Observations on the 2012 Election 10.4

I know, I know, calm down, this too shall pass. Willard looked good in last night's debate, like he was giving a presentation to some board of directors, and President Obama didn't look his best, like he would much rather be somewhere else on his wedding anniversary. But when all the dust settles the President will still be ahead and in all likelihood Romney will have stuck his foot in his mouth again or had it forced there by his VP choice Paul Ryan.

I only found one thing troubling last night and that was the fact that neither Bain or the 47% video were mentioned even once. After some thought I finally decided it was on purpose, it had to be on purpose, and came up with my theory on Obama's performance last night that I think is as good as anyone else's.

Last night's debate was heavily scripted and played to Romney's strong suit, speaking to a board of directors or in a planning meeting of some sort. It was totally wrong for Obama who is at his best when he is talking to real people. If you don't believe that simply Google Obama at a rally in Denver today. My theory is that Obama decided to let Romney have his best shot, pass the baton to Biden next week, and take Romney head-on in the second debate with its town hall format where Bain and the 47% are sure to be questioned. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the President just didn't show up for some reason, either way Willard can't perform like that for another month. The only problem is in the perception because in politics if you aren't winning you seem to be losing.

One other thing that is certain after the debate is that Romney is every bit as good a liar as his partner Ryan. Hopefully next week Vice President Biden doesn't let Ryan get away with it without challenging him. I honestly can't see why anybody would decide to vote for Romney when so much of what he said last night was simply not true. But than I remembered a quote from an old Seinfeld episode.

"Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."

10/5 update - From Mother Jones today; "On a conference call with reporters, a defensive David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, noted that the president's supporters would have liked to see Obama slam Romney on Bain, tax returns, and the 47 percent video. But, he added, "a lot of these issues are well known to the public," and Obama's "choice was to talk about the main things people are worried about in their lives." Obama, Axelrod said, had wanted to avoid an insult-fest and instead use the debate to discuss the future. He did note that following the debate the campaign would "make some adjustments.'"

Observations on the 2012 Election 10.3

Tonight is the first of three debates between Willard and President Obama as the Presidential election campaign enters its final phase. No matter what the talking heads on both sides say I have to wonder just how important this phase is. Early voting has already begun in seven states, the latest being the all important Ohio where it began yesterday. Still a committed political geek can't help but be excited if just for the debate's entertainment value. The entertainment started early when poor Willard couldn't even get his campaign through debate prep without messing up. It was leaked by his handlers that during debate prep Willard had been given a bag full of 'zingers' to use on the President. This is nothing new, unless they are literally talking about twinkies, but you aren't supposed to announce it ahead of time. It's supposed to at least seem like the candidate came up with them on his own.

Something sure to be debated after the election is the effect that the billions of dollars poured into the campaigns by corporations had. This is the first Presidential election since the United States Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case in 2010. The Court, in a 5-4 decision, said that the First Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations or, as Willard himself put it, corporations are people my friend. It just doesn't seem to be having the effect the Repubes and wingnuts wanted but it still needs to be overturned, something that should be high on any list of possible legislation for an Obama second term.

The dissenting opinion was written by Justice John Stevens who showed how strongly he felt by actually reading a large part of it from the bench. Stevens than retired as the third longest serving justice in the history of the court. Below are a pair of excerpts from that opinion, if you are brave, bored, or just a total political fool like me you can read the complete opinion here.

"In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters. The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races....

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

If you got this far thanks for reading and that concludes today's lesson. Don't forget, the circus begins tonight at 9 PM Eastern.

Observations from the Gallery 10.2

Warning, phone generated mini-vent to follow ....

Ash is tired of listening so I'm going to vent hear. I saw something on twitter that just irritated the hell out of me. I didn't bother replying to it because sometimes that's just what people are looking for and besides 140 characters just wouldn't do the job anyway. Also I really don't use twitter to chat, it's more I micro-blog, empty my mind, this is what I'm looking at, reading, or thinking about at any given moment.

