For all the reasons to vote for Mitt Romney; none seems more notable than the fact that Mitt Romney is not Barack Obama. Still there are plenty of reasons to question Romney's credentials when it comes to core beliefs. Take the individual mandate in Massachusetts for example; Romney said that those decisions should be made by states and not the federal government. I take further issue with it. I think that no government entity should ever have the right to mandate that you purchase something, by virtue of your existence. That's a pretty serious conflict with conservative beliefs. That's a pretty troubling position. Does this mean that Romney believes that health care is a right? Romney sounds more like a moderate at best. Quite a while back I did a post on Moderates. I explained in great detail how it's hard to get behind someone who doesn't really stand for anything. If Romney has conservative core beliefs, why didn't he stand up for these beliefs when he was governor of Massachusetts? Why would he stand for them now?

The real problem lies in the fact that the Republican field has no conservative candidate in the race. That's not to say that there aren't any conservatives in the party; it's just that none of them stepped up this time around.

Mitt has a really big hurtle to get over, it's not looking more conservative than Obama, it's being conservative enough to get voters out. If Romney wins the general election it won't be because of his positive stance and message; it will be because of negative sentiment for Obama. Remember the stump speech that Romney gave in New Hampshire. There was little mention of what he would do other than to undo what Obama has done. While that is not a bad position to have, it seems a little narrow to me. We'll have to see if he expands on this.

Conservatives are more likely to vote for someone when they know where that person stands. This knowledge includes actions not just stated positions. Romney has to be able to convince the conservative electorate that he's not just full of hot air. But hey, he's not Obama right? That's got to count for something.

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This comment was on the CBS Cleveland website.

Here is what the article looks like now; they have since corrected it. When I first viewed the article the spelling was still incorrect; I failed to get a screen shot fast enough...

It's funny when people find these things. I wonder who the editor is, and if they still have a job?

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What does all of this really mean? Well there are a few ways to look at it. From what I can tell from the stories I have read; most of the people going to the "Occupy whatever" protests are not really sure what they are for or against.

Take note of how those in the "movement" consider things. It seems to be more about anti structure more than anything else.

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:

The beauty of this new formula, and what makes this novel tactic exciting, is its pragmatic simplicity: we talk to each other in various physical gatherings and virtual people's assemblies … we zero in on what our one demand will be, a demand that awakens the imagination and, if achieved, would propel us toward the radical democracy of the future … and then we go out and seize a square of singular symbolic significance and put our asses on the line to make it happen.

The time has come to deploy this emerging stratagem against the greatest corrupter of our democracy: Wall Street, the financial Gomorrah of America.

On September 17, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months. Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.

Tahrir succeeded in large part because the people of Egypt made a straightforward ultimatum – that Mubarak must go – over and over again until they won. Following this model, what is our equally uncomplicated demand?

The most exciting candidate that we've heard so far is one that gets at the core of why the American political establishment is currently unworthy of being called a democracy: we demand that Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington. It's time for DEMOCRACY NOT CORPORATOCRACY, we're doomed without it.

This demand seems to capture the current national mood because cleaning up corruption in Washington is something all Americans, right and left, yearn for and can stand behind. If we hang in there, 20,000-strong, week after week against every police and National Guard effort to expel us from Wall Street, it would be impossible for Obama to ignore us. Our government would be forced to choose publicly between the will of the people and the lucre of the corporations.

These people actually think that Obama is going to end corruption? Do they not realize that the Solyndra scandal has Obama's name all over it? There were Senators paid off with promises of federal money in order to get the Obama health care bill passed. The list goes on and on.

In reality I think the people behind this movement have their own best interest in mind. I'll explain. Once you take the wealth from those who have it, what's left? If you destroy the mechanism by which wealth is created, there will be only a finite and decreasing amount of wealth. The people who are behind this movement are already wealthy, otherwise they would be (like those at the protests) chopping themselves off at the knees. As I have said before, once public opinion is so against the wealthy; who will want to work their way up to the "hated class"?

This "movement" is not a movement at all because there are large financial backers namely unions. The protesters are nothing more than people who want something for nothing. Since when is a large grouping of misinformed people a "new tactic"? Obama was elected by a large group of misinformed people; did they get what they were after?

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Is it possible that this is one of the Democrat's voter scams?

