I’m not going to say much about politics this week. Just bracketed with work, school, more work, etc. A few quick comments and I’m out – sorry for the lameness.

Watched the Biden / Ryan matchup. My thought about presidential and vice presidential debates is that you tend to feel the person you agree with was the winner. Only makes sense, right? This was a much easier contest to watch than the last one, I must say, but it retained one of the central themes of the presidential debate: Romney/Ryan does not want to talk specifics about anything, and are now in full flight from their own positions.

The purported “numbers guy” seems very reluctant to use any when it comes to talking about their tax plan. They are planning to cut marginal tax rates to 20% across the board, while increasing military spending something like a trillion dollars or more above current spending levels. Ryan was claiming that this can be balanced by closing loopholes on upper income earners. Horseshit. Where’s the proof? They don’t have any numbers. They can’t name deductions that they would suggest in any negotiations with Congress. They’re talking about an enormous gap that their plan would greatly expand, they claim they can close it, but they offer no details. They’ve got a secret plan to cut taxes and balance the budget while raising military spending: it’s called “Just trust us.”

The laser focus on the Benghazi terror attack is instructive about how efficient the right-wing echo chamber is. Fox News blows this story to its many millions of viewers, along with Rush and the gang; the more mainstream outlets pick it up out of nervousness. What the hell – they are blowing this thing up as if it were a bigger failure than 9/11. They certainly talk about it more than Afghanistan, where Americans are killed every week, for chrissake.

That’s all for now. More later.

luv u,

jp