The Garden of Mr. Rogers' Mind

This is why all of us who watched public television are liberals.

What Type of Liberal Are You?

I just discovered what type of liberal I am (other than "True Blue" of course) by taking this super scientific online test:

My Liberal Identity

You are an Eco-Avenger, also known as an environmentalist or tree hugger. You believe in saving the planet from the clutches of air-fouling, oil-drilling, earth-raping conservative fossil fools.

Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor

I prefer "tree hugger" to "Eco-Avenger", which sounds sort of comic-bookish.

Kids Say the Darndest Things about Animal Abuse at Thanksgiving.

"Dear God, Thank you for the turkey we're about to eat and for the turkey farms where they pack them into dark tiny little sheds for their whole lives. Thank you for when they burn their feathers off while they're still alive and for when turkey gets kicked around like a football and killed by people who think it's fun to stomp on their little turkey heads and special thanks for all the chemicals and dirt and poop that's in the turkey we're about to eat. Oh, and thank you for rainbows. Amen."

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Gaspin' Flag for commemorating the 2012 Total Collapse of Teaparty (#TCOT)

Just call me Betsy Ross for my alterations to the infamous yellow snake teabag flag...

The official "Gaspin' Flag", which will soon be flying over Total Collapse of
Teaparty (#TCOT) memorial service barbecues throughout the red states.

Please feel free to use and share this variation on the old Gadsden flag that the teabaggers appropriated during their headlong rush to irrelevance.

Tomorrow is Today

“Tomorrow, we begin a new tomorrow. Tomorrow, we begin a better tomorrow. This nation is going to begin to change for the better tomorrow. … We can begin a better tomorrow tomorrow, and with the help of the people in Florida, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
-- Mitt Romney, yesterday in Sanford, Florida (not in coordination with Stephen Colbert or Colbert's "Americans for a Better Tomorrow Tomorrow" Super PAC)

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
--William Shakespeare, The Scottish Play

Vote today as if it does signify something.

Another Must-See Hurricane Sandy Video

Here's another essential video from Hurricane Sandy. I'm sure that we'd be doing much better if we had Mitt Romney's privatized Federal Emergency Management Agency working on a profit motive starting the clean-up later this week, wouldn't we?


This performance from a (pre-Etch-a-Sketch) man who would be President took place at one of the early Clown Circus performances in New Hampshire on June 13, 2011. This asshole has been on our television sets for much too long. The American voters cannot be stupid enough to keep him in the public eye for four more years, can they?

"... this boardwalk life for me is through ..."

Could the namers of hurricanes have picked a more appropriate name for a hurricane aimed directly at the boardwalks of New Jersey?

The One Hurricane Video You Must See...

I'm sitting at home with my office and mass transit closed in advance of Hurricane Sandy's arrival in the New York area later today. I haven't had any trees come down on my power or cable lines yet, so I have the opportunity to watch a lot of daytime television, with non-stop storm updates on WABC, WNBC, and WCBS. There are the predictable number of weatherpeople in suits predicting storm tracks in front of satellite maps and field reporters in raincoats standing on boardwalks in Long Beach, NY and Long Branch, NJ, but the number of mentions of the possible role of climate change in relation to these storms I've heard is the same as the number of mentions of climate change I heard during the Presidential debates: Zero.
Both sides need to be criticized for sacrificing the environment on the altar of low gas prices, but no one (especially those soon to be affected by record storm surges) should forget how one of the candidates milked sea level rise for laughs during his convention speech:

Worse than the words are the way that Mitt Romney waits for the laughs and jeers from his audience of well-heeled white "Job Creators" (one of whom may be the next crony looking for a cushy job running FEMA, or dismantling the EPA, in a Romney administration).

The Marketing Slogan of the Day

"When in Doubt Drink" was seen on the blackboard in front of Louise and Jerry's Tavern on Washington Street in Hoboken, 25 October 2012.

