Mike’s Cocktail Minute

August 22, 2012

Apropos of nothing, save praising a worthy local business here in Tucson, I bring you the Southern Gravity from 47 Scott's cocktail bar Scott & Co. Our own local speakeasy has been named one of the 10 best new bars in America by Food and Drink magazine. The cocktail is in the old fashioned style … Read more

Robert Reich on Romney-Ryan economic plan

August 22, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It's been a week for whiteboards. Willard "Mittens" Romney was ripping off the White House Whiteboard series, and Robert Reich who also does a whiteboard series.

In his latest video, Robert Reich explains 5 Reasons The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan Would Be a Disaster:

Robert Reich breaks down the Romney-Ryan economic plan into 5 measures that all spell disaster for America.

1. More unemployment through austerity measures.

2. Taking from the poor to give to the rich. Higher federal taxes on lower income taxpayers, slashing medicaid, food stamps, and children's health care in order to give up to a $500k tax cut to millionaires and billionaires.

3. Turns Medicare into vouchers that won't keep up with the rising cost of health care and shifting the burden onto seniors, ending their guaranteed health care, and leaving them at the mercy of private insurers. By contrast, Obama's Affordable Care Act saves money on Medicare by reducing payments to providers such as hospitals and drug companies.

4. Add money to defense spending. The plan would add money to defense spending while cutting spending on education, infrastructure, and basic research and development.

5. Debt: The Romney-Ryan budget doesn't even reduce the federal budget deficit. While adding to military spending, giving tax cuts to the rich, and stifling economic growth by cutting spending too early, the plan would push public debt to over 175% by 2050.

Video below the fold.

The death of ‘compassionate conservatism’

August 22, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In 2000, GOP pollster and message-meister Frank Luntz invented a new term for the George W. Bush campaign: "compassionate conservative." Like his father George H.W. Bush before him, it was meant to put a "kinder and gentler" face on the always angry rabid right — the Newt Gingrich led mob that had shut down the federal government and impeached a president for the very same sexual peccadilloes they themselves enganged in, after a relentless witch-hunt against Bill and Hillary for eight years.

This messaging had the shelf life of one campaign. After 9/11, you were "either with us or against us," and anyone who questioned the intelligence for an unnecessary war in Iraq saw their patriotism questioned and were condemned as un-American or even a traitor. The always angry rabid right was back, "big time" as Darth Vader Dick Cheny would say.

The Bush Years Were a Lost Decade of economic and job growth, followed by the speculative real estate bubble of casino capitalism bursting with the Bush Great Recession — the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. When times are difficult, compassion turns hard, and people fight over scarce resources and opportunities.

And so we have witnessed the rise of a new brand of conservatism, an odd blend of Ayn Rand, who rejected all forms of faith and religion, and rejected Christian altruism for "moral nihilism" (morality does not inherently exist, and any established moral values are abstractly contrived) and "ethical egoism" (people should act in their own self interest); and Gordon Gekko: "Greed is good." In short, a philosophy of "I've got mine, f#@& you!"

The Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlehwait, former president of the Chicago Theological Seminary (1998-2008), and a a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, writing for the Washington Post's "On Religion" feature, published this opinion recently. The Icemen Cometh: Romney-Ryan and the future of compassion in America:

We are falling prey, in the United States, to the temptation to equate “freedom” with selfishness.

This is ultimately a counsel of despair and the direct antithesis of the biblical values of love and compassion.

The selection of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president throws this problem into stark relief.

CD 2 Democratic candidate forum on Arizona Illustrated

August 22, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Congressman Ron Barber and state Rep. Matt Heinz faced off in a Democratic candidate forum on Arizona Illustrated on Monday.

Video below the fold.

Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney wants to ‘open up’ about his faith

August 22, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Media villagers are terrified of asking questions about a candidate's religious beliefs. The reason for this is that there is always a knee-jerk reaction from the candidate and his or her supporters accusing them of "religious bigotry" and attacking "religious liberty." It is a way to silence any legitimate inquiry.

This is a problem for media villagers because so many candidates run for office citing their religious beliefs as a source of their moral character and a qualification for office. (The U.S. Constitution and Arizona Constitution prohibit a religious test for political office). If a candidate is going to cite his or her religious beliefs and piety as a source of their moral character and a qualification for office, then they ought to be questioned about their religious beliefs. They injected their religious beliefs into the race, they cannot deflect questions.

I read today that Willard "Mittens" Romney begins to open up, just a little, about his Mormonism. The Romney campaign recenty released a series of commercials that ask "Who shares your values?," as the start of a broader Romney effort to emphasize values and religion as he courts undecided voters.

Philip Barlow, a Mormon historian at Utah State University who worked with Romney when he was bishop in Belmont, Mass., said that trying to understand Romney without Mormonism would be like "watching a football game with half the players invisible."

His decades of involvement in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has shaped every aspect of Romney's life, from his family to his decades in private business and his political career. Romney has donated millions to his church and its charities, and has volunteered countless hours to the Mormon community and others.

Yet Romney has spoken only in the broadest terms about religion.

OK then, here is a subject that Romney had to address during his 2008 presidential run, but has not been questioned about, to my knowledge, during his 2012 presidential run. Sally Denton at Salon, back in January of this year, wrote Romney and the White Horse Prophecy – Salon.com (excerpts):

Upon completion of his foreign mission, [Romney] immersed himself in the 1970 senatorial campaign of his mother, Lenore Romney, who was running against Phillip Hart in the Michigan general election. That same year, the Cougar Club — the all male, all white social club at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City (blacks were excluded from full membership in the Mormon church until 1978) — was humming with talk that its president, Mitt Romney, would become the first Mormon president of the United States. “If not Mitt, then who?” was the ubiquitous slogan within the elite organization. The pious world of BYU was expected to spawn the man who would lead the Mormons into the White House and fulfill the prophecies of the church’s founder, Joseph Smith Jr., which Romney has avidly sought to realize.