Quote of the Day – The man with the Romney Tattoo

Remember Eric Hartsburg?  He was paid $15,000 to get a five inch Romney campaign tattoo on his face. Hartsburg did it as an auction. His only requirement for bidding on the ‘ad space’ was that it could not be racist or offensive.

 

“I’m the guy who has egg all over his face, but instead of egg, it’s a big Romney/Ryan tattoo. It’s there for life.
“I’m hoping this opens some other doors in the entertainment business.”

Hmmm. Opening doors in the entertainment business? I was trying to think of a situation where that would be possible, outside of a film about Romney’s loss… not something I see much of a market for. Perhaps the logo could be sold to an auto manufacturer (Rolls Royce?) and Hartsman could become a car dealer’s mascot.

How much do you want to bet that Hartsman will be whining about the tattoo to his grandchildren.

Related articles

• Man Who Tattooed Romney Logo Onto Forehead Speaks Out (huffingtonpost.com)
• Romney campaign’s lasting mark (politico.com)
• Indiana man stuck with Romney face tattoo (thegrio.com)
• From the Dept. of Regrettable Tattoos: The Romney Ryan Logo (towleroad.com)
• Fan Tattoos Romney Logo On His Face (mix1041.cbslocal.com)
• Man With Romney Tattoo on His Face is ‘Disappointed,’ Tries to Look on the Bright Side (nymag.com)
• Interview with a Man Who Got a Romney/Ryan Face Tattoo (slog.thestranger.com)

 

The questions you ask yourself…

I’m discovering as I face brain surgery and it’s unknown consequences that I find myself asking questions about what I have and have not accomplished over the last 66 or so years. It’s not a pleasant experience, btw, only one that makes me realize how many things I REALLY wanted to do which will probably never be realized. I guess, however, that this is common to just about everyone.

(Sorry… this is much longer than I expected and it will not hurt my feelings if you sign out right now,   – Bill)

Starting with the basics:

• I have a wonderful wife who is taking care of me when she also maintains a full time teaching job that keeps us supported and in our mandatory health insurance mode.

• I have three impressive and incredible grown children, Cassandra, Penny and Will (who we call Buddy… I don’t know where “Will” came from), and four wonderful grandsons, 3 in Maryland and one in Connecticut. (Allow me to say while I’m in this particular note about how lucky I am to have my son-in-law Matthew Corrigan in Connecticut who has made sure Cassandra could be down here with me during all of this.)

• I set out many years ago for a life in the Arts, something I really discovered while a prep-school student at Tabor Academy in Marion, MA.  Between painting and sculpture creation under Lou LaVoie, drama and theatre discoveries under Tom Weisshaus, ending as President of the Drama Club where i acted, but didn’t do much in tech theatre, I was poised to take off when I headed for The School Of Speech/Theatre Department at Northwestern University in 1964.

And just what did I do that I remember proudly?:

• After I discovered systems analysis through an amazing engineer, art collector and professor, Dr. Gustave J. Rath, I created my first small theatre company, Systems Theatre, which applied this amazing intellectual technology to performance creation. Our first major production was an adaptation of Frank Zappa’s “Lumpy Gravy” which eventually played Chicago’s Performing Warehouse between sets by the two great bluesmen B.B. King and Albert King (who I got to give a ride home to later… wow!) When I ended up in NYC in 1971 I restarted Systems Theatre with some of the same people who were with me at Northwestern

• There were a couple of plays that we did at Theatre at St. Clement’s, one of the really great off-off Broadway locations in the city. Well reviewed, well attended and most important to me was my adaptation of Thomas Merton’s “Original Child Bomb” which had gothic-y chants composed by a wonderful musician, Ed Roberts, who I had met when teaching for a year at Tabor. Ed and I went on to do several shows together… at St. Clement’s and other places. My greatest pride came in a project we did a little later:

• Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, an opera for children, was presented at the Whitney
  

  The Whitney

  Museum of American Art, thanks to a contact I made with one of the most  influential people in my life and someone who I am so proud to call a friend today, Berta Walker. Berta was working as the Administrative Assistant to Steve Weil at the Whitney and was looking for children’s programming. Ed and I suggested doing “Snark” which we had just started working on and now we had a reason for pushing through. We opened to great reception at the Whitney and, a little bit later on, Berta and I produced it for a few weekends at a little theater on the East Side of Manhattan. Following that, it was taken to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, a major museum which had been started by Berta’s grandfather, where it was also successful.

• My friend and former Northwestern student John Driver, who played the original Bellman in “Snark” had been writing a musical based on Samurai warrior Mushami called “Ride The Wind” with pretty much of a rock ‘n roll score and martial arts based choreography. This was during the time that “Kung Fu” was a big television show, and we thought we were really on something here, so Berta and I decided to produce it (the company we created was called Snarkophilus Productions after our big success). We started out aiming for Off-Broadway, but then the Bijou Theater, a little house at the end of Shubert Alley, became available and we booked it. We were now a Broadway show… albeit a very small one. My set design professor, Sam Ball, agreed to do the sets, which were built by Northwestern students and which I brought to New York driving a truck across country. A number of the actors who auditioned were folks I had known from the New Theatre Workshop, a small non-profit group which acted as a try-out location for new plays that writers were working on. I was their stage electrician for a year before they tore the theater down to build the CitiPlace Center on 57th Street.

• Unfortunately, “Ride The Winds” didn’t pass the New York Times test and I was no longer a Broadway producer.

