Romney Defined

Mitt Romney's job at the Republican National Convention was to define himself. When he started talking about his grandparents and referring to America as a nation of immigrants, he was reminding all of us that we claim is country with all nationalities. An expansive statement.

Then the camera cut to the RNC delegates. Over 90% white.

He had been introduced by a Cuban-American. Despite the fact that Republican policies actively harm them, Florida's Senator Marco Rubio had offered a wonderful speech that encouraged Cuban-Americans to vote Republican. To the extent they do, they find their state is presently purging voter lists of anyone with an Hispanic last name.

Romney spoke of his parents and his father, who obviously did those little things that would please his wife. If you're married and you are not regularly doing things for your spouse, your marriage won't last. For some reason, Romney's story about his father's death reminded me of my friend, John Scagliotti, who was the first Executive Producer of "In the Life," a nationally-airing television newsmagazine covering gay, lesbian and transgendered issues and culture.

When I started editing for the show back in the 1990s, John lost his longtime partner. Mr. Romney wants to forbid gay marriage. It is heartbreaking to lose someone that close, and it is even worse if a hospital won't let you visit your partner, since you are not next-of-kin or family.

Mitt Romney also praised his wife for the great job she did raising their five children. So did my mother. And my mother was not married to a multi-millionaire with bank accounts in Switzerland nd the Caymen Islands. Mrs. Romney has Multiple Sclerosis, which is very sad. My mother died from Leukemia. Both women needed health insurance, but my mother was on Medicare after she retired and her healthcare and insurance was affordable to her because of that. Mr. Romney's running mate would give my mother a coupon and allow insurance companies to deny coverage due to her pre-existing condition.

If you are a multimillionaire and you have MS, you don't live with the fear that you will lose your only home if your insurance company suddenly rescinds their coverage.

Then Romney decided he had defined himself enough, after having defined the people around him and the people who raised him. And he began to talk about President Obama, saying that it would be OK to vote against him if you voted for him four years ago.

He spoke about how we are not better off  than we were four years ago. I don't know about you, but my 401(k) is no longer in the toilet. The stock market hs recovered all of its losses. I am not drawing unemployment and I am a small businessman. While I do see businesses fail, the housing market is beginning to pick up.

A tax increase will not change anything about my small business. I shall continue to operate. I may have to make a couple of additional sales, but under Romney's plan to put the burden of tax increases on the middle class in order to give himself a bigger tax break, I'll need to make at least three more to pay for the Romney increase.

Anyone need a website?

So, the remainder of Mr. Romney's speech was all about trying to define President Obama, not Mitt Romney. I think, going forward, that is going to be a problem. Because President Obama and the Democrats will continue to define Romney. And that is a strategy that, in view of all of the fundamental changes Romney has appeared to make in his outlook, has not worked for Mr. Romney in the past.

This was a golden opportunity, and one that was utterly missed. What remains to be seen is if the Republican Party hangs Mitt out to dry like they did with Bob Dole in October, 1996. Perhaps the SuperPACs will stick with him.

Redefining Romney

Governor Romney hasn't really defined himself. Instead, he has pretty much left that to the experts—namely his opponents.

In his race against a very vulnerable Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, in their debate in October, Senator Kennedy, who looked like he had all but lost the race came out punching:

"I have supported the Roe v. Wade [decision]. I am pro-choice," Kennedy said. "My opponent is multiple choice."

Romney's reply has dogged him ever since:

"My mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that, or be a multiple choice, thank you very much."

In other words, he did then just what he's doing now: Not defining himself. Now I do understand that Mitt Romney is a believer in a minority religion, but heck, so was Kennedy. His brother was our first Catholic President. You can see Romney's first debate, on the C-SPAN website and marvel at how he completely failed to directly answer questions as well as define himself as a person.

As Governor of the Massachusetts Commonwealth, Romney was preceded by three Republican governors. He made a lot of promises when running and then became "Governor No," when he was in office, vetoing vetoed 844 pieces of legislation, with over 700 of those vetoes overridden. One might think it would be a good idea to work with a legislature than to stand against it. He came into office with a 66% approval rating on November 18, 2003 in Massachusetts and, by November 27th, that plummeted to 45% after the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered the Commonwealth to allow gay marriage and Romney took a hard stand against it.

