From Politicususa.com:
Apparently for Romney, the idea of a round table to discuss education doesn’t involve hearing from the experts gathered.
Cheryl, a teacher from Colorado, says when she attempted to give Romney a few of her ideas, he silenced her by saying, “I didn’t ask you a question.”
That’s really too bad. If no one wanted to hear from teachers, Cheryl should not have been asked to serve on the committee.
Who is it that tried to tell me there was no war on public educators?
Congressman Bill Young of Florida is calling for an exit from Afghanistan. Congressman Young and his wife Beverly have been long time supporters of our troops and have gone weekly to take care of those at Walter Reed, giving them encouragement and taking in care packages. . They put their money where their mouths are for the wounded.
According to the Huffington Post:
A Republican congressman who has long been a staunch supporter of sticking with the war in Afghanistan is now changing course, arguing that the United States needs to pull out as quickly as possible.
“I think we should remove ourselves from Afghanistan as quickly as we can,” Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) told the Tampa Bay Times on Monday. “I just think we’re killing kids that don’t need to die.”
WEST POINT, Va. —
More than 125 dogs are being flown from a North Carolina airport to Virginia to save the animals from kill shelters.
Officials with the PilotsNPaws program say more than 80 pilots are participating in the single-day airlift of more than 300 dogs on Saturday.
The dogs are being flown from the Charlotte-Monroe Executive Airport in Monroe, N.C. to seven states, including Virginia.
About 100 of the dogs are set to be flown to Middle Peninsula Regional Airport in West Point, with others going to Warrenton.
Hats off to these pilots. Dogs will also go to other states. In all, 300 dogs will be airlifted today. Even if you can’t take a rescued dog, you can give a small donation on the website to help this initiative.
“The Casual Vacancy” was released yesterday to throngs of readers salivating to get their hands on JK Rowling first adult novel. To date, JK Rowling has delighted readers of all ages with her Harry Potter series.
JK Rowling is now a rather shy billionaire who doesn’t easily discuss her new wealth. She comes from humble beginnings and pulled herself up by her bootstraps using her talents. Rowling would tell us that it was more than that. Playing of the gotcha Obama phrase ” you didn’t build this,” Rowling very much assures us that she “didn’t build this.”
According to the Washington Post:
…[T]he author of the Harry Potter series wasn’t shy about stirring a leaky cauldron of class politics.
Once a financially strapped single mom, Rowling penned her way to literary fame and became a billionairein the process. But she says she doesn’t relate to the feeling of many American conservatives that everything they have they can look at and feel, “We built it.”
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) said on Thursday that Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) isn’t acting as “ladylike” as when she last ran for Senate because she’s worried he’s going to unseat her.
Specifically, Akin was referring to McCaskill’s demeanor during a debate a week earlier.
“I think we have a very clear path to victory, and apparently Claire McCaskill thinks we do, too, because she was very aggressive at the debate, which was quite different than it was when she ran against Jim Talent,” Akin said at a campaign stop according to the Kansas City Star. “She had a confidence and was much more ladylike (in 2006), but in the debate on Friday she came out swinging, and I think that’s because she feels threatened.”
We aren’t quite sure what Claire McCaskill has done “unladylike” to deserve such upbraiding but it must have been serious for such a liberated renaissance man to comment on her behavior in such terms.
Full moon names by month:
January: Old Moon, or Moon After Yule
February: Snow Moon, Hunger Moon, or Wolf Moon
March: Sap Moon, Crow Moon, or Lenten Moon
April: Grass Moon, or Egg Moon
May: Planting Moon, or Milk Moon
June: Rose Moon, Flower Moon, or Strawberry Moon
July: Thunder Moon, or Hay Moon
August: Green Corn Moon, or Grain Moon
September: Fruit Moon, or Harvest Moon
October: Harvest Moon, or Hunter’s Moon
November: Hunter’s Moon, Frosty Moon, or Beaver Moon
December: Moon Before Yule, or Long Night Moon
As you can see, many of the full moon names come from Native American culture.
From the Daily Beast:
A small word of thanks to Cardinal Dolan, Robert George and K-Lo for helping shift the Catholic vote massively toward Obama with their summer campaign for religious liberty. And special thanks to Paul Ryan. No actual Catholic could ever find anything but puerile cruelty in the works of Ayn Rand, or rally to the idea that home-care for the elderly should be sacrificed to reduce tax rates for the super-rich. Paul Ryan believes that the basic principles of Rand can be compatible with Catholicism. American Catholics are just not that dumb or confused about their faith.
How does word get out? This is all getting into some heavy duty stuff that I don’t think I understand. Enlighten me. It sounds to me that most catholics want social justice as part of America and that faith without works is rather empty. That’s quite the opposite from what some would have us believe.
