Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock draws widespread criticism for rape comments but retains Mitt Romney’s endorsement.
Tag: Open Thread
Oct 28 2012
Rant of the Week: Jon Stewart
Oct 28 2012
On This Day In History October 28
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
October 28 is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 64 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1893, Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathetique, the last symphony written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is premiered in St. Petersburg. Nine day s later, Tchaikovsky died suddenly at age 53 possibly from cholera but others have theorized that he might have committed suicide. Tchaikovsky was homosexual and often suffered from bouts of depression and doubts about his creative talents throughout his life. At one point while composing the 6th, he tore up the manuscript and discarded it.
Tchaikovsky dedicated the Pathetique to Vladimir “Bob” Davydov, his nephew While the relationship was apparently never consummated, Davydov was reportedly one of the great loves of Tchaikovsky’s life.
The theme in this first movement is most familiar since it has been frequently used in movies and songs.
The second theme of the first movement formed the basis of a popular song in the 1940s, “(This is) The Story of a Starry Night” (by Mann Curtis, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston) which was popularized by Glenn Miller. This same theme is the music behind “Where,” a 1959 hit for Tony Williams and the Platters as well as “In Time,” by Steve Lawrence in 1961. All three of these songs have completely different lyrics.
British progressive rock band The Nice covered Symphony No. 6 on their album Five Bridges.
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony has proved a popular choice with filmmakers, with extracts featuring in (amongst others) Now, Voyager, the 1997 version of Anna Karenina, Minority Report, Sweet Bird of Youth,Soylent Green and The Aviator.
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony has also been featured during the 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, being danced by Russia’s national ballet team.
Oct 28 2012
Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
The Sunday Talking Heads:
Up with Chris Hayes: The web managers at the site are once against posting the upcoming topics and guests. Yeah ! Joining hose Chris Hayes, @chrishayes will be Heather McGhee (@hcmcghee), vice president of the progressive think tank Demos; Ari Berman (@ariberman), contributor to The Nation magazine and author of “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics“; Bertha Lewis (@theblackinst), former CEO of ACORN and founder and president of The Black Institute; Hendrik Hertzberg (@RickHertzberg), senior editor and staff writer at “The New Yorker“; Ilyse Hogue (@ilyseh), co-Director of Friends of Democracy (a 2012 initiative to build political power around the issue of money in politics), former senior adviser to Media Matters for America and former director of political advocacy and communications for MoveOn.org; Avik Roy (@aviksaroy), member of Mitt Romney’s health care policy advisory group, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and author of “The Apothecary,” the Forbes blog on health care and entitlement reform; Akhil Amar, Sterling Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Author of “America’s Constitution: A Biography“; and Jane Mayer (@newyorker), staff writer at “The New Yorker.“
This Week with George Stephanopolis: “This Week”” guests are President Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
The roundtable debates all the week’s presidential politics, with ABC News’ George Will; PBS’ “Washington Week” moderator and managing editor Gwen Ifill; Andrew Sullivan, editor of “The Dish” at The Daily Beast; former Obama economic adviser and ABC News consultant Austan Goolsbee; and Republican strategist and ABC News political analyst and contributor Nicolle Wallace.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Joining Mr. Schieffer will be National Review‘s John Fund, Daily Beast‘s Bob Shrum, Mark Leibovich of The News York Times Magazine, The Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus, and CBS News’ John Dickerson.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent; David Ignatius, The Washington Post Columnist; Joe Klein, TIME Columnist; and Kelly Evans CNBC Reporter.
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Guests on MTP this morning are Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Gov. John Kasich (R-OH).
On the roundtable panel are Vice Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Carly Fiorina; Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne; NY Times columnist David Brooks; MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow; and NBC’s Chuck Todd.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Obama Campaign Senior Adviser David Axelrod and RNC Chair Reince Priebus; Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) and Former Governor Ted Strickland (D-OH).
Her panel guests are pollsters Bill McInturff, Anna Greenberg and Time Magazine‘s Michael Duffy.
Oct 28 2012
What We Now Know
Up with Chris Hayes host Chris Hayes discusses what we have learned this week with his panel guests Richard Kim, contributor at The Nation; Ana Marie Cox, contributor at The Guardian; Michael Brendan Dougherty, The American Conservative; and Sophia Nelson, The Grio columnist.