October is LGBT History Month and somebody, who shall remain nameless, evidently tired 'history months' tweeted wanting to know when white history month is. Think about that for a minute, when is white history month?

Well let me tell them something. Whites really don't need a month because they wrote history so every month is white history month. For that matter every day is white history day. The history of art, politics, religion, and any other area you care to name. Except for rare instances whites wrote it because the winner writes the history and I can't think of any time in the last millennium where whites weren't the winners. Now that may sound racist at some level but as you can see by the photo I happen to be white so by definition this can't be racist. Hell I don't even like the term white unless we are talking about photography.

Before you ask about Women's History Month read the last paragraph again, insert men wherever I wrote white.

Vent over, Ash thanks you for listening.

Observations 10.2

Marriage for All Families: Stories from Maine


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Published on Oct 2, 2012 by NewLeftMedia

The first of a four-part series made in each of the states that have marriage equality votes this November, this short shares the experiences of same-sex couples who want to get married in Maine.They have the same challenges, responsibilities, and aspirations as any other couple, but they are strangers in the eyes of the law. That's why marriage equality is so important: it aligns personality reality with legal reality, as a simple matter of fairness.

The series is produced in association with The Four, a social media campaign to support marriage equality in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State. Learn more and get involved at TheFour.com

Film produced by Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll.
Music by Timmy's Work.

Observations from the Window 10.1

Saturday I mentioned how one of the fun things about the NY Art Book Fair is its lack of auctions, super high priced items, and "celebrity" booths. I hadn't read my brochure ahead of time so I was in for a bit of a surprise when we walked downstairs. In the basement was a faux library called "Homage To Mike Kelley" and assembled by Larry Gagosian. Kelley died of an apparent suicide in January of this year. The room was dominated by two cases filled with books and music selected by friends from Kelley's personal collection and included a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost, Nietzsche's The Birth Of Tragedy, and a complete collection of The Stooges' CDs. It was a cool idea, even if Gagosian came up with it, so I suppose I was pleasantly surprised.

Another fun element of the NYABF is watching people deal with the cash only policy. There was a time I loved going to flea markets and yard sales back in Pennsylvania, collecting old CDs and books, so I'm totally used to that. Art people in New York don't often seem to have cash so after dropping whatever they have on a vintage program or book they madly scramble for the one ATM machine in the building.

Than there is the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society. Leave any questions you have on this in the comments, otherwise some other time.

Later I was again pleasantly surprised, this time by a movie we watched after dinner. I'm in no way a fan of Woody Allen but I really wanted to see Midnight In Paris, probably as much for the gorgeous scenery as anything else. Well now I can honestly say I have seen a Woody Allen movie that I would watch again, actually I already have. Most of the nostalgia scenes take place in the Montmartre district, the same district of Paris as Christopher Moore's "Sacre Bleu" just forty years later, so next time I'm in Paris I must go there at midnight, I'll meet Hemingway yet. If you haven't seen it yet it's well worth renting, the cinematography is at times is just totally stunning, and it's a fun story to think about.

Before I finish, one line that did irritate me, yes even movies do irritate me sometimes, was when a present day intellectual type says that nostalgia is nothing but denial of one's present life. Now it's true I can be nostalgic to a fault sometimes, so that was one irritant, but I also figure that if nostalgia is denial than art history is denial on a grand scale. Than I had to remember that it was a Woody Allen movie and I also remembered why I don't like him. That 'I want to be somewhere else' feeling sparks creativity in more artists and writers than almost anything else, in all likelihood including Woody Allen.

At some level I could just relate to the movie. Seriously, who wouldn't want to drift back in time and visit some heroes in their element? 

