In an interview on Up w/ Chris Hayes Sunday, Emil Henry, an economic adviser and fundraiser for Mitt Romney - and a former assistant treasury secretary during the Bush administration - defended Mitt Romney's secretly recorded comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay income taxes, and said he would "triple down" on Romney's controversial remarks. In those remarks, Romney notoriously said Americans who don't pay income taxes are "dependent" on government and consider themselves "victims."
Romney economic adviser and fundraiser Emil Henry: "I will triple down" on Romney's 47% comments
Sun Sep 23, 2012 9:48 AM EDT
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I love the show! Chris you are amazing the way you interact with your guests. I enjoy the open give and take of ideas. you usually do a really good job of managing the flow so no one totally dominates and everyone is heard.
I liked the intro on this topic. It is a shame that you get someone on, even beamed in, that won't stick with the topics and who has his own agenda. Mr. Henry is an arrogant A$$. Can he not give a straight answer?? He sounds like Romney. Is there something in the water "those people" are drinking? Can you just cut his part short???? He adds nothing to this conversation. I would much prefer to hear from the guests at the table.
The more Mr. Henry talks the the more stupid he sounds!!! If you confront him with an error (lie) that he has made he just changes the subject. At first I wanted you to cut his part short. Now, I am glad that he was allowed to continue. The more he talks the more arrogant, out of touch, condesending and dishonest he sounds. He just exposed himself as the vile person he is without help from anyone else at the table !!!!!!!!
Republican leadership has to pretend that their $1 trillion a year tax cut economic stimulus, with $700 billion a year going to the wealthiest people and business owners for over a decade, did not fail. They will say anything and interpret that it was all the Obama Administration’s fault in any way they can to avoid the reality.
The White House has proposed a Jobs and Tax plan that includes a Tax Holiday for small businesses on the condition that they ‘do’ use their profit and tax cut money to hire. As opposed to the Romney tax plan, which gives all sizes of business, and people in the private sector, a tax cut whether they invest the money in jobs or business, or not. (Business owners of mid-size and smaller corporations who net over $1 million can afford to hire a few more employees if they want, or need to, even without a tax cut.)
It is the same economic policy difference in corporations bringing jobs back from overseas. President Obama proposes a corporate tax cut rate for incentive ‘on the condition’ that overseas corporations use the money to create business and jobs in America, while Mitt Romney proposes tax exemption on that corporate overseas money, itself, as the lone incentive.
Democratic Party leadership knows how to make sure that we are investing the taxpayers end share of tax cuts in ‘only’ business and jobs, instead of the GOP’s risk of only investing tax cuts in business owner’s personal savings accounts.
That is a big difference in economic policy between the two parties.
Chris, your show is the best Sunday morning show by far. Intelligent, great information and less political bullsh_t. Thank you.
Mr. Henry seems to believe that we have a government-dependent society, referring to Romney's 47% gaffe. What is missing is that a huge amount of these people became dependent upon the government services due to the fact the the Bush/Republican team took our nation and pushed it off of a cliff.
The task that President Obama has had is to restore lost jobs and to restore our economy to prosperity, as well as dealing with health care. The Obama/Democrat team has proposed jobs bills, including a Veterans Job Bill, that the Republicans have approached with their patented "Party of NO" lock-step agenda.
In my opinion, the disastrous effects that the Bush/Republican era had upon the nation should be brought up whenever any discussion of our present situation surfaces. The Republicans blame President Obama/Democrats (nice try), when it was the Bush/Republican cabal that is 100% responsible for our nation's current problems.
Should the nation look to the "Party of NO" to work on our nation's problems after doing absolutely nothing for the last four years, or to the Obama/Democrat team, who have been regularly offering possible solutions to our issues? Easy choice.
When all is said and done, one has to command the facts. It is not enough to have a litany of ideas that are basically talking points and are contradictions in and of themselves. I'm trying to be nice. Normally, I would say that some one like Mr. Henry would know better and therefore would need to be lying to make his statements, but in reality it came across that the man simply doesn't know what he is talking about and really can not participate in a conversation. He can only can say what he has to say and he forgets or never knew why he is saying it. Very strange, I think. The Republicans seem so broken, so afraid of saying something that makes sense. They are left looking down at their little catechism that no longer makes sense even to them.