Stephen even puts on his special prayer hands to speak with the Lord.
The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Can there be more hope and change? Stephen nows that there are just 40 days to save America and he gives it his best shot.
From the New York Times:
The National Football League reached agreement on a new labor deal with its game officials late Wednesday night, ending a lockout that forced unprepared replacement officials onto the field, creating three weeks of botched calls, acute criticism, furious coaches and players, and a blemish however temporary on the integrity of the country’s most popular sport.
How strange that the football referee labor dispute causes more of an outcry than the teacher labor dispute in Chicago. The bottom line is Americans think football is more important than education. Perhaps it is.
Remember those students sitting in a row across a bike path? You know, the ones who were pepper sprayed in the face with some noxious substance?
Observing the video, it seemed to be clear police over-reach. There was no reason to spray the students, especially with such gusto.
It appears that the courts also agree. According to the Washington Post:
SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California has agreed to pay $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by demonstrators who were pepper-sprayed during an Occupy protest at UC Davis last fall, according to a preliminary settlement filed Wednesday.
The Nov. 18, 2011, incident prompted national outrage, angry campus protests and calls for the resignation of Chancellor Linda Katehi after online videos shot by witnesses went viral.
by Fareed Zakaria, 9/26
As President Obama has surged in the polls, Republicans have been quick to identify the problem: Mitt Romney. Peggy Noonan eloquently voiced what many conservatives believe when she said that Romney’s campaign has been a “rolling calamity.” Others have been equally critical of his candidacy. And yet, shouldn’t it puzzle us that Romney is so “incompetent” (also from Noonan), given his deserved reputation for, well, competence? He founded one of this country’s most successful financial firms, turned around the flailing Salt Lake City Olympics and was a successful governor. How did he get so clumsy so fast?
In fact, the problem is not Romney but the new Republican Party. Given the direction in which it has moved and the pressures from its most extreme — yet most powerful — elements, any nominee would face the same challenge: Can you be a serious candidate for the general election while not outraging the Republican base?’
What do Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, Jimmy Carter, and Scott Brown’s staffers all have in common?
Remember the political fall out at Jane Fonda when she and her husband, Ted Turn, sat in the stands at the Atlanta Braves games doing the Tomahawk Chop? Have we gone that far afield that it is now perfectly ok?
If they family says they have an Indian grandmother, then I suppose they do. Most people I know are proud of their Indian heritage. Often it isn’t provable because old records and bibles don’t keep track of native people. At any rate, who is Scott Brown to say who Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors are?
Of all the things I have seen come up in an election, this one is the most foolish. The fact that staffers are out chopping smacks of racism. It isn’t so much the chop, its the attitude around it.
People of different races and religions have often been reviled in this country. It’s time to stop doing that. Given the treatment oof American Indians in this country, I would just find something else for my campaign war chest.
Wow, that’s quite a story. He has my vote.
Hell if I know. We have been sitting around, as Americans, all grossing and complaining about Congress. I believe it is called the “do nothing Congress.” It has a ridiculous approval rating of something like 10%. So, what are we here in Virginia, in Prince William County, doing about this, if anything? I need to know who is running.
I think my Congressman is Frank Wolf. I think I am also about to lose him. Elena will keep him. Who is challenging him if anyone? After much research I discovered that a lady named Kristin Cabral is challenging Wolf. I think I am in Congressional District One. What could I possibly have in common with people living in New Port News? Nada.
Who is Robert Wittman? I have no freaking clue. I think he might be the Republican incumbent of District 1. I have deducted that Adam Cook is the Democratic candidate.
I haven’t heard Jack Sprat from either of them. No mailer, no nothing. Where are the Democrats on this one? Someone is asleep at the switch. I think its the democratic someones. It’s always easier being the incumbent.
The question out there, what are the Prince William County Democrats doing about this congressional election? Nothing? How typical.
PWC Democrats, if you want to be a viable force in this county, you have to move beyond Lillie Jessie being the featured candidate.
In today’s Washington Post, op-ed columnist Richard Cohen contends:
The Iowa caucuses alone take the GOP so far to the right that it all but dooms the winner. Romney had to vow to stop thinking.
Why does Cohen suggest such silliness? He continued to explain and point towards some reinforcement of his hypothesis:
Across the board, Romney pandered to the right. He did so on guns, abortion and even Iran. A GOP candidate has to oppose same-sex marriage, deny global warming and insist — against all evidence — that local control of education is the best. The only way around these positions is to skip the Iowa caucuses entirely. It is no place for a moderate. It is, really, no place for a thinking person. It’s just preposterous that Iowa — 30th in population among the states — gets to be the gatekeeper for the Republican Party and, in a sense, the entire nation.
