Let’s begin with defining the traits of sociopathy:

• Glibness and Superficial Charm
• Manipulative and Conning
  They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
• Grandiose Sense of Self
  Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
• Pathological Lying
  Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
• Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
  A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
• Shallow Emotions
  When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
• Incapacity for Love
• Need for Stimulation
  Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
• Callousness/Lack of Empathy
  Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
• Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
  Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
• Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
  Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet “gets by” by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
• Irresponsibility/Unreliability
  Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
• Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
  Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
• Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
  Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
• Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
  Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

There are some literal aspects of sociopathy listed above that Mitt Romney doesn’t exhibit such as those connected with living on the edge and promiscuous behaviorr…but one could argue that his constant lying at the risk of his campaign and reputation and his jumping into bed with whatever opinion or right wing extremists he thinks could get him elected is pretty promiscuous.

With some of the key qualities missing from his repetoire, it would not seem wholly justified to refer to Romney in a clinical way as a sociopath. However, being that he has displayed the majority of behaviors listed above with few exeptions, it would seem logical to refer to him as one with a majority of sociopathic tendancies.

Has America ever voted for a man with sociopathic tendancies to be their president? Could such a candidate actually win?

There have been fringe candidates including some libertarians who certainly have appeared to have sociopathic leanings (though true liberrtarians are not by definition, sociopaths). Once in office, we have seen Presidents act sociopathically and get re-elected (George Bush anyone?) but I can’t recall any competitive candidate that exhibited as many aspects of sociopathy as Romney does.

By the time people enter the voting booths in November, I think that this less explicit factor in the Presidential race will become a meaningful element. The plain fact is that the more people see of Romney, the more discomforrt they feel about them.

This doesn’t necessarily show up in polls, it can be a vague feeling that people may not even be able to put their finger on but after the next five months of nonstop national exposure and sociopathic-type behavior by Romney. that sense of him, that he’s not a genuine and normally adjusted human being will be established.

Whatever the avalanche of lies and mudslinging being used to try and bury Obama, in the end, people will have to vote for the man they want making decisions over their lives and it seems to me that for all the reasonable reservations they may have about Obama, the majority of indie voters who will decide this election, will not feel comfortable handing their future over to someone who feels so close to a sociopath as Mitt Romney does.

Mr. George W. Bush showed us what that was all about in 5 easy steps.

1) Fly in Air Force One to California.

2) Leave Air Force One at an AFB, don a flight suit, get on a fighter jet.

3) Fly just 30 miles off shore, as a passenger, on that jet to the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier (nicknamed “The Liberator”), instead of taking your ready to use and in range helicopter, Marine One, or waiting for the carrier to dock. The ship, just returned from its mission in support of the Iraq War is a perfect setting to celebrate a victory especially if it is still under way “at sea”. Even better your jet is accompanied by three other escort jets so the flight deck fly-by is impressive.

4) Land on the deck, climb out of the cockpit in a flight suit carrying your helmet, and waving at the TV cameras and “your comrades in arms”. As you stroll across the flight deck packed with several thousand crew greet them warmly, shake hands and pose for lots of pictures. Eventually go to a ready cabin to change into business attire. (When the cameras move away the pilot of “your” jet climbs down and moves quickly below decks.”)

5) After changing clothes deliver a full-throated 35 minute victory speech saluting the ease with which our forces won the Iraq War as a HUGE, White House ordered banner waves in the background announcing: “Mission Accomplished.” The banner’s display motif is that of a U.S. flag. Begin your speech with these words: “In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

NOW THAT’S SPIKING THE BALL…but as it turned out it was more like spiking the ball at your own 10 yard line with 90 yards still to go.

