Midday open thread

post from Daily Kos on 12 August 2012 03:00:02 PM. © Daily Kos

Mitt Romney had a bad, bad week thanks to the Obama campaign's hard-hitting "Understands" ad, and one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, Rush Limbaugh, made damned sure he knew it:
From the sound of this, they don't know, at the Romney campaign, what the purpose of this ad was and how it took root. They apparently don't know that the Obama campaign ran an ad accusing Romney of murder, essentially. Stephanie Cutter is backing it up. The woman did die. Romney got rich. He closed the plant. Husband lost the job. Wife got sick and died. Romney made out like a bandit.
Well, she'd-a had health insurance if she lived in Massachusetts. You couple that with there was a lack of understanding or desire to join the Chick-fil-A day? I mean, that's your base out there.
Ouch. Called out by a bloated bloviating gasbag for confessing that he set the wheels in motion for someone's wife to die AND for failing to rally around a homophobic fried chicken (bad fried chicken, no less?haven't these people ever heard of Popeye's) binge? Thank goodness Mitt has his diary to turn to for comfort.
Speaking of bloviating, Ann Coulter wants to make sure everyone knows whose fault it will be if President Obama wins a second term: " stupid single women." Congratulations to Ann for finally conning one of her allegedly many fiancés into actually becoming her husband (or wife) even though nobody has actually seen or heard of him (or her). Or for just making one up to suit her mood: her own personal Harvey. Hey, it worked for Jimmy Stewart. Whatever Ann's explanation for her failure to draw the obvious link between the face staring back at her in the mirror every morning and a "stupid single woman," it just wouldn't do to actually think she ain't "got a (wo)man."
That being said, are you registered to vote in November's election? Are you SURE? Be sure.
Municipal bankruptcies continue. The latest California city to file a Chapter 9 bankruptcy petition is San Bernadino, the third since the end of June to seek such protection. Rather than lament the sorry state of affairs that has led to the third California municipal bankruptcy in 2 months, bondholders whinged about the moral hazard of cities doing the same thing that for-profit business strategically do all the time: "It may signal a diminution in the traditional stigma attached to bankruptcy and a shift in how cities regard the sanctity of debt service obligations." Since the quest to use the bankruptcy laws to destroy accrued public pension obligations also continues unabated in California, and a union-backed bill designed to strengthen creditor protections (including those creditors known as public pension plans) in the mandatory negotiations that must precede a California city's Chapter 9 filing went down in flames in Sacramento, we await with bated breath Moody's announcement that the end of the world is nigh.
Mitt Romney's latest argument for not releasing his tax returns is that he's "not a business." Taking him at his word, does this mean he's not a person, either?
There's gotta be something we liberals don't know about goings on at the Republican National Convention, when famous entertainers can't even bother to get dressed (or sober up) before heading out to Tampa!
And in this week's sexism news, here is the not-much-talked-about much side of New York's stop-and-frisk program: the uniquely humiliating impacts on women's bodily integrity and privacy.
Somewhere out there in space, Ray Bradbury's soul is doing cartwheels of joy in honor of Curiosity.
Ta'nehisi Coates reminds us that culture is relative. Maybe we'd be better off if Republicans had never mastered picking at their food?
Friendly fire is taking on a whole new meeting in Afghanistan. The question of whether Afghanis are happy that western troops are still hanging around in their country after their "job" was finished is being answered one deadly ambush at a time.
Hillary Clinton is sounding all the right notes on her current security and trade visit to African nations, promising "partnership, not patronage." I'm glad someone in the State Department finally figured out what the Chinese understood years ago about negotiating access to Africa's vast natural wealth: If your country is a former colonial power that got rich brutalizing the African continent and its peoples (or descended from one) it might want to at least lie about wanting to be equals while finding new ways to continue to exploit the resources of the motherland.
Republicans should be careful what they ask for when it comes to their efforts to suppress the vote under color of law, because they may get it:
If voter suppression goes forward and Romney narrowly prevails, consider the consequences. An overwhelmingly and increasingly white Republican Party, based in the South, will owe its power to discrimination against black and Latino voters, much like the old segregationist Dixiecrats. . .
And what should Democrats do if Romney comes to power on the strength of racially suppressed votes? Such an outcome and such a presidency, I?d hope they contend, would be illegitimate ? a betrayal of our laws and traditions, of our very essence as a democratic republic. Mass demonstrations would be in order. So would a congressional refusal to confirm any of Romney?s appointments. A presidency premised on a racist restriction of the franchise creates a political and constitutional crisis, and responding to it with resigned acceptance or inaction would negate America?s hard-won commitment to democracy and equality.
The course on which Republicans have embarked isn?t politics as usual. We don?t rig elections by race in America, not anymore, and anyone who does should not be rewarded with uncontested power.
In other words, these Republicans systematically coming up with 11th hour limitations on voting rights are either cheating, lying white supremacists, aka Public Enemy's KKK in 3-piece suits, or pandering to them, to the shame of the entire nation. Of course, that doesn't mean they want everyone else to know that. (Except for the voters actually being suppressed?Republicans genuinely don't care if they know.) But word's getting out, slowly but surely, since the more desperate Republicans become the more obvious they become. It's hard to keep it on the down low when the imminently anointed Republican presidential candidate is happy to lie about his opponent's record on "welfare reform" knowing that those subscribe to their brand of "we ain't racists!" racist thinking will eat it up like smores on a camping trip. Thank goodness, there are still some observant people willing to call out these increasingly desperate and subversive-to-the-country racist electoral strategies.
It is said that the 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered in water. Given the amount falling from the sky this week in Mexico, the Philippines and China, Mother Nature seems determined to up the percentage.