It's not just a joke.
Imagine how much more peaceful the world would be if the Middle East had more doubt. And more drinking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update 11/16:  I took and posted this picture only four days before Hurricane Sandy, simply because the blackboard message struck me as funny.  None of us had any sense that New York harbor would see the storm surge it did and that no basement businesses or apartments in Hoboken would be dry when the Hudson River came to town and stayed for a few days..

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Fifteen) -- The Donald's "Major Announcement"

Donald Trump's "major announcement" has been the subject of twittering speculation this week, and now he's announced his major announcement on YouTube and Facebook. If you can't stand his voice, the gist of the following video is basically this: If President Obama releases all of his college applications and records and passport applications and records by October 31, America's self-anointed Birtherist-in-Chief Donald J. Trump will donate $5 million dollars to a charity of the President's choice.




Of course this is as meaningless -- and as racist -- as the campaign for the "long-form birth certificate."

How much is Donald Trump offering to Willard "Mitt" Romney to release as many years of tax returns as Barack Obama has released? What if The Donald offers Willard one million for one year? He won't. And we won't even see 2009, let alone any tax returns from any of Mitt's years in the private sector. The press is playing dead and it's obvious that the richest man to ever run for the Presidency is going to give us the least financial information, even though his financial expertise is supposedly his main qualification for the office (Slogan: "Elect Me for My Business Experience, but My Business Experience Is None of Your Business."). Maybe Mitt's plan involves cheating America back to prosperity.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Review this past list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask, August 16 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Thirteen) -- Romney may not know how to treat a dog, but he knows how to blow a dog whistle, August 24
• #MittsMissingReturn (Part Fourteen) -- False Equivalency from The Wall Street Journal, August 30

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter.

With the Debates Over, The Task Is Clear

http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/p/keep-calm-and-vote-obama-90/

Mitt Romney's Escalating War on Avian Americans

Debate #1, Denver Colorado, October 3:

"I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you [Jim Lehrer] too. But I’m not going to -- I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it. That’s number one."

Debate #2, Hempstead New York, October 16:

"The administration brought a criminal action against the people drilling up there for oil, this massive new resource we have. And what was the cost? Twenty or 25 birds were killed, and they brought out a migratory bird act to go after them on a criminal basis." 

Which bird(s) will Mitt Romney attack in Debate #3 next Monday?

It makes you wish that famous flock of crows in The Birds would make an appearance.

If You Were a Republican ...

... you might say to yourself about the following bald eagle photographed along the Potomac River last spring:

"If we were free of the repressive Endangered Species Act and the EPA Gestapo, I could use an American Assault Weapon rather than a Japanese Camera to capture that beauty forever, stuffed and mounted on my office wall to show how fucking patriotic I am!!"

Bald Eagle in Arlington, Virginia
March 30, 2012

You Might Be A Republican If ...

... you look at this photograph I took yesterday and say:

"That would be even more beautiful if there were some fracking rigs installed there!"

From the Zena Cornfield looking toward Overlook in Woodstock, NY.

Rockin' in the Free World in Central Park Yesterday

I realize that there are probably people in suits on television this morning speaking about important matters of politics and football, but I'm still on a high from spending all day and night on my feet on the Great Lawn in Central Park in the greatest city in the world watching Neil Young, the Foo Fighters, Black Keys, Band of Horses, and K'naan, so I'm reliving yesterday's Global Citizen Festival with videos.
There are professional videos on the internets already, but I like the way that this amateur video from the crowd brings back the feeling of being there for the closing "Rockin' in the Free World" with Dave Grohl and Dan Auerbach strapping on guitars to join Crazy Horse, and all of the musicians on stage together singing the chorus (along with tens of thousands of others on the lawn):

We got a thousand points of light for the homeless man
We got a kindler, gentler, machine gun hand
We've got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam garbage for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive

Keep on rockin in the free world

"Walk Like A Giant" from Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Here's the first official video from the next album from Neil Young and Crazy Horse coming out on October 30 on 2 CDs or 3 LPs, "Psychedelic Pill" (a title full of possibilities for an old Deadhead like me). The song is "Walk Like a Giant" and this kaleidoscopic 4'30" video is only part of an album track listed at over 16 minutes.