• I had to work, so I took a job as Administrator of the Jamaica Arts Center in Queens, where I structured classes, set up concerts, scheduled movies and ran the books. It was there I met Elly, my current wife, who I hired to teach Photography in the class size darkroom I had built in the Center’s basement (I took up photography, too… something I really loved.)  Eddy came down and we did a little revival of “Snark” in Jamaica for the kids in Queens. When I was hired later on by The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, by their Board President (you can probably see this coming… it was Berta Walker), Elly came with me and we settled in on  lower Cape Cod. I helped the Work Center fund raise, grow and prosper over three years, then spent another three years on it’s Board. Elly and I however, moved down to the mid-Cape where we started a business that would keep us in debt and development for the next decade: Our photo studio, Photography Associates of New England Inc., and U-Design, Inc.

• The appearance of the Apple Macintosh computer, the laser printer, a piece of software called Aldus PageMaker and things like scanners, modems, etc., inspired us to set up a rental-area business where folks would come in, rent space in a booth, and lay out, with our help, their ads and brochures. After a couple of years, we moved it to Hartford, CT… back in my home state. At one point we had U-Designs in three cities in CT (that was a mistake!) and we started doing more jobs for clients ourselves rather than booth rentals. We worked with major and minor companies, lots of non-profits, plus we offered desktop publishing classes. At one time we had a dozen or so employees. During this time I did no theatre, maybe a little painting, but not much (Elly was our painter and her work was wonderful.) While in Marlborough, however, I was recruited to be a Justice of the Peace, where I married several couples (I specialized in non-believers who I thought should have a person of their own.) I did start designing computer fonts at this time… still do it, especially my “picture fonts” which have been used on this blog many times. U-Design Type Foundry has attracted hundreds of buyers, for which I have great appreciation.

More recent years… “Things fall apart, the center does not hold” – TS Eliot.

• We had built a passive solar house in Marlborough, CT, where we moved so Buddy could go to school there and we could lead the suburban life (eventually, we moved the last vestige of U-Design to Marlborough where it finally ended up in our house until it died.) I started going out and getting jobs as an Information Technologist at some larger companies, finally ending up at Computer Sciences Corporation, where I spent five working years. For most of that I was commuting to the Maryland-DC area every week to do a major piece of work for the Internal Revenue Service with a bunch of my colleagues. I made more money here than I ever had before. When my whole department was laid off after three years I even got six months of part-time work for the IRS itself to finish some of the project stuff.

• Elly and I sold the Marlborough house and bought a historic co-op space in Old Greenbelt, MD, where I was still doing CSC work. Eventually, when there was no more work and a guy in his late fifties had a hard time finding IT jobs when the market was stuffed with lower earning young guys. I had to take early retirement which, thanks to CSC’s salary, brought me a higher Social Security than I had expected. Elly took a teaching job in Graphic Design at Hagerstown Community College in Hagerstown, MD, and we eventually moved to
  

  Ride The Winds

  Hagerstown, then Shepherdstown (our favorite) and now Harper’s Ferry. While I was living in Greenbelt, I got involved with two community theatres, the Laurel Mill Playhouse and the Greenbelt Arts Center. Amazingly enough, with the entrance to all of this I made by meeting Linda Bartash, I directed several plays and musicals. The highlight of these was a revival of “Ride The Winds” which I got John Driver to rewrite the second act for. It was well-reviewed in the Washington Post and local papers and I breathed a sight of final relief. I also, amid all the shows I did, had a really good production of that unusual musical “Urinetown” at Greenbelt, also a success.

• I got involved with a new Community Theater in Shepherdstown, The Full Circle Theater, where I
  

  The Hunting of the Snark, in Shepherdstown

  became the House Electrician and ran lights on a bunch of shows, And then, can you believe it, I go to to do a revival of “The Hunting of the Snark” and Eddy, who was then living in Pennsylvania, came down from time to time to help my friend and music director, Ruth Raubertas, get our favorite opera for kids off the ground. Everyone seemed to like it, but this was my last chance to direct anything and I sank into an ongoing depression hoping I would get to do it again some day. I don’t think, now, that it will happen. I have to say, though, that I made a great friend of John Case who played the Butcher in that last production. John had a weekday morning radio show on WSCH 89.7FM on Shepherd University’s radio station and originally he invited me on for an interview and eventually I was on every Friday, which John started promoting as “The Bill and John Show.” I guess I did OK, since a few months later the station manager, Todd Cottgreave, gave me a show of my own on Saturday mornings which I called “Talk To Me” and which I made into a call-in production. I think the radio shows really saved my intelligence and ability to carry on while under depression.

So those are things I’ve been thinking about. What I haven’t discussed here is this blog, which is the major occupation of an old, retired guy’s day. I hope I can keep it going for years (as you can see, I love to talk)… if it has to cease, however, someone will put up a final post.

Time to feed the dogs.

Related articles

• My daughter, Cassandra, has come down from Connecticut and is helping my wife coordinate all the brain surgery problems… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Looks like I’m on a revised schedule and a doctor change for brain surgery… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Perforated Skulls From Middle Ages Found in Spain (history.com)

Mitt Romney Supports Barack Obama!

So get out and vote. Mitt gives us a good reason:

Employment growth picks up in October with addition of 171,000 jobs

Today the Government released the October Labor Statistics and we see that employers have added a larger-than-expected 171,000 jobs in October across a broad spectrum of businesses. In this, the  final snapshot of the economy before election day, we have an interesting picture of job growth… more than double what it was in September.

Unfortunately, the nation’s unemployment rate rose to 7.9% from 7.8% in September. This was because more people jumped back into the labor market, including a very large group of 18-year old first time workers. This, of course, is a positive sign that workers may be feeling more confident about their job prospects.

