Archive for September, 2011
The Obstructionist Reflex
Newspaper articles are generally written at a 9th grade level of comprehension, so it’s starting to become a little bit eerie to see the word “intransigent” being used in abundance by the news media to describe the inflexibility of Republican politicians. What isn’t shocking, though, are the knee-jerk reactions that the GOP presidential candidate field [...]
Social Security, more numbers
In a previous post, I mentioned a CNN/ORC International poll that shows that the majority of Americans do not want the congressional “super committee” to make any changes to Social Security. This, I argued, puts Rick Perry and the rest of the GOP presidential field at odds with the American voter. More to the point [...]
Rick Perry, the anti-social security candidate
A major portion of the MSNBC/Politico Republican debate last night focused on where the Republican candidates stood on Social Security. The noise, of course, was started by Rick Perry who inaccurately called Social Security a Ponzi scheme in his book “Fed Up!”. When asked whether he stood by that statement during the debate, Perry amped [...]
Romney and Perry Exchange Blows in Debate
The two front runners in the GOP primary exchanged blows on the most important issue of the campaign last night. Jobs. Overall, I think the #1 story of this debate is that Perry was attacked but survived. He faced only a couple of his very controversial skeletons but handled them with grace. The soundbites are [...]
Short Review: Better This World
If you missed the PBS documentary film “Better This World” last night, I highly recommend that you check your local PBS listings and catch it on a second run or simply watch it online. The documentary, produced by filmmakers Kelly Duane de la Vega and Katie Galloway, captures the workings of the government’s post-9/11 [...]
Bachmann Falls
With the announcement of her top aides leaving, it seems as if Michele Bachmann’s campaign has fallen down, and has no real opportunity to get back up. Less than one month ago Bachmann was glowing from her win of the all but meaningless Ames Iowa Straw Poll. But, while the first line was about her [...]
Big Trouble for America
I have a feeling that the existence of this article signifies the imminent collapse of our election system: Clunky rubber soled shoes and slip-on loafers are also iffy choices, but likely to pop up during the debate: Ron Paul wore thick rubber soles to the last debate, while Romney and Gingrich both sported loafers. [...]
Skewing data doesn’t help grow the economy
Mitt Romney held a speech today in Las Vegas to present his muddled 160-page jobs proposal that helps corporations evade regulations more than anything else. Over at ThinkProgress, somebody noticed a chart in Romney’s jobs proposal booklet that blames President Obama for job losses from 2007-2009 – despite the fact that Obama didn’t even become [...]
Federal Dollars for the Tea Party Front-Runner
(1) This past August, in the wake of Hurricane Irene, many Republicans in Congress began questioning the role of the federal government when it came to disaster response. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia notably demanded that federal disaster relief must be offset with cuts to the current federal budget. This idea was seconded [...]
A Media Narrative Trailer
This article from CNN warns us all about the depressing, inane, and repetitive torture that the political news media is going to carry out against the American public in the next two months: Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) — A Republican presidential race that has been anything but slow kicks into an even higher gear this [...]