I hope they play this when we see them in Central Park on Saturday!


And since posting this a few minutes ago, I found this live version from Red Rocks in August:

"The Liars" by Carl Sandburg

"The Day Carl Sandburg Died" is playing on American Masters on PBS tonight. Yevgeny Yevtushenko was just reading part of The Liars. Here it is in full, as relevant today as it was when written in March 1919:

The Liars
Carl Sandburg

A LIAR goes in fine clothes.
A liar goes in rags.
A liar is a liar, clothes or no clothes.
A liar is a liar and lives on the lies he tells and dies in a life of lies.
And the stonecutters earn a living—with lies—on the tombs of liars.

A liar looks ’em in the eye
And lies to a woman,
Lies to a man, a pal, a child, a fool.
And he is an old liar; we know him many years back.

A liar lies to nations.
A liar lies to the people.
A liar takes the blood of the people
And drinks this blood with a laugh and a lie,
A laugh in his neck,
A lie in his mouth.
And this liar is an old one; we know him many years.
He is straight as a dog’s hind leg.
He is straight as a corkscrew.
He is white as a black cat’s foot at midnight.

The tongue of a man is tied on this,
On the liar who lies to nations,
The liar who lies to the people.
The tongue of a man is tied on this
And ends: To hell with ’em all.
To hell with ’em all.

It’s a song hard as a riveter’s hammer,
Hard as the sleep of a crummy hobo,
Hard as the sleep of a lousy doughboy,
Twisted as a shell-shock idiot’s gibber.

The liars met where the doors were locked.
They said to each other: Now for war.
The liars fixed it and told ’em: Go.

Across their tables they fixed it up,
Behind their doors away from the mob.
And the guns did a job that nicked off millions.
The guns blew seven million off the map,
The guns sent seven million west.
Seven million shoving up the daisies.
Across their tables they fixed it up,
The liars who lie to nations.

And now
Out of the butcher’s job
And the boneyard junk the maggots have cleaned,
Where the jaws of skulls tell the jokes of war ghosts,
Out of this they are calling now: Let’s go back where we were.
Let us run the world again, us, us.

Where the doors are locked the liars say: Wait and we’ll cash in again.

So I hear The People talk.
I hear them tell each other:
Let the strong men be ready.
Let the strong men watch.
Let your wrists be cool and your head clear.
Let the liars get their finish,
The liars and their waiting game, waiting a day again
To open the doors and tell us: War! get out to your war again.

So I hear The People tell each other:
Look at to-day and to-morrow.
Fix this clock that nicks off millions
When The Liars say it’s time.
Take things in your own hands.
To hell with ’em all,
The liars who lie to nations,
The liars who lie to The People. 

Poor Wittle Mittens Needs a New Theme Song

I suggest Jelly Roll Morton's "Whinin' Boy Blues" (performed here by Jorma Kaukonen):

In case you missed it here's one of the latest examples of Poor Little Mittens whining that Big Bad Barack is making his inevitable ride to the White House on his White Horse unnecessarily difficult: "Romney Blames Obama for His Campaign Challenges" in the New York Times Caucus Blog.

Our Military Needs Your Fiver!

There used to be a poster back in the Vietnam years (known to Mitt Romney and the "Parisian Sightseeing Boat Veterans for Truth" as the years of French hell when Mitt could find neither good Velveeta nor real Wonder Bread!) that said something like, "What if Schools Had All the Money They Need and the Air Force Had to Hold a Bake Sale to Buy Bombers?"  Maybe that great day has finally come. Mitt Romney is asking us to give $5 to the military, but he doesn't seem to be promising us a homemade cupcake from Ann Romney's kitchen, so I say No Deal!

A Romney ad that appeared on my Rutgers Football blog earlier today.

