The Republic of T.

Man, that felt good. And it was fun, too. Vice President Joe Biden certainly looked like he was having a good time. In fact, Republicans’ biggest complain seems to be that Biden was having too much fun. He laughed too much. That Republicans can’t find much to attack in what Biden said during the debate — or much to defend about what Paul Ryan said — speaks volumes about the difference between the two major parties.

That difference was reflected in the two men who represented the parties last night, and how they each came to be there.Joe Biden was chosen to be on the Democratic ticket because of what he knows. Paul Ryan was chosen to be on the Republican ticket because of what he believes. That was the “BFD” of the VP debate. The “D” is for “difference.”

(more…)

Robert Reich has some excellent advice for Vice President Joe Biden, regarding his debate we VP wannabe Rep. Paul Ryan: Don’t debate the earnest, affable Paul Ryan who’s likely to show up tonight. Debate the right-wing Randian behind those blue eyes. Tell Americans just what that Paul Ryan wants to inflict on their families and communities — and that he’s put it in writing. No matter how much he feints, dodges or even tries to deny it, make him own it. 

(more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 9th through October 10th:

• How many Americans need to die in Afghanistan? –

  Tags:

  digest

• Big Bird’s Big Gay Love Story: From Birth to the 2012 Presidential Race – The Daily Beast –

  Tags:

  digest

• Why Mitt Romney Hates Kids – The Daily Beast –

  Tags:

  digest

• Pew Report Finding More Americans Unaffiliated With Religion Is Bad News for GOP – The Daily Beast –

  Tags:

  digest

• Why the Obscenely Wealthy Whine When They Have It So Good –

  Tags:

  digest

• 9 Things That Show Mitt Romney Is Morally Bankrupt –

  Tags:

  digest

• E.J. Dionne Jr.: The campaign’s moral hole – The Washington Post –

  Tags:

  digest

• Peter S. Goodman: Mitt Romney, Man of Compassion? –

  Tags:

  digest

• Is the Republican Party racist? How the racial attitudes of Southern voters bolster its chances. – Slate Magazine –

  Tags:

  digest

• Arsenic: It’s what’s for dinner – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  digest

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 8th through October 9th:

• 10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears | Alternet –

  Tags:

  digest

• At Long Last, Dignity? – NYTimes.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• GOP: Gays Out of the Party – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• A Big Test for Gay Marriage – NYTimes.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• Why I Love Columbus Day | The Progressive –

  Tags:

  digest

• Savage and Alive: Native Students Respond on Indigenous Peoples’ Day – COLORLINES –

  Tags:

  digest

• Good without God – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• Mitt Romney foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute was the most dishonest one he has delivered yet. – Slate Magazine –

  Tags:

  digest

• Gay Teen Kicked Out Of Boy Scouts To Appear On “Ellen” / Queerty –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Myth of Male Decline –

  Tags:

  digest

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for October 5th through October 8th:

• The Meat We Eat –

  Tags:

  digest

• Not a Real Family? Book About Two Moms Banned in Utah School District –

  Tags:

  digest

• Keeping them Honest: Jack Welch interview with Anderson Cooper – Anderson Cooper 360 – CNN.com Blogs –

  Tags:

  digest

• Longtime Republicans torn between party loyalty and Obamacare – CNN.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• 800 texts in one week? Diaries of 3 smartphone addicts – CNN.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Battle for Black Studies – In These Times –

  Tags:

  digest

• Issues that Obama and Romney Avoid – In These Times –

  Tags:

  digest

• Imagine That: Three Late Bloomers Created Our Favorite Genres –

  Tags:

  digest

• Orlando Cruz the First Openly Gay Man in Boxing | Out Magazine –

  Tags:

  Digest

• We’re Here, We’re Queer, Y’all – NYTimes.com –

  Tags:

  Digest

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 18th through October 5th:

• Anderson Cooper slams Star Jones – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  Digest

• Daniel Gross: The 87 Percent Say Solutions to Gun Violence Can’t Be Ignored –

  Tags:

  Digest

• Obama and Romney: What About Inequality? –

  Tags:

  Digest

• Never Trust a Big Butt and A Smile: Romney’s Straight-Up Lies During Presidential Debate – Jack & Jill Politics –

  Tags:

  Digest

• The Public Employees Who Work for Romney Speak Out: –

  Tags:

  Digest

• You do not mess with Big Bird – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  Digest

• Mitt’s meaningless victory – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  Digest

• 10 Most Shameless Romney Debate Lies — Debunked | Alternet –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Grand Old Straight White Men’s Party – NYTimes.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• Mitt Romney’s ‘47 Percent’ Remarks Have Everything To Do With Race – COLORLINES –

  Tags:

  digest

In his most recent column, Paul Krugman makes a convincing case that the "real referendum" in this election isn't about President Obama's (real or imagined) economic policies, but about the "the legacy of the New Deal and the Great Society, on Social Security, Medicare and, yes, Obamacare, which represents an extension of that legacy." Krugman predicts that President Obama will win this resolution, and goes on to question whether the President will honor the will of American voters in his second term.