The new Labor Department report, which also revised sharply higher job growth in September and August, may give a boost to President Obama, who continues with a slow but positive economic growth. There is still enough information for the undecided to support Obama who has kept us going even though Mitch McConnell and his Republicans have worked overtime to keep Obama’s Job Creation proposals and other forward moving activities from passing or getting any Congressional support. It’s interesting that Obama has gotten as far as he has… and it is even more interesting how little the Republicans have been concerned with helping to relieve our economy.

Related articles

• US economy adds 171,000 jobs (bigpondnews.com)
• Economy adds 171,000 jobs in October (bostonherald.com)
• US economy adds 171,000 new jobs (bbc.co.uk)
• U.S. Adds 171K Jobs In October: What It Means For Obama And Romney (forbes.com)
• October jobless rate is 7.9 percent: 171,000 jobs created. Good news for Obama (blogs.suntimes.com)
• Job Growth Better Than Expected Last Month (politicalwire.com)
• SPECIAL REPORT: “171 Thousand Jobs Added in Last Jobs Report Before Election, Unemployment Rate 7.9%” (marketsnacks.com)

 

Wow! The Salt Lake Tribune has endorsed Obama over Romney!

Here’s a surprise… the biggest Mormon area newspaper is endorsing Obama… here’s part of their editorial:

Obama has earned another term

Nowhere has Mitt Romney’s pursuit of the presidency been more warmly welcomed or closely followed than here in Utah. The Republican nominee’s political and religious pedigrees, his adeptly bipartisan governorship of a Democratic state, and his head for business and the bottom line all inspire admiration and hope in our largely Mormon, Republican, business-friendly state.

But it was Romney’s singular role in rescuing Utah’s organization of the 2002 Olympics from a cesspool of scandal, and his oversight of the most successful Winter Games on record, that make him the Beehive State’s favorite adopted son.

In short, this is the Mitt Romney we knew, or thought we knew, as one of us.

Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: “Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?”

In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.

Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first.

 

So what is Romney and his bunch thinking after this editorial? Certainly he must feel betrayed… or maybe he will start seeing himself the way the rest of us see him as he switches from character to character.

Related articles

• ↪ The Salt Lake Tribune endorsment against Mitt Romney (sltrib.com)
• Salt Lake Tribune Endorses Obama (politicalwire.com)
• Salt Lake Tribune endorses Obama (politico.com)
• Not even the Salt Lake Tribune endorses Romney (viewfrommiddleclass.wordpress.com)
• Salt Lake Tribune throws support behind Obama (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Surprise: The Mormon-Loving Salt Lake City Tribune Officially Endorses President Barry-O Over Money Makin’ Mitt! (bossip.com)
• In a Devastating Turn for Romney, Swing State and Home State Papers Endorse Obama (politicususa.com)
• Endorsement Of The Day (joemygod.blogspot.com)

Cartoon(s) of the Week – What do the Republican Candidates do to communicate their positions?

David Horsey in the L.A. Times:

So Biden kept his presence and Ryan kept up his lies…

– and –

Adam Zyglis in The Buffalo News:

It is clear Biden chewed him up…

Joe Heller in the Green Bay Press Gazette:

And, of course, the lowering of the jobless rate throws a scare into Republicans for Halloween…

Lee Judge in the Kansas City Star:

And more numbers are getting into the election confusion…

Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Do you wonder why Ryan wants to take away our government support and replace it with advertising?

– and –

Kevin Siers in the Charlotte Observer:

But we are left with a candidate who can be anything we want…but with no substance.

Unemployment rate drops to 7.8%!

 

After listening to Romney accusing the President of not being able to get the unemployment rate below 8.1%, today the newest rate report was released. At 7.8% it’s lowest level since January 2009.

Let’s hear it for the President as the rate came down and jobs, even though just a little (114000 jobs in September), moved up.

Meanwhile, what has Romney done to support his country in helping promote unemployment activity? Why, nothing. Nothing at all.

Related articles

• Unemployment rate drops to 7.8 percent, lowest in four years (wjla.com)
• Unemployment rate falls to 7.8% (abcactionnews.com)
• The death of a talking point (maddowblog.msnbc.com)
• US unemployment rate falls to 7.8 pct. in September (bostonherald.com)
• Unemployment rate below 8%, but Romney says not enough (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• 114K new jobs, unemployment drops to 7.8% (cbsnews.com)
• Unemployment Rate Drops to 7.8% (politicalwire.com)

 

Watching Romney on 60 Minutes led me to remember the things he was lying about…

 

Post these on your websites if you want to be aware of what Romney-Ryan will do to Medicare… and what they will do to employment and tax income, etc.:

Gee, I’m lucky… being in the oldest category they only grab about 50% of my retirement payments from Social Security (or all of my pension each year for the next 8… then it’s gone.)

Did you hear Romney say he was going to cut taxes on Middle America? Go you remember ythe other day when he said the income rate of Middle America started at $200,000.00 a year in annual income… and averaged a quarter of a million dollars. All at once I was not part of Middle America any more. Neither were ALL of the people I know and deal with every day in West Virginia.

I hope most people realize the bullshit Romney is bubbling over with. We have the possibility of having the worst president in history. Let’s avoid that situation by not voting for him.

Related articles

• The Freeloaders in Mitt Romney’s Orbit (truthdig.com)
• BARNEY FRANK LETTER: Mitt Romney makes himself crystal clear (tauntongazette.com)
• Gee… Elly and I are no longer “Middle Income” (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Romney and “Middle Income” (thedailybeast.com)
• Here’s Why Mitt’s 100% Wrong on the 47% (thedailybeast.com)
• What He Said: Barney Frank on Mitt Romney (slog.thestranger.com)
• Republicans Outraged With Romney Because He Gave Away Their Dirty Secret (politicususa.com)
• Paul Ryan tanks at the AARP (dailykos.com)
• Want to know what Medicare will cost you when you retire under the Romney Plan? (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Romney demands that seniors take ‘personal responsibility’ (dailykos.com)

 

Cartoon(s) of the Week – Romney’s Convention Bounce?