CEO to employees: ‘Help yourself’ by donating to Romney
The CEO of a Florida-based software firm has repeatedly solicited his more than 1,300 employees not only to support Mitt Romney, but to donate up to the maximum $2,500 to Romney’s presidential campaign, suggesting that their jobs may be at stake if Romney doesn’t win, according to emails obtained exclusively by Up w/ Chris Hayes.
Arthur Allen, the CEO of ASG Software Solutions – a $375 million company, according to Forbes magazine – sent an email to his employees on August 27th, the day before the scheduled start of the Republican National Convention, asking them to give up to the maximum individual donation to the Romney campaign in order to help the company stave off financial ruin and save employees’ jobs.
“I am encouraging everyone to go to the Romney for President web site and contribute as much as you can to his campaign for President, up to the maximum of $2500.00 per person,” Allen wrote to his domestic employees. “I am also encouraging you to contact all of your friends and relatives and ask them to support Romney and to go to the polls and vote on election day.”
Allen, a longtime donor to Republican campaigns, also noted that ASG had recently “tripped a bank leverage covenant” and would face new restrictions from its lenders as a result, but blamed reckless government spending for the financial state of the company.
Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists
by Greg Miller, The Washington Post
Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”
The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.
Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.
Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.
“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said. “It’s a necessary part of what we do. . . . We’re not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, ‘We love America.’ ”
That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism. Targeting lists that were regarded as finite emergency measures after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are now fixtures of the national security apparatus. The rosters expand and contract with the pace of drone strikes but never go to zero.
Let Detroit Go Bankrupt
by Mitt Romney, op-ed in The New York Times on 11/18/2008
IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course – the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Oct 27 2012
Health and Fitness News
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
I’ve got a pantry full of different grains and flours, a variety of nuts and seeds in my freezer, and a lot of ideas about how these hearty ingredients can contribute to a pancake. So this week I shook things up in the kitchen, and so far, so good.
I also wanted to come up with some savory pancakes and developed a couple of recipes that quickly became favorites in our home. I was thinking along the lines of traditional Chinese and Korean onion pancakes, but I wanted to make something lighter and at the same time more wholesome. When I’m researching whole grains, both for baking and for cooking, I often turn to Heidi Swanson (www.101cookbooks.com) for ideas, and I found a lot of inspiration in her pancake recipes.
~Martha Rose Shulman~
I decided to stir some lemon zest into the batter. I dotted some of the pancakes with raspberries and left others plain.
Brown Rice, Sesame, Spinach and Scallion Pancakes
Try them heated with a little grated cheese on top, or serve with yogurt.
Instead of using only wheat flour in these pancakes, I’ve combined whole-wheat flour and almond flour.
Teff is a tiny, nutrient-dense grain native to Ethiopia. Its calcium content is higher than that of any other grain, and it’s an excellent source of vitamin C.
Savory Cottage Cheese Pancakes With Indian Spices, Cauliflower and Carrots
We eat these Indian-spiced pancakes for dinner, along with a green salad.
Oct 27 2012
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
New York Times Editorial: Slow but Steady Improvement
The slow pace of the nation’s economic recovery has picked up a bit lately. In the third quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent, beating expectations and the dismal 1.3 percent growth in the second quarter. Over the past year, the growth rate has been 2.3 percent. At that pace, there’s enough momentum to keep unemployment, currently 7.8 percent, from getting much worse, but not enough to spur big job gains.
The growth figures, released on Friday by the Commerce Department, played right into the candidates’ competing themes on the campaign trail, where President Obama has pointed to slow but steady economic recovery relative to the severe recession he inherited, while Mitt Romney has criticized growth of the past few years as unacceptably slow because of Mr. Obama’s policies.
Mr. Obama has the stronger argument. The economy would have been much worse off without Obama administration policies like the stimulus and the auto industry rescue. And it would be much better off today if congressional Republicans had not obstructed subsequent stimulus proposals, most notably the administration’s jobs bill introduced last year, which could have added an estimated 1.9 million jobs – and at least a percentage point to growth, according to many private-sector economic analyses.