If Obama wins, that means conservatives will have lost the "real referendum." Conservatives have already lost the "real referendum." They've been losing it for a long time — and it's worth considering why that's the case.

(more…)

It’s one of the dumbest, most insulting, dismissive, and frequently heard bits of rhetoric spewed forth from the sneering mouths of conservative pundits and politicos. So, it stands to reason that congressional Republicans would like to make it the law of the land. Michelle Bachmann offered it as advice to Warren Buffet, and served up another version of the same during the GOP primary debates. But nobody put it more than that “heartless, smug, bullying embodiment of the Republican Party,” New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

(more…)

In my previous post this morning, I noted that the U.S. is starting to look a lot like Greece, at least in terms of austerity-driven suicides. This week, Greece’s austerian nightmare seems to have metastasized in to a full-fledged tragedy. Thousands of Greeks who still have jobs are joining a general strike this week, in another attempt to ring down the curtain on the whole show.

(more…)

Americans now stand a greater chance of dying from the effects of austerity than being killed in a car crash. At least that’s what a new report suggests, if you read between the lines. The study, authored by a West Virginia University professor and published in the American Journal of Public Health last week, says that suicide now kills more Americans than car crashes. While the study doesn’t draw a direct connection between the recession and the spike in suicides over the last ten years.

(more…)

Yesterday, I posted a compilation of the responses of 47-Percenters to the now infamous Romney fundraiser video, in which Mitt Romney basically writes off as lazy moochers the 47 percent of Ameiricans who don't earn enough to owe federal income taxes. Both the Romney video and the responses from ordinary Americans show how much has changed.

Not long ago, Americans who couldn't afford the $50,000 ticket price would never have heard Romney's remarks to Florida donors. (Nor would "the help" — the invisible ordinary Americans in the room — have been able to bring those words to wider notice. We would have heard from Mitt Romney only what his campaign wanted us to hear. Nor would those Americans have had a chance to "speak truth to power," in the growing number of responses to Romney's rhetoric.

To quote Moms Mabley: things sure ain't what they use to be, and I'm damn glad; because now we can hear Sara Zacharias. Today, nobody is "speaking truth to power" (in the person of one Willard Mitt Romney) than her.

(more…)

Bloggers and pundits have completely picked apart what Mitt Romney had to say about “the 47 percent” in that secret video leaked by Mother Jones magazine. As I posted yesterday, we know that nearly 47 percent of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, because they don’t earn enough to owe federal income taxes. We know that those 47 percent of Americans pay plenty of other taxes: local and state taxes, payroll taxes, and sales taxes. Some pay up to nearly 25% of their income those taxes.

We know what Romney was talking about when he reached out to donors. We know what he got right and wrong, according to the numbers. But what may cause serious and lasting trouble for the Romney campaign is that millions of Americans now know who Romney was talking about, behind the safety of closed doors. They know he’s talking about them and their loved ones — and they don’t like it. Not one bit.

(more…)

Just when you think Mitt Romney can’t sink his well-heeled foot any deeper into his mouth, he shoves it in even further. The outrage over his dishonest, political point-scoring over the Muslim riots in Afghanistan, Egypt and Libya was still unfolding, when Romney defined “middle income” as “$250,000 and less.” But nothing could top Mitt Romney calling 47% of Americans moochers, on a secret video that Mother Jones released this week of Romney speaking to donors in Florida earlier this year.

While it’s been interesting to watch conservatives either quietly condemn Romney’s remarks, race to distance themselves, they shouldn’t get away with dismissing them as Rich Lowry did when he said Romney “overheard some conservative cocktail chatter” or “maybe read a conservative blog or two,” and “is thoughtlessly repeating back what he heard and read.”

Uh-uh. As I’ve written before, Mitt Romney said what he meant and meant what he said. Romney’s words indeed echo well-worn right wing rhetoric, but they also reflect the values that informed his vulture capitalism at the helm of Bain Capital, and inform his bully economics today.

(more…)

Have you every had a break up so bad that you want so little to do with the other person that, to borrow a lyric from Gotye, you’re tempted to “have your friends collect your records, and then change your number”?