 

Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

This week we evaluated results…

– and –

Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

… and not all bumps are wished for…

– and –

Lee Judge in the Kansas City Star:

… but we know he’s ready to bring his bounce to ordinary people…

– and –

Bill Day in The Commercial Appeal:

… and he brought his bounce to the celebration of Labor Day…

– and –

Bob Englehart in The Hartford Courant:

…but most of us wondered when we would Labor again… especially if we elected Romney.

Related articles

• Friday Late Nite Lite: Cartoon time at last! (skydancingblog.com)
• Thursday Evening: No news allowed… (skydancingblog.com)
• Cartoons: Obama’s Health Care Bill Upheld (englishblog.com)

 

Remembering the creation and importance of Labor Day…

The contributions made by unions to the betterment of America’s workers is primarily the reason we celebrate Labor Day. The influence of organized labor cannot be ignored.

Most of the benefits workers now enjoy are directly attributable to unions:

• The 40 hour work week
• paid holidays and vacations
• sick leave
• grievance procedures
• collective bargaining
• generally superior wages.

Unfortunately, we have come to take those benefits for granted. Benefits came about because of unions and soon became the norm for union workers and many non-union workers as well. All American workers owe a debt of gratitude to Organized Labor for its achievements.

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.

In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a “workingmen’s holiday” on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country. By 1909 all U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories have made it a statutory holiday.

On Labor Day, let’s look at the benefits brought to us by Organized Labor:

Benefits of Unions:

Reinforcement of  the middle class. States with higher rates of unionization have lower rates of poverty, crime, and failing schools.

Raise of wages for all workers. Studies show that a large union presence in an industry or region can raise wages even for non-union workers. Women in unions make 33% more non-union women, and are more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and pensions.

Reducing wage inequality. Unions raise wages the most for low- and middle-wage workers and workers without college degrees.

Creation of mine safety laws strengthening mine safety standards and protecting the rights of mine workers.

The legal participation of Organized Labor has gotten many bills through Congress. In the last 50 or so years these include:

    •    The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009
•    The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
•    The Voting Rights Act of 1965
•    The Civil Rights Act of 1964
•    The Equal Pay Act of 1963

So as we celebrate Labor Day, let’s look at it as not just a day off from work, but as recognition of the relationship of the worker to democracy.

Related articles

• Labor Day, How it Came About and What it Means (clarksvilleonline.com)
• The History of Labor Day (womensphilanthropy.typepad.com)
• History of Labor Day (thehrstrategiesblog.wordpress.com)
• Why Call it Labor Day When Most People Have the Day Off? (interactive360.wordpress.com)
• For U.S. unions, holiday begins somber election countdown (news.terra.com)
• Labor Day & POLITICAL ACTION 2012 (propresobama.org)
• Labor Day – An American Holiday (givemeda411.wordpress.com)
• The Arts of Labor Day (thewip.net)
• Construction workers crucial to US landscape (syracuse.com)

Enough of Todd Akin. How about a bigger player: Paul Ryan

We’ve spent so much time talking about Todd Akin lately and his extreme position on a woman’s right to choose an abortion in the case of incest or rape. But Akin is a small player, here. What about the Republican pick for Vice President? In the past 15 years in the Congress, he has mad his position on women’s rights very, very clear.

Ryan sponsored a bill that would potentially allow rapists to stop their victims from having an abortion: The Sanctity of Life Act. Not only was ANY reason for abortion eliminated, but rapists could sue women who WANTED an abortion. The fact that it did not pass doesn’t change his viewpoint… and he has also worked with Akin several times in creating such legislative weaponry.

Here’s a very good summation of Ryan’s abortion legislation as explained by David Pakman on his television show:

Question: How can Ryan continue to say that he supports the rights of all Americans when he sees women as nothing more than breeding animals?

Keep in mind, there are solutions to what Ryan and his like represent:

 

Related articles

• Paul Ryan To The Right Of Todd Akin On Abortion (alan.com)
• Is Ryan going rogue? (salon.com)
• Ryan on abortion exceptions: Rape is just another ‘method of conception’ (rawstory.com)
• In Exclusive Interview, Paul Ryan Distances Self From Todd Akin (pittsburgh.cbslocal.com)
• Paul Ryan Is ‘Very Proud’ Of ‘Forcible Rape’ Bill He Co-Sponsored With Todd Akin (mediaite.com)
• Reps. Todd Akin And Paul Ryan Co-Sponsored Bill Using Term “Forcible Rape” (alan.com)
• The Star’s editorial | GOP can’t avoid Todd Akin — or abortion (kansascity.com)
• Paul Ryan pretends he doesn’t agree with every ‘outrageous’ thing Todd Akin said (dailykos.com)
• Paul Ryan and Todd Akin Partnered On Radical ‘Personhood’ Bill Outlawing Abortion And Many Birth Control Pills (thinkprogress.org)
• Just How Anti-Choice is Paul Ryan? (persephonemagazine.com)

Musical Theatre Fans… Here’s the best political parody I’ve heard so far this year…

If you’re a Les Mis fan like me, you’ll love this piece, “One Term More”, based on “One Day More.”

Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along:

One Term More!
A time to celebrate democracy,
Repeal Republican hypocrisy.
This man who would unseat Barack’s
A bleak choice at the ballot box.
One Term More!
A G.O.P. perdition-bound,
All sense of right & wrong eroded.
One Term More!
With laws that let ‘em stand their ground,
Republicans are locked & loaded.

Contraception’s now a sin,
Screwing G.M. in the clutch.
Incivility’s a virtue,
Homophobic. Out of touch.
Filibusters. Budget scrums.
Ultrasounds & speculums.
To the Dark Side they’ve succumbed.

Soon Election Day will dawn,
We were meant to hold this seat!
At the ballot box of freedom,
Unemployment’s in retreat!
Now the battle lines are drawn,
And Detroit’s back on its feet!
Will you take your place with me!

The time is NOW the vote is NEAR!
One Term More!
One more day to re-election,
And until the music stops,
We will fight to save the jobs of
Teachers, firemen & cops!
One Term More!
One more day to resolution,
We’ll defeat those fetid nuts,
We are fed up with pernicious
Talk of prostitutes & sluts!

Watch ‘em throwing up,
Minting malcontent,
Drinkin’ all that tea’s
Made them incontinent!

Dissembling persists,
Divisiveness prevails,
Calling colleagues Communists
Is OFF the rails!

Listen to them spew,
“Femi-Nazi” rage,
Misogynistic rants
From the Jurassic Age!

To Obama’s second inning,
He’ll drive home another run!
Norma Rae let sisters sing,
Rosa Parks let freedom ring!
For Obama’s just beginning,
Yes! The West Wing WILL be won!

AND we’ll get the Dream Act DONE!

My place is here, I vote with you!
One Term More!
Emboldened by Star-Spangled myth,
We want a JEDI…NOT a SITH!!!

Petty partisan obstruction’s
Why we’ve gridlock on the Hill!
One Term More!
Healthcare is a right,
Medicare’s a must,
Don’t let rogue Republicans
Betray that trust!

Speaking of betrayal,
Bullied by his peers,
Tackled to the ground,
Screams turned into tears.

Hunting down the queer,
Cutting off his hair,
SPIKED the ball, yet… “Can’t
Recall” if he was there???

It’s his character we question!

Mom, apple pie & Chevrolet,
Don’t let ‘em down Election Day!

That’s when we will determine
What our God in Heaven has in store!

ONE MORE TERM!

OTRA VEZ!
(One More Time!)

ONE TERM MORE!!!

 

Related articles

• STAGE TUBE: LES MIS Gets Political Parody with ‘One Term More!’ (broadwayworld.com)
• Check Out One Term More: An Inspired Obama GOTV Video Set to Les Miz (politicususa.com)

From the Daily Beast – 7 Fun Facts About Paul Ryan:

 

Do you suppose this is why Romney’s staff were all opposed to making Ryan the VP candidate?

1. He Sleeps in His Office
An unabashed nerd and constant worker, Paul Ryan is known to often catch 40 winks on a cot in his House of Representatives office. Of course, that’s not Ryan’s only residence. When he’s at home in Janesville, Wisc.—the same town in which he was born and raised—Ryan lives in a six-bedroom, eight-bath home on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

2. He Does P90X
A health buff, Ryan—who brags about keeping his body fat around 6 percent—may be one of the most fit congressmen ever to walk the halls of the Capitol. His preferred workout is the P90X home-exercise program, which he’s gotten some other legislators join in on. “It’s a fantastic workout,” Ryan told Politico. “Bart Stupak and I lead it every morning. There’s about a dozen of us who do it.”

3. He’s a Bow Hunter
With Ryan, Romney may have pretty much locked up the antiquated-weapons crowd. While bows and arrows hardly draw as much political heat as concealed carry or handgun background checks, Ryan stands out among lawmakers for his prowess as a bow hunter. “Paul Ryan is congressman, statesman, and policymaker at our nation’s highest levels,” Jay McAnich, president of the Archery Trade Association, told The Washington Examiner. “To my knowledge, that’s never happened before.”

4. He Was a ‘Brown-Noser’
Adding to the stock of trivia on the young (he’s still young) Ryan is one factoid that seems almost made to be blown out of proportion. In 1988 the high school senior was voted “Biggest ‘Brown-Noser’” in the school’s yearbook. But, heck, we all know how teenagers are. Ryan was also voted prom king.

5. He’s an Avid Catfish Noodler
It’s as cool as it sounds. For those Americans who don’t fish as often as they’d like, “noodling” is a form of wrangling catfish in which the sportsman stands in the water and catches the fish with his hands—no line, no tackle. It’s something Ryan appears to feel strongly about. In a speech in the Lone Star State in June, Ryan bonded with the crowd, saying, “And I want to say something to you Texans—because you understand freedom, you now legally recognize a man’s right to catch a catfish with his own bare hands.”

6. He Loves Led Zeppelin
Just because he likes to spend a lazy day out in nature doesn’t mean the Wisconsin native doesn’t have a bit of an edge. Ryan seems to has a taste for hard-rock bands like Rage Against the Machine, and one of his favorite groups is reportedly Led Zeppelin.

7. He Drove the Wienermobile
As a teenager, Ryan, who comes from an established family of Wisconsonites and whose great-grandfather started a major construction firm, found a summer job driving the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile. It seems to have been just part of the newly-tapped veep candidate’s one-time responsibilities, but it’s about as genuine a slice of American as comes on four wheels.

I thank the Matthew DeLuca at the  Daily Beast for coming up with these.

