you tube if you want to see it)

...plame hated dick cheney from even before 2000....she, and her husband hated the bush administration....and had a political ax to grind. this is why when she tried to sue cheney....the supreme court threw out her case.

Work that theme into a screen play. Comedy is fun.

@ 1776, keep looking. The Obama administration has been UNRELENTING and AGGRESSIVE in pursuing sensitive leaks, and there is a long audit trail in the media to back up this substantiated claim, but not your own.

Yep.. Should have been done to both Duhbya and the Dick...

Valerie was a well know washington protitute an it was common knowlege who she worked for. Obama is a traitor

@ 1776, you post here is not even a veiled threat against the President, it is clear and open. DHS, SS, FBI, will be getting a screen shot of it, rest assured.

Please get a psychiatric evaluation. Hate and stupidity are consuming the stem that remains of your brain. Don't die, dude, time is running out. Do you want to end up in a freak museum?

you dont like conservative democrats or independents either.

...not all americans are ultra-left progressives affin'

No, I have no need to outsource my thinking. I also recall a time when there were real conservatives. Today people use that term for undereducated fascist reactionaries. Have a beer.

well, there are liberal democrats...and conservative democrats.

...bill clinton was a conservative democrat

No, you are stupid. The president is brilliant and very well educated. That is why he is president and you are not even invited to birthday parties.

George W was and is stupid, look at the disaster he visited upon the nation. Iraq, Afghanistan, and the myriad of other pernicious effects of his mal-administration.

He must have thought since Clinton gave top secret missile guidance systems to the Chinese, why can't he sell US out!

Why are there goats?

1776 It really is beginning to sound like YOU are the TRAITOR...

This helps to explain why there was so much corruption, and give-aways to Corporations, during Nixon/Ford/Reagan and two Bushs.

From the same source comes complaints about all the "corrupt" businessmen in the administration. Lies are difficult to cross reference.

There is no such thing as a Christian "social conservative". You have Jesus' word on it.

Milo yes both are practicing safe text with each other. In the rubber room.

K12 he was doing his duty, preaching Christianity to the French.

Saying Christianity is a misnomer. In modern terms it would be more like Advanced Alien Race of Humanoids one of which we have come to know as J.C., just so we could relate to them. The Scientologists are on Mitt's bandwagon with this.

Keep trolling K1200RS....

Mission impossible, merging Mormonism/ Scientology with Christianity, They have little incommon with each other which iswhy I do not understand the religious right following a Mormon as at the beginningit was anybody but Mitt and now Mitt is their Messiah and has always been thier leader of choice. gag.

Draft dodgers, corrupt politicians, and liars are Republicans' jargon for Democrats. The literal meaning is descriptive of Republicans like Bush, Cheney, and Romney.

Almost nothing in common but there is a Sci-Fi bond and mutual respect for each other from both being persecuted by the Federal Govt. Mitt has a L. Ron Hubbard book he is fond of, can relate to the concepts, but not the details.

Two faced whackos?? YOU MUST BE TALKING ABOUT OBAMA.

DT's you really have to stop looking in the mirror when you type.

Bubba, finish high school.

Sorry you are referring to the wrong empty suit. How much Money Romney has is none of your business, what's it to you?

Sheila, the amount isn't the issue it is how he got it! Lets face it Mitt is a Ivory Tower resident with servants and money to burn. It is not how much it costs to live there it is the fact it is a gated community.

The GOP has a monopoly on that strategy, probably even a trademark registered quietly by the RNC.

Julie, baby, you constantly demonstrate that you don't know what truth is and lie like a Romney.

When you have left wing loon Diane Feinstein mad at you.....OBAMA BETTER KNOW HE'S IN BIG TROUBLE.

OH what a surprise McCain on the March again. Leaks, I suspect McCain leaks more in day than the Government does in a decade. So what a surprise we are using computer warfare, I am shocked to learn that, I can only hope we have been for years as for Iran learning this I doubt is news to them either.

DTJB, Diane is, and always has been, a marginal Democrat. Her power base is Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists and Montgomery Street Bankers. Rich and moderately conservative as they are they are not anxious to cut off the hand that feeds them either.

The key word here is Chicago... Need I say more?

Ahh... .. Another teapublican halfwit is forced to deny reality...

Amusing,.. if ultimately tedious...

COGITO: No need for you to say another word. In one short sentence you reveal yourself to be an ignorant, partisan hack. You mean to say that the University of Chicago is not a highly regarded school or that the majority of respected economists agree that the Obama Stimulus saved our economy from going into free fall???

Instead on dispensing what you think are cute one liners, how about trying to rebutt the statement of K1200 with some facts? Evidently, that would be hoping for too much.

Republicans insist that the stimulus was a failure. It created jobs they did not obstruct. A few hundred billion in tax cuts over eleven years for "job creators" produced deficits. That is what Republicans excel at.

Gosh, K1200RS, You must be really smart or somthun! And Intrepid... Your anxiety is showing. Obama loses in November.

Cogito, don't forget to click your heals three times.