When Bush’s jet landed on the aircraft carrier, American casualties stood at 139 killed and 542 wounded. That was over 4100 US fatalities and 17000 wounded ago. 100,000 Iraqis would be casualties in a war that had 9 years to go before the U.S. exited. It would cost the U.S. more than one trillion dollars in immediate expenses to prosecute the war and more than two trillion when the services to returning troops are added in and more than three trillion when we add in the cost of aid to Iraq and the cost of maintaining a presence in the country. What did we get? A further destabilized Middle East, an emerging Iran no longer balanced by a stable Iraq, a broken and exhausted army accompanied by a record number of soldier and veteran suicides, no oil bonus, and lots of disrespect from the world community.

Mr. Bush….“History is a cruel judge of overconfidence.”
Mr. Obama is not prone to overconfidence.

By now it has become crystal clear that to Republicans, no news is good news. It doesn’t matter whether Osama Bin Laden is killed, the economy is recovering from the worst recession in recent history or diet donuts have been invented that actually reduce your cholesterol and make you lose weight, the GOP is bent (in many ways) on spinning every bit of good news that comes into something terrible.

As the Party of Nope and Deranged, the GOP has come to realize that there is no way enough people will vote for their party based upon their policies that only address the desires and needs of the top 1% and religious fanatics. So, their only path to power is by piling as much manure on top of President Obama and Democrats as possible and counting on people being so offended by the stench that they stumble away and blindly tumble into the sewer known as the modern GOP.

In order for this cynical plan to work, the GOP must respond to any and all positive news like they were cantankerous old people (which many Republicans naturally are anyway) but instead of replying to, “Hey Grandpa, I pitched for my Little League team for the first time!” with “Keep it up and you’ll suffer the rest of your life in excruciating pain from your rotator cuff!”, the GOP comes up with various ways to describe great things as Roves in the punchbowl.

So, since we are always seeking ways to offer olive branches to the other side in hopes of bringing everyone together, we have worked up a list of issues and responses that Republicans can use at a moment’s notice if a particular piece of good news rears its pleasant head in the future.

LIST OF REPUBLICAN RESPONSES TO GOOD NEWS

1. If unemployment continues dropping and GDP and other economic indicators rise:

GOP: “Now the elitists in the Democratic Party including President Obama are trying to use numbers and math to convince Americans that things are getting better in this country. Math may be their God but we believe in the one true God and we object to this continuing attack on religion! We don’t need math or numbers to know what’s happening in our economy! We have our guts to tell us and Rush Limbaugh! The more these numbers rise, the more Big Arithmetic is taking away our freedoms!”

2. If President Obama achieves a foreign policy success in North Korea, Iran, Israel, etc.

GOP: “Reducing political tensions is playing into the hands of Al Qaeda and all of those who want to harm us. The less threats and wars we have, the less we’ll spend on protecting ourselves. Military equipment manufacturers will be paid less and less and eventually  shrivel and die, leaving America helpless and vulnerable thanks to “peace”. Then you know who’ll be free to invade and take over America? Al Qaeda, communists, socialists, Russians, Taliban, Gypsies, Cubans, Slytherins, Morlocks, yodelers, mimes and many others who hate America!”

3. If a cure for cancer, Alzheimer’s or another devastating disease is discovered thanks to federal funding of science and medicine:

GOP: At a time when unemployment is so high in this nation, thanks to our government, the need for doctors and nurses will now drop and hundreds of thousands if not millions of them will lose their jobs. Those having their Alzheimer’s cured are forgetting about the salaries of many job creators and little people in the pharmaceutical and medical industry that their conditions have been paying for! Our President wants us to be selfish and only care about ourselves and our health instead of the health of our economy. Sick is good! Good for business and good for America! Health care is thumbing our nose at God’s great plan for the uninsured. If He wanted everyone in America to be healthy, why are there so many Arby’s around?”

