by Lee Camp

Look around you. Are there zombies? Are there vampires? If you answered yes, then maybe you don’t need to watch this video. If you answered no, then I’m about to change your mind…or eat it.

[..]

by Lee Camp

Looking to make out with a stranger in a tent only feet away from squads of angry police? Then your time is finally here! …Okay, maybe there are other reasons to celebrate the Occupy anniversary that’s coming up. They might not be as fun as that reason, but they probably matter more.

[..]

by ChrisSick

In which we dissect the epidemic of Werewolf Disease, chairs what talk back, and why four-day-long political infomercials are entirely useless.

There’s nine weeks left until this horrible, grueling, vile campaign is over. 63 days, 10 hours, 45 minutes, and 10 seconds, as of this writing. Now, 9 seconds. 8.

Yes. I am counting all of them.

It has, thus far, been officially No Fun. There was some dim hope, previously, that the introduction of Paul Ryan — the acknowledged Big Idea man of the Republican party — would dramatically shake up the race, and introduce some much needed debate of the issues. Which is the word talking heads on television use to describe median tax-rates for middle-class wage earners and average Social Security payments. As opposed to meaningless Culture War arguments that only affect unimportant things like whether or not a woman’s less important, legally, than the fetus she carries, or if those people should be allowed to get all married up.

Paul-motherfucking-Ryan, as he shall be known henceforth (having inherited the title of Big Idea Man of the GOP along with the “motherfucking” honorific from Newt-motherfucking-Gingrich), turned out to be surprisingly disappointing. As the media’s anointed Serious Policy and Pretty Face Conservative, he broke the hearts of many a Neutral Arbitrator when he took the stage in Tampa with a mouth just full of goddamn lies. For those of us who’ve read his budget proposals and seen the non-partisan analysis of same, the fact that the man is a compulsive liar wasn’t all that shocking. That he lies about facts that can and will be immediately fact-checked by even friendly media sources is a bit disconcerting, but such are the risks of politics in the post-truth era.

What was surprising was learning that Paul-motherfucking-Ryan did not, in fact, lie. At least, according to reliable media shills. Jennifer Rubin, Knight Templar of the Romney Media Crusade, got out ahead of the story to tell the twelve people who read her WaPo column (mostly employees of Media Matters and Alex Pareene over at Salon) that the left was totally losing their shit:

“The crowd loved it. So nearly en masse the left decided that Ryan ‘lied.’

“For starters, that is the ultimate compliment. It is in effect saying the speech worked so well and was received so well that the only thing to say is that it was a con job.

“But the ‘lies’ turn out not to be lies at all. They are not even misrepresentations or exaggerations.”

Which is true, given that only leftists count lies by omission, lies by misrepresentation, and, well, straight-out-factually-incorrect statements as, y’know, actual lies. Oh, also, Actual Grown-Ass Adults not stricken with a severe case of Werewolf Disease.

Werewolf Disease, according to various medical experts, is a Real Thing. And this is one of the clearest cases I’ve ever seen. Symptoms of Werewolf Disease include being full of lies and false equivocation, not giving a single shit about anything resembling truth or facts, and generally having a smile made of knife blades and hatred.

And, apparently, the entirety of the right wing has been stricken.

Which, really, should shock no one. Of the themed nights, one was, naturally, about rebutting a statement Obama never actually said, and another was about “Loving America,” since Democrats clearly do not.

Because apparently you can take the I-4 from Tampa International directly to the Tampa Bay Times Forum and bypass truth entirely. Select highlights of the convention include:

• Chris Christie’s keynote address, in which he promises to tell hard truths while lying extensively about his record as NJ Governor.
• Mitch “One-Term Obama” McConnell, reading from — what sounds like — the same chain email your grandparents have forwarded you thirty times since ’08 that you’ve deleted without opening.
• Marco Rubio’s speech about economic opportunity and how voting for an incredibly rich man who came from a privileged background over a moderately rich man from a modest background will reinforce that message and ensure opportunity.
• Every single female or ethnic minority GOP member the convention organizers could find.
• One, Mia Love, notably followed by a blonde actress and birther there to tell you how Obama is destroying society.
• Lots of jokes about how often the President plays golf. Because he’s such a slacker compared to the previous President who had three times as many vacation days in his first term.
• A number of personal and family friends of Citizen Mitt, who basically were there to show us that the Republican Presidential nominee does, in fact, have friends.
• And, finally Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech. Which no on can even recall because, just prior, a crazy old man spent fifteen-minutes arguing with a motherfucking chair.

