The Colonel's Forum

An Instagram Account Chillingly Documents The Sites Of U.S. Drone Strikes http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671238/an-instagram-account-chillingly-documents-the-sites-of-us-drone-strikes

Not sure why Mitt lost? Can't believe that a majority of Americans are stupid enough to vote for a deficit spending, big government, socialist ultra-liberal agenda? Well in that case you've been brainwashed by the CEC - the conservative entertainment complex. Remember, the primary interest of people like Fox News and Rush Wind-bag is to promote themselves and make money, not inform the electorate about reality. The truth is much less titillating than "Obama is a socialist from Kenya who wants to ruin America!" but you bought it hook line and sinker. He's a mediocre Senator from Illinois who saved us from a depression, hasn't started WWIII and is generally more palatable than Willard Mitt Moneybags III who thinks 47% of the country are a bunch of leeches. There are some real reasons that explain Romney's loss though, if you're interested. Deep down, Karl Rove knows these to be true, though he'd never admit it. The electorate is changing, considera...

Glad to see the GOP is still avoiding compromise. Wouldn't want them to be reasonable at the negotiating table just because Obama has a clear mandate and they lost a few Senate seats... Boehner Exclusive: Raising Tax Rates 'Unacceptable' but New Revenue on Table - ABC News

I had a fascinating addition to my list of life experiences this week: watching a US election from a foreign country. I was in Belgium this week for work, launching a new cloud computing project with our Europe, Middle East, and Africa account leaders. There were 30 people in total, from all over Europe plus Lebanon, Dubai, South Africa, Egypt, and Qatar. Quite a mixed crowd. We all went out for dinner on election night, and once the Belgian beers started flowing, the attendees quickly began asking us four Americans leading the meetings what we thought about the election, who we were voting for and who we thought would win. Does it matter what people from other countries think about our election process? Our President? Our nation as a whole? Chances are good that if you voted Romney, your answer is "no" and if you voted Obama your answer is "yes." If I won the lottery, I would load a plane up with some of the biggest isolationists and anti-interventionists in the ...

It's election day, and clearly I have not kept up with my 60 days 60 stats project. It was an ambitious project though, so I'm ok with making it to 50. Today's election is likely to be close, and also likely to see record turnout. I see both of these as good things. It has forced both parties to listen to the electorate. Anytime we increase the voter participation rate, our democracy strengthens. Here's what I can tell you about the next four years for the President, regardless of who wins: He will inherit an economy on the rebound We are in one fewer war than we were four years ago He will see 12 million jobs created, and he cannot take credit for any of them He will not end the ridiculous partisanship in Washington He will not balance the budget He will not end the fact that special interests have too much influence He will not fix entitlements Clearly, I am hoping that Obama wins. Mitt's pro-millionaire anti-middle class approach, combined with his pr...

3 = Number of Republican Presidents who would support Obama's decision to lower defense spending as part of a deficit reduction program. Why? Because that's exactly what they did: " Obama, in cutting defense spending, will be following in the footsteps of such Republican presidents as Eisenhower, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, who significantly reduced military spending to deal with federal deficits that exploded during their presidencies. " http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/report/2010/09/23/8355/strong-and-sustainable/

50% = percentage of our current financial mess attributable to the Bush Tax cuts. Both Obama & Romney want to continue these cuts. Obama wants to limit it to those making $250,000 a year or less, Romney wants his fellow millionaires to get them too.

20 = the number of Grammys won by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, who have endorsed President Obama for a 2nd time.  I got to attend my first Springsteen concert last night, and I was blown away. He is a hero of the middle class, and Mitt Romney openly admits he couldn't care less about anyone other than the "job creators" who need bigger tax breaks.

If you ever find yourself in a position where airlines are buying you things, chances are good that something has gone wrong. Today, Delta bought me breakfast and free on board drinks (they were out of Woodford). Last month they bought me a new suitcase. No shit.

3% = average tax hike you can expect from Romney tax plan. NYT: Comparing the Tax Bite Under O

2003 = the most recent year that Mitt Romney supported a cap and trade system to reduce carbon emissions, and recognized that we need to tackle climate change. Romney On Cap And Trade In 2003: 'I Am Making Good On My Pledge' To Clean Up Carbon Pollution 'Harming Our Climate' | ThinkProgress

7.9% = current us unemployment rate. Not pretty but better than when Obama took office. Only 2.9% above NAIRU.