Gail Collins: Talk About a Way With Words
Rape is a big issue this election season. Not what we were expecting, but, these days, American voters are prepared to deal with pretty much anything.
This week, all eyes turned to a United States Senate debate in Indiana – also something we were not really planning on doing. Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate, caused a national stir when he defended his across-the-board opposition to abortion by saying that a pregnancy caused by rape “is something that God intended to happen.” [..]
The idea of banning abortion except for rape and incest cases makes anti-choice politicians sound more evenhanded, but it doesn’t actually make much sense. If you believe life begins at conception, then that’s a life, and you should try to convince women not to terminate any pregnancy, no matter what the cause. Our difference of opinion is over whether you can impose your beliefs with the threat of cops and penitentiaries.
Ralph Nader: Capitol Hill’s Rabid, Ravaging Republicans
Has there ever been a more crazed, cruel, anti-people, corporate-indentured, militaristic and monetized Republican Party in its 154-year history? An about-to-be-released list of some of the actual brutish votes by the House Republicans, led by Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Eric Cantor, will soon be available to you from the House Democratic Caucus.
Lest you think this is just partisan propaganda, these are real, recorded votes in the House of Representatives. [..]
How do such people get elected? Is it just money and smooth slogans? Is it a lack of competition in rigged districts? Is it a winner-take-all, two-party duopoly where more than half the voters sit out the election? Is it shocking disengagement by the cynical or hopeless public, shorn of any rigorous expectation levels?
For the time being, go to the Democratic House Caucus website. Ponder the fate of our Republic. Ask why we have almost unconditionally given up our enormous sovereign power of “We the People” to those out-of-control, raging members of Congress.
Charles M. Blow: The Company Romney Keeps
The saying goes: A man is known by the company he keeps.
If that is true, what does the company Mitt Romney keeps say about him?
This week Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama again, as he did in 2008. That apparently set John Sununu, a co-chairman of the Romney campaign, on edge. Powell’s endorsement couldn’t possibly be the product of purposeful deliberation over the candidates’ policies. In Sununu’s world of racial reductionism, Powell’s endorsement had a more base explanation: it was a black thing. [..]
I worry that Sununu’s statements intentionally go beyond recognizing racial disparities and seek to exploit them.
What does that say about Romney, and what does it say about his campaign’s tactics?
Remember: A man is known by the company he keeps.
John Nichols: Paul Ryan Takes a Side in the War on Poverty: He’s Against What Works
Paul Ryan has a right to be wrong. He can believe that anti-poverty programs don’t work.
But he does not have a right to foster the fantasy that his opinion is grounded in reality.
Unfortunately, media reports on the Republican vice presidential candidate’s “big” speech on how to address poverty, focused on Ryan’s glib one-liners rather than the fact that his basic premises are false.
Ryan says that: “In this war on poverty, poverty is winning.”
That’s a nice play on words. But there’s a problem. Ryan wants us to believe that the “war on poverty” is what’s causing poverty.
Seriously.
carl Gibson: ‘We Pay More’: US Austerity Well Underway
After I pinned a dollar bill on my jacket lapel with “I PAY MORE” written on it in black marker, I’ve had countless conversations during my travels across the United States that went something like this:
Them: “I pay more? What does that mean?”
Me: “This dollar bill right here is $1 more than General Electric, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and a bunch of other big corporations paid in federal taxes, since 2008, combined.”
Them: “What? That’s not right. I pay my taxes! Too much, actually.”
Me: “But I bet you don’t hire a bunch of lobbyists to make sure Congress keeps writing in more loopholes like they do, right?”
Them: “Well, no. I don’t have that kind of money.”
Me: “So you pay more. Pass it on.”Regardless of political persuasion, there isn’t one person I’ve met who isn’t infuriated by the fact that they pay more in federal taxes than a combined majority of most billion-dollar corporations. But what’s even more infuriating is that under the Budget Control Act that was passed after our austerity- crazed Congress forced it into being during the Summer-long debt negotiations of 2011, budgets for numerous essential social programs will be cut to the bone this January, under the false guise that our country is too broke to pay the bills. [..]
I pay more. So do you. Either as a percentage of our income, as an effective federal tax rate, and even as a dollar amount compared to our corporate counterparts. Let’s put an end to these cuts by illustrating how unjust it is to make us pay for the cunning tax practices of the 1% and their lobbyists on Capitol Hill with a pound of flesh taken from our own future.
