Trump to endorse Gingrich tomorrow

Fun fun fun fun fun.  Of course Trump is a buffoon.  But he's still a publicity machine, and this just keeps anyone-but-Romney alive to fight another day, and that's good for all of us. Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney is his own worst enemy

Who needs Gingrich as the nominee when you've got silver-foot-in-mouth Romney. From the NYT's The Caucus blog:

But for a campaign that has been accused of taking Mr. Obama’s remarks out of context, the sentence about the poor immediately became cataloged in a growing list of comments by Mr. Romney that suggested a distance from the concerns of struggling Americans.

As his tax returns became a growing issue, Mr. Romney said that his speaking fees of more than $370,000 were “not much money.”

When talking about taxation in August, he said, “corporations are people” — a line that will not go away, despite its context: “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

And he said, “I like being able to fire people,” for bad service, just as his leadership at the venture capital firm, Bain Capital, was being questioned.

Read the rest of this post...

Video: How cats interfere with deep space telemetry

Brant Widgeon is an Astronomical Image Enhancement Engineer. Many people are surprised to hear everything that goes into making the beautiful celestial images that have brought us so much awe and wonder. One of the most technically difficult parts of Brant's job however is dealing with space cats.

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Far-right GOP Senator: I made "Race for the Cure" drop Planned Parenthood

It's sounding more and more like the anual "Race for the Cure" breast cancer fundraiser has been taken over by the anti-abortion far right of the Republican Party. What a way to ruin a great brand. I wouldn't take the Race for the Cure with a ten foot pole at this point.  (Background here.) Read the rest of this post...

Anti-Planned Parenthood "Race for the Cure" founder is huge GOP donor

The plot thickens as to why the Race for the Cure's founder, an organization named Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding for breast exams at Planned Parenthood clinics in response to criticism from Republican members of the US House and religious right anti-abortion activists.

Yesterday we learned that a top Komen official is also a GOP anti-abortion activist who promised less than two years ago to shut down funding to Planned Parenthood.

Today we learn from Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones that Komen's founder, Nancy Goodman Brinker, is a major Republican donor who served as an ambassador in the George W. Bush administration, one assumes as payback for the more than $175,000 she gave to Republican candidates and the RNC since 1990.

Kate has more:

This is all to say that perhaps the Planned Parenthood decision isn't all that big of a surprise, given the politics of people involved with Komen. The flap might end up benefiting Planned Parenthood in the end, however. The group has raised more than $400,000 since the news broke, a spokesman said Wednesday afternoon.

And now that there are serious concerns as to whether the Race for the Cure and its founder are simply an arm of the anti-abortion wing of the Republican party, it's hard to imagine any Democrats or Independents wanting to be a part of that fundraiser any more - unless of course it's to protest it.

Let this be a case study in how to destroy an amazing brand in just 24 hours. Read the rest of this post...

GOP turnout was down in Florida as compared to 2008

This is particularly interesting considering how we've been hearing for the past year that GOP enthusiasm is greater than Democratic enthusiasm. Perhaps not anymore. Read the rest of this post...

Nate Silver: "The military is now the most trusted major institution in the country"

While listening to an excellent interview at Majority.fm with Rolling Stone's Michael Hastings on his new book The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan, I was sent a Nate Silver link by Twitter-friend Mtl4u2. It's a great great find, especially in the context of the Majority Report discussion.

Some background: Hastings spoke in the interview about the conflict between the top military — especially the "special forces" military represented by Gen. McChrystal and Gen. Patraeus — and the Obama administration. At one point, for example, McChrystal spoke insultingly about VP Joe Biden in a meeting with his own staff, his military subordinates.

The blurb for the book addresses this, and reads in part (my emphasis and paragraphing):

General Stanley McChrystal, the innovative, forward-thinking commanding general of international and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was living large. He was better known to some as Big Stan, M4, Stan, and his loyal staff liked to call him a "rock star." During a spring 2010 trip across Europe to garner additional allied help for the war effort, McChrystal was accompanied by journalist Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone.

For days, Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration for what they saw as a lack of leadership. When Hastings's piece appeared a few months later, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was ordered to Washington, where he was fired unceremoniously.

This raises a lot of Truman & MacArthur questions, and makes you wonder what's going on in the country that makes people like McChrystal think this is OK.

That's where Nate Silver comes in. From his blog at fivethirtyeight.com:

The longstanding project called the General Social Survey, which has polled Americans about their feelings on a variety of political and social issues for more than 35 years, just recently came out with their preliminary 2008 data[.] ... One of my favorite sets of questions on the GSS is one that asks Americans about their degree of confidence in various social institutions...

Silver then presents this chart (click to open in a new tab).