Yes, did you think I had somehow forgot about that? Did you think anyone, ever, anywhere, could somehow forget about that?

Clint Eastwood stood on stage at the Republican National Convention and argued with a chair. Then Mitt Romney took the stage and no one was listening to a single word he said, because we were all busy thinking about Clint Eastwood arguing with a chair.

It was, to use a classic Hunter S. Thompson description, deeply weird. And, if you were watching at home and felt unsettled by the whole thing, you were not alone. Within hours the New York Times had the story on high-level finger-pointing and blame-shifting within the Romney campaign. The speech was panned by liberal commentators and Republican politicians alike.

But!

Within hours of that, The Romney Media Crusade marched forth to bravely deny that there was anything even remotely weird about the speech, and if you thought there was, well you’re just far too coastal elite to get what Clint was laying down. As Derek Hunter of the Daily News observed:

“In the convention hall, Eastwood talking to an empty chair was huge hit. In homes across the country, the reaction was the same. Inside the lefty bubble was the only place it wasn’t well received.”

Polling data released so far is split, with Public Policy Polling finding narrow disapproval in Florida and North Carolina, and Survey USA noting widespread approval among Floridian voters. Both firms are noted for having a left-leaning house effect, for more information on in-house polling biases, see Nate Silver here.

None of which matters worth a damn, Clint Eastwood’s angry chair is to this cycle what Sarah Palin’s debate performance was to the 2008 race. It doesn’t matter what the polling says, any conservative with a keyboard will tell you to shut your stupid, liberal piehole, because Clint’s speech was pitch-perfect, and he wasn’t talking to you, anyway, silly liberal. He was talking to Real America.

After the dust settled and the President ordered the hurricane to dissipate, the polling came in. The Real Clear Politics average of polls has the race at a complete tie, but it only includes two daily tracking polls that closed after the end of the convention, Gallup and Rasmussen. Gallup‘s is a seven-day registered voter poll that shows Obama with a +1 advantage, while Rasmussen‘s three-day likely voter poll gives Romney a +4 advantage for a net bounce of +5 post-convention. (Note: A late check of the polls show Rasmussen giving Romney only a +3 advantage as of 9/4/12)

Nate Silver has, as is his wont, posted an incredibly complex analysis of post-convention polling to try and determine a standard baseline for convention related bounces. If you can actually find such a number within that web of regression analysis and multi-column tables, god bless, but I’m far too tired to sort that out, so for sake of argument we’ll take the Rasmussen’s three day/likely voter poll at face value (here’s a quick list of reasons why we probably shouldn’t take Rasmussen at face value).

A five-point bounce isn’t bad, but historically it seems soft, and as the Clint Eastwood jokes filter out into the land of memegenerator and the like, we’re left struggling to see a post-VP announcement bounce, and the softest possible post-convention bounce. Meanwhile, hot on the heels of Tampa comes the DNC in North Carolina which will most likely negating any potential gain.

Assuming George Clooney doesn’t get drunk and challenge Clint Eastwood to a fist-fight (he’d lose), it’s hard to imagine that by this time next week the race won’t have returned to its status of statistical dead heat with a small, but consistent, lead showing for Obama. Worth noting: none of the outside indicators — such as Nate Silver’s chance to win, or Intrade’s prediction market — have shown any dramatic shift away from the odds of Obama winning reelection.

Which seems to indicate these conventions are a gigantic waste of time, television coverage, empty chairs, and, of course, the $136 million in taxpayer dollars spent subsidizing the political conventions this year. The campaigns themselves will spend roughly $3 billion this cycle and at the end we’ll have learned the Mitt Romney really is exactly as boring as his haircut would suggest, and that the country’s first black President is still viewed as a metaphorical antichrist by a disturbingly large number of troubled individuals, and a literal one by some that are quite famous.