Stimulus plans can NEVER be successful

All of you leftists ignore (as do the idiots from the CBO) that in order for the Govt to redistribute money to "stimulate" the economy, it must first take money from citizens and businesses.

Spending-stimulus advocates claim that government can "inject" new money into the economy, increasing demand and therefore production. This raises the obvious question: Where does the government acquire the money it pumps into the economy? Congress does not have a vault of money waiting to be distributed: Therefore, every dollar Congress "injects" into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It is merely redistributed from one group of people to another.[2]

Spending-stimulus advocates typically respond that redistributing money from "savers" to "spenders" will lead to additional spending. That assumes that savers store their savings in their mattresses or elsewhere outside the economy. In reality, nearly all Americans either invest their savings by purchasing financial assets such as stocks and bonds (which finances business investment), or by purchasing non-financial assets such as real estate and collectibles, or they deposit it in banks (which quickly lend it to others to spend). The money is used regardless of whether people spend or save.

Government cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air. If Congress funds new spending with taxes, it is simply redistributing existing income. If Congress instead borrows the money from domestic investors, those investors will have that much less to invest or to spend in the private economy. If Congress borrows the money from foreigners, the balance of payments will adjust by equally reducing net exports, leaving GDP unchanged. Every dollar Congress spends must first come from somewhere else.

This does not mean that government spending has no economic impact at all. Government spending often alters the composition of total demand, such as increasing consumption at the expense of investment.

More importantly, government spending can alter future economic growth. Economic growth results from producing more goods and services (not from redistributing existing income), and that requires productivity growth and growth in the labor supply. A government's impact on economic growth is, therefore, determined by its policies' effect on labor productivity and labor supply.

Productivity growth requires increasing the amount of capital, either material or human, relative to the amount of labor employed. Productivity growth is facilitated by smoothly functioning markets indicating accurate price signals to which buyers and sellers, firms and workers can respond in flexible markets. Only in the rare instances where the private sector fails to provide these inputs in adequate amounts is government spending necessary. For instance, government spending on education, job training, physical infrastructure, and research and development can increase long-term productivity rates-but only if government spending does not crowd out similar private spending, and only if government spends the money more competently than businesses, nonprofit organizations, and private citizens. More specifically, government must secure a higher long-term return on its investment than taxpayers' (or investors lending the government) requirements with the same funds. Historically, governments have rarely outperformed the private sector in generating productivity growth.

Even when government spending improves economic growth rates on balance, it is necessary to differentiate between immediate versus future effects. There is no immediate stimulus from government spending, since that money had to be removed from another part of the economy. However, a productivity investment may aid future economic growth, once it has been fully completed and is being used by the American workforce. For example, spending on energy itself does not improve economic growth, yet the eventual existence of a completed, well-functioning energy system can. Those economic impacts can take years, or even decades, to occur.

Most government spending has historically reduced productivity and long-term economic growth due to: [3]

1. Taxes. Most government spending is financed by taxes, and high tax rates reduce incentives to work, save, and invest-resulting in a less motivated workforce as well as less business investment in new capital and technology. Few government expenditures raise productivity enough to offset the productivity lost due to taxes;
2. Incentives. Social spending often reduces incentives for productivity by subsidizing leisure and unemployment. Combined with taxes, it is clear that taxing Peter to subsidize Paul reduces both of their incentives to be productive, since productivity no longer determines one's income;
3. Displacement. Every dollar spent by politicians means one dollar less to be allocated based on market forces within the more productive private sector. For example, rather than allowing the market to allocate investments, politicians seize that money and earmark it for favored organizations with little regard for improvements to economic efficiency; and
4. Inefficiencies. Government provision of housing, education, and postal operations are often much less efficient than the private sector. Government also distorts existing health care and education markets by promoting third-party payers, resulting in over-consumption and insensitivity to prices and outcomes. Another example of inefficiency is when politicians earmark highway money for wasteful pork projects rather than expanding highway capacity where it is most needed.

Mountains of academic studies show how government expansions reduce economic growth:[4]

1. Public Finance Review reported that "higher total government expenditure, no matter how financed, is associated with a lower growth rate of real per capita gross state product."[5]
2. The Quarterly Journal of Economics reported that "the ratio of real government consumption expenditure to real GDP had a negative association with growth and investment," and "growth is inversely related to the share of government consumption in GDP, but insignificantly related to the share of public investment."[6]
3. A Journal of Macroeconomics study discovered that "the coefficient of the additive terms of the government-size variable indicates that a 1% increase in government size decreases the rate of economic growth by 0.143%."[7]
4. Public Choice reported that "a one percent increase in government spending as a percent of GDP (from, say, 30 to 31%) would raise the unemployment rate by approximately .36 of one percent (from, say, 8 to 8.36 percent)."[8]

Economic growth is driven by individuals and entrepreneurs operating in free markets, not by Washington spending and regulations. The outdated idea that transferring spending power from the private sector to Washington will expand the economy has been thoroughly discredited, yet lawmakers continue to return to this strategy. The U.S. economy has soared highest when the federal government was shrinking, and it has stagnated at times of government expansion. This experience has been paralleled in Europe, where government expansions have been followed by economic decline. A strong private sector provides the nation with strong economic growth and benefits for all Americans.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/11/why-government-spending-does-not-stimulate-economic-growth

Realy LARRY, they NEVER work??? Well since fully ONE THIRD of the stimulus was in the form of TAX CUTS I suppose we've also disproved that hor@!$%# theory of the Right that if you just keep cutting taxes, all will be well, eh buddy???