The dark blue bar is 1976; the lighter blue is 2000; the lightest is 2008. For each institution, top-to-bottom is earliest-to-latest.

Fascinating, yes? Silver comments:

The only major institution to have gained a statistically significant about [sic] of trust since 2000 is the military, which is now the most trusted major institution in the country.

Not sure I like that, especially in light of this:


Side note — If you like what you read here and you'd like to make comments or suggestions, I'm fairly active on Twitter, especially during the "morning paper" part of the day (Pacific Time, of course). Feel free to follow me and make suggestions. They are always welcome.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Republicans starting to worry about Romney’s and Gingrich’s mutual mud-slinging

I'm not sure there's any way to avoid it. Romney's money is his weakness. And pretty much everything about Gingrich is his weakness. You can try to keep your campaign focused on ideas, but at some point, it's hard not to pander to the lowest common denominator, aka why the other guy stinks. From Jonathan Martin at Politico:

Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman and leading GOP strategist, said: “I do think there is concern amongst a lot of Republicans that the nature of this debate has become counterproductive. I don’t think it’s something that won’t be overcome, but I’d say there’s frustration that [the campaign] is not more focused on the issues.”

Even Sarah Palin, who has been a vocal advocate for a long race, decried the tone Tuesday night.

“It diminishes the energy headed into the general,” Palin said on Fox, describing a “process that hasn’t been attractive to the electorate.”

Yeah, cuz Ms. Death Panels is really an authority on civility. Read the rest of this post...

Mitt Romney is "not concerned with the very poor"

There was a brief moment of honesty on the campaign trail in Mitt Romney's conversation with Soledad O'Brien. Alternatively, this is future fodder for MultipleChoiceMitt.com:

“I’m not concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

Host Soledad O’Brien pointed out that the very poor are probably struggling too.

“The challenge right now — we will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor,” Romney responded, after repeating that he would fix any holes in the safety net. “It’s not good being poor and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor . . . My focus is on middle income Americans ... we have a very ample safety net and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. but we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”

Shorter Mitt Romney: It would be much more convenient to my governing priorities if we re-instituted a poll tax and land ownership requirement for voting.
(Originally posted at AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field.) Read the rest of this post...

To My Old Master: Letter from a former slave to his ex-owner

Thanks to Dahlia Lithwick and Corey Robin on Twitter, I'm enormously pleased to bring you this treasure.

Please take a minute, if you have one, to read it through. You won't be displeased — it's a treat from end to end. This man is smart and he has style, a sense of humor, kindness, and justice. The attack comes slowly, and it's elegant.

The tone of the whole is pitch-perfect; the closing, a masterpiece of nuance and understatement. Enjoy!

Dayton, Ohio,
August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,
Jourdon Anderson

It's even more amazing that this is a dictated letter. The third paragraph is genius, isn't it? And how he gets there, via the first two, is a brilliant bit of setup in my opinion, worthy of the best of modern writers.

I am reminded of Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, where the poet Thomas Gray muses on undiscovered Miltons among the humble of the earth. These lines especially came to mind:

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

This Milton is not mute; just quieted by time. I'm glad to see his voice resurrected.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere

Thank you, Jourdon Anderson. I'd like to write as well when I grow up.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Romney saddled by Mormon church’s refusal to fully repudiate its racist past

Excellent piece by Daniel Burke in the Washington Post about the Mormon church's recent racist past, and the fact that the Mormons refuse to this day to fully repudiate their past racism. Even Mitt Romney refuses to criticize it:

Until 1978, the LDS church banned men of African descent from its priesthood, a position open to nearly all Mormon males and the gateway to sacramental and leadership roles. The church had also barred black men and women from temple ceremonies that promised access in the afterlife to the highest heaven.

As he explored joining the church in 1988, Perkins said he asked Mormons near his Los Angeles home about the racial doctrines. They gently explained that blacks were the cursed descendants of Cain, the biblical murderer, he recalls.

The LDS church has neither formally apologized for the priesthood ban nor publicly repudiated many of the theories used to justify it for more than 125 years.

[A]nother Mormon scripture, The Pearl of Great Price, says, “blackness came upon” Cain’s descendants, who were “despised among all people.”

Pressed by Russert, Romney refused to say his church was wrong to restrict blacks from full participation.

Even under intense pressure from black Mormons, the church has refused to formally repudiate past interpretations of doctrine or scripture that tie spiritual worthiness to race.

I knew about the racism. And keep in mind that the Mormons didn't change until they faced a boycott. I did not know, however, that the Mormons to this day - Romney included - refuse to fully expunge themselves of their racist past. As the article notes, this is an issue that's going to dog Romney for the campaign, at the very least with the black community, but really anyone who has an issue with racism.  (Of course, the Mormons are extremely homophobic as well.) Read the rest of this post...