Remember the statement above, that he will not force his beliefs on others? I guess he decided to allow the Massachusetts Supreme Court to define him. By November, 2006, his approval rating sunk to 34% with a 65% disapproval rating. He did not run for re-election and his successor was a Democrat.

Then it was time to run for office again and I think he's running for President because he knows that is the only way he can match his father's record as a three-term governor. He doesn't really seem to like debating, running, talking to the press or anything about campaigning and he has refused to offer any specific plans for what he plans to do if he becomes President.

Oh, he sais memorable stuff, like "We're going to take this country back," and "Put America back to work," and "Free us from this big government," and "Repeal Obamacare."

I would ask, take the country back from whom, or what? We do have a ballot box and people do go to the polls. It's not as if we invited Russians or Australians in to run this country in our stead. (Please note, I have nothing against either Russians or Australians. These are two countries pretty much on the opposite side of the world from America.) And Republicans ran on "Jobs, jobs, jobs" in 2010 and I have yet to see a single jobs bill come out of the House of Representatives, which they took over then—save the reauthorization of a highway bill.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

And our government under Obama has actually shrunk from the size it grew to under Bush. In fact, one thing that Romney won't say is that Bush grew the government faster than any President in history since the 1960s. Actually Romney won't mention the Bush name. The only reference I have heard him make to him is "Obama's predecessor."

What worries me is that all of the people around Romney in his campaign are all former Bush (II) staffers. Those goons should stay out of the West Wing. They have all ready proven their lack of competence.

And, repealing the Affordable Care Act will bloat the US budget deficit, which is something Romney says he won't do. Those who have teased actual numbers out of Romney's really incomplete proposals suggest that middle income people will pay around $2,000 more annually in federal taxes, while people like Romney who park their money overseas will pay less.

And that last item is something that Democrats have been using to define him—that and his tax return issue, which simply will not go away.

You cannot choose to run for President of the United States and keep your privacy these days. Romney thinks that's possible and I don't think that anyone in the press agrees.

So, in this upcoming Republican National Convention, they're going to try to redefine Romney for the voters. In that Romney's opponents have been doing that since 1994, I wonder if they'll be able to do that.

Security Metrics a scam?

I make websites. I don't accept credit cards and I'm happy to receive your company check.

But some of my websites do accept charges over the Internet and one such was completed two years ago in the fall. I got a telephone call from Security Metrics, saying my website failed their scan and that I had to make sure that I was compliant.

I thought what I was doing was providing a service to my customer, so I complied with their wishes, answered their questions and made an upgrade to some of the code on my web server (please note, I made no changes to the website code, I just upgraded the server to a newer version of database software not used by the website and processing code that was used in the website).

Security Metrics just cold-called one of my clients. They told them that they had to be certified and had to have their website certified as well. My client does not take credit cards over the Internet and, I suppose, will take them by phone, or will swipe them for services rendered. My client is strictly business-to-business and does no retail. They install and service conveyor systems and they're really good.

My client asked me to put a Security Metrics logo on their website with a link that certifies that they are compliant. After immediately complying with my client's wishes, I told them the following:

You are not accepting credit cards over your website. So a website scan is about as useful as hair on a tree branch. You (your company) has passed their questionnaire, so in that you take credit cards by telephone you're doing the right thing and your bank will assign you a low risk. That may result in a lower rate paid for credit cards. It also may not matter.

I believe that, unless you have to pay a higher rate for credit cards due to your bank's insistence that you do, the money paid to Security Metrics is worthless, useless and a complete and utter waste. They have charged me for "compliance" and I don't take credit cards, though some of the companies I do work for do.


I don't like Security Metrics. I think they're just shy of a scam operation. Your relationship with your credit card processing company ought not to be farmed out to a third party.

So what should you do if you're on a website with this logo?

I believe their questionnaire and their scan will tend to indicate that the company in question is safe. But it also may well indicate that the company was easily duped by their sales team, which will charge them an annual fee for no additional security at all, other than that provided by the merchant credit card service company with whom they do business. Far more important on a website that takes credit cards is a current security certificate that encrypts all information passed between itself and a bank. And you can tell whether or not a website is safe by simply looking for the locked padlock symbol on your web browser when you are on a page that accepts payments.

