What’s the one book you wish someone else would write?
Could someone please write a book explaining why the Democratic party and its allies are so much less effective at crafting a message and having a vision than their Republican counterparts? What a bunch of incompetents the Dems seem lie. Most people don’t even understand the health care policy they passed, much less like it. Ditto the financial reform. Or the stimulus. Some of the basic tasks of politics — like choosing and crafting a message — they just seem uninterested in it.
I remember reading in The Times that as soon as Obama won, the Republicans were scheming about how they’d turn it around for the next election, and came up with the plan that won them the House, and wondered, did the House Dems even hold a similar meeting? Kurt Eichenwald! Mark Bowden! John Heilemann and Mark Halperin! I’ll pre-order today.
Deucedly good question. When I got to Washington in a permanent position, the question among conservatives was why couldn’t they tell a good story? In 30 years, the tables have turned. Who will tell the Democrat’s story cogently, as good as it really is?
Oh, so THAT’s how you get a Tweet to look like a Tweet on a blog!
This isn’t real Biden vs. Ryan, though from my experience with Biden his side is pretty clear; and from what the GOP folk said from Tampa, Ryan’s side it pretty clear, too:
A week of school out of the way, perhaps. One convention down, one to gird up for. Last long weekend of a mosquito-plagued summer. Enough rain to quench the wildfire danger, perhaps, while washing away the town outside the levees.
Millard Fillmore bathed here: Fillmore helped build this house in East Aurora, NY, in 1825, moving in with his wife Abigail in 1826. They lived here until 1830. It is the only surviving residence of Fillmore, aside from the White House. Good image created and copyright held by Yoho2001 Toronto, ON. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Whatever the justification, a good stack of stuff for a good, long soak.
Who was the business consultant who said, of bringing in a “fireman” to fix company problems, “A fireman has two tools, an axe and a hose; call him in, you’re going to get one?” Did Mitt just warn us he plans to bring in a fireman? Did he warn us that he thinks he is that fireman?
Big Oopsdate: Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub fell victim to a photo hoax. The image below was modified from the “Simpsons” episode; see story of hoax here.
What is Agenda 21? It’s a program at the United Nations to work on economic development, sustainable development, environmental protection, resource conservation and economic policies. As with almost all UN programs, Agenda 21 pronouncements are wholly voluntary.
Several international programs create studies and make recommendations to nations — but unless they come from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund along with loans to help nations develop, such recommendations remain mostly academic: Nations follow them only to the extent that a nation’s policy-making groups (like Congress in the U.S.) are persuaded that the recommended policies benefit the nation.
Agenda 21: It’s the biggest threat to your freedom, and unless you regularly attend yahoo-filled local planning and zoning meetings, you’ve probably never even heard of it. Until recently, this vast United Nations conspiracy to force us all to live “sustainably” was known only to stalwart defenders of Liberty and Freedom like the John Birch Society. But the underground resistance is about to go mainstream. GOP intellectual it boy Ted Cruzleads the counterstrike, and the Republican Party is even considering a public flambéing of Agenda 21in its official 2012 platform.
Looking to help break the siege of bike paths and high-quality education on our freedoms? Here’s what you’ll need to know.
Louie Ludwig is a genius. Does he write speeches for Texas candidates for the U.S. Senate, maybe? Paul Sadler, are you watching?
These Guys Season 2: The Lieutenant
So the new guy thinks he’s such a tough guy? When he can’t even stand up to these guys?
Louie Ludwig is the creator of this ad and is solely responsible for its content.
Music: “The Man with No Point” from the album “Private Islands”
copyright 2008 Louie Ludwig/zzi music ISRC USWGE1100208
Video/images: Louie Ludwig, Gage Skidmore, AP, Sage Ross, DB King, Russian Presidential Press and Information Office, Voice of America
More music and video at LouLost.com
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
George Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney in THESE GUYS
Starring Robert Joseph, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Wilson, Scooter Libby,Valerie Plame, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Colin Powell, Abu Zabayda, Cofer Black, Robert Kagan, Dan Senor, Elliott Cohen, Paula Dobriansky, Condaleeza Rice
and, Introducing Mitt Romney as “The Nominee”
With a cast of billions. The biggest-budget disaster epic ever made!
_____________
Louie Ludwig is the creator of this ad and is solely responsible for its content.
Music: “The Man with No Point”
From the album “Private Islands”
copyright 2008 Louie Ludwig/zzi music
ISRC USWGE1100208
Video 2012 Louie Ludwig
Video ISRC USWGE129113
Somebody, somewhere, probably could put names to all the faces.
“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.” Please, not again. As Louie Ludwig said, “This year, vote, as if a guy’s life depends on it.”
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Did you see NBC’s Meet the Press last Sunday? The Texas GOP hopes not.
Teabagger GOP U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz, on his first shot of national exposure, got shut down by Atlanta’s Mayor, Democrat Kasim Reed.
Cruz was trying to defend Paul Ryan‘s poor showing as a candidate for vice president. 23 seconds of burn:
No wonder Cruz is afraid to debate his Democratic opponent, Paul Sadler. Ted Cruz’s “We can’t afford to be a great nation anymore” whine starts to make him look more and more the candidate from the Surrender Monkey Party. Reed’s shutdown of Cruz exposed the hypocrisy of Cruz’s and Ryan’s claims.
While the platform committee meets a few blocks away, GOP planners check out the main stage for GOP 2012 Convention – AFP photo
You’d have a tough time dreaming this sort of stuff up for Saturday Night Live skit, or a comedy movie.