Randy Newman's New Song: "I'm Dreaming" (of a White President)

"I'm dreaming of a white President / Just like the ones we've always had / A real live white man / Who knows the score / How to handle money or start a war / Wouldn't even have to tell me what we were fighting for."  --Randy Newman, "I'm Dreaming"

September 11, 2012: Closing A Circle?

New albums are generally released on Tuesdays, so maybe it's not that significant or coincidental that Bob Dylan's "Love and Theft" was released on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 and his "Tempest" was released today, Tuesday, September 11, 2012.  

World Trade Center from Jersey City, September 11, 2012

It seems significant to me though, because on the morning of September 11, 2001, I was looking forward to walking around the corner to the Sam Goody store on the corner of 42nd Street and 2nd Avenue at lunchtime to buy "Love and Theft".  At noon we were still being told to stay in our building and by late afternoon when I left the office, the album was not on my mind, and all the stores were closed. I can't remember when I finally picked it up. It couldn't have been more than a week or two later, but the excitement about a great recording will be forever overshadowed by events.

Today I hit my local record store as soon as it opened at 11 and picked up "Tempest" (this isn't a review, but I'm loving what I've listened to so far) and for the first time since 2001, there is a visible highlight to the lower Manhattan skyline. I don't believe that "closure" is even a proper word, and that's not what I'm talking about here, but it feels to me, personally, as if we're beginning to close a circle.

Mitt Romney to Polar Bears: "Your Freeloading Days Are Over."

I didn't see Mitt Romney interviewed by David Gregory on Meet the Press yesterday, but I've now seen a few choice quotes. Just as the most memorable line from his convention speech (for me) was this one: "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. [GOP conventioneers snickering and jeering] My promise ... is to help you and your family. [cheers] ", the most jarring line from the Gregory interview I saw was this one:

"I’m not in this race to slow the rise of the oceans or to heal the planet. I’m in this race to help the American people." -- Mitt Romney, August 9, 2012

It's obviously a memorized and well-rehearsed talking point.

Fuck you polar bears. Fuck you planet. Fuck you grandkids.

It's not a photo or video or song that comes to my mind when I think of this shortsighted profit-driven anti-environmentalism. When I think of the world after the ravages of human-influenced climate change, it's these lines from Section V, "What The Thunder Said," in Eliot's "The Waste Land" that come to mind.

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink	335
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit	340
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mud-cracked houses                                 If there were water	345
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring	350
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock	355
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water

Forward, a photographic update on World Trade Center construction

Tomorrow is September 11, the 11th anniversary  of a day we won't soon forget.
 
Here's a phone picture taken of the lower Manhattan skyline this afternoon, the latest in an intermittent photographic series here on TrueBlueLiberal.org tracking the progress of construction on the new World Trade Center:

If you think the US is a "Company" and "Corporations are People", then vote for #RomneyRyan2012

August 31, 2012:

"Paul Ryan and I understand how the economy works, we understand how Washington works, we will reach across the aisle and find good people who, like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America on track again."

Mitt and Paul can probably sell off some of the company assets. I'm sure the oil and gas companies could use Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Grand Canyon for something more lucrative than usless "scenery."


And the classic Romneyism from August 11, 2011:


The moment for which he'll be forever remembered:

"Corporations are people, my friend!"

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Fourteen) -- False Equivalency from the Wall Street Journal

Mitt Romney will be giving his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention tonight and we can be pretty sure that he won't be saying, "I've got nothing to hide and I'm proving that by having my campaign release a dozen years of tax returns to independent news organizations as I address you here tonight." OK, we can be more than "pretty sure" he won't do that. It's as certain as death and (the fact that most of us will pay) taxes that we won't be seeing #MittsMissingReturns that easily.

I stumbled upon the following video this afternoon in which even the formerly staid and sober Wall Street Journal joins the racist "Obama's Sealed Records" chorus, equating school records from 30 years ago with Mitt Romney's business records from 2 years ago.