You also want to look at the URL on your browser. (URL means Uniform Resource Locator, which is geek-speak for the website's address). If you are on a secure page, it will begin with "https:" which means the the site is secure. If the security certificate for the website is not secure, your browser will almost always notify you. And you should keep your browser up-to-date and never enter personal information into any website that is not secure.

If you are a company that takes credit cards, using a card-swipe, by telephone or on a website, if you get a call from Security Metrics, ask for their phone number. Then hang up and contact your merchant credit card acceptance company and ask if they have asked Security Metrics to call you. If they have, complain. Tell them that you do not want some unverified third party ascertaining your security for a fee.

The Radical Republican Future of America Part 2

Do you remember the old man begging on the streets of El Salvador? Under the Romney-Ryan plan, that's you, if you are a man, in the United States. Ryan's budget calls for replacing Medicare (as we have it today) with "Medicare," which gives you a stipend—completely at the whim of the political party in power— and not a guaranteed benefit that will care for you in your old age.

After all, insurance companies are really hustling to get older, more infirm people, better health care, aren't they? Answer "yes" to this, and I'd like to move to the planet you're on. Ah, but now the Republicans are calling the Democrats out for having radically cut Medicare—over 700 Billion dollars!

I'm shocked! Democrats, cutting Medicare? How is this possible? This is one of their pet projects—to provide access to medical care for everyone. So what's really being done here? Firstly, Paul Ryan (who proposed a bill in the House of Representatives to end Medicare and change it into a stipend—see below) knows that he cannot get the votes of seniors based on ending Medicare. So, they're very interested in confusing the issue and "re-defining" the Democrats as Big Medicare Cutters. This is despite the CBO's assertions that the $716 billion "cut" to Medicare is actually a savings. Additionally, CNN and the AARP did their own studies and they found the savings over 10 years is based on reducing "gifts" to insurance companies that the Bush Administration built into Medicare Part D (something insurance companies are not happy about) and savings due to decreased waste and fraud. CNN did a fact check on this and I think it will result in Governor Sununu refusing to accept invitations to talk to CNN reporters. He doesn't like being called out on the air. I worked with Soledad O'Brien when she was at NBC and she's a smart cookie.

But we have to cut, right? Frankly, that's false. Republicans want to spread Amnesia Dust all over all Americans who lived through the 1990s, when everyone's taxes increased by a little bit under Clinton and the annual budget showed a surplus in his last year in office. And in the 1990s, we had very low unemployment!

Women in El Salvador have frighteningly low status.
VP candidate Paul Ryan wants American women
to suffer the same.

Here is what Romney's running mate wants: He wants those darned "uppity women" to stop thinking that they can have any of their freedoms. He wants to limit a woman's ability to use contraception. He wants women to go to jail if they have an abortion, just like El Salvador. He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Act that gives women equal pay for equal work so, if you are a man married to a woman, the money she brings in will be the same money any man will make for the same work and, if you are a woman, you cannot be forced (either by companies ordering people to not tell anyone else what they earn or by companies that discriminate openly against women) to accept 77¢ for every $1.00 a man makes. He also wants to pass a "Personhood" amendment to the United States Constitution—something that very conservative Mississippi refused to pass.

In essence, he wants to reduce the status of American women to that of women in El Salvador. In the last ten years, the murder of women in El Salvador has increased five-fold. And the level of violence used against the women is higher in those murders than in men. In fact, Paul Ryan voted to redefine rape for American women as only provable if deadly force was used against the woman. If you are a woman, if you are married to a woman, if you know women and have friends who are women, you don't want this person in any position of power. Ever.

Source Data: CBO Historical Tables

Republicans want to cut, cut, cut. They talk about "discretionary spending" as if it were bad. They talk about "entitlements" as if they were not earned and are—thus—a "handout" to lazy people. Here's where "discretionary spending" isn't so "discretionary." The military. The 2009 U.S. military budget accounted for approximately 40% of global arms spending. The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the $106 billions of the military budget of China, and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined. And, according to the GAO, the US Department of Defense has made its financial statements unauditable. When that report came out, Congress "let them slide," ordering the Department of Defense to achieve audit-readiness by 2017.