Hands down the best political analysis on television today. And where else to see Emil Henry's lava lamp bubbling in the background?
So, do you think the lava lamp may have been smarter?
rather obvious why Wall Street money shifted away from Obama: he is trying to stop investment bankers from taking everybody's money.
I think this was a good step in the right direction for having interviews - to point out right away the inconsistencies in their logic. Don't let them get away with slogans.
I think more of that is needed. If he say's he triples down, then ask if 47% are moochers. Ask if people that pay a higher rate than Romney are moochers.
And don't let him run with switching the topic.
I don't care what the "issues" are. People look at candidates as people and judge their character by their statements and actions along with those that advise a candidate. Emile Henry is obviously the best pick for an adviser for Romney. His demeanor and tone is incredibly arrogant and, like his candidate, has the air of the privileged class. A class that, in the case of Mr. Romney, cares not one bit about those not a member of their club. I am so glad you had Mr. Henry on the show. I know it was not your intent, but his attitude once again convinces me that I am right to back a candidate other than Romney.
I watch your show faithfully because it keeps me sane and gives me hope. You present people like Mr. Henry and allow him to be exactly who he is--an arrogant rich s**t. And I am especially grateful for the final segment where you again gave me the "hope" I so badly need. Go Occupy! I belong to the so-called Greatest Generation and have experienced the pain of financial loss that these rich guys have been working to give us for decades, and finally accomplished. I don't feel like a "victim," but I am surely ticked off big time about how they take take take and feel abused when we fight back. Your book really tells it like it is; they will never have "enough." Apparently they won't stop until we "victims" decide to march in the streets and do what Mitt says we won't do. That is, take responsibility for our lives. But they aren't going to like it!
In 2008, when it was clear that Barack Obama would be elected President, Wall Street was terrified that he would come in and start arresting people. He did not. Was he afraid that if he pushed hard there would be so many arrests--so many people were implicated--that it would cause major disruption to our financial system? Probably. But once they saw that the danger was past, they went full throttle back to their old ways. There was a a great movie on BET recently about the great South African leader Shaka Zulu. A biography, it shows that he learned the lesson of total war early in his life: leave no enemy behind, lest they rise to challenge you again. Apparently, President Obama blinked and showed compassion to his enemy. They (the Wall Street bankers) will show no such compassion--or gratitude--to him. President Obama doesn't realize that when he attempts the champion the rights of the middle class, he is challenging not just Republicans, but corporate power. The idea that he ever had a majority in Congress is crazy, because there are many Democrats who have been corrupted by corporate power and do not have the character or courage to challenge it. Even though our democracy will not survive if corporate power is not challenged. And everyone in Congress knows that.
And how did that work out for Shaka Zulu? It got him assassinated. Obama does not believe in a scorched earth policy, political or military. That is part of who he is and isn't going to change.
We're talking about arresting Wall Street Bankers who broke laws regarding fiduciary trust here. So you're saying that if the Wall Street bankers who sold obviously worthless derivatives -- knowing full well they were worthless -- were arrested and charged with financial crimes, that they would seek to have President meet the same end as Shaka Zulu? It's hard to see how Martha Stewart ended up in prison, while nobody involved in the meltdown of our economy even got a reduction in their yearly bonus.
Failure to seek justice on behalf of the American people was a serious mistake. If our President doesn't realize it by now, lots of other people do. With the Patriot Act and Google, it's hard to believe that the government was incapable of seeking out and discovering the truth about all of it.
It's interesting to me how Chris uses Mitt Romney and his campaign as an example of a peek behind the curtain of big-money donors and their impact on our national politics, yet we never see the other side of the equation, even though he did acknowledge that donor maintenance happens on both sides.
Nowhere is this more clear or has it been happening longer and with more intensity than in the Democratic Party's interactions with the LGBT activist community. The wealthiest Beltway LGBT civil rights organizations have been focusing on marriage rights like a laser for years and now we see that reflected in both the rhetoric we see coming from Democratic Party politicians and in the coverage we see from left-leaning political media (and yes, I'm talking about Chris, and Rachel, Ed, Lawrence...and even progressive print media).
Consider that we live in a country where in 29 states you can still legally be fired, denied a job, evicted or denied the rental of a place to live, and even banned from public spaces like bars, malls, restrooms, and restaurants, just for being gay. Now add to that if you happen to be transgender the number of states you can be denied all of those things goes up to 34.