Observations from the Window 9.29

A beautifully dreary fall morning in the Village, beautiful because the air is clear, dreary because it's cloudy and not supposed to get above 70° today. Maybe also a little dreary because the Flyers' should be hosting Boston next week in the season opener but instead the NHL players remained locked out in what Yahoo Sports today called Day 14 of dumb. Nothing like the spectacle of millionaires fighting millionaires over millions of dollars, but wait, this is the NHL so I doubt millions of dollars are involved which makes it all the more laughable. Laughable if you aren't a peanut vendor or parking attendant or just a hockey fan stuck in a fall without hockey. At least the NFL refs are back, there is that.

In football Penn State (2-2) travels to Illinois (2-2) in an interesting Big Ten opener for both teams. Penn State will try to give Bill O'Brien his first Big Ten win as head coach and also his first winning record. But what makes this game so intriguing is something that happened over the past summer. The day after the NCAA announced its sanctions seven schools had coaches waiting outside after State's football practice to try and entice players to their schools. Legal? Technically yes because the NCAA had not, and still hasn't, come up with any rules regarding teams "recruiting" Penn State players. In bad taste? According to O'Brien very much so. Only one Big Ten school was among the seven, Illinois.

Also this weekend is the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1, I know I'll totally spend too much there but I'm looking forward to going. I do love my books so what could be better than art books? What I found to be fun last time is that everybody is pretty much the same, art fans there because they love art or love books. There aren't any big-ticket auctions, no lounges to schmooze in, and no ulterior reasons to be seen, just lots of awesome books. I'll update this later with anything exciting.

From the MoMa PS1 website; "Free and open to the public, the NY Art Book Fair is the world's premier event for artists’ books, catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines presented by more than 250 international presses, booksellers, antiquarians, artists, and independent publishers from over twenty countries."

So maybe not such a dreary day at all. Football and books, I just have to cram beer and food into it sometime. And, speaking of beer, did you happen to see Krystal Ball drinking a bottle of Sam Adams on The Cycle yesterday afternoon? Sadly it wasn't a Corona.

update - Penn State defeated Illinois 35-7 in a game that wasn't at all that close, it's a cliche I know but also true.  There was no coaches handshake before the game and very perfunctory one after. More like Coach O'Brien wanted Tim Beckman to personally know he had just had his ass kicked. Maybe Beckman should have spent more time coaching the players he had over the summer and less at PSU recruiting.

Observations on Sports 9.29

It's a given that I can sometimes be sports obsessed but this movie would look awesome even if I wasn't. It's a documentary about the Lithuanian basketball team during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics which was and is dominated by the original "dream team" in American sports lore. I first heard of the movie because it was selected for the 2012 Sundance Film Festival but I didn't remember the story. At ten I may have already been sports crazed but I hadn't yet discovered politics, hard to believe I'm sure. this is a much more compelling story than a group of millionaires doing what was totally expected of them.

From the Sundance website; "After leading the USSR to a gold medal (and victory over the U.S.A.) at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis were poster boys for their oppressor’s sports machine. Four years later, after the fall of the Soviet Union, they emerged as symbols of democracy, helping their country break free from the shackles of Communism, and willing newly independent Lithuania to the medal stand at the Barcelona Olympics...." (full story)

The Other Dream Team


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Release Date: 28 September 2012
Genre: Documentary
Cast: Greg Speirs, Jim Lampley and Bill Walton
Directors: Marius A. Markevicius
Writer: Jon Weinbach, Marius A. Markevicius
Studio: The Film Arcade

Observations on the 2012 Election 9.28

Some videos just speak for themselves. There is nothing I could possibly add to this other than fill in the beeps but I have faith in your ability fill them in for yourself. If not let me know ....


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9/29 update - The previous link was removed from youtube due to copyright blah, blah, blah so here is a new video and link.

Observations on the 2012 Election 9.26

Today (9.26), in an attempt to shore up their floundering candidate, Willard's campaign released a video in which he tries to convince the 47% that he does indeed care about them. I'm not sure a politician of the caliber of Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton could talk their way out of Willard's comments let alone, well, a non-politician.  The new video will be the only one the Romney campaign will air anywhere this weekend. Their only national ad will be a video trying to convince people you didn't mean what they saw and heard you say.