Watch the talking heads above repeat the same hypothetical "trade" that Donald Trump proposes:

Female WSJ Talking Head at 1'28": "Has the Romney campaign caught onto this, this kind of tit for tat fairness. 'If you want me to release the tax returns, you gotta release the transcripts.' Or no?"

1) There is no "tit for tat fairness" here.
2) Mitt Romney would not honor his side of this trade if Barack Obama's records from Columbia and Occidental and high school and kindergarten were all released tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Keep up with the lengthening list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask, August 16 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Thirteen) -- Romney may not know how to treat a dog, but he knows how to blow a dog whistle, August 24

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter.

Mitt Romney's Coming of Age Travails, per CNN. Quelle Horreur

CNN may have forsaken its quest to become Fox News. The original cable news network is now attempting to become The Onion, or Comedy Central, with their recent Mitt Romney infotainment, "Romney Revealed":


 Forget the horrors of the Vietnam War in 1968, that war that Mitt Romney demonstrated in favor of, and whose draft the young Mormon missionary avoided:

CNN Narrator: “In 1968, France was a dangerous place to be for a 21-year-old American, but Mitt Romney was right in the middle of it.
Fellow Missionary Mike Bush: “There were protests and there were blockades and there were marches all over the country."
CNN: "The streets of France were in chaos."
Bush: "There was no train service, there were no buses, no newspapers. The electricity would go off from time-to-time. There were no letters from home. The money at the time came via check. That was our lifeline was getting letters from home.”
CNN: "So you were totally isolated."
Bush: "Totally isolated."

No Checks from Dad?!

Have a Great Weekend.

And don't frack this up.

There are no flammable fossil fuels under these New York mountains and forests that are half as valuable as these mountains and forests.

Looking north to the Catskills from Minnewaska State Park in the Shawangunks. August  21, 2012

The Culture Wars of a Simpler Time (Are you a Jerry or a Hef?)

I ran this question with another version of this video in the year of the last Presidential election, but the video was taken off YouTube and the posting seems appropriate again. When one political party is looking back to their halcyon days in the 1950s (or 1850s), many of us look back to another golden age, located squarely in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Here are the Grateful Dead playing Mountains of the Moon and St. Stephen on "Playboy After Dark" in 1969:

At the two minute mark, be sure to catch Jerry Garcia explaining to a clueless Hugh Hefner and his entourage, with appropriate smiles and hand gestures, "... they more chase each other around. It's kinda, it's like, it's like the serpent that eats its own tail, y'know. And it goes round and round like that and if you, if you could stand in between them, uh, they, they make uh big figure eights on their sides, in your head." Of course Jerry's elucidating why the Dead have two drummers, but Hugh seems to be having some trouble following this crystal-clear explanation.

So what side of this culture divide do (did) you come down on? Would you be wearing a Mexican poncho or a black tuxedo in 1969? Riding in a psychedelic bus or a black Mercedes limosine? Would you rather be Hugh? Or Jerry?

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Thirteen) -- Romney may not know how to treat a dog, but he knows how to blow a dog whistle

Just watch the rise he gets out of this crowd earlier today when he says, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."



Sorry Mitt, we don't care about your birth certificate, but we'd love to see the missing tax returns from 1998 -- 2009 (and the missing pieces from 2010 and 2011) that would give us some more realistic ideas about that fantastic business experience that you keep touting as your main competency and reason to be President (other than the fact that you're a white guy from Michigan who will never be asked for his "long-form birth certificate" by a billionaire publicity hound with a bad hairpiece).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep up with the lengthening list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask, August 16 

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter. 

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask.

Now that Mitt Romney has come out today and called the press and the American voters "small-minded" for asking about his tax returns, I'm sure that we'll all just leave him alone.

Who are we to distrust him and ask for written details?