Related articles

• Paul Ryan Used To Drive The Wienermobile [Video] (jalopnik.com)
• Paul Ryan Noodles Catfish And Five Other Weird Facts About Mitt Romney’s VP (ibtimes.com)
• 9 things you didn’t know about Paul Ryan (wtvr.com)
• Ten things you didn’t know about Mitt Romney’s Republican running mate (itv.com)
• Paul Ryan hunts catfish with his bare hands (newstatesman.com)

 

Jobs for July higher than expected

From McClatchy newspapers:

Stronger-than-expected July jobs number reported by the government Friday eased concerns about an economy slipping back into recession and gave wind to President Barack Obama’s re-election hopes. But economists warned that the road ahead is likely to remain bumpy.

Non-farm payrolls grew by 163,000 jobs in July, according to the Labor Department, which also said the unemployment rate inched up by less than a tenth of a percentage point to 8.3 percent.

The strong report sent stocks soaring for most of Friday’s trading, with the Dow Jones industrial average up more than 220 points in the first hour, closing up 217.29 for the day at 13,096.17.

Mainstream economists had expected about 100,000 new jobs, so Friday’s report was wildly above expectations and more than double the revised 64,000 jobs that were added in June. Most heartening, economists said, was that the gains were spread across all sectors but construction and government hiring.

I find this is very encouraging even though there was a slight increase in unemployment.

Add this information to the number of private jobs gained under Democrats since 1961 and you wonder what Mitt Romney is really going to do about jobs. My guess is nothing!

 

Related articles

• Government report: Employers add more jobs than expected in July (sacbee.com)
• US economy adds 163K jobs, rate rises to 8.3 percent (bostonherald.com)
• Obama, Romney Each Read Jobs Numbers Differently (wnyc.org)
• Jobs added in July, but economists still worried (goerie.com)
• July hiring exceeds expectations, eases worries (bangordailynews.com)
• US economy adds 163K jobs, rate rises to 8.3 pct. (onlineathens.com)

Is Romney Ready for Foreign Policy?

If you’ve been watching the news concerning Willard’s visit to London, you may have heard that he has made a number of gaffes – enough so that the Mayor of London has compared him to Sarah Palin, and thought Palin was the more accomplished candidate.

You can review all the gaffes so far HERE, including videos and statements. It makes you a little ashamed to be an American since the Brits are now looking at Romney as an example of us all.
Here’s one of the gaffes that hit on Mitt’s preparedness for the whole thing:

BBC News quoted Romney:

“To look out of the back side of 10 Downing Street and see a venue having been constructed, knowing that athletes will be carrying out their activities almost in the back yard of the prime minister is really quite an accomplishment.”

So what’s wrong with that, you say. Well… The Guardian responds:

Firstly, in Britain, “backside” means “ass”. As in the part of the body. Secondly, “10 Downing Street” is often used in political reporting as a synonym for a press spokesman for the prime minister, in the same way as “the White House” can say things or have opinions.

Imagine what he’s going to do (or say) in Poland and Israel.

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• Mitt Romney Makes ‘Disconcerting’ Olympic Gaffe In London (ibtimes.com)
• Ten Reasons Romney is Dangerous On Foreign Policy (davidmixner.com)
• Romney under fire for comments about London Olympics (news.yahoo.com)
• David Cameron Praises Marriage Equality Right Before Romney Visit (towleroad.com)
• After ‘Anglo-Saxon’ gaffe, Mitt Romney and British PM trade barbs over Olympics (news.nationalpost.com)
• Romney Campaign Shames America By Criticizing POTUS on Foreign Soil (politicususa.com)
• Romney tells public of secret meeting with MI6 spy chief (rawstory.com)
• Romney Questions London’s Readiness for Olympics – Media Has a Conniption (thegatewaypundit.com)
• Romney Plays Loud American Tourist in London (theatlanticwire.com)

Republicans, As Usual, Block Bill to Bring Jobs Home

 

The best piece I’ve read on this subject is over at PoliticusUSA… and while anything I’d write on the Republicans and their ongoing program to outsource jobs overseas, benefit the wealthy and convince the middle class voter that they are really on their side doesn’t come close to this piece by Rmuse, I have condensed it here. You can read the whole article HERE.

Mitch “I won’t let Obama get anything passed” McConnell

Last Thursday, in another attempt to protect corporations and kill American jobs, Republicans blocked a measure to reward companies that brought jobs back to America, and protect their candidate Willard Romney. Republicans in the Senate refused to allow a vote on a bill, The Bring Jobs Home Act, which provided a 20% tax break for costs related to moving jobs back to the United States, at the same time rescinding deductions for companies that moved operations and jobs overseas. The bill was number one on the President’s congressional “to-do list,” but Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to amend it with an Affordable Care Act repeal and Bush-era ta x cuts for the wealthy extension.

——-

Willard “The King of Outsourcing” Romney

With the Senate Republicans action on Thursday, they exposed their agenda of corporate profit protection at the expense of Americans’ jobs. In one fell swoop, they obeyed the Chamber of Commerce, guaranteed more companies will outsource Americans’ jobs, subsidized outsourcing with taxpayer dollars, provided millions for Romney, created jobs in foreign countries, prevented economic growth, and most importantly, killed millions of Americans’ jobs. Their claim the bill was a political ploy by the Obama Administration is patently false because this is the second time in two years Republicans blocked an anti-outsourcing bill.

——-

The Republican focus on jobs since January 2009 has been killing them, not creating them. They voted against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus), opposed the auto industry bailout, payroll tax cut and extension, all of the President’s jobs bills, and have blocked any new revenue sources that would fund rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure. All of the Republican job-killing measures have as their basis protection of the rich and keeping unemployment figures high, and they are not close to being finished if they win control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

——-

It is a mystery why Republicans get any support from Americans when they have spent the past three-and-a-half years deliberately killing jobs and holding up economic recovery. They have, at every step, demonstrated their allegiance to the wealthy and corporations over the American people, and continue claiming a laser-focus on creating jobs while obstructing job creation and giving corporations tax breaks for outsourcing existing ones. Their contempt for Americans looking for work, or barely holding on to their existing jobs, is nothing short of despicable and by blaming President Obama, they reached a new low in hypocrisy.