If the SEC or the IRS ordered a business audit only to be told that the business would be audit-ready "in five years," if they had a question about filings or taxes, the business would be shut down. Look at the table above. It shows Medicare and Medicaid (red) as well as Social Security (green) are taking up 43% of federal spending. But both of those outlays have actual income that is not the general fund. In other words, there is actual income directed at those two programs. And that 43% of our federal budget keeps old men, like the one above in El Salvador, off American streets with a beggar's bowl in front of him. But look at defense spending in blue. it's 20% of our total spending and that doesn't count stuff like nuclear arms research, and other stuff that is hidden from up in the orange "Discretionary" category.

Back in 1990 we were supposed to get a savings from the end of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. We were supposed to end the Cold War. Recently, Governor Romney announced that the Russians is America’s top geopolitical adversary. This actually made Republicans wince. Do we really need this large military?!

The only area where the military is cut these days is on base housing, which is abysmal. I have a friend who has had to submit to a ceiling collapse (she moved out with her infant son) and, most recently, with an improper plumbing installation that may result in another ceiling collapse, an apartment infested with mold or worse (she's hoping that's repaired by the time she gets back from a trip).

So what are we left with? Well, Republicans told us after Katrina that we "couldn't afford to rebuild New Orleans." Of course, the results now are obvious—they don't have that pesky Democratic enclave with all of those voters in New Orleans any more. They've been dispersed throughout the South, where they can't gather together in a nice, big Democratic voting bloc.

While Republicans were doing this, they wrote laws for Iraq that gave every Iraqi a right to healthcare. Essentially, those Republicans who think Americans ought not have a right to see a doctor think Iraqis ought to.

We're left with an infrastructure that there is no interest in repairing or even maintaining. Gee, this takes us right back to El Salvador again. For the most part, roads in Central America are horrible. The Pan-American Highway, which stretches from Canada all the way south to Tierra del Fuego is a "highway" in name only. It's a mud track in parts of Costa Rica and disappears entirely in the Darien region of Panama.

Look carefully at the Central-American road to the left. This is what our streets will look like in just a few years under Republican "leadership." They have consistently voted down all infrastructure bills in the House of Representatives since they took the majority—and remember: They ran on jobs, jobs, jobs in 2010. I still don't see those jobs.

So, America under Republicans looks a whole lot like El Salvador. Beggars on every street corner. Bad roads. A complete inability to rebuild after a natural disaster. Oh, but we'd be different: We would have the most well-funded military of anyone in the world!

When Developing Nations have big militaries, we consider them a threat. Since Republicans want to take America back to Developing Nation status, would we be the threat?

The Radical Republican Future of America - Part 1

Every party, when they initiate a campaign comes up with a game plan that is designed to please their base in the party. In most cases, parties all over the world work to convince voters who are not party faithful of how good their party's ideas will serve everyone.

Within the last two days, Mitt Romney announced that Paul Ryan will be his running mate. This was, presumably, intended to turn out the party faithful in Romney's party, which is currently fractured. That's right, fractured.
The Republican Party decided to attempt to co-opt the TEA Party and has allowed the radicals who run as TEA Party candidates on the Republican ticket. This is really foolish, as TEA Party representatives in Congress have caused considerable discomfort for House Speaker Boehner, as he cannot reliably make deals with either the Senate or the President and hope to keep them. Thus, he cannot hope to govern as long as he's being dictated to by the TEA Party.
Paul Ryan is a collegial, likable guy but, despite that, Democrats in the House of Representatives find that they cannot make deals with Paul Ryan. Ryan's plan for America is best expressed in his budget. Here are the details:

Starting in 2022, the proposal would end the current Medicare program for all Americans born after 1956 and replace it with a new program (still called Medicare) which uses a voucher and would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare.

Ryan's plan "replaces" Medicare and still calls what he replaces it with "Medicare." This is specifically meant to confuse people. This plan is not Medicare, make no mistake about it. Medicare was passed, and signed into law by a Republican President, Nixon, who—together with Congress—understood that the elderly were, increasingly, not being covered by traditional insurance at anything near an affordable rate for the Middle Class.

Ryan's "Medicare" is a voucher program. You're supposed to go out on the open market and find some insurance policy. And here's the problem with that:

Medicare is insurance that is not supposed to make money. The Profit Motive has been taken out. Instead, rather than make money off of seniors, we chose to make sure that seniors have dignity in their old age. Ryan says this offers "choice." But when you're 65, you don't want choice. You want security. Medicare as it is provides that.