All of which is bringing the Werewolf out in me, but for the sake of your edification and entertainment, I’m postponing treatment until after the election. Sixty-three days, 7 hours, 53 minutes, 7 seconds…6…5…

by Steven Whitney

In our first two Presidential elections, George Washington ran unopposed, with no affiliation to any Party, even though a multi-party system composed of Federalists, Anti-Federalists and the Democratic-Republican Party – yes, they were one united Party back then – was forming quickly, with each party eager to recruit him. But Washington felt it imperative to ensure the people that his first allegiance was to the country and not to any political party. . . and so he ran as a “Non-Partisan.”

Since our country was brand spanking new, urgent issues and conflicts sprang up at every turn. Under other labels, conservatives and liberals jousted for position and, as today, fiercely disagreed on the course the government should take. But guiding them all in those early days was a President whose very bipartisanship allowed the various factions to join together to construct a nation built on freedoms that otherwise might tear our democracy apart.

How were they able to do that? How did they manage to put personal and political issues to the side so they could “provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare” and secure for the populace the inalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” – without political parties, agendas, ideologies, and platforms?

At the birth of our nation, political factions came and went, howling like low winds on the Chesapeake Bay. Instead of trusting in parties, voters trusted men proven to be of good character. Our first three Presidents – Washington, Adams, and Jefferson – held wildly conflicting moral, philosophical, and political views. Yet they were elected in succession because each had a strong character that had firmly won the faith and trust of the people.

That’s all – just Character, with a capital C.

Of course, today no man or woman can ascend to the Presidency without the backing of a political party, or without hundreds of millions of campaign dollars. But that should not preclude the importance of evaluating character at the ballot box. Isn’t that the first thing we should ask for and vet in candidates – that they possess good characters?

So let’s measure Romney, Ryan, and the RNC against the cornerstone of good character on which almost everyone agrees – honesty.

On its simplest level, honesty is merely telling the truth and avoiding deceit. On this score, the GOP and its candidates scored an unprecedented low with one lie and deceit after another. Even Fox News, the media arm of the Republican Party and not usually concerned about letting facts get in the way of agenda, was absolutely gob-smacked by the outrageous lies and deceptions delivered by their Vice-Presidential candidate: “…to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech.” Again – that’s Fox News!

Ryan deliberately misquoted the President on private sector success, reproached him for closing a GM plant in Wisconsin (it closed under Bush), called him the “biggest threat to Medicare” (when, in fact, Mr. Ryan’s “budget” claims that dishonor), and also blamed the S&P downgrade of America’s credit rating on Obama. To the contrary, when Standard & Poor’s made the downgrade, it clearly stated the reason: “We have changed our assumption…because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues.” Could S&P have targeted the blame any more precisely?

Ryan even lied about his personal accomplishments, saying he ran a marathon in 2 hours and 50 seconds. But according to his own brother, Ryan didn’t break 4 hours.

Not a big thing? Okay, but then why lie about it? Especially if he wants to be seen as an average Joe, the 4-hour mark is much more in keeping with the norm.

Back in 2000, the GOP loudly accused Al Gore of lying about “inventing the internet.” But Gore never said that – what he did say was that he was a strong supporter and initiator of the web in the Congress that funded and sustained its invention. So if Bush’s campaign made such a big deal about a so-called lie from Gore that they just made up, are we supposed to sit back now and accept real and numerous lies from Republicans just because they say it’s so?

Over this past weekend, Crooks & Liars released a well-documented list of 533 different lies Mr. Ryan told in just 30 weeks, which has to come close to the world record touted for him by Fox News.