In a country where this is the lived reality for millions of LGBT Americans, what would you expect the issues most LGBT voters cite as being of prime importance to them would be?
If you go solely by what you see on MSNBC and most other left-leaning mainstream media, you'd probably say same-sex marriage rights or the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. After all, that's pretty much the sum total of LGBT political issues that have gotten any serious coverage from these folks.
If, on the other hand, you look at the actual polls on what LGBT voters actually care about, such as this one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/lgbt-issues-voter-attitudes-logo-tv-survey_n_1823322.html you quickly realize that the issues LGBT American voters care about most isn't marriage (6%), but exactly what the rest of American cares about most, the economy (18%) and jobs (14%).
The problem, of course, is that the well-funded gay Beltway elites are very effective at getting their message promoting same-sex marriage out there and having the media focus on their agenda, while the poorer and less empowered or connected LGBT working class is seeing their key issue, the right to live and work free of discrimination, once again placed on the back burner by DC Democrats.
Witness the 2012 DNCC: Plenty of mentions or references to support for same-sex couples and marriage, but only one (that ever got even the slightest media coverage) which talked about LGBT jobs and employment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AKLqrE7YEA&feature=player_embedded
Same-sex marriage, an issue so controversial that 31 American state legislatures have already rewritten their state constitutions to ban the practice, and an issue shown to be of key concern to just 6% of LGBT voters gets plenty of primetime on-camera nods, while LGBT workplace rights, as in jobs, an issue shown to be a primary concern for more than double the number of those who cite same-sex marriage, gets just a single mention in an off-hour speech that got little or no mainstream media coverage.
Just as in the case of Romney's 50-grand-a-plate dinners, if you want to talk LGBT civil rights with the President, you're going to be shelling out 35 thousand and up for the privilege. Working class folks can't afford that of course, but the super-wealthy marriage advocates are ready and willing to sign those checks, and so they're the ones who the President hears from. That's why you see the politics you do around LGBT rights.
The much bigger problem is that our progressively-minded mainstream journalists and hosts, like the politicians, seem to have totally bought into this completely manufactured idea that same-sex marriage is what most of us care about, not jobs and the economy like the rest of America as the polls show. It's still relatively rare to see a news feature that focuses on LGBT jobs and workplace rights while at the same time the mainstream media coverage of marriage and Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been intense over the last few years.
Chris and staff, now I'm speaking directly to you: Take this on. Cover this topic.
Chris, I've enjoyed your work for years and I've read your book, so I think I can say this with at least some small shred of credibility: You're the perfect host to cover this topic. It's right in the sweet spot of your journalistic wheelhouse. I think you'd rock it.
Melissa Harris-Perry did a show a few months ago featuring trans people that briefly touched on the issue, but there still hasn't been a serious discussion of LGBT jobs anywhere in mainstream media I'm aware of.
If same-sex marriage truly warrants the kind of coverage MSNBC and other left-leaning media have been giving it over the last several months, then surely LGBT jobs should be a no-brainer according to the polls.
Seriously.
The collapse of political support for far Right wing politicians to bash gays did not come from the inside the beltway with elite LGBT lobbies. Personally, I believe it came from grassroots at the most unpolitical sense of the term. People in the neighborhood knew there was a gay couple living in the house 4 doors down. And they didn't hear all night loud sex parties but instead saw an everyday couple- they attended the PTA, participated in community events- in many cases exemplary citizens. So when loudmouths attempted to bash gays, they were no longer able to tap into fears.
It is what the hate radio guys fear the most, and talk about it in various ways: "The New Normal". The idea of norms is that they block surges of fear. If you look at the mechanics of a psycho thriller, what a Hitchcock will do is what the Glenn Becks try to do- They take something completely normal, and their cognitive norm is systematically chipped away at until the individual is overwhelmed by an alternate reality that overwhelms their senses, tapping into their deepest fears and anxieties.
Really, the GOP is no longer a political party- it is Club-Anxiety.
