Chris Matthews Freaks Out At Obama After Debate: Romney Was “Winning”

“Tonight wasn’t an MSNBC debate tonight, was it?” Chris Matthews said after the first Obama-Romney presidential debate concluded on Wednesday night.

“I don’t know what he was doing out there. He had his head down, he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign. He had a plan, he was going to dominate the time, he was going to be aggressive, he was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively, he was going to relish the evening, enjoying it,” Matthews said.

“Here’s my question for Obama: I know he likes saying he doesn’t watch cable television but maybe he should start. Maybe he should start. I don’t know how he let Romney get away with the crap he throughout tonight about Social Security,” Matthews complained.

Matthews then demanded that President Obama start watching cable news, specifically his program.

Read the rest here.

Mitt Romney controlled the flow of the debate during its first segment. He framed the discussion of the economy and taxes by laying out what he called a five-point plan to fix the economy. He same up with a clever line by accusing Obama of favoring “trickle-down government.” He also took the offensive by claiming that Obama and other critics are wrong when they accuse him of proposing tax cuts for the rich.

“Virtually everything he said about my tax plan is inaccurate,” Romney said.

Obama found himself on the defensive. He also found himself noting areas where he agrees with Romney, such as small business tax cuts and increased domestic energy production.

Read the rest of Rick Dunham’s debate commentary as recorded in real time, here.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney took the offensive in the first presidential debate Wednesday night, forcing President Obama to defend his record in a series of sharp exchanges in which Romney charged that the President’s economic policies have “crushed” the middle class.

Appearing more vigorous than he often is on the campaign trail, Romney painted Obama’s first term as a time of rising poverty, slowing economic growth and struggle for millions of Americans. He pushed his own plans to lower taxes and bring down the federal deficit, saying his approach would revive the sputtering economy.

“Gasoline prices have doubled under the president. Electric rates are up. Food prices are up,’’ Rommey said. “Health-care costs have gone up by $2,500 a family. Middle-income families are being crushed.’’

“Look at the evidence of the last four years. It’s absolutely extraordinary,’’ he said. “We’ve got 23 million people out of work or stopped looking for work in this country … economic growth this year slower than last year, and last year slower than the year before.’’

“Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it for the American people who are struggling today,’’ the former Massachusetts governor said, prompting a frown from Obama.

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(Reuters) – An aggressive Mitt Romney took the fight to President Barack Obama on Wednesday and the Republican candidate appeared to breathe new life into his struggling campaign with a solid performance at their first debate.

As polls showed Obama with a slight edge among voters, Romney was on the offensive throughout the 90-minute encounter between the two rivals at the University of Denver.

The two men, standing side-by-side for the first time after months of brutal campaign attacks hurled at each other, clashed over taxes, healthcare and the role of government, reflecting the deep ideological divide in Washington.

Appearing poised and well-prepared, Romney zeroed in on weak economic growth and 8.1 percent unemployment that has left Obama vulnerable in his effort to win a second four-year term.

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During 5,148,760 person-years of follow-up between 1995 and 2008, a total of 33,731 men and 18,784 women died. In age-adjusted models, the risk of death was increased among coffee drinkers. However, coffee drinkers were also more likely to smoke, and, after adjustment for tobacco-smoking status and other potential confounders, there was a significant inverse association between coffee consumption and mortality. Adjusted hazard ratios for death among men who drank coffee as compared with those who did not were as follows: 0.99 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95 to 1.04) for drinking less than 1 cup per day, 0.94 (95% CI, 0.90 to 0.99) for 1 cup, 0.90 (95% CI, 0.86 to 0.93) for 2 or 3 cups, 0.88 (95% CI, 0.84 to 0.93) for 4 or 5 cups, and 0.90 (95% CI, 0.85 to 0.96) for 6 or more cups of coffee per day (P<0.001 for trend); the respective hazard ratios among women were 1.01 (95% CI, 0.96 to 1.07), 0.95 (95% CI, 0.90 to 1.01), 0.87 (95% CI, 0.83 to 0.92), 0.84 (95% CI, 0.79 to 0.90), and 0.85 (95% CI, 0.78 to 0.93) (P<0.001 for trend). Inverse associations were observed for deaths due to heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, injuries and accidents, diabetes, and infections, but not for deaths due to cancer. Results were similar in subgroups, including persons who had never smoked and persons who reported very good to excellent health at baseline. Full Article

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Oh my bad, pure is not what we strive for….