But it’s not only the lies, Ryan also has been extremely deceptive since being tapped for V.P. But he’s still no match for Romney, the king of deception. Romney released only one year of tax information – and that was incomplete. He steadfastly refuses to release any more, saying the opposition would only use it as “ ammunition.” Ammunition for what? If his tax record is clean, there would be no evidence of wrongdoing. Ammunition could be used only if it’s found that he was part of the 2009 Swiss Bank Tax Evasion Scandal, or if he’s hiding even more money overseas, or if he paid no taxes for a number or years (as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested), or any one of a number of questionable and even malfeasant transactions. No one worries about ammunition unless there’s a smoking gun hidden somewhere – and yet both Ann and Mitt have stated repeatedly that they don’t want to give their opponents any ammunition. Doesn’t it sound like they’re afraid that releasing more tax returns would explode in Mitt’s face and shoot dead any chance of being elected? That’s what ammunition does, isn’t it?

But Mitt is the Crown Prince of Avoidance. Ask him about his healthcare plan and he says he won’t reveal the specifics until after the election. It’s the same with his tax and budget plans (although we can surmise that they don’t stray too far from his running mate’s). He details nothing, by implication saying “Trust me,” even as he gives us nothing to base trust upon. Whenever they’re asked for specifics, his campaign says only that if a voter really wants to research the issue, he/she can find all the information they need. Which leads to the question: if experienced political journalists can’t find the specifics – and they haven’t – how can the average voter? But then, the sentiment exactly echoes Queen Ann’s statement about releasing more than one year of incomplete tax returns: “we’ve released all the information you people need to know” (italics mine).

Is this a crime syndicate taking the 5th in front of the American people or a political party trying to get elected in the absolutely worst way possible?

Doesn’t honesty – or at least the kind of honesty that leads to trust and transparent governing – start with full and truthful disclosure? If so, then Romney, Ryan, and almost the entire cast of the Republican National Convention fail the test by a large margin. Indeed, the lies, avoidances, and deceptions during the RNC were so numerous and shameless it appeared as if the GOP was celebrating National Liars’ Week. And that they didn’t care if the whole world knew. Romney’s press secretary Neil Newhouse even admitted as much when he said: “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” Or facts, one has to conclude.

In the best of all possible worlds, men and women of good character cultivate their political garden with truth, allowing them to govern compassionately, fairly and responsibly. They do not hold the electorate in contempt by telling constant and contemptible lies. On every level they respect the people – all the people, not just the rich who can buy their way into influence.

Although informed by the past and present, elections are always about who will govern in the future. And those of good character know that a successful – and especially, democratic – future cannot be built upon a platform of lies.

This November, voters across America must not only cast Republicans out of office but also leave their party in ruins.

Why?

Because the GOP needs to be effectively reminded that our nation was created on the principles of truth that George Washington and our founders espoused. . . and not based upon lies that rob our country and its leaders of credibility, integrity, and, yes, good character.

The truth still matters.

Related Posts:
The Do-Damage Congress: Who’s Responsible?
Worse Than A Do Nothing Congress
Forget The Barbeque On Labor Day – It’s Time To Take Care Of Business
Chicken Shits: The Slippery Slopes of Chick-fil-A
The Vagina Solution
Fighting Back Part 4: The Big Liar, Intimidation And Revenge
Fighting Back Part 3: Fighting Fire With Fire
When The Past Is Prologue
Fighting Back Part 2: Defining Rovian Politics
Fighting Back
The Electoral Scam
Being Fair
Occupy Reality
Giving. . . And Taking Back
A Tale Of Two Grovers
A Last Pitch For Truth
America: Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
Gotcha!

by Moby

This might not be of interest to very many people, but I wanted to write about the federal government…

I know, 99% of you will stop reading right now. I assume that this is probably of interest to about six people, which is a shame, as it’s a subject that effects all of us, even those who don’t live in the United States.


See, one of the big issues in this election cycle is federal spending.
 The Republicans say over and over again that they want to drastically cut federal spending.
 And most people go along with it, saying, “sure, let’s cut federal spending.”
 But do people fully understand what federal spending involves?
 In very general terms, and excluding debt and interest payments, federal spending can be seen in quarters:

• 1/4 of the budget goes to Medicare/Medicaid.
• 1/4 goes to Social Security.
• 1/4 goes to military spending.
• 1/4 goes to ‘discretionary’ spending.