Whatever, the Democratic National Committee, now seemingly out for blood, quickly released this video which also will begin airing nationally on Friday. In it Willard rebuts his own new ad with words from his past. The Romney ad is titled "Too Many Americans" while the DNC video is called simply ....

Those People


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Published on Sep 26, 2012 by DemRapidResponse

For the record, "Romney: Believe In half of America" is just one hell of a line. I may need a t-shirt or one of those things to keep my beer cold.

9/27 update - I saw another good line in The New York Times election blog today. Talking about the knowns and unknowns of the next 40 days it said this; "The fat lady is waiting in the wings and she’s gargling with honey and lemon juice."

On the night of November 1^st, just days before the election, ex-President George W. Bush will deliver the keynote address at something called the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit. The CAIS calls itself "an international conference that will bring together the world's leading institutional investors, fund managers, academics, economists and regulators in the Cayman Islands, the world's leading domicile for investment funds, to discuss and debate the fundamentals of a vibrant future for the alternative investments industry." I'm sure Willard is thrilled.

As always, you can't make this shit up.

Observations from the Edge 9.26

Welcome to the new world. This is a video of the end of a protest in Madrid, Spain yesterday. The protest was over Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy government's plan to impose €39 billion of 'austerity' reforms on the Spanish economy. They would include tax increases, budget cuts, and something called structural reforms to social programs. As in Greece the Spanish recession continues to deepen with each round of cuts yet the government's only answer seems to be yet more cuts.

Recently GOP leaders have accused President Obama of looking to Europe for ideas, not that this is always a bad thing, yet if the Romney/Ryan plans for massive cuts in social programs isn't austerity what is? The question is would the end result of American austerity look something like this? Hopefully we will never know because it seems more and more like Willard is heading for a crash of epic proportions.

25 septiembre 2012


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Observations on the 2012 Election 9.25

I've been watching Bill Maher more and more lately, I always liked him but just never seemed to catch the full show. I really liked what he had to say at the end of Friday's show about voters who are still undecided at this point in the campaign so I thought I would post a transcript of it. Than I ran into the slight problem of Maher himself not posting transcripts so I found myself watching it a few more times and hitting the pause button over and over. Transcribing doesn't seem to be my forte but for what it's worth here is what I came up with.

"To the 5% of American voters who still are undecided on who to vote for, it's okay to admit, you just don't give a shit. Seriously, if you still can't figure out who you like more, Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, stay home because you probably couldn't find your polling place anyway. What more information does a person need? Obama has been President for nearly four years and Mitt Romney has been running for President since 1971. If you can't tell this man from this man (said showing side by side photos) you're not a swing voter, you're a lesbian.

I mean it's okay that there is a tiny percentage of uncommitted voters in a few swing states that will decide the election but please stop treating them as if they were somehow more noble and discerning than the rest of us. Put on a pedestal by the media as if they were Hamlet in a think tank. Searching out every last bit of information, high minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them to their own philosophies. Please, they fall into a category known as low-information voters. Otherwise known as dipshits*. For example according to a PEW research study 40% of Democrats didn't know the Republican was the conservative party. Let me repeat that. No, I would but it's too depressing. Instead let's look at someone who this week announced that she was an undecided voter, Kim Kardashian. She described herself as a liberal Republican. Of course there aren't any of those anymore but pieces of information like that don't reach the low-information voter.

The worst part of all this is that the entire American political process, the debates and conventions and photo-ops with corn dogs, is targeted at this tiny part of the population that just isn't interested. Which would by definition be the least qualified for this deciding role. When are low-information wishy washy people ever desirable to talk to? There is a reason when you have a problem you never seek their advice; "Hey you know who you should talk to about that thing you are going though? Somebody that doesn't know anything about it." This year at the debates instead of them dialing every little moment hook the dials to their foreheads and see if there is any measurable brain activity. Cause I don't need to see another focus group with the nincompoops. I've seen enough to know why they are called focus groups. They are just groups of people that have trouble focusing.