“Y'know, y'know given, I just, I just have to say, given the challenges that America faces – 23 million people out of work, um uh Iran about to become nuclear, uh one out of six Americans in poverty – the fascination with taxes I’ve paid I find to be very uh small-minded compared to the broad issues that we face. Uh but I did go back and look at my taxes and over the past 10 years I never paid less than 13 percent. I think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. So I paid taxes every single year. Harry Reid’s uh charge is totally uh false. I’m sure waiting for Harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him. I don’t believe it for a minute, by the way. But every year I’ve paid at least 13 percent and uh if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, why the number gets well above 20 percent.” -- Mitt Romney, 16 August 2012

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep up with the large list of small-minded installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter. 

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already

Watch (courtesy of Media Matters for America) a video showing how two of the major cable news channels are willing to ignore the fact that the Republican Presidential candidate is obviously hiding something seriously wrong in his financial history:

Why the business and financial history of someone whose main qualification for President is his self-proclaimed (but unverifiable) business and financial acumen should be considered tangential or a distraction is beyond me. His tax returns seem central to understanding who this candidate is. The demand for more than the two partial returns from 2010 and 2011 is not a case of Birtherism Redux, though that is certainly the way the GOP, Fox, and (maybe) CNN, would like to portray it, and us.
We'll keep up the call for 10-12 years of Mitt Romney's tax returns here on TrueBlueLiberal.org and with the #MittsMissingReturns hashtag on Twitter, but the media won't necessarily be working with us. I'm not looking forward to Candy Crowley's role as the impartial moderator for the single debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Catch up with the lengthening list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13

And keep tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter.

A Bonus Paul Ryan Anagram

We knew about Paul Ryan's youthful love for the literary apostle of selfishness, and recently learned about his love for Rage Against the Machine, but who knew that he had once fused these two passions into a short songwriting spurt of his own, masterfully using the letters of his own full name to compose an ode to his beloved Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, alias "Ayn Rand":

Paul Davis Ryan = Sad "I Luv Ayn" Rap

Unfortunately, the only known recordings of Ryan's Opus One have been squirreled away in an undisclosed location with Mitt Romney's missing tax returns from 1999-2009, but the title remains a tantalizing clue to the development of this multi-dimensional renaissance man running for Vice President of the United States.

Paul Ryan's favorite band is Rage Against the Machine?

I heard that strange bit of trivia on NPR on the way home from work tonight and I confirmed it with a couple of links online. And, what do you know, this group of radical leftists from the city of Los Angeles even played at the Republican National Convention in 2008 ... or outside the convention ... or actually they were prevented from taking the stage by the police, so Tom Morello played his classic guitar riffs with his mouth and the crowd sang along.  I'm sure that, as a fan, Paul Ryan will enjoy singing along with Zach de la Rocha and Rage Against the Machine while watching this video:


And, in case he's forgotten, here are the lyrics of the final lines of  "Killing in the Name" so Paul can sing along with the crowd and his favorite band at the end of this video:

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me! 

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me! 

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!  Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!   

I've said it before in relation to Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen, but in this case it's even more stunningly perplexing: Don't Republicans realize that songs have words?

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little.

Please just watch Mitt Romney's face in this very short clip from last night's installment of 60 Minutes on CBS. This early joint appearance with Bob Schieffer was mostly fluff, but there was this one priceless moment when a flicker of terror crossed Mitt's face.
Before the next non-Fox appearance, Paul Ryan will receive more than a fashion memo concerning the uniform of the evening.

Paul Ryan's Mouth: "What we're saying is take away the tax shelters that are uniquely enjoyed by people in the top tax brackets, so they can't shelter as much money from taxation, so you can lower tax rates for everybody to make America more competitive."

Mitt Romney's Eyes: "Who's this 'we' you're referencing, Sonny?"

This is the reason that seeing #MittsMissingReturns for more than 2010 and 2011 is important. Which tax loopholes available only to the ultrarich has Mitt Romney been taking advantage of?  Which would he close, if any?  Which would Paul Ryan close?  We can't even start this conversation until we know what the questions are.
Ten to twelve years of Mitt Romney's 1040s should be enough to start, but I'm starting to doubt that we'll even see 2009.  Is it possible that in '09 he realized and reflected losses from the stock market declines of '08?  And if so, is it possible that he paid close to zero taxes in that year?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Catch up with previous installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking below:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4

And keep tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter.

