So remember when Mitt Romney produced his super secret, 14 year old audio recording of then State Senator Barack Obama announcing that he supported some wealth re-distribution with the aim of giving everyone a “fair shot?” The audio tape pretty much hit the ground with a dull thud. After all, Obama wasn’t really saying anything more radical than that he supported such things as public education, pre-natal care, garbage collection, police and firefighters (all tax funded programs which are, by definition, possible only thanks to income re-distribution).

Well, it turns out that another politician has an old audio tape floating around, and that man is a fella by the name of Paul Ryan. Only this tape is not quite as old. It’s from 2005, and it was delivered to a gathering of Ayn Rand followers. And if you suspect that Ryan’s not quite so hot on income-redistribution you’d be right. Listen in rapt wonder as Ryan explains that Social Security is “a collectivist system, a welfare transfer system” and issues a thinly veiled call for the program’s privatization: Read more »

Breaking News: It would appear that Gay rights are Human Rights after all! Recent reports seem to indicate that gay rights activists’ boycotts of Chick Fil-A restaurants, as well as pressure from individual lawmakers, may have produced their desired result. The restaurant chain, known mostly for its Southern fried chicken sandwiches (and creepy cow mascot) and more recently for funding groups that would deny Gay Americans the same rights as their straight counterparts, has apparently come to the decision that it will no longer fund  organizations that oppose marriage equality. ABC News reports:

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You really can’t make this up. Faced with polls showing that the individual elements of Barack Obama’s health care reform plan are still quite popular (indeed, moreso than the plan as a whole), GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act (AKA: Obamacare) on “day one” of his presidency, has gone on record endorsing the crucial centerpiece of the plan. The New York Times reports:

The remarks, made in an interview on the NBC News program “Meet The Press,” seemed to mark the emergence of a less openly partisan, more general-election-oriented Republican nominee…

When the show’s host, David Gregory, asked Mr. Romney what elements of Mr. Obama’s health care program he would maintain, Mr. Romney said he would still require that insurance companies cover those with pre-existing conditions, just as the president’s law has.

“I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Mr. Romney said, while emphasizing that he planned to replace the president’s plan with his own. “There are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.” Read more »

Stuff you’ll read in the Washington Times Obituary for the Reverend Sun Myung Moon that you will not read in the Washington Post obit:

In addition to leading the worldwide religious movement he founded in South Korea in 1954, Rev. Moon supported anti-communist causes during the Cold War, promoted international and interfaith peace activities, and strongly advocated a pro-marriage, pro-family culture.
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Half-baked, half-term Alaska Governor and reality TV show star Sarah Palin, who, with her intellectual co-equal, George W. Bush, is one of the two people most responsible for the election of Barack Obama in 2008, will not be speaking at this year’s Republican national Convention and has issued the following statement to Fox News personality and BFF, Grettan Ven Susteren:

Everything I said at the 2008 convention about then-candidate Obama still stands today, and in fact the predictions made about the very unqualified and inexperienced Community Organizer’s plans to “fundamentally transform” our country are unfortunately coming true. This year is a good opportunity for other voices to speak at the convention and I’m excited to hear them. As I’ve repeatedly said, I support Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in their efforts to replace President Obama at the ballot box, and I intend to focus on grassroots efforts to rally Independents and the GOP base to elect Senate and House members so a wise Congress is ready to work with our new President to get our country back on the right path.

And with those words signalling her intention to exit the center spotlight of a political party that has been strugggling to extrictate itself from under the crushing weight of her out-sized ego and vapid, vulgar, intellectually incurious persona, Sarah Palin drops off the political map to spend more time with her dysfunctional family.

So long Sarah, I’d like to say we’re going to miss you, but all the Stockholm Syndrome fairy dust in the universe wouldn