The activists will complain that nothing will change without political confrontation, and that political leaders must be forced to take action. They might respond to your note that Marriage Rights is a crisp, measurable and achievable goal and so it best suited as a banner issue. If the group focuses in on that issue, knock it off and in so doing enhance the perception of your political power. They might well readily admit your point that other rights are much higher priority, but that they are less easily measured. For example measurability of success of the goal: When do women have equal employment right in the workplace? How do you know that you have it. The answer is you don't. Whether or not same sex marriage is allowed is clear. The Right wing hates progressives taking up such crisp goals because it is clear when the Right wing has lost the battle.
That gets to that often uttered maxim about of Power. That it is much more about perception of power than raw exercise of force. That is the point an elite activist might make about your post.
I am skeptical about this because while the tactics of the activist and elites in the media are necessary for achieving political deliverables, it seems that they are like the spiker in a volleyball game. Some other force is setting up that ball to be spiked.
So in the public square this gets at the contrast between the Occupy Wall Street sort of zeitgeist versus the traditional Alinksy approach to movements. When the President is talking about change coming from outside Washington, I think he is imagining there should be many more Alinsky type groups pressuring for change. He is an Alinsky kind of guy- the kind theory that simply cannot account for mass spontaneous collaborative activity like wikipedia.
This is a different kind of grass rooots- a different kind of small d direct democracy. It seems to me that we need to move our political acumen beyond sophistication at the Alinsky level and get to that wiki mass collaborative model where the ball is more forcefully being set up for the spikers.
That's how I think we triumph over the mountain of anxieties that drive the popularity of GOP positions- like opposition to workplace LGBT rights.
I'd guess that you probably live in a major coastal urban area or a close suburb of one. The reason I say that is because if you lived in one of the redder areas of the country you'd be more cognizant of the fact that while LGBT workplace rights certainly don't enjoy universal support, they do enjoy demonstrably far greater support than same-sex marriage rights overall.
You can see this just by looking at the laws already in place. Currently, sixteen states protect all their LGBT citizens from discrimination in the workplace, compared to half that number which allow same-sex marriage. Another five protect gays and lesbians but not transpeople, bringing the total to 21. Add to that all the local laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination in the workplace and you find that fully half the US population already lives in jurisdictions that have these protections, far greater than the number who can marry in their home states. In addition, LGBT workplace rights are not banned from being enacted anywhere in the US, in contrast to the 31 states which have already taken the pretty radical step of rewriting their state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage.
Marriage is most emphatically NOT a grassroots issue. It's the pet issue of the super-wealthy urban gay elites who are looking to save money on taxes, not the issue of average, working-class LGBT Americans who are being crushed in this economy not only by the lack of jobs just in general, but also by the reality that in most areas of the country there's no law that says they have to be treated fairly and equally by employers like their non-LGBT co-workers are. That's what the polls tell us, no matter what the Beltway elites and their celebrity spokespeople may try to tell you.
Real progressive journalists and hosts like those at MSNBC should know better. If I can gather all these facts just sitting at my computer to talk about on my little non-commercial Internet radio show every week, then surely mainstream hosts, each with their own highly competent staffs and all of the resources of NBC News can do so as well. This is not rocket science. An honest and fair evaluation of the known and available facts makes the argument quite succinctly: LGBT workplace protections are far more popular and supported by significantly more Americans than the right to same-sex marriage is now or ever has been.
I don't believe it's at all a coincidence that Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which has gotten plenty of mainstream media coverage (and plenty of on-camera mainstream media face time for Democrats to talk about the issue) was successfully repealed during the 111th Congress, but the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which got virtually no coverage from MSNBC and other progressive media, didn't even get a vote that session, despite all the reports telling us that they had the votes to pass it.
The silence of left-leaning commercial media on the issues that matter most in our lives in favor of focusing on the big shinies like same-sex marriage is not only sensationalistic journalism that you'd hope these folks would be above indulging in, but it's also costing working-class LGBT Americans a great deal in real, life-impacting ways.
Think about it: If your boss knows he can fire you just for being gay or trans, regardless of your work performance or any other factor, or your landlord knows he can evict you at will for the same reason, then they can demand anything of you and if you protest or refuse they can simply fire or evict you for being Queer. Imagine the implications of that on the job or as a tenant, and then ask yourself if you'd want to be forced to live and work under those conditions. That's the reality LGBT Americans are currently living in in 34 American states.
It's also not a coincidence that the most vocal proponents of same-sex marriage are those who already have nice homes and good jobs. When you take an honest and unbiased look at what life is like for LGBT Americans in most of our country and how little attention it's getting from left-leaning media and politicians, it's pretty easy to see why.