The Republicans have said that they don’t want to touch the military budget, they don’t want to touch Medicare/Medicaid, and they don’t want to touch Social Security.
 But they do want to drastically cut ‘discretionary’ spending.


What exactly is ‘discretionary’ spending?
 Technically it’s non-mandatory federal spending.
 But practically it’s 
railways, schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure, arts programs, health, police, museums, emergency services, state and national parks, public broadcasting, water safety, etc., etc.


Some of these are also paid for by state and local budgets, but for the most part they’re all reliant upon federal ‘discretionary’ spending.
 And what I find incredibly frustrating is that no one, not even Democrats, is sticking up for this type of government spending.


When I travel I go to countries with a higher percentage of discretionary spending than the United States.
 Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Scandinavia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, etc., etc.
 Most Americans don’t leave the United States, so they assume that no matter where you go you’ll find hospitals that are over-crowded, schools that are under-funded, railroads that are slow, higher education that is expensive, water that isn’t always safe to drink, etc.
 But in almost every other Western country they have great hospitals, great schools, great roads, great public transportation, clean air, clean water, etc., 
because, simply, they spend more federal money on programs that benefit the people.


The Republicans want to cut all discretionary spending.
 And they want to cut taxes on the wealthiest 1% of wage earners.
 So the towns where these wealthiest 1% live will have great public services, but the rest of the country will, literally, fall apart, as is already happening.
 By most objective criteria the United States is already leaving the ranks of first world countries.

Here are two salient indices:


1. The United States comes joint 23rd in a list of countries ranked for literacy by the United Nations – below Cuba, Estonia, Latvia, Barbados, and Belarus, among others.

2. There are 48 countries with a lower infant mortality rates than the United States – this one is stunning!

In almost all indices for development and well-being the United States is either lower than most other Western countries or slipping fast.
 There might be other variables, but the one constant is we increasingly spend less on ‘discretionary’ items.
 And if Romney/Ryan and the Republicans have their way, we’ll continue to spend less and less on discretionary spending, and continue to push the United States out of the ranks of first world countries.

To be clear and seemingly self evident:

• Kids are better educated when they have well funded schools.
• Old people are healthier when they have well funded hospitals and health programs.
• People are safer when they have well funded health and safety programs and regulations.
• Countries work better when they have well funded public transportation.

Giving more money to the military will not improve the quality of life for people in the United States.
 And giving more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires will not improve the quality of life for most of the people in the United States.

I truly believe that if Romney/Ryan and the Republicans are allowed to further cut federal discretionary spending that the United States will increasingly become a crumbling country filled with increasingly sick and uneducated people. It’s already happening. A Romney/Ryan administration will just accelerate the process.

It’s just a shame that most Americans can’t travel, even to Canada, to see an example of what a country looks like when it has great public education 
and great health care and great public transportation and great arts programs.

I’m writing this because I strongly believe that someone needs to speak up for discretionary spending. Someone needs to clearly state that many of the things Americans value – roads, health, education, police, emergency services, public transport, museums, national parks, safe water, clean air, etc., etc. – all require healthy levels of funding.

A Romney/Ryan Republican America would be paradise for the few people worth over $10,000,000. But it would be a crumbling dystopia for everyone else.

by ChrisSick

Paul Ryan. Well, hot damn.

Background:

At the start of the summer I discussed – with our lovely SG News editor, Nicole Powers – the idea of writing a horserace style campaign blog. A week-in-week-out, who-won-this-round, sort of analysis for the purest of the pure political junkies. I wanted to tear through all the meaningless shit and campaign antics that average voters just couldn’t give less of a fuck about, but the political werewolves, the true tactical animals, can’t get enough of.

Funny thing happened on the way. First, I got busy and distracted with real life.

Then – and much, much worse – I got bored.

This hasn’t been a fun race by stretch of the imagination. Mitt Romney is so godawfully boring he makes dry toast look like a culinary adventure. And Team Gobama has replaced ’08s Hope & Change with Karl Rove’s ’04 reelection playbook – known to informed political junkies as “Independents? Fuck the independents.”