Oct 27 2012
On This Day In History October 27
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
October 27 is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 65 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1904, the New York Subway opens.
While London boasts the world’s oldest underground train network (opened in 1863) and Boston built the first subway in the United States in 1897, the New York City subway soon became the largest American system. The first line, operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), traveled 9.1 miles through 28 stations. Running from City Hall in lower Manhattan to Grand Central Terminal in midtown, and then heading west along 42nd Street to Times Square, the line finished by zipping north, all the way to 145th Street and Broadway in Harlem. On opening day, Mayor McClellan so enjoyed his stint as engineer that he stayed at the controls all the way from City Hall to 103rd Street.
A demonstration for an underground transit system in New York City was first built by Alfred Ely Beach in 1869. His Beach Pneumatic Transit only extended 312 feet (95 m) under Broadway in Lower Manhattan and exhibited his idea for a subway propelled by pneumatic tube technology. The tunnel was never extended for political and financial reasons, although extensions had been planned to take the tunnel southward to The Battery and northwards towards the Harlem River. The Beach subway was demolished when the BMT Broadway Line was built in the 1910s; thus, it was not integrated into the New York City Subway system.
The first underground line of the subway opened on October 27, 1904, almost 35 years after the opening of the first elevated line in New York City, which became the Ninth Avenue Line. The heavy 1888 snowstorm helped to demonstrate the benefits of an underground transportation system. The oldest structure still in use opened in 1885 as part of the BMT Lexington Avenue Line, and is now part of the BMT Jamaica Line in Brooklyn. The oldest right-of-way, that of the BMT West End Line, was in use in 1863 as a steam railroad called the Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road. The Staten Island Railway, which opened in 1860, currently uses R44 subway cars, but it has no links to the rest of the system and is not usually considered part of the subway proper.
By the time the first subway opened, the lines had been consolidated into two privately owned systems, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT, later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, BMT) and the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT). The city was closely involved: all lines built for the IRT and most other lines built or improved for the BRT after 1913 were built by the city and leased to the companies. The first line of the city-owned and operated Independent Subway System (IND) opened in 1932; this system was intended to compete with the private systems and allow some of the elevated railways to be torn down, but was kept within the core of the City due to the low amount of startup capital provided to the municipal Board Of Transportation, the later MTA, by the state.[3] This required it to be run ‘at cost’, necessitating fares up to double the five cent fare popular at the time.
In 1940, the two private systems were bought by the city; some elevated lines closed immediately, and others closed soon after. Integration was slow, but several connections were built between the IND and BMT, and now operate as one division called the B Division. Since the IRT tunnel segments are too small and stations too narrow to accommodate B Division cars, and contain curves too sharp for B Division cars, the IRT remains its own division, A Division.
The New York City Transit Authority, a public authority presided by New York City, was created in 1953 to take over subway, bus, and streetcar operations from the city, and was placed under control of the state-level Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1968.
In 1934, transit workers of the BRT, IRT, and IND founded the Transport Workers Union of America, organized as Local 100. Local 100 remains the largest and most influential local of the labor union. Since the union’s founding, there have been three union strikes. In 1966, transit workers went on strike for 12 days, and again in 1980 for 11 days. On December 20, 2005, transit workers again went on strike over disputes with MTA regarding salary, pensions, retirement age, and health insurance costs. That strike lasted just under three days.
Oct 26 2012
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Paul Krugman: Pointing Toward Prosperity?
Mitt Romney has been barnstorming the country, telling voters that he has a five-point plan to restore prosperity. And some voters, alas, seem to believe what he’s saying. So President Obama has now responded with his own plan, a little blue booklet containing 27 policy proposals. How do these two plans stack up?
Well, as I’ve said before, Mr. Romney’s “plan” is a sham. It’s a list of things he claims will happen, with no description of the policies he would follow to make those things happen. “We will cut the deficit and put America on track to a balanced budget,” he declares, but he refuses to specify which tax loopholes he would close to offset his $5 trillion in tax cuts.
Actually, if describing what you want to see happen without providing any specific policies to get us there constitutes a “plan,” I can easily come up with a one-point plan that trumps Mr. Romney any day. Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. Also, a blissfully happy marriage. And a pony.