Eric Koenig, one of my few Follower-of-Islam friends, wrote:
The GOP has been talking for quite some time about “creeping Shariah Law,” the notion that, little by little, Muslims are taking over America by demanding that they be allowed to have Shariah rights, in this city, in that city, until the whole thing creeps across, and engulfs, America itself, whereupon we will become an “Islamic theocracy” (there are none, but the “pundits” always love to use the term) such as in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, etc. So anything that may have to do with “Shariah Law” is the absolute antithesis of the GOP.
Well, the GOP has recently released the draft of the language of their party platform for this month’s national convention in Florida. And they have something to say about abortion. Namely, they call for a Constitutional ban on abortion, even in cases where the pregnancy is caused by rape or incest. No exceptions other than if the expectant mother’s life is at risk.
Here’s the irony: ask anyone from a rather conservative Muslim country — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan etc. — what their country’s policy is towards abortion and they’ll tell you no abortions are allowed except if the expectant mother’s life is at risk.
In other words, in a Muslim nation, no abortions are performed on women who have been made pregnant through rape or incest. Nope; the law states that they should go ahead and have their kids. IT’S THE LAW.
And nobody sees the irony here about the GOP complaining of “creeping Shariah Law” and jumping into bed with the very “Islamic theocracies” they claim to denounce regarding the abortion issue??
I think we got the GOP by the family jewels. They can’t have their cake and eat it too. Either they have to stop with this talk about “creeping Shariah Law,” or drop the language in their platform about a Constitutional ban on abortion that perfectly matches Shariah Law procedure.
Contradictions? Sure! My money would go on the GOP letting Ted Cruz and others complain about creeping Sharia law, while at the same time helping Sharia creep in through the Platform Committee’s back door, and keeping quiet about the contradictions. What do you think might happen, Dear Reader?
In the “More” section, below, you may find articles both decrying Sharia, and inserting anti-Sharia planks in the platform, oblivious to the pro-Shariah planks pushed by other Republicans. You might say, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” My prayer would be that they might become enlightened, realize what they are doing, and stop it.
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
German theologian and Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller on a postage stamp, painted by Gerd Aretz in 1992 – Wikipedia
Some time this year school curricula turn to the Holocaust, in English, in world history, and in U.S. history.
Martin Niemöller’s poem registers powerfully for most people — often people do not remember exactly who said it. I have seen it attributed to Deitrich Bonhoeffer (who worked with Niemöller in opposing some Nazi programs), Albert Einstein, Reinhold Niebuhr, Albert Schweitzer, Elie Wiesel, and an “anonymous inmate in a concentration camp.”
Niemöller and his actions generate controversy — did he ever act forcefully enough? Did his actions atone for his earlier inactions? Could anything ever atone for not having seen through Hitler and opposing Naziism from the start? For those discussion reasons, I think it’s important to keep the poem attributed to Niemöller. The facts of his life, his times, and his creation of this poem, go beyond anything anyone could make up. The real story sheds light.
In a discussion about teaching evolution in biology classes a few years ago, I had carefully explained how and why the First Amendment does not require creationism to be taught in biology classes, and in fact is the reason that creationism isn’t taught, in the Establishment Clause. My explanation irritated the tarnation out of a creationist woman who exclaimed, “Well, it’s not like the First Amendment is engraved in stone!”
Is this too much to hope for these days, especially within 100 miles of the U.S. Capitol:
(3) One of the things I like most about teaching philosophy is that in a philosophy class people with hugely different viewpoints are expected to sit in a room together and discuss matters politely and reasonably. In my animal rights class, vegans talk to hunters–without anyone going berserk. In my course on the meaning of life, religious students talk about life with atheists–all in a mode of mutual respect. In a contemporary moral problems class, if you’re skilled, you can get pro-life and pro-choice students to talk to each other calmly, and even see eye-to-eye on some issues. This is great preparation for being part of an inclusive “community of reason,” one in which nobody’s sent into exile just for the “crime” of accommodationism, thinking one way or another about sexual harassment policies, etc.
Maverick philosopher, who probably wisely does not entertain comments at his blog, posted this today:
If the Dead and the Undocumented Voted Conservative . . .
. . . liberals would be screaming for voter ID.
Implication — is the guy chicken to support the charge directly? — is that dead people and undocumented non-citizens vote for liberals in elections, and, therefore, liberals are complicit in voter fraud. It’s a crude smear.
Seriously? If the dead and undocumented voted much at all I’d be screaming for better procedures at the polls, and so would most liberals. It was liberals, including “Republican” Martin Luther King, Jr., and Medgar Evers, and John Lewis and others who fought to eradicate practices that unfairly skewed voting in the southern U.S. It was liberals who fought for the Voting Rights Act, which makes shenanigans like voter fraud federal crimes.
Voter ID laws do not attempt to mend any great unfairness in voting. Voter ID laws have been litigated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Texas and Pennsylvania that I know. In no case in any of those states has anyone presented any evidence that there is any serious problem with votes from the dead, nor any serious problem from undocumented people voting, if any problem at all.
The dead and the undocumented rarely, if ever, vote, anywhere in America. They don’t vote liberal, they don’t vote conservative, they don’t vote in significant numbers — rarely do they vote at all.
So why are the conservatives screaming for voter ID, since neither the dead nor undocumented vote liberal?
What could cause such hallucinations? Bigotry? Racism? Who knows? We can be certain, however, that conservative love of voter ID laws is not driven by voting by dead people, or undocumented aliens, and the conservative desire to make things fair.
A very wet tip of the old scrub brush to Pseudo Polymath, for pointing out this lunatic post.
The White House argues that the best path for the nation, right now, is to extend tax cuts for the middle class. Here’s a graphic with much of the arguments for the actions President Obama proposes (click image for a larger, more readable version):
Click image for a larger version (one that is much more readable).
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 