4. If President Obama makes a powerful and inspiring speech about the rights of minorities, women or some other issue addressing fairness in our society:

GOP: “Once again, President Obama is trying to divide Americans and turn us against each other. Under the guise of “fairness” Obama wants to sow dissent in the majority of Americans who happily celebrate millionaires and billionaires getting richer because they know that one day, the 99% will become the 1% . It’s simple math and you can’t argue with math…forget what we said about it before, we changed our minds because now it helps us make our point! Obama insists Latinos should be treated as equals even though they’re happiest when they’re treated as servants…if they weren’t, why do they smile so much when you speak English to them? And there is no War on Women. If there was, they’re so inferior to men, they wouldn’t stand a chance of winning and the war would be over before it started. Women are as loved by Republican men as their family dogs and are given a long leash to explore around within reason. Women see a leash as a bond between them and the men they serve, why Obama would have anything against bondage is beyond us.”

5. If the Affordable Care Act is confirmed to save taxpayers a great deal of money and insure tens of millions of Americans who were uninsured:

GOP: It’s no surprise that Democrats are celebrating Obamacare starving insurance companies from the kind of profits they used to make. Obama hates American business, he hates job creators and those who used hard work and the free enterprise to inherit their fortunes and positions of power. Health insurance is not a right, it’s a hot dog dangling on a string that should be able to be yanked out of reach when people are selfish enough to try and grab it and greedily harm insurance company profits. We believe in the free market and in the free market, nothing is free. Except corporate bailouts. Anyway, if the uninsured wanted to be insured, all they’d have to do is get insured in the past when they were healthy and in their 20′s. If they’re too lazy to go back and do that one simple thing, why should insurance companies be forced to help them? As Ayn Rand once said, “I made how much on royalties? Sweet! Everyone else can kiss my Objectivist ass from now on!” Now that is the character of free enterprise and America that this country was founded on and that we believe in.

There will no doubt be many more alarming incidents of “good news”, thoughtlessly intruding on the Republican campaign this year, we can only hope that our modest offerings herein help the GOP to find political black mold in the pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.

The Obama Tax Returns for 2011 are a prime example of this. After watching coverage of the returns on CNN, MSNBC, CBS and Current, I conclude that only Current was interested in a full coverage of what the tax returns meant. Print media coverage has been almost uniformly poor. On line, coverage has been very misleading on the right, and sparse on the left.

The Basic Info:
$5.6 million income; $1.8 million Federal Taxes.
The Obama’s paid 20.1 Percent IN FEDERAL TAXES;
They gave 22.5 Percent TO CHARITY.
That’s 42.6 Percent of their total earnings….Plus
Continuing payouts to 10 Charities from $1.4 Million Nobel Prize Money.

The Obama’s’ overall rate is .5 Percent lower than the median top one percent income earner and is much higher than that of most middle-income Americans. Households making between $60,000 and $100,000 paid on average 8 Percent of their income in federal incomes taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. Obama’s average tax rate over the last ten years has been nearly 30 percent. Like many of the wealthy Obama has benefited from the current tax structure, and from deductions, most notably those for donations to charity. Obama has also contributed significantly to his own retirement accounts.

The Obama’s donated $172,130 to charities in 2011, 22.5% of their adjusted gross income. The largest beneficiary was the Fisher House Foundation, which received $117,130 — the after-tax proceeds of the president’s children’s book, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.” Fisher House Foundation is best known for the network of comfort homes built on the grounds of major military and VA medical centers. Fisher homes are donated to the military and Department of Veterans Affairs so that families can stay nearby while a loved one is receiving treatment. Additionally, the Foundation ensures that families of service men and women wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan are not burdened with unnecessary expense during a time of crisis.

In addition, there were the ongoing donations from the $1.4 million in Nobel Prize money not included on the form because President Obama turned it entirely over to charity. Nobel pays out its prize money in annual allotments. The Obama’s donated all of the prize money to 10 charities. Full list at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-donates-nobel-prize-money-charity

The first couple paid $31941 in Illinois income tax. Plus undisclosed Cook County Property Taxes.

WHY WASN’T ALL OF THIS IN THE GENERAL MSM COVERAGE? DOES IT MAKE OBAMA LOOK TOO GOOD? How about a comparison with previous presidents? Or with current GOP leadership?