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$SRPT, $OCN, $LEAP, $JPM, $PCS,

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U.S. markets trade in classic chop fashion around the flat line. Markets are waiting to see tonight’s presidential debate and for some further details about Spain  and the overall debt resolving plans out of the EU.

Gold and silver is up while oil and other commodities get the homo hammer from a stronger dollar.

Market update

European markets

Gapping up

ITMN +9.6%, BBY +6.1%, INVE +5.4%, RECN +4.6%, FIRE +2.2%,

PCS +2%, SVU +1.7%, DB +1.4%, SSYS +2.6%,  NFLX +2%, WPRT +1.5%,

NSC +0.7%, CSX +0.5%, SRPT +125.8%, VVUS +2%, MLNX +2%

Gapping down 

XRTX -13.8%, ATRS -10.7%, RIGL -5.3%, SPN -4%, ARI -2.9%, NYMT -2.3%,

BGS -1.9%, SDRL -1.4%, POT -1.5%, AMRN -1.4%,  ANN -1.3%, SNN -0.9%,

CIG -0.6%

AXL, BKD, CSU, CBEY, CSCO, DFS, EPL, HCN, MHP, KORS, MOS, POT, RDS-A, SBAC, SGMS, WPRT,

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In Play ,

On the Wires 

“The U.S. economic morass just gets worse and worse, but the presidential election is unlikely to offer a solution, says Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian.

That’s because “[s]adly, neither [President Barack] Obama nor [Republican Mitt] Romney has yet offered a meaningful, forward-looking economic reform program to address the problems,” El-Erian writes in Foreign Policy.

Those problems include a malfunctioning labor market, unsustainable public finances, a broken credit system, inadequate infrastructure and a lagging education system.”

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“Societe Generale strategist Dylan Grice isn’t exactly an optimist when it comes to the global economy and social stability.

“I am more worried than I have ever been,” he writes in a commentary obtained by Business Insider. “I fear the defining feature of coming decades will be a Great Disorder of the sort which has defined past epochs and scarred whole generations.”

So what’s going to cause this Armageddon? Global central bank easing, Grice says.”

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“The world economy will take at least 10 years to emerge from the financial crisis that began in 2008, the International Monetary Fund’s Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard said in an interview published on Wednesday.

Blanchard told Hungarian website Portfolio.hu, in an interview conducted on September 18 that Germany would have to accept higher inflation and a real strengthening of its purchasing power as part of the solution to Europe’s problems.

But even though the focus was on Europe’s troubles now, he said, the United States also had a fiscal problem which it had to resolve.”

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“The boards of Deutsche Telekom AG and MetroPCS Communications Inc. have approved a deal to merge MetroPCS with the German operator’s U.S. subsidiary, T-Mobile USA, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday, a deal that would give the fourth-largest U.S. wireless carrier more scale as it tries to compete with the industry’s leaders.”

Source

ADP’s results was better than expected….

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“Applications for U.S. home mortgages surged last week as demand for refinancing rose to the highest level in more than three years, driven by a drop in interest rates to yet another record low, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, jumped 16.6 percent in the week ended Sept 28.

The index of refinancing applications surged 19.6 percent, hitting the highest level since April 2009.

The gauge of loan requests for home purchases – a leading indicator of home sales – also rose, though not as strongly, gaining 3.9 percent.”

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