The Nightowl Newswrap

post from They gave us a republic... - Front Page on 28 August 2012 01:00:00 AM. © They gave us a republic... - Front Page

Oops! The swag-bag at the Republican convention has a copy of Mitt Romney's book No Apology. Just one problem -- it's the original version, the one that boasts about his healthcare bill and muses that it could be a model for the nation. The paperback, that was released after he declared his candidacy cowtows to the crazies and has that part edited out.

It's about time the lunatic platform the GOP has been running on for years got some attention. Finally, after years of being ignored, the republican platform is getting some much deserved attention. More people are interested in what's in it than are interested in Romney's acceptance speech.

Which kinda makes a liar of John Boehner. Meeting with reporters on Monday, he tried to downplay the nixed day of festivities and the interest in the platform. "Have you ever met anybody who's read the party platform?" he asked reporters. "I haven't meet anybody."

Overkill much? The GOP paranoia is palpable in Tampa this week. Take, for instance, the fact that police outnumber protesters by a four-to-one ratio.

Ummm...the fact that you will disenfranchise white folks, too, doesn't make a disenfranchisement scheme okay. That's what an attorney for the state of South Carolina argued in federal court on Monday in defending that state's draconian voter identification law. It ought to pass muster, the state's line of reasoning goes, because it will disenfranchise at least as many young, elderly and poor white folks as it will minorities, and really, who wants them folks votin' anyways?

Seriously, republican men, SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT PREGNANCY, ABORTION AND FEMALE SEXUALITY. It seems ike every time one of you opens your mouth, you're sticking your foot in it half-way up your calf. If it isn't Todd Akin making proclamations about our magical, mystical ability to detect rape-sperm and "shut that whole thing down" it's Tom Smith, a Senate candidate from Pennsylvania who compared his daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy to a pregnancy caused by rape.

How long do you think it will be before Romney slips up and says "strapping young bucks"? His blatantly fraudulent claims about Obama "gutting welfare reform" are a craven and deliberate attempt to plant a seed of racial animus in the minds of white voters who are supposed to vote for Romney because he will represent them, unlike that uppoty wog who wants to take your hard-earned money and give it to those people.

Newticles sez that President Obama is the most aggressively pro-abortion president in the history of the country, although he doesn't really offer anything to back up that claim, he just throws it out there and hopes it sticks.

Can't help but feel a smug sense of schaddenfreude at this The homo-hating Catholic Bishop who created California's Prop 8 gay marriage ban was popped for drunk driving over the weekend -- less than a day after he was elevated to Archbishop of San Francisco.

If they weren't busted out with all loss of bennies, justice wasn't served. Three of the Marines involved in the incident where the bodies of Afghan Taliban militiamen were desecrated by being urinated on by American military personnel were "punished administratively" for violations of the UCMJ. Monday's statement, from the Marines' public affairs office in Quantico, Virginia, said the three non-commissioned officers pleaded guilty "under the terms of an agreement" and their names would not be released.

The corporate exodus of ALEC supporters continues apace. Five more major corporations, including Sprint/Nextel, General Electric and Western Union all confirmed to Color of Change that they had joined GM, Walgreens and several dozen other corporations in withdrawing their support for the "bil mill" outfit that has been behind the voter suppression and anti-abortion laws that state legislatures have pushed since taking control in a majority of state houses after the 2010 elections.

Cool! On Tuesday at 4:00 eastern the Curiosity Rover will blast the new Will.i.am song Reach for the Stars to the Martian landscape. If there are any Martians staying out of eyeshot of the cameras, that ought to make them drop their guard and dance.

Pay no attention to the melting icecaps, global warming is a hoax! The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that over the weekend that this year the melt of arctic sea ice has exceeded the previous record set in 2007, and with several more weeks of summer to go, this years melt will undoubtedly continue, so the winter freeze will start from a larger deficit of ice than it ever has in any previous year.

...and finally, a little midnight-music club from Midnight Oil for you nightowls out there...