If a GOP spokesgoon complains loudly about… anything shady at all, you can be that the GOP is accusing their opponent of doing the very same thing they are already doing more thoroughly, and with better funding right from the top. Buzzfeed has published the most bizarre set of emails between right wing operatives freaking out during the Scott Brown/Martha Coakley race in January of 2010 that I’ve ever seen. The plot, hatched by a strange alliance of high-profile conservatives, was to have James O’Keefe and his “crew” catch the SEIU in some kind of voter fraud similar to what…
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Toole (pronounced Two-Willuh) is a community west of Salt Lake in the western mountains south of the Great Salt Lake. A lot of the area economy is based on mining, and it’s probably a heavily Mormon-majority area, although there’s been a lot of development in the last few decades. I had some relatives by marriage out that way but didn’t visit long enough to get more than a fleeting impression of dry foothills and endless miles of salt desert along the highway around the southern end of the lake. Just look at these immodest homecoming dance dresses! Um. Okay, anywhere…
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This story kicked off the whole “Nathan Sproul, GOP Vote Fraudster, At It Again” narrative. All the old stories came out from 2004 and other years. And the national GOP was forced to fire him after the Florida registration fraud story made it clear that the GOP was paying for Republican voter registrations again (and pretty much NOT paying for Democratic registrations). Then some state GOP organizations fired him some more. Time to create a new name, eh? It’s a reliable predictor of Republican shenanigans: whatever accusation they make against Democrats, they are surely doing more of it. ACORN registration…
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MATTOON, IL— Proud to be known as the heart of the Illinois Bible Belt, the residents of Mattoon fill dozens of Christian churches. Theres also one Jewish congregation, which has the distinction of being the smallest Reform synagogue in North America. The membership? Four households. The Mattoon Jewish Community Center isnt a center at all but a group of dedicated congregants who meet in Trinity Episcopal Church. Even at Yom Kippur — the holiest of Holy Days, when this week synagogues in Chicago were packed — the worshippers at this prairie outpost strained to hit double digits. via Smallest Jewish…
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Also cross posted at Daily Kos, Glenden Brown offers a perspective on Mitt Romney from behind the Zion Curtain. In Mormon culture, hierarchical status confers respect.  Authority in Mormonism is rarely questioned.  Mormon authorities are bad at explaining why they’re doing what they’re doing because within Mormonism they have the ultimate conversation stopper – “God said so.† I think Romney is genuinely confused when his public assurances aren’t simply accepted as fact.  Why should people want to see his taxes when he’s said there’s nothing illegal in them?  His odd, robotic public persona is the political version of the Mormon…
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UPDATE: Fixed my dumb typo in the title. Also too, added the latest poll for the district: Joe Walsh, Flailing in the Polls, Sticks it to the 47 Percent Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) probably could have picked a better time to come rushing to the defense of Mitt Romney. On Tuesday, a new survey from Public Policy Polling showed the first-term tea partier trailing Democratic challenger and Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth by 14 points (52–38) in his Chicagoland district. Just 35 percent of voters said they approved of his job performance. Oooh, BURN. What a delicious update. Hee!! I forgot that I’d…
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The future will be brighter, more colorful, and easier to navigate for all us Baby Boomers, so we’d better start thinking about the custom paint jobs and pinstriping we want on our Hoverrounds and Rascals. Oy. CHARLOTTE, N.C — CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Easier-to-chew foods, brighter lights in stores and bigger, clearer fonts on packaging: Those are a few of the changes marketers discussed at a conference Friday about how to sell to aging consumers. via Companies set sights on aging consumers | McClatchy
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I’ve turned off a couple of auto-post features for now, at least through the end of the political season. The Twitter Tools plugin has a “create daily or weekly post from tweets” feature, I’ve turned off the weekly tweets posts as my usage has spiked, probably to an annoying degree, on my main account. I’ll migrate the political and topical news commentary and reaction to a different account, and pare my “follows” back to more personal topics on the main account. I’d rather not irritate my real-life friends and acquaintances further with my current interest with the political process. It’s…
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After seeing a lot of tweets yesterday about Up with Chris Hayes and the Melissa Perry-Harris Show, I finally watched both shows (or most of Up and all of MPH) via TiVo. I’ve never watched political wonk shows before (comedy shows like Jon Stewart and Bill Maher shouldn’t count, but they do), and it was fun! They’re shown Saturday and Sunday mornings and seem to have an enthusiastic fan base that hang out on Twitter under hashtags #uppers and #nerdland respectively. A lot of dumb sex-link spambots and anti-factists hang out too, so I quickly learned who was reality-based and…
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“It’s my belief that this is exactly the time that the American people need to hear from the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess,” Obama said. “It’s going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.” Link: McCain Suspends Campaign, Shocks Republicans – US News & World Report