And if I want to see a bunch of uninformed jackasses bullshitting about the election I'll watch Fox and Friends."

*dipshit - A despised person; a moron; an ineffectual person; one with a habit of being wrong, loudly and often.

Observations 9.22 NSFW Edition

Well the video is perfectly safe for work it's the audio that isn't quite safe unless you happen to work in a gallery but being Sarah Silverman that is to be expected. I wasn't going to post this at all but than I decided I had to share it so just put on those earbuds and enjoy ....

Let My People Vote 2012 - Get Nana A Gun

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Observations 9.20

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
September 20, 2012

Statement by the President on the One Year Anniversary of the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell

A year ago today, we upheld the fundamental American values of fairness and equality by finally and formally repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’   Gay and lesbian Americans now no longer need to hide who they love in order to serve the country they love.  It is a testament to the professionalism of our men and women in uniform that this change was implemented in an orderly manner, preserving unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness.   As Commander in Chief, I’ve seen that our national security has been strengthened because we are no longer denied the skills and talents of those patriotic Americans who happen to be gay or lesbian.  The ability of service members to be open and honest about their families and the people they love honors the integrity of the individuals who serve, strengthens the institutions they serve, and is one of the many reasons why our military remains the finest in the world.

Observations on the 2012 Election 9.18

Yesterday one of my favorite reporters, David Corn of Mother Jones, broke a story that seems to have been building for some time. On May 17^th Willard spoke at a $50,000 a plate fund raiser in Florida, unbeknownst to him the comments were secretly recorded by someone who remains unknown. Audio snippets began appearing on YouTube a few weeks later and video in August but there was doubt about their authenticity and they were mainly overlooked by the msm. However Corn, along with Democratic Party video researcher James Carter (grandson of ex-President Jimmy Carter), had been pushing the mysterious owner for the complete videos since the beginning of August.

Since Corn released his original story yesterday there has been so much written about the videos and what they mean so I'll spare you repeating any of it. At the end I'll post some of the main links if anybody is interesting in reading Corn's articles or watching the videos.

I will say that I received an email from a friend this morning in which she commented on Willard saying; "cause you just don't know whether he truly believes this stuff (which is scary) or whether he just says it to get elected (which is scary)." She was commenting on the following segment of Willard's chat that explains where all the 47% headlines are coming from. For the record almost half of those he is talking about are retired seniors on Social Security.

"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the President no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what...These are people who pay no income tax ...  My job is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Like I said so much has been written about it all does or does not mean but there is one thing I haven't heard anywhere. To me at least it's just another example of how out of touch Willard is in these newfangled times we live in. I can walk down the street and take a hi-def video with my phone yet this man is running for President of the United States and doesn't seem to realize his every spoken word may be recorded. To me this total ignorance says more about the man than all the words he spouted to his rich donor friends.

Last night, after Mother Jones had released the first pieces of the video, Willard hastily called a press conference at which he called for the release of the complete video. He evidently thought that would be a good thing. Also, this morning, a reporter asked him if he would like to retract anything he said, he declined.  Like I said, ignorant.

Maybe we should take it easy on him. Maybe Willie just spent too much time hiding out in France during the Vietnam War because the video appears to be the "let them eat cake" moment of his quickly sinking Presidential campaign.

David Corn's page at Mother Jones
Full Willard video Part 1 and Part 2

9/19 update - Dana Milbank had a good column in today's Washington Post, "Media should go easy on Romney, for their own sake," that includes a list of some of Willard's finest, shall we say, comments. "I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners" is a personal fav of mine. Also Mother Jones released a full transcript of the Willard video that you can find here.