ATLANTA - So far, no one has proven it's a scam, but they haven't proven it's for real either.

This week more than 700 senior citizens filled out a rather skimpy form promising a $500 check from the American Opportunities Stimulus Program.

They filled in sensitive information like their name, address, birth date and social security numbers, all with the promise of getting a Visa Check card in return.

But on Thursday, Fulton County government put out a warning that it might be an identity theft scam.

They even sent their own camera crew to the Atlanta headquarters of Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, where the forms were being handed out by Vanessa Emerson and her son, Brandon.

After the alarm went out, Brandon Emerson returned hundreds of the forms to the NAN headquarters at 632 Peoples Street so they could be given back to the seniors who filled them out.

Even though his mother was wearing a NAN T-shirt in the Fulton County government video, her son claimed they are not affiliated with the organization.

Eventually the Southeast Regional Director for NAN showed up at the headquarters and began reassuring seniors no one was going to compromise the information.

Tyleis Speight admitted to 11 Alive News the forms had been collected there, but claimed she was a victim, too.

"National Action Network has been frauded as well," Speight said.

She said they're still trying to find out who was responsible.

Nobody tries to steal the identity of people, for monetary gain, when people will give the info for the "promise" of $500. It's obvious what was going on here. I wonder why there is so little information about this on the Internet? I also wonder why nobody has been charged with fraud yet?

I wonder if these people will be "voting" Democrat? Wink, wink...

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By now just about everyone has heard about Solyndra. Solyndra is a producer solar panels, mostly roof mounted solar power systems typically for large commercial buildings. The Obama administration made sure that Solyndra received government backed loans totaling 535 million dollars even though there was disagreement within the administration over whether or not Solyndra was financially stable. Now the administration is trying to make sure that the blame is shifted away from Obama and onto Energy Secretary Chu.

This is an example of what happens when the government tries to interfere with the marketplace. If Solyndra were competitive in the market there would be no need for a large government backed loan. Solyndra can't produce it's solar systems cheaply enough to compete on the world market, or with existing energy sources. Also Solyndra was backed by the government so it could operate without the financial constraints which exist with no government backing. Solyndra could waste money knowing that the government was there to prop them up. Solyndra was supported by the wishful thinking of politicians and the taxpayer's wallets.

The situation gets worse though. There seems to be a trend with government backed ventures. These government backed companies receive more assistance as performance decreases. In other words, why would any government backed company try to succeed when it can be more successful financially by either maintaining or slightly decreasing performance. If Solyndra actually succeeded it might have to run on it's own. Solyndra has benefited from the ultimate corporate welfare program.

The waste the company exhibited is absurd. Take a look at some of the things within the facility alongside Interstate 880 in Fremont, California.

It wasn’t just any factory. When it was completed at an estimated cost of $733 million, including proceeds from a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, it covered 300,000 square feet, the equivalent of five football fields. It had robots that whistled Disney tunes, spa-like showers with liquid-crystal displays of the water temperature, and glass-walled conference rooms.

“The new building is like the Taj Mahal,” John Pierce, 54, a San Jose resident who worked as a facilities manager at Solyndra, said in an interview.

Amid the still-unfolding postmortems, the factory stands as emblematic of money misspent and the Field of Dreams ethos that seemed to drive the venture, said Ramesh Misra, a solar-industry analyst in Los Angeles for Brigantine Advisors.

“When you don’t have the demand, you can’t go into something with the attitude, ‘Build it and they will come,’” Misra said. “You have to make sure the customers are already there when you build it.”

When will the socialist government types get it? People buy things they want or need. You can't fabricate a need. You don't artificially increase prices to drive people away from one product and towards another, it never works as planed. For all the talk of alternative sources of energy there have been none that are competitive cost-wise to what we have now.

Until someone comes up with a way to produce energy that is at least as cheap as we have now, these ventures are always going to fail. People aren't looking for "alternative energy sources" in the real world; they are looking for energy, if it's competitively priced and works people will buy it. So far that hasn't happened yet.

In the mean time the government is throwing money into ridiculous ventures like Solyndra instead of allowing the private market come up with something. The government is eating up capital and directing it without regard for results. When results are negative, the answer is always more money.

There was a very good reason that private sector investors didn't fund this venture. Government obviously didn't share their foresight.

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