If you're interested in learning more about this issue and the history and politics behind it, I'd urge you to check out my interview with FreedomToWork's Executive Director Tico Almeida, which can be found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-juro/its-time-for-the-us-senat_b_1613614.html
I'm getting fairly irked by this "triple-down" phrase, first Reince Priebus and now here (I'm sure other people, too, these are just the two I remember). "Double down" is annoying enough, but "triple-down" is just rhetorical nonsense.
The term "double-down" is taken from gambling and indicates that the wager has just been doubled and twice as much money is now at stake. In politics, there is no physical money at play when one is simply making a claim such as this or the aforementioned Priebus' statement, but I am able to resist my more pedantic urges and accept that this is a metaphorical, analogous term to reassert one's firmness of belief. "Tripling-down," however, begins to descend into the silly. As there is no specific wager in play, adding higher numbers to the statement is practically meaningless and frankly puerile.
"I triple-down"
"Oh yeah, well I quadruple-down."
"I quadruple-down times a million!"
"I quadruple-down times infinity!"
"You can't do that!"
"Can so!"
"Can not!"
"Uh-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"MOM!"
Please make fun of people who do this on national television. Especially ones who are supposed to be in positions of real authority.
ha, har ...Thanks for the chuckle.
I would say their wager is their credibility. Repeating and reinforcing again something as insane as the "47% are will never learn to take responsibility" is a very high risk game.
The statement has been pointed out to be wrong on so many levels - after the first time. Still they gambled to stick with it - so the stakes got higher.
Now pretty much everyone says that this is a loosing argument. Reinforcing it again is probably as close to tripling down as it gets. They might lose the election over this one.... and leave a party in shambles.
Boy Howdy did Emil come across as the classic Thurston Howell III and did you, Chris, gracefully slap him down with the facts this morning. My husband and I want to adopt you; we watch faithfully every weekend out here on the left coast.
So...I still don't see what incentivizes US businesses to invest in Americans and American labor after a Romney win. Romney won't be king. Maybe he'll get some ideas passed in Congress, and maybe he won't. American labor will still be competing with global workers who earn cents on the dollar. Nothing in the Great Game changes that sad fact.
If they refuse to self-correct in the Great Recession out of patriotism or human reason (which they do); what on earth makes anyone think they'll follow any future Congress' new rules? It's a shell game. We're just lucky the current party personalities are as transparent as they've been to date.
Oh, and as for the millions of the 47% not being interested in foreign policy- it's difficult to be focused on your first grade class when you're so hungry that your stomach is cramping, and it's even more difficult to focus on rich boy war/resource/strategy games when your own house is burning down.
Dems need to wake up. 9-11 is over, liberals aren't as cowardly in their outlook on life as are conservatives, and our domestic situation sucks big time. We totally get that being bombed night and day creates hatred and resentment; we'd feel the same way.
We have wonderful, inspiring, and challenging reforms to make here at home, and no effective Congress with which to enable . All of the work we need to do as a nation would in and of itself create the millions of jobs needed by distressed Americans. Where is the congressional, judicial, and executive leadership? Spending far too much time with those whose concerns surrounding the survival of daily life; i.e. employment, housing, education, and functional health are non-existent. It's like asking my dog to go to work in my stead because I have the flu.
Sorry to be so long...frustrated.
It occurred to me watching this that I have somehow been under the impression (and I believe correctly so) that "makers" are those who make goods, provide services, and develop and maintain infrastructure, and "takers" are those who make their living by artificially suppressing and skimming the wages of the makers.
I am having trouble wrapping my mind around how anyone could use this phrase in the contrary sense with a straight face.
Where is the Obama vision on how to arrest the 40 year decline of the middle class? If Obama is to have a mandate on the economy, what is that mandate on? Winning is not about getting 50.1% of the vote, it is about getting policies enacted. Not only must the GOP be slaughtered at the polls, the GOP must understand what policies have the wind at their backs, and that stonewalling these proposals will only result in further decline for their party.
Can you name any such policies?
I didn't think so. The economic ideas Obama has talked about so far are a patchwork of platitudes that are indistinguishable from the policies of the past which have failed to turn around the decline:
What distinguishes these proposals from near identical policies put in place since the 70s? Why should we believe they are sufficient now, when they have not in the past, and when the unemployment pressure has been less?