Similarly, for the poor, Medicaid becomes block grants for the states. States can run their own programs. I can guess what the states will do: They'll funnel Medicaid grants into their "general fund" and spend it. States are strapped for cash, so they'll simply end Medicaid.

And today's Medicare would end for seniors who currently have it. Ryan proposes to re-open the "Donut Hole" created by the Bush Administration in Medicare Part D. So if you're a senior and are enjoying the fact that you're now paying less for drugs you need because of the Affordable Care Act and you're looking forward to 2020 when Medicare Part D's "Donut Hole" closes entirely, there will be no $250 rebate checks like the ones received in 2010 and there will be no more 50 percent discount on brand name drugs.

So Ryan calls this a "path to prosperity?" Not for seniors!

But that's Medicare. Let's talk Social Security.

Social Security, under Ryan's proposal is to end. He says he'll "keep it for those 55 and over," but for everyone below 55, they're out of the pool. Of course Ryan didn't actually suggest that the House of Representatives actually pass the end of Social Security, because he knew that representatives in the House would probably not get re-elected if they did that. Once again, I would refer you back to his new name for Medicare: "Medicare." He doesn't want voting seniors to actually get wind of what he plans for America.

When he says that the 55 and under are "out of the pool," he means it. He has decided that people should trust the big casino that is Wall Street with their "Social Security," which completely ends any security. We're not so foggy on history that we don't remember what happened in 2008, where people lost up to ⅔rds of their retirement savings. But here is the problem: Social Security does more than just pay old people in retirement. It also pays for the disabled. So if you are injured and your injury is permanent to the point where you have to leave the workforce, you get a Social Security Disability check. Every month. So, if you're 32, that security is ended.

But there is more: Social Security sends a check to every child of a veteran who dies in combat. So our brave soldiers sons and daughters receive a Social Security check every month until they are 18 or, if they attend College, until they are out of school. So, Congressman Ryan would ask every soldier serving in Afghanistan today to vote for an end to the security that their children will grow up taken care of, whether or not their parent died while serving their country.

Back when I was in High School, I read "Oliver Twist." This book, written by Charles Dickens, was meant to draw attention to the lives of English youth who were raised in uncaring orphanages and, when old enough, made to work in a workhouse for children. Sent to work for an undertaker, poor Oliver escapes and is recruited by a gang of criminals. Today, we read this book as fiction, not understanding that Dickens, himself, was an orphan and also not understanding the social implications of large quantities of orphans in society. During Dickens' time, many of these orphans were caused by the Napoleonic wars and the wars and rebellions that followed. Ryan's policy to leave orphans of soldiers who die, penniless and at the mercy of distant relatives in many cases is the most cruel piece of his "entitlement reform."

Together, with Social Security gone and Medicare done in, Ryan's plan changes America significantly. It makes America into a new nation. And I've seen nations like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney envision. You see, I have been outside of America. I have been to Latin America, south of Mexico. And the country Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney wants America to most resemble is El Salvador.

Ryan wants to end abortions. El Salvador has done that. In fact, if you are a woman and you have a miscarriage, there is an automatic investigation. You're guilty until proven innocent. You must, somehow, prove that you did not abort your child, else you will be sent to prison for up to 30 years. El Salvador also has no Social Security or Medicare. So if you're a man, look at the photo to the right.

That man is an elderly El Salvadorian man who begs on the street to get enough to eat. You see men like him everywhere in El Salvador because they don't have the social safety net that we have here in the United States. While this may be expected in a developing country, it is simply not what America means to me. I would just as soon my father, who is in his 80s, not need to beg for food on the street. Paul Ryan is, essentially, saying that this is perfectly OK in America. Because, if you trust your entire retirement to the Casino that is Wall Street, this is probable for you. And that's what Ryan wants. That is also what Romney says he wants (today—Romney has been on all sides of every issues, so one has to guess and I believe Romney's choice of a running mate is indicative of what he will want in the future).

Take a good look at that man. You're going to see him on the streets of Romney and Ryan's America. And, while you're looking at him, realize that Ryan and Romney won't ever face that. You see, Paul Ryan will receive a Congressional Pension, with healthcare guaranteed for his lifetime. And Mitt Romney is a billionaire with  Swiss and Cayman Island bank accounts.