The campaign had officially become No Fun. And given that this is the first presidential election I’ll observe without the helpful assistance of bourbon or heroin, it just didn’t seem like there was anything worth saying. Polls gave Team Gobama a consistent but small lead. Ed Gillespie remained employed by Team Mittens apparently due to an office betting pool to see if him or the candidate would have the most gaffes by Election Day.

Overall, it looked like the President would eek out a largely meaningless win without an electoral mandate and go on to see his second term as stymied by Republican opposition in Congress as the later half of his first has been.

But then – Paul motherfucking Ryan. Hot damn.

Paul Ryan changes the entire dynamic of the race. Since the outset, Team Mittens has hoped the ’12 election would be a pure referendum on the first term of the President. That the combination of a painfully weak recovery and persistently high unemployment would result in enough anyone-but-Obama votes to ride him into the White House without the sticky business of being pinned down to specific policy prescriptions, making campaign promises, or answering a lot of uncomfortable questions about his taxes.

With the addition of Paul Ryan to the race, election 2012 has become about big ideas and competing visions for the future of the country. Paul Ryan is – despite some schism in his party – the acknowledged go-to-guy for big ideas on the budget, debt, and deficit. He’s articulated a specific policy remedy to a problem that Republicans had previously mostly used as cudgel against Democrats without bothering to ever remedy themselves.

Specifically: Mittens and Ryan and Republicans at every level of the ticket, will argue that dramatic reductions in taxes, regulation, and government services will unleash the magical powers of the free market, boost economic growth, and that said growth will – eventually — offset the reduced revenue and pay down the growing Federal deficit.

Team Gobama and Democrats, on the other hand, want to see the maintenance and expansion of the social safety net, increases in stimulus spending, and higher taxes for the upper brackets to start reducing deficit spending now, while arguing that the debt is best addressed after the economic recovery is complete.

And because of this, the election officially matters now. Even a narrow win by either candidate can and will become a mandate for their preferred ideology.

But more important – for my purposes, anyway – this election is going to be fun. There’s going to be attack ads with Mittens and Ryan gleefully shoving seniors over cliffs. The President is going to be called a socialist – more than he already has been. Ayn Rand’s name will be mispronounced by anchors on major cable television networks. There’s a fifty-fifty shot Joe Biden will show up at a press conference drunk and challenge Paul Ryan to mud wrestle him.

Because being a tactical animal, a true political werewolf, isn’t about policy. It isn’t about addressing meaningful solutions to endemic failures of government or solving systemic problems.

No.

This is politics as bloodsport. This is about the greatest joy a political junkie can feel: watching their preferred candidate slip a metaphorical icepick in between the ribs of the opponent and then walk off to kiss a baby while their lungs fill with blood.

“Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is. They are addicts, and they are guilty and they do lie and cheat and steal – like all junkies. And when they get in a frenzy, they will sacrifice anything and anybody to feed their cruel and stupid habit, and there is no cure for it. That is addictive thinking. That is politics – especially in presidential campaigns. That is when the addicts seize the high ground. They care about nothing else. They are salmon, and they must spawn. They are addicts.” -Hunter S. Thompson, Better Than Sex

With that firmly established as the raison d’etre for this column, let’s get down to the numbers and the tactics. The numbers have been ugly for Mitt Romney from the start:

He’s never been well-liked by the more rabid base of his party, who would’ve much preferred a nominee more willing to be openly racist – Gingrich or Santorum – who could thoroughly vet the President. By which they seem to mean accuse him of hating white people, America, capitalism, and, I don’t know…kittens.
.
That these particular attacks haven’t been very effective with the remaining 45 – 50% of the country that supports the President is of little concern to them. The Tea Party/Republican base cares far more about attacking the President as criminal, racist, and corrupt than they do about actually winning the election. For them, it is their salmon swimming upstream moment. They don’t care if it wins votes or not, it just feels right.