The V.I.P.'s Have Their Team

"EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., July 8, 2012 — A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney. “Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P.”"

I'm only sorry the Veepstakes are over because I won't be able to come up with any more of these installments in the Romney Running-Mate Anagram series (review by clicking on any of these names): Santorum, Ayotte, Pawlenty, Christie, Cheney, Portman, Ryan, Jindal, Daniels, ...

The Winning Anagram Announced by Mitt Romney in Front of a Military Backdrop in Norfolk, Virginia Today Is:

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan = My Ultimate Ayn Rand Porn

"... nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile ..."

Jerry Garcia's smile at the 4'30" mark of this video is the way I'll always remember this man and this band. Here are the Grateful Dead in 1972 playing "He's Gone" and I realized again while watching this that three of these six men are no longer with us, with Jerry Garcia having left us on August 9, 1995.

He's already been gone for 17 years.



Everyone should read what Bob Dylan and Jerry's writing partner Robert Hunter had to say about their friend immediately after his death.

“There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or a player. I don’t think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician, with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He’s the very spirit personified of whatever is Muddy River country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me, he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There’s a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and say Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep” -- Bob Dylan

An Elegy for Jerry 
by Robert Hunter

Jerry, my friend,
you've done it again,
even in your silence
the familiar pressure
comes to bear, demanding
I pull words from the air
with only this morning
and part of the afternoon
to compose an ode worthy
of one so particular
about every turn of phrase,
demanding it hit home
in a thousand ways
before making it his own,
and this I can't do alone.
Now that the singer is gone,
where shall I go for the song? 

Without your melody and taste
to lend an attitude of grace
a lyric is an orphan thing,
a hive with neither honey's taste
nor power to truly sting. 

What choice have I but to dare and
call your muse who thought to rest
out of the thin blue air
that out of the field of shared time,
a line or two might chance to shine -- 

As ever when we called,
in hope if not in words,
the muse descends.

How should she desert us now?
Scars of battle on her brow,
bedraggled feathers on her wings,
and yet she sings, she sings! 

May she bear thee to thy rest,
the ancient bower of flowers
beyond the solitude of days,
the tyranny of hours--
the wreath of shining laurel lie
upon your shaggy head
bestowing power to play the lyre
to legions of the dead

If some part of that music
is heard in deepest dream,
or on some breeze of Summer
a snatch of golden theme,
we'll know you live inside us
with love that never parts
our good old Jack O'Diamonds
become the King of Hearts. 

I feel your silent laughter
at sentiments so bold
that dare to step across the line
to tell what must be told,
so I'll just say I love you,
which I never said before
and let it go at that old friend
the rest you may ignore. 

The services were held, of course,

at St. Stephan's Church, in

Belvedere, California on

August 12, 1995

... and Marvin Wilson was number 245 on Rick Perry's list ...

One of the most unforgettable bloodthirsty audience reactions during last fall and winter's series of Republican primary debates was this one at the Reagan Library on September 7, 2011:

Rick Perry's personal death toll was only 234 eleven months ago when the video up above was recorded. Today he increased his deadly gubernatorial record to 245 with the execution of 54-year-old Marvin Wilson. Another important number? His IQ has been recorded at 61 (Wilson's, not Perry's).

I'm sure there are Teapublicans all around the country cheering again at the thought of one more execution and wishing they had America's deadliest governor as their GOP Presidential nominee today.

The Romney Running-Mate Anagram of the Day

In speaking of Mitt Romney's endless search for the most boring of potential running mates, it seems that we aren't hearing nearly enough about the sleep aid popularly known as "Mitch Daniels".

Romney and Daniels = Darn Anodyne Slime

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Check out the earlier installments in the Romney Running-Mate Anagram series by clicking on any of these names:
Santorum, Ayotte, Pawlenty, Christie, Cheney, Portman, Ryan, Jindal ...