Where do you get all this crap from anyway, Mein Kampf???

And one other thing, may I suggest that you try the Salad Bar for a change.

Larry do you understand the basic idea behind a Stimulus and what they are intended to do. They are not intended to be long term jobs, a Stimulus is like jump starting a car, sorry is that over your head. Sometimes you have to let the battery charge longer before you can jump start the car, so you need a longer and larger Stimulus. Getting this yet. As for being successful it was in the 30's and the great depression. Oh sorry history not a course you took in school is it.

Well Larry, I guess those Higher Taxes in the 1950s had nothing to do with America becoming the Worlds economic superpower. Ya think DE-regulation of Wall Street kept the Greatest Recession from being the 2nd Great Depression, BP and Exxon from destroying the Oceans, or have nothing to do with anything of importance in our daily lives. Better go back to your pay-day loan job.

Nobody believes that Karl Marx knew what he was talking about either, Larry. Your sources are blowing in the wind. Political extremism leaves reality out of the equation. Quotes for support are often like a drunk's lamppost, for support rather than illumination.

Milo,

We collected a higher percentage of tax revenue to GDP under both the Reagan and Bush taxcuts than during Eisenhower

Tax Revenues as % of GDP

Eisenhower=17.52

Reagan 18.18

GW Bush 17.63

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

BTW, I own my own businesses- I'm not a employee as you probably are

The only uniting of the two parties in a common interest will come when Dems unconditionally surrender. Reelection campaign activities a time honored job duty for a President. If you don't like it try to put an end to private funding of political campaigns, or is it only OK for a challenger?

Obama is finished...ONE AND DAY...his latest tactic will backfire and blow up....HE'S FINISHED....

151 more days to election day....AND THE OBAMA LUNACY WILL END...

PRAISE GOD IN HEAVEN.

SHELIA: You want Obama to "bring both parties together", is that it? How do you work with the opposing party when they have made it clear repeatedly that they have no intention of working with Obama and that their #1 goal in this Congress is to defeat him in November?

And here's a clue for you, ALL presidents fly around campaiging and raising money. And perhaps, had the GOP controlled Supreme Court not ruled as they did in the Citizens United case, opening the floodgates of Big Money from both corporations as well as super rich individuals, then Obama would not have to spend as much time raising money. And if you think all those folks in Hollywood are whacko, what you are really saying is that you resent their succiess and their Liberal leanings. 90% of the top talent in both Hollywood as well as the music world are Democrats. It's simply a fact you can't deny. If you don't believe me, I'll more than happy to list them for you.

Shelia what would you prefer "the other side" or phucking republicans. As for uniting this country you can not unite the unwilling right of this country when they start swearing oaths to individuals in place of their oaths to this country, that is the dividing party not Obama.

DTGB, if Obama loses will you go back to your usual line of work?

Street Walking?

Right. There is no other side in politics during an election, only afterward when Republicans make war on journalism, the poor, women, minorities, education, the country's credit rating, health care affordability and inclusiveness, facts, truth, the middle class, the elderly, gays, voting rights, Planned Parenthood, diplomacy, character, effort, America's needs, anti-corruption laws, college loans, the environment, their own constituents, the FAA, worker's union rights, affordable and necessary defense spending, equality for compensation, the United States Postal System, public education teachers, American manufacturing, American values, optimism, alternative energy, fuel economy, pipeline safety, individual privacy, definition and separation of powers, job creation bills, upward mobility, tax fairness... on and, sickly, on.

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Mike we will never know, they have already moved most of his money out of sight.

MIKE & SEASON: Why do you think Willard has only released finacial records from 2010 and is stalling for time with his 2011 financial info???

He had time to shuffle his money around when he knew he would definately be the GOP nominee. I'd love to see his financial records from 5 and 10 years ago to get a real idea of what the score is. His father at least had the honesty and decency to release a dozen years of financial records, you'd think Willard would want to emulate his father who he apparently worships.

Really Mike?

Cogito..., its true, Mitt was a pro-war protestor and dodge the draft by becoming a Mormon Missionary to France, near Paris no less. When he came back the Lottery was in place and he miraculously didn't have his number called up.

His divine purpose is to fulfill his destiny as the 'Saint' who restores the Mormon Nation. BTW that would be all of Utah, Nevada and parts of Arizona, Idaho, and most of Southern California.

Romney's election is hanging on the hope that the United States is a moron nation. Republicans are irrefutable proof that there is a moron minority. It is constituted of the undereducated and clingers. The rest of Republicans are looking for spoils. It is up to independents to separate the fly specks from the pepper. However, Romney's propensity for telling lies and having them exposed throws a lot of light on the task.