1 = number of focus groups the GOP held to determine which (anti Obama) conspiracy films they should send to voters 3 = number of conspiracy films they had to choose from. 0 = number of anti-Romney conspiracy films produced to date. Conservatives tested which anti-Obama conspiracy films to send to voters http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/27/1150168/-Conservatives-tested-which-anti-Obama-conspiracy-films-to-send-to-voters

51 = the percentage of Americans who now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell. This from a recent AP story. How sad that more than half the country is pre-disposed to vote for Romney just because he's white.  http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1027/Racial-attitudes-have-not-improved-in-the-four-years-since-Obama-took-office

Business Insider article with good candidate comparison on economic issues.

3 - the number of large groups you'd expect to support the Romney/Ryan ticket who are not doing so. 1) The state of Massachusetts - no former governor has ever lost the state where he was governor. If Mitt did such a bang up job "serving" the people of Massachusetts, why are they so firmly Obama? So much so that Mitt has abandoned all campaign efforts there? Sure, Massachusetts is a blue state, but the fact that Mitt won the governorship there is not irrelevant. 2) Wisconsin - the state where Paul Ryan is a Congressman is listed by almost every major media outlet as a "toss-up." 3) Salt Lake City - remember those Olympics that Romney so famously saved with his super powers, I mean business savvy?  They just endorsed Obama, because there are " too many Mitts ."  He's shape-shifted so much since the man who saved the Olympics, they don't trust him.

1 - the number of voting machine companies that Mitt Romney owns. No kidding. The machines in Texas, Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington state come from Hart Intercivic, which is owned by HIG Capital, which received over $10,000,000 in "seed money" from Solamere Capital, which is Mitt Romney's personal holding company. Here's a poorly written, yet factually accurate article on the topic from Forbes. If you can't win fairly, change the voter registration and ID laws, the early voting periods, and "fix" the voting machines.  Impossible? It's already happened.  In 2004, in the dead of election night, an electronic swing of more than 300,000 votes switched Ohio from the John Kerry column to George W. Bush, giving him a second term. A virtual statistical impossibility, the 6-plus% shift occurred between 12:20 and 2am election night as votes were being tallied by a GOP-controlled information technology firm on servers in a basement in Chattanooga,...

Several statistics to review for this installment. CNN had this info-graphic in an article on unemployment  last week. The article is a poorly written attempt to convince people that the unemployment situation is far worse than the 7.8% number that is officially reported. It worked on at least one of my friends - he bought it hook, line & sinker. The irony is that if you read the article with an open mind, and you look at what they "suggest" rather than "prove," they actually demonstrate that the official 7.8% number is too high! If you add the top 2 numbers here you get 92%, meaning that 92 out of 100 Americans either "have a job" or "don't have a job AND don't want one." This is a simple concept. So is the definition of unemployed - it means someone who doesn't have a job but is actively looking for one. If you're out of work and not looking for a job, you're not unemployed. It doesn't even matter WHY you'r...

86,859 - number of coal miners employed in the US the day Obama took office 89,423 - number of coal miners in America today. If Obama is waging a war on coal, he's doing a terrible job of it. Coal mining in Appalachia is at a 14 year high .  Kentucky has seen a net loss of roughly 1,000 jobs during Obama's 1st term, but West Virginia and Virginia have seen net gains of roughly 4,000. I am reminded of James Baker III's famous quote when asked if he was worried about alienating Jewish voters by talking to the Palistinians about peace when he said "@#$% 'em, they didn't vote for us."  Well, coal miners didn't vote for Obama any more than Jewish people voted for Reagan. The coal industry likes to talk about a war on coal being waged by the EPA and the President. That's a nice sound bite, but they're only lying to themselves (and their union members). The reality is that the free market economy is putting coal out of business. It's harder t...

30% - the percentage of Americans who Paul Ryan believes are "takers," the other 70% are "makers." Interesting that he disagrees with Romney on the low side of that number.  What's more interesting is that both of them firmly believe that at least 1/3 of our country is a bunch of freeloading losers. How does one arrive at this mentality? What could make someone so bitter? Here's the video , so you can see it in his own words. Of course there are freeloaders in this country, so what? It's not 30%. There are freeloaders at work, freeloaders when you go out to dinner in a big group, but to suggest that 30%, basically 1/3 of the entire country are freeloaders?! Think of your family - which 30% of them are freeloading losers milking the welfare state?  What about your friends?  Think of your 9 best friends, and now pick which three are societal leeches. These people are criticizing Obama for being "divisive" and failing to unite the country, yet...