Richard (RJ) Eskow: Europe’s Agony Could Become Our Future Under Mitt Romney
At last Monday’s debate Mitt Romney said the United States is “heading toward Greece.” That remark was filled with bitter ironies, not the least of which is the fact that the world’s current economic miseries were triggered by financial speculators like Romney himself. And while Romney says his harsh economic policies are designed to reduce the national debt, we now have proof they’ll have the opposite effect.
European austerity, like its American counterpart, isn’t just morally wrong: It’s also self-defeating.
Nations like Greece aren’t just wracked with sky-high unemployment, endangered by full-scale depression, and experiencing the first throes of social disintegration. They’re also struggling with soaring debt. That why even the International Monetary Fund, hardly a bastion of leftist dissidence, has turned against Romney-style austerity.
The United States isn’t immune from contagion if Romney and Ryan enact a full-blown austerity program. The riot-torn streets and malarial villages of Greece could become our nation’s future.
Mike Logren: How Democracies Die
Picture a country at the height of its international power and prestige. It has military forces stationed around the globe. It is an intellectual leader. Its citizens are pleased to insist that the national idea, their country’s way of life, is a beacon of enlightenment and human rights for the rest of the world. Indeed, they are wont to harp on the notion that the country embodies the very concept of Western Civilization.
But beneath the façade of greatness there is creeping rot. The rich (who are accustomed to getting their way in all things) corrupt the system and buy the people’s representatives in this venerable democracy. The country lurches towards political polarization and, predictably, the machinery of orderly governance becomes gridlocked. The politicians of the right, who take every opportunity to bellow for increased spending on the military, refuse to raise the revenues to pay for it. Why?
Ari Berman: Obama on Voter Suppression: ‘It’s a Problem’
Civil rights activists, voting rights groups and Democratic leaders across the country-most notably Bill Clinton-have denounced the spate of new voting restrictions passed by Republicans since the 2010 election.
But this important topic didn’t come up in any of the presidential debates, and President Obama has been reluctant to weigh in on the controversy (although Michelle Obama gave a stirring speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation gala in September about the right to vote).
So it was refreshing to hear Jay Leno, of all people, ask Obama about “voter suppression” on The Tonight Show last night. Leno spotlighted an ad campaign in Pennsylvania (which he wrongly labeled as Colorado), where the state asks voters to “show it”-photo ID, that is-even though the fine print notes that “voters will be asked, but not required, to show an acceptable photo ID on Election Day.” (The Pennsylvania ACLU has asked the judge who blocked the law to halt the misleading ads).
David Sirota: In Defense of the Undecided Voter
I am a left-leaner who previously voted for Barack Obama with clear eyes. Having looked at his record, I knew he was no progressive, much less a Marxist, as his conservative detractors claim. He has always been a thumb-to-the-wind politician who shrouds corporate-backed policies in the veneer of altruistic liberalism. But I voted for him because in 2008 he presented the best opportunity for change.
Sadly, that opportunity was missed. Obama betrayed many of his campaign promises, not merely by turning over his economic policymaking to corporate-connected insiders, but, as the Washington Post this week documents, by additionally championing more-extreme versions of the Bush-era civil liberties and national security policies that he once criticized from his platform as a venerated “constitutional lawyer.”
Now, four years later, Obama and Democratic Party-affiliated media outlets are demanding that voters ignore this record, or at least believe that a President Mitt Romney will automatically make things worse.
E. J. Dionne: How the Right Wing Lost in 2012
The right wing has lost the election of 2012. The evidence for this is overwhelming, yet it is the year’s best-kept secret. Mitt Romney would not be throwing virtually all of his past positions overboard if he thought the nation were ready to endorse the full-throated conservatism he embraced to win the Republican nomination.
If conservatism were winning, does anyone doubt that Romney would be running as a conservative? Yet unlike Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, Romney is offering an echo, not a choice. His strategy at the end is to try to sneak into the White House on a chorus of me-too’s.
The right is going along because its partisans know Romney has no other option. This, too, is an acknowledgement of defeat, a recognition that the grand ideological experiment heralded by the rise of the tea party has gained no traction. It also means that conservatives don’t believe that Romney really believes the moderate mush he’s putting forward now. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if the conservatives are forgiving Romney because they think he is lying, what should the rest of us think?