So, do you believe what these sociopaths are telling you? The only thing I believe is when McConnell says Obama will never get anything passed… whether we need it or not.

Don’t vote for these people. Keep your jobs here. Encourage businesses to make more. You can bet that the upper 1% aren’t going to make any… and they don’t need the tax deduction because their money is invested in tax free havens like the Cayman Islands.

Related articles

• Republicans block Bring Jobs Home Act, protecting companies that outsource jobs (dailykos.com)
• Republican senators block ‘insourcing’ bill championed by Obama (cnn.com)
• White House, OFA fire back at GOP on insourcing bill (politico.com)
• GOP Amnesia and the American Jobs Act (theroot.com)
• Senate GOP kills measure to curb job ‘outsourcing’ (kansascity.com)
• Job Creation: A Means To An End For The GOP (politicususa.com)
• Senate Republicans to Block Bill Giving Tax Breaks to Small Businesses For Hiring (crooksandliars.com)
• Opinion: Romney’s amazing hypocrisy (cnn.com)
• Biden knocks GOP over outsourcing (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)
• Esquire:Contempt for The Help: Why Romney Won’t Give It Up (esquire.com)
• The Reason Why Bain is important. (jackandjillpolitics.com)
• Romney Invested Millions in Firms That Pioneered High-Tech Outsourcing (motherjones.com)
• Mitch McConnell takes your tax cut hostage, again (dailykos.com)

 

Now that they’ve wasted our time over Health Care Repeal, will the Congress get down to Jobs?

There are only about 40 days left in  the Congressional season before these champions of non-accomplishment go out to lie and buy their votes. Yet what they should be doing is getting the Middle Class jobs, not waiting to see if Romney is elected.

In Las Vegas, today marks a protest of appointed U.S. Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) to get him to support H.R 5542, the “Bring Jobs Home Act.” Heller has been focused on by the AFL-CIO. Heller, along with the Republican Party, have never voted for any  Job Bills proposed by President Obama or the Democrats in congress, and it’s not likely that he or his Party will start now.

The Bring Home The Jobs Act would end a tax benefit for companies that move jobs overseas and, instead, would add a tax credit for companies that move jobs back to the United States. The bill would also prohibit the first group of companies from receiving federal grants or guaranteed loans.

The AFL-CIO is also promoting the “United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act” that would make public the names of companies that move call centers overseas (H.R. 3596.)

The Democratic Party in both the House and the Senate have backed Bills in the past that would end corporations from receiving a tax break for creating jobs overseas, while giving a tax credit if they create jobs in the United States, but the Republican Party stopped them with a no vote in the House and a filibuster in the Senate.

Of course, wasting time on repealing an unrepealable Health Care bill was worth the effort for Boehner and his Bozos.

And what is their job strategy based on? This:

Related articles

• Congress Fiddles as Crises Loom (thedailybeast.com)
• Rep. Van Hollen: Health care repeal vote is ’empty political gesture’ (cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com)
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• NV Women Respond to Heller Campaign’s “A Woman’s Place is in the House” Button (nvrdc.wordpress.com)
• Even Republicans Are Dissing Appointed-Senator Heller (humboldtdems.wordpress.com)

If Obama is bad for business, why are foreign investors racing to invest in America?

From CNN Business:

“The State Department expects to issue over 6,000 “investor visas” in the current fiscal year, which would be an all-time record. Other countries, meanwhile, are following the U.S.’s lead, keen to spur growth in lean economic times.”

And Politicus USA summarizes:

The Dow Jones has increased 85% from 2009-2012, the S&P 500 has increased 98% since Obama took office, and corporate profits after taxes have increased 68% since President Obama took his oath. Now finally, Obama has turned this economy around from losing 750,000 jobs a month in the first quarter of 2009, to averaging growth of 150,000 jobs per month. So either foreign investors are really stupid to invest in America, when they could be investing more in Brazil, Russia and China or they see amazing economic strength coming down the pipe for America!

How much investment in America has Mitch McConnell (or John Boehner) or Mitt Romney brought in?

From what I can see: nothing.

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Is beard length a police department requirement or religious persecution?

An Orthodox Jew who was weeks away from becoming a New York City police officer says he has been kicked out of the police academy for refusing to trim his beard.

Former recruit Fishel Litzman of Monsey said he was fired on Friday after multiple confrontations with the department over the length of his beard.

“As an Orthodox Chasidic Jew it is absolutely forbidden in my religious beliefs to cut or trim my beard in any way.

“I am being disciplined only because I maintain my religious beliefs and observances.”

According to the NYPD, Litzman had been notified about the beard on two other occasions. Although he rocked the police tests with scores of 99, 100 and 96, he also got written up for minor mistakes like being in the locker room too early and forgetting his gym gear.

Isaac Abraham, an activist in Brooklyn’s Hasidic communities, said it was a shame that allowances couldn’t be made for Litzman’s beard. The NYPD’s chief spokesman insisted they made every attempt to accommodate Litzman.

Litzman’s lawyer, Nathan Lewin, is convinced it is religious discrimination:

“They knew from when he took the exam and applied that he would not trim his beard. He said from the outset it was a matter of religious observance. He never made a secret of it.”

