Monday, October 15, 2012

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance and this week's roundup are both certified 100% malarkey-free.

Off the Kuff takes a look at how many seats the Democrats are likely to pick up in the Legislature this November.  

BossKitty at TruthHugger sees the meningitis outbreak as another nail in the coffin, driven home by the right-wing corporate oligarchy's war on regulations and existing laws. Voters who don't put 2 and 2 together about the consequences of deregulation are allowing manufacturing shortcuts to hurt all of us. Deregulation mantras are bought and paid for by corporate greed: My Profit Is Worth More Than Your Safety. Yes, the government can help people, and until Democrats in Texas remind people of that, they'll keep losing.

And from WCNews at Eye on Williamson on that topic: Democratic success in Texas is tied to voters seeing government as on their side.

Mitt Romney's slight increase in polling popularity in the wake of the first debate is most attributable to single women, who apparently allowed his economic appeals to overcome their concerns about that whole War on Women thing. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs thinks that if President Obama doesn't make his case for a better economy, he's stupid.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders why so much of the drill baby drill energy is going out of our ports. Who's getting that energy?

Libby Shaw at Texas Kaos explains the Romney plan in terms even a child can understand, in Starving Big Bird, Children and the Poor. Check it out.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Pictures worth a thousand

There were plenty of zingers, but the photos tell the story.


Your reaction is dependent upon your partisan bias.



My favorite:


Here are ten more captioned with actual quotes from the evening, and a hilarious (and bipartisan) set of 31 are here. One of those...


Of almost as much enjoyment was TIME's set, out earlier in the day, of Paul Ryan exercising...


...and the fun had by all with that.

No additional snark necessary.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Your debate prep for this evening

As with last week's fight between the Kenyan (sic) Assassin and the Stormin' Mormon, tonight's Biden-Ryan tilt -- one is the Boomer washing his Pontiac in the driveway, the other is Atlas shrugging and shredding a P90X workout -- you need to be prepared for all the wonky goodness that will flow forth across the Kentucky landscape... and out of your preferred broadcast source. That is, if you prefer your style as a sauce for the substance, and not as the main course.

-- Five things to watch for, from CNN, the WaPo, Politico, and the Blaze. Think Progress has twelve.

-- As with last week's debate, the major/minor parties are disinvited, so the Greens' vice-presidential nominee, Cheri Honkala, is hosting a street party down a few blocks from the small liberal arts college where Biden-Ryan is being waged, about two hours south of Cincinnatti, OH.

What: "Paul Ryan" Austerity Wagon protest with Cheri Honkala
Where: 317 W. Main Street, Danville, KY (6 blocks from Centre campus)
When: Thursday Oct. 11, 7 PM (action starts at 8 PM sharp)

 Join Green Party VP candidate Cheri Honkala to Occupy the Vice Presidential Debate at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky on Thursday, October 11!

Occupy activists around Kentucky and Southern Ohio are organizing some really fun street theatre highlighting Paul Ryan's devastating budget plan that would redistribute wealth upward from the poor and middle class to the wealthy. We aren't counting on Joe Biden or the debate's pre-approved moderator and format, tightly regulated by both campaigns, to bring up that issue -- or any of the other issues we really want to hear more about.

-- Judge Jim Gray, the Libertarian vice-presidential candidate, is just going to Hang Out on Google.

-- Finally... the fact-checking is already under way. It will probably still be going on by the time of the second Romney-Obama debate next Tuesday.