Oct 26 2012
On This Day In History October 26
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
October 26 is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 66 days remaining until the end of the year.
On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.
Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills.
The funerals for Clanton and the McLaurys (who were relatively wealthy men) were the largest ever seen in Tombstone, drawing over 2,000 people. The fear of the Cowboys caused many Tombstone residents and businesses to reconsider their calls for the mass killing of Cowboys. Although rowdy, the Cowboys brought substantial business into Tombstone.
The fear of Cowboy retribution and the potential loss of investors because of the negative publicity in large cities such as San Francisco started to turn the opinion somewhat against the Earps and Holliday. Stories that Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury were unarmed, and that Billy Clanton and Tom McLaury even threw up their hands before the shooting, now began to make the rounds. Soon, another Clanton brother (Phineas “Fin” Clanton) had arrived in town, and some began to claim that the Earps and Holliday had committed murder, instead of enforcing the law.
The Spicer hearing
After the gunfight, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday (the two men not formally employed as law officers, and the two least wounded) were charged with murder. After extensive testimony at the preliminary hearing to decide if there was enough evidence to bind the men over for trial, the presiding Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer ruled that there was not enough evidence to indict the men. Two weeks later, a grand jury followed Spicer’s finding, and also refused to indict. Spicer, in his ruling, criticized City Marshal Virgil Earp for using Wyatt and Doc as backup temporary deputies, but not for using Morgan, who had already been wearing a City Marshal badge for nine days. However, it was noted that if Wyatt and Holliday had not backed up Marshal Earp, then he would have faced even more overwhelming odds than he had, and could not possibly have survived.
The participants in later history
A few weeks following the grand jury refusal to indict, Virgil Earp was shot by hidden assailants from an unused building at night – a wound causing him complete loss of the use of his left arm. Three months later Morgan Earp was murdered by a shot in the back in Tombstone by men shooting from a dark alley.
After these incidents, Wyatt, accompanied by Doc Holliday and several other friends, undertook what has later been called the Earp vendetta ride in which they tracked down and killed the men whom they believed had been responsible for these acts. After the vendetta ride, Wyatt and Doc left the Arizona Territory in April, 1882 and parted company, although they remained in contact.
Billy Claiborne was killed in a gunfight in Tombstone in late 1882, by gunman Franklin Leslie.
Ike Clanton was caught cattle rustling in 1887, and shot dead by lawmen while resisting arrest.
Later in 1887, just over six years from the time of the O.K. fight, Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, aged 36.
Virgil Earp served as the “Town Marshal,” hired by the Southern Pacific RR, in Colton, California. He lived without the use of his arm, although continued as a lawman in California, and died of pneumonia at age 62 in 1905, still on the job as a peace officer.
Johnny Behan failed even to be re-nominated by his own party for the sheriff race in 1882, and never again worked as a lawman, spending the rest of his life at various government jobs, dying in Tucson of natural causes at age 67 in 1912.
Wyatt Earp, the last survivor of the fight, traveled across the western frontier for decades in the company of Josephine Marcus, working mostly as a gambler, and eventually died in Los Angeles of infection, in 1929, at the age of 80.
A legacy of questions
The issue of fault at the O.K. Corral shooting has been hotly debated over the years. To this day, Pro-Earp followers view the gunfight as a struggle between “Law-and-order” against out-of-control Cowboys; Pro-Clanton/McLaury followers view it as a political vendetta and abuse of authority.
A recent attempt to reinvestigate part of the matter aired on an episode of Discovery Channel’s Unsolved History using modern technology to re-enact the shotgun shooting which was part of the incident. However, the re-enactment did not use 19th century period technology (a late 19th century shotgun messenger type short shotgun, brass cases, black powder). The episode concluded that Doc Holliday may have triggered the fight by cocking both barrels of his shotgun, but was likely not the first shooter.
In April 2010, original transcripts of witness statements were rediscovered in Bisbee, Arizona, and are currently being preserved and digitized. Photocopies of these documents have been available to researchers since 1960, and new scans of them will be made available for public viewing online.