But with Ryan, now Mittens has got that base back on his side. Which, says a lot straight from the jump. I can’t remember the last time a President picked a running mate who hadn’t been a primary challenger to win votes within his own party. But then again, we’re talking about a man who got a bigger tax break for his pony last year than you made in income.

For his pony.

You can see how that could present unique challenges for Citizen Mittens. And while Ryan might provide a short-term bump in the polls, his team needs to be very smart and very lucky (so far they’ve been neither) to carry that bump beyond the convention. Long-term, it signals what a bumbling shambles his campaign has become though.

Beginning in July the pressure to release his taxes became so great that Romney was facing denouncements from respected political veterans within his own party – like the guy who pays black people not to vote on Election Day, or the one who assured Republicans that Sarah Palin was the future of the party. Important, respected Republicans were turning on him.

Fleeing the country and the bad press for a chance to sell himself as an intercontinental man of the world, Citizen Mitt managed to offend half of Europe and most of the Middle East, as well as the entirety of the traveling press corps. Only to return home to have to deal with grade-school-chicken-shit accusations from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – which they couldn’t even mount a defense to other than to call Reid a dirty, dirty liar. Seriously, that was Republican’s official response. I’m not making that up.

Which brings us full circle to the announcement of Ryan as veep candidate. The news broke on a Friday evening when most respectable political journalists were already down the bar, half-in-the-bag. Friday is known as take-out-the-trash day, because no one’s paying attention so it’s a good time for campaigns to release news they don’t want anyone to see.

We won’t know until the bitter and unemployed members of Team Mittens start releasing their tell-all election books sometime next year why the release was dropped Friday evening. But we can all clearly tell that the pressure to shake up the race was getting to them. And the problem, for Republicans at least, is that while Paul Ryan as veep makes this a race, it doesn’t fundamentally alter the dynamics of that race.

Team Mittens is still, at bottom, cooking with the wrong ingredients. Paul Ryan is conventionally attractive, articulate, and not given to sounding as radical as his policy prescriptions actually are. But Paul Ryan isn’t at the top of the ticket and, as Rahm Emmanuel said after the announcement, you can’t outsource likability. An effective advocate is not the same as an effective candidate.

Moreover, after the long summer slump of speculation on the VP selection, it’s safe to say what Team Romney wasn’t comfortable with. They became convinced that playing small-ball with a candidate who might comfortably deliver a swing state, like Marco Rubio or Rob Portman, won’t be enough to carry them into the White House. They went for a game changer. But all they got was a candidate that Team Gobama was already salivating at the prospect of running against.

Democracy Corps, a DNC-affiliated polling and strategy firm, has been focus-testing the living shit out of Ryan’s much-touted “Pathway to Prosperity” to figure out the best framing for the attack. See, Democrats had already planned to saddle Romney with Ryan’s budget, whether he supports it or not. Putting Ryan on the ticket, accepting his plan and all its failings, just makes the lift easier.

And since this is exactly that type of blog, I’ll make a nine-week-out prediction for the general election: Barrack Obama is going to be reelected President, and he’s going to do it with at least a three-point margin in the popular vote and 300 votes in the electoral college. And I’ll take any action anyone wants to lay down on that.

“All of us take too many things for granted, the rights and rewards we enjoy for which others greatly sacrificed and often even died. On Memorial Day we do reverently honor our fallen, and we still wildly celebrate our nation’s birth on July 4th…

But Labor Day, once a holiday that truly paid tribute to workers, has become just a three day weekend of boating, beaches, and barbeque, with nary a thought of the valiant, against-all-odds struggle of both individual and organized labor. These days it should probably be called a Bank Holiday, like in England, because the financial sector has had a great three decades at the expense of labor…

This Labor Day, September 3rd, instead of the all-day backyard barbeque, let’s take a few hours to mobilize our faith in ourselves and in the founding principles of our nation by hitting the streets once again to honor and support America’s two greatest assets – the worker and the Middle Class. They are one and the same.”

– Steven Whitney, August 2012
Excerpted from:
Forget The Barbeque On Labor Day – It’s Time To Take Care Of Business