Related articles

• Hasidic Jew fired from NYPD over beard length (news.yahoo.com)
• Hasidic Jew claims NYPD fired him over beard length (foxnews.com)
• Hasidic Jew fired from NYPD over beard length (wtvm.com)
• Hasidic Jew fired from NYPD over beard length (kansascity.com)
• Hasid Fired From NYPD For Not Cutting Beard (alan.com)
• NYPD fires Orthodox Jew over beard length (timesofisrael.com)

A quote to consider…Romney puts his business experience in play:

The Mittster made a speech in Las Vegas on Tuesday and said this:

“In addition to the age of the president and the citizenship of the president and the birthplace of the president being set by the Constitution, I’d like it also to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before becoming president of the United States.”

–Mitt Romney

Of course, this is a way to set up the Mitt Romneys of the world to bypass foreign policy, or congressional, or other kinds of experience with a few years of stealing from the 99% to put bucks in their own pockets.

You know, I’d like to see the Constitution say that a presidential candidate should have spent at least three years in the Arts… producing theatre or ballet dancing or doing gallery shows of abstract paintings. Know what I mean?

I’d like to see the Constitution say that a candidate should be required to have taught at a university level for at least three years… or at a primary school level for six…and been a member of a teacher’s union.

Actually, the Constitution should require that the candidate have been an employee for at least three years at a working class level and have been a member of ANY union.

If you think Romney is ready to be President because of his Bain experience, take a look at what it did for his Massachusetts Gubernatorial record… While he says he turned the state around, in reality he let it freeze in a negative mode.

Andrew Sum and Joseph McLaughlin of the Center for Market Studies at Northeastern University reported in July 2007 that Romney’s record as Governor was “one of the worst in the country;”

On all key labor market measures, (Massachusetts) not only lagged behind the country as a whole, but often ranked at or near the bottom of the state distribution. Formal payroll employment in the state in 2006 was still 16,000 or 0.5 percent below its average level in 2002, the year immediately prior to the start of the Romney administration. Massachusetts ranked third lowest on this key job generation measure and would have ranked second lowest if Hurricane Katrina had not devastated the Louisiana economy.

And this was with 25 years of business experience. 25 years.

Makes you think.

Belly Laugh!

Over at All Hat, No Cattle:

Donald Trump will do anything to to be Vice President:

Thanks, Lisa, for putting that one out… I just got up off the floor.

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I’m not happy with the World…

…but I can’t do anything about it on a scale that would change anything.

Listening to politicians on the morning news babble at each other that they will not do anything about jobs or or education or ANYTHING unless the debt is reduced (which most economists will tell you is a false concern in relationship to income)… and then seeing that they do NOTHING while they are in session to work with each other or the President, and ignore the wishes of the voters.

Then I see the report on Global Biodiversity which shows that we are gobbling up the Earths resources at an unreplaceable rate (we are “outstripping the Earth’s resources by 50 percent — essentially using the resources of one and a half Earths every year, according to the 2012 Living Planet Report, produced by conservation agency the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)”

Natural resources — and the rate at which humans burn through them — rarely appear on policymakers’ balance sheets.

– Emily McKenzie, the director of the WWF’s Natural Capital Program

Tie all this in with the ignoring of Global Warming which is leading us further down the path to an unliveable planet.

The fact that we are still at war in the Middle East and are committed there for at least a dozen more years with billions of tax dollars being spent and no budget cuts to aid the economy is frightening. In my lifetime there have been relatively few years when we were not at war with SOMEONE… and the claims that this would all lead to peace are now nothing but laughable.

So my thoughts come back again to “what can we do?”

Elly and I have replaced all our light bulbs with the energy controlled ones and, even then, we sit in the dark most of the time to keep electricity down. We are growing our own food now (and buying and trading with local farmers.) We are planning to add chickens.

I am working with groups like Sustainable Shepherdstown to promote local job growth and development of our  local and regional small businesses.

I am campaigning against Monsanto, Dow and the rest for poisoning our foods and making it more difficult to get organic seeds in the market… yet they are taking over the food industry at rates that are more than alarming (for instance, Kellogg buying out Kashi has removed the latter from the organic food makers and now fills their products with GMO grains.)

But I wake up every morning more depressed than the day before… worried about the future for my children and my grandchildren (currently four of them).

Do you worry about all of this as well? Do you try to do anything about it, or just throw your hands up and resign yourself to it?

Let me know.

 

Related articles

• US lifestyle would need 4 earths to sustain: WWF report (mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com)
• Report Says Global Biodiversity Has Plummeted 30 Percent In The Last 40 Years (businessinsider.com)
• WWF report criticizes Canadians’ ecological footprint (canada.com)
• WWF: Two Earths Needed By 2030 (huffingtonpost.co.uk)
• Only global poverty can save the planet, insists WWF – and the ESA! (go.theregister.com)
• Living Planet Report 2012 From WWF Looks At Ecological State Of The Earth (huffingtonpost.com)

Oh, hell…another video before I drop off for the evening…

Romney Vs. Reality…

Is it that he speaks without having listened? Or does he think the true reality of things is so unimportant?

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In Case You Missed It…

President Obama Officially Kicked off his Campaign Yesterday.

Here he is at Virginia Commonwealth University (the whole thing):

Cartoon(s) of the Week – Without immigration, where will we get more poor laborers?

Bruce Beattie, in the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

… see, if we just take over our own problems, immigration is unnecessary…

– and –

Jeff Danziger of the L.A.Times:

… now Arizona has the right (and I mean RIGHT) idea…

– and –

Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times Free Press:

… of course a stand on the immigration issue could equal lots of Hispanic votes…

– and –

Steve Breen in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

… so who are the real problem creators here?