Oct 25 2012
Punting the Pundits
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
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Dean Baker: Why Even President Obama Won’t Champion Social Security
Although millions of middle-class Americans strongly support social security, big bucks campaign donors hate it. That’s why
It is remarkable that social security hasn’t been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed a plan that would imply cuts of more than 40% for middle-class workers just entering the labor force. Since social security is hugely popular across the political spectrum, it would seem that President Obama could gain an enormous advantage by clearly proclaiming his support for the program.
But President Obama has consistently refused to rise to the defense of social security. In fact, in the first debate, he explicitly took the issue off the table, telling the American people that there is not much difference between his position on social security and Romney’s.
Charles M. Blow: Paul Ryan’s Poverty Play
Paul Ryan gave a speech on poverty and economic mobility.
No, that’s not the beginning of one of those a-man-walks-into-a-bar jokes. It actually happened.
Ryan delivered the speech Wednesday in Cleveland. “In this war on poverty,” he said, “poverty is winning.” What he didn’t say is that he and his budget have taken sides in that war – and not on the side of the poor.
This is just the latest of Mitt Romney’s home-stretch attempts to kick up the dust of confusion, soften harsh rhetoric and policies, and slip into the White House.
But there’s a problem: Ryan’s budget was actually printed – on paper, at that. It was passed by the House in March. It can be examined and evaluated.
Margaret Kimberly: Freedom Rider: Not Voting for Obama
The top Democrat and Republican have clashed face-to-face three times – and emerged far more alike than different. “Given this degree of collusion, why would it be so terrible if Obama lost?” The presidential electoral exercise looks more like an exorcism in which both parties are the Devil.
Two weeks before Election Day, most polling indicates that Barack Obama has sufficient support to win an electoral college victory. If the past four years are any indication, that victory will do little to help the millions of people who put Obama in office. His claims of success are either dubious or obviously harmful for people in this country and around the world. [..]
On November 6th it is perfectly acceptable, morally right, and politically principled to boycott the election or to vote for a party other than the Democrats. Hand wringing about a Romney victory is mostly phony, and geared to keep progressives silent in the face of each new assault. Obama may win after all, but it shouldn’t be because people who claim to be on the left are complicit and a party to his wrongdoing.
Elaine Goldsmith: Is the Clock Turning Back for Women’s Rights?
Whether I like it or not, I am an old lady now. I won’t tell you how old — but trust me. As I watch the election, I find myself worrying about my granddaughters and great-granddaughters. Are we at risk of turning back the clock on women’s rights?
When I was young, my girlfriends and I all worked to make our lives count. We wanted our bodies to be ours — just as men’s are theirs. No one can tell a man what he can or can’t legally do to his body, nor should anyone tell a woman, either. We spoke out, organized, got our parents involved, and encouraged them to get their friends involved.
When Griswold v. Connecticut was decided in 1965, protecting the right to birth control, we knew change was possible. When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, giving women the right to choose, we knew change had arrived. Nobody is pro-abortion — but anyone who saw the world of back-alley abortions and botched procedures, as I did, would ever want to go back to those days.
Gail Collins: Connecticut Smack-Down
“I got into the race after looking at the faces of my six little grandchildren,” said Linda McMahon.
She is the Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Connecticut, and, over the last three years, she has spent more than $77 million attempting to get elected. When the little grandchildren are grown into the heirs to the McMahon family fortune, do you think they’ll regard that as a good choice?
Linda McMahon is famous for two things: spending piles and piles of money on Senate campaigns, and being a mogul in the world of professional wrestling. She and her husband, Vince, built the empire of sleeper holds and body slams that is known as World Wrestling Entertainment.
Robert Reich: Mitt Romney’s Question-Mark Economy
As we close in on Election Day, the questions about what Mitt Romney would do if elected grow even larger. Rarely before in American history has a candidate for president campaigned on such a blank slate.
Yet, paradoxically, not a day goes by that we don’t hear Romney, or some other exponent of the GOP, claim that businesses aren’t creating more jobs because they’re uncertain about the future. And the source of that uncertainty, they say, is President Obama — especially his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Dodd-Frank Act, and uncertainties surrounding Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthy.
In fact, Romney has created far more uncertainty. He offers a virtual question mark of an economy.
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