Ever had a breakup so bad that when your ex calls to tell you that if you that he/she is going to throw out the few belonging you left behind, when you ran screaming into the night, if you don’t come and get them? And you find that you’re loathing of them is so deep, and you’re desire to never breath the same air as them again so strong that you find yourself saying, “Throw it out. Burn it for all I care. Just leave me alone”?

Yeah? Well that’s kind of what’s happened between me and Wikipedia.

(more…)

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 18th from 15:53 to 16:00:

• Romney: ‘If I Was Latino I’d Have a Better Shot at Winning This Thing’ – COLORLINES –

  Tags:

  digest

• Shocking Secret Video: Romney Reveals His Contempt for Half of America –

  Tags:

  digest

• Reelect Obama, overturn Citizens United? –

  Tags:

  digest

• Mitt Romney’s 47% gaffe makes him 100% unsuitable to be president | Michael Cohen | Comment is free | The Guardian –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Real Romney Is a Sneering Plutocrat — Daily Intel –

  Tags:

  digest

• Mitt’s 47 percent attack: 100 percent wrong –

  Tags:

  digest

• The ’47 Percent’ And American Decline –

  Tags:

  digest

Here are some of the people writing about some of the stuff I wish I had time to write about, for September 14th from 13:01 to 13:06:

• In Time of Crisis, Movement Conservatism Exposes Itself | Michael Tracey –

  Tags:

  digest

• Backlash Swells Against Voter Laws – The Daily Beast –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Republican bill that actually would gut welfare reform –

  Tags:

  digest

• Daily Kos: Women’s support for Obama grows –

  Tags:

  digest

• The psychology of defeat – Salon.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• Commentary: When the NFL, Chick-fil-A and gay marriage collide | McClatchy –

  Tags:

  digest

• Eugene Robinson: The Kind of Man Mitt Romney Is – Truthdig –

  Tags:

  digest

• The Burden of Speech – NYTimes.com –

  Tags:

  digest

• Daily Kos: Gov. Mitt Romney to LGBT plaintiffs: ‘I didn’t know you had families’ –

  Tags:

  digest

• Why I Support Public School Teachers – Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money –

  Tags:

  digest

Today is a day of remembrances, obviously.

Across the country, Americans marked the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, tolling church bells, pausing in silence to reflect and mourning the loss of the nearly 3,000 people who died.

On the White House South Lawn, President Obama and the first lady, bowed their heads at 8:46 a.m., the moment the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and laid a wreath at the Pentagon where a flag was draped over the building to mark the day.

“Eleven times we have marked another September 11th come and gone. Eleven times, we have paused in remembrance, in reflection, in unity and in purpose,” Obama said to families and military brass who gathered at the Pentagon, where 184 were killed. “This is never an easy day.”

Over at Jack and Jill Politics, J. Christian Watts asks “Where were you when the towers fell, when America was attacked?” As with other events — like the Kennedy assassination or the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion — no one who was alive that day is likely to forget just where they were when they first heard the news of the attacks and the aftermath.

When the anniversary rolls around, people tend to write their recollections of that day. I did that a few years ago, when I posted about the gay and lesbian victims of 9/11 and how their families were impacted by that day and the aftermath. It’s my habit to repost that piece on this anniversary. So, it follows after the jump. (more…)

It’s always amusing when God (if — and I know I risk losing a huge chunk of readers by writing this — there is one) gets dragged into politics. After all, with an entire universe to run (unless you’re a Deist of the Thomas Jefferson variety), you have to admit it’s kind of funny when mere mortals assume that She (or He, if you prefer) has nothing more pressing to do that take sides in everything from our presidential elections to city council meetings. Our knack for turning the sublime into the ridiculous may not match turning water into wine, but it’s good for a laugh if it’s good for anything.

This week’s sublime ridiculousness comes via politicos who had copies of the Democratic and Republican platforms, and enough skill to use basic search functions to determine which party gave God the most shout-outs in its platform. The almost funny part is that if God took the to read at least one of those platforms, the most She (or He, if you prefer) would likely say is, “At least you spelled my name right.”

(more…)

Missed Opportunity, originally uploaded by TerranceDC.

It’s that kind of day.

First, let me be clear: I take no credit for the messaging or themes of first two nights of the Democratic convention. But in some of the most talked about speeches of the last two nights, I heard echoes of ideas I’ve been writing about for years. No, it doesn’t lead me to think anyone in the White House or at the DNC has been reading my blog posts. But it does give me hope that Democrats have what can be a winning message, if they back it up with effective policy to create jobs and rebuild the middle class — and then make voters believe they’ll fight for those policies after the election.

They’re off to a good start. The best speeches of the night spotlighted a moral framework and set of values that will resonate with many Americans, and benefit Democrats in November and beyond, if they back it up.

(more…)