So what do we citizens... err "back seat drivers" have to contribute? Perhaps one of us American Peons might be able to "call in to a radio show" an idea that turns out to be a genuine "invaluable insight". Backyard tinkerers have produced some remarkable inventions in America- who is to say that our ingenuity must be confined to technological innovations. Why do we assume that academic theorists and opinion talk show personalities will be the source of the needed insight?
With that in mind, I suggest folks come up with ideas and post them online where they will be read and considered.
As for elitists driving the car, they can shut up and drive.
We are paying the fare.
There has been explosive growth in the alternatives to US labor, and we cannot expect businesses to impose upon themselves constraints for some non economic good. Their competitors will hand their heads to them. The negative externality this is costing the US economy is the shrinkage of purchasing power in the consumer economy.
Sure, it is in the long term interest of businesses to apply the Henry Ford principle of pumping money into worker salaries in order to sustain such a consumer economy. The trouble is that we all know that very few businesses take that long term view.
The classical solution to this problem of externalities was invented in the 19th century. It seems to me we ought to vigorously apply Pigouvian tax theory to our Jobs legislation. That is, like a carbon tax, businesses are made to feel the negative economic price of under employing US workers. Without being proscriptive, the tax law merely examines the revenue from US produced goods and services, and compares it to the businesses' payroll. If the company is extracting enormous wealth from the US economy, and not returning a fair percentage back into the economy in the form of payroll, for workers earning 150K or less, then the business incurs confiscatory taxes. Just as with Carbon tax credits, there would be employment tax credits which companies that are inherently labor intensive (mail carriers, manufacturing, construction) and could sell off their surplus to companies that aren't labor intensive (eg software and other high tech).
"Incentivizing hiring" is not just some trim around the edges tax breaks. We needs something that is more balls to the wall if we are going to bring the growth in middle class wealth more in line with gdp growth. Because now those two lines are diverging at an ever steeper rate.
As for the economic guesswork about what is causing that divergence- it really doesn't matter. The trend is unambiguous, and if it isn't changed, our consumer based economy will decay at ever accelerated rates. For the good of all US citizens rich and poor we need vigorous positive action to correct that divergence.
Mr. Romney :since I know that you always read the latest from Chris Hayes, and rightly so, I have some advice.
In a news story from Minnesota, there is a potential lesson -and hope- for candidate Mitt Romney... who in recent remarks, abandoned nearly half the people in America.
It’s a story about a 4 year old Pekingese dog, appropriately enough named Mittens, and an abandoned kitten.
Mittens' owner, Pat Weber, says the kitten was just days old when her grandson found her in the family's barn and brought her into their house in early September. Weber says the 2-inch kitten was "ice cold," ...She wrapped the animal in a warm towel and it started meowing, which attracted Mittens.
The kitten, now named Bootsie, began suckling on Mittens. Weber says her dog, which had a litter two years ago, has nursed Bootsie ever since. "Mittens has been mothering this baby, as far as she is concerned it's hers," she said. "And as far as the kitten is concerned, this is her mother”.
Mr. Romney: What a wonderful, heart-warming lesson for you!
For if Mittens the dog can find it in her heart, not only to adopt Bootsie the cat, but to actually start lactating for her....then perhaps Mitt, the candidate, can also start lactating a bit with the milk of human kindness and understanding.
Perhaps it may even encourage Mr. Romney to run as President for ALL the people - not just a potential President of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.
Think about it Mittens, ....I mean Mitt.
I assumed for a moment that the reason Obama did not retaliate during the debate with mitt was 'rope a dope' That is he wanted mit to spill his mendacious might so that it would all be on record, detailed, documented, referable. Then in the remainder of the campaign he could just refer to the lie by chapter and verse.
Having thought about it a little more, I assume Obama was cowed by the laws set down by the debate commission whose goal is the corpulate conquest and cowing of the world.
Today as UP discussed the lack of Obama's participation in the 'debate', I realized that as the group complained about Obama's participation in the debate, so did the group behave like Obama by not once mentioning how tightly the debate format and content was controlled by the debate commission whom they obviously did not want to offend either.
UP did not mention the strict rules the corpulate commission placed on the debate. Not one peep!