This is the president putting his money where his mouth is.
It deserved fuller coverage.

BUT….the Media in general, even the so-called Progressive media, want (need) a tight race. Tight races sell newspapers, magazines, books, advertising time. They build readership and viewership. They make money. Lots of money.

SO….for example, Fox emphasizes that Obama paid less than the “average” (more accurately the “median”) top one percenter and ignore how small that “less” is and how much the Obama’s gave to charity. Furthermore, most income earners at the level of the Obama’s in the $5 to $6 million range pay taxes at levels far closer to the 14 Percent paid by Mr. Romney last year. Fox has also used the line that Obama’s rate is lower than his secretary’s- a shot at the Buffet rule icon.

Huffington Post, has had two stories on the Obama taxes. The first headlined “Obama Tax Return Released For 2011″ is very brief, provides no analysis and invites readers to study the linked tax returns for insights. Ridiculous.

The second HP story has this headline: “Obama Tax Return Claims Mortgage Deduction That Most Helps The Rich”, a reference to a $10,000 home mortgage deduction. Misleading.

So, if they won’t tell the truth or spread the word, those who support the progressive agenda better do the job.

Their press release, which they handed out to each other, details that this is not only a pro-democracy policy but a pro-recovery one.

“So far, the 2012 race for the Presidency has been very one-sided, with the eventual Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, making self-damaging statements on a near-daily basis while President Obama makes stirring speeches,” explained Time Warner Executive Vice President, Dick Douchington. “This has so far led to a not very competitive race in the polls which is bad for democracy…and our ratings and ad revenue…which coincidentally means it’s bad for the US economy.”

“So, in order to stimulate greater viewership in our news channels, which will generate more commerce in America and strengthen the recovery while energizing our democracy, we are banding together to support a new policy that evens the Presidential playing field, ” Douchington added with a brief fondling of his crotch. “From now on, we will present the statement of anyone who is a Democrat, supports or voted for Obama in the past, whether or not they have ever represented President Obama or even have met him, as statements he is responsible for.”

Douchington gave an example, “For instance, an 87 year old Democrat in a retirement home in Iowa said yesterday, ‘Women should go back to the kitchen and make me Wheatina.’ We have instructed the hosts at our news channels to present segments today asking how this will damage President Obama among women and all Americans who prefer cold cereal and whether President Obama’s delay in responding to this situation we have just that instant reported, will hurt his chances for re-election.”

This is an issue of fairness, Douchington insisted. “If a professional boxer and an uncoordinated amateur boxer who keeps accidentally punching himself in the face were in a fight for the world championship, how is it fair to the promoters who need ticket sales and the fans who paid a lot watch the fight (and could sue for refunds), if it’s not a close fight? You can’t make the terrible boxer better so isn’t it respecting the sport and the public to equalize the boxers by blindfolding the professional, tying his ankles together and shooting him with tasers whenever he gets too far ahead on points? What could be fairer than that?”

Douchington added that thanks to the tens of millions of Democrats and Obama-supporting Americans whose words appear in blogs, emails and ramblings in insane asylums, there will be a plentiful supply of damaging comments to blame Obama for from now until the November elections.

“The press has an important responsibility to the American people and our democracy,” Douchington stated. “What that responsibility is, we may not know, maybe it’s keeping Americans informed about how caring the oil industry is or maybe it’s confusing them with false equivalencies. Either way, we make money and that’s why our Founding Fathers believed in a free press.”

According to Douchington, hotlines and special web pages are being setup by all news channels so the American people can participate in this celebration of democracy and increased ad revenues by reporting the “craziest-assed things” they hear from anyone anywhere who might be a Democrat.

“There is no ‘too crazy’. Our industry’s motto is, ‘If it’s hate, we bait,” Douchington explained, making it clear that the Mainstream Media isn’t directly referring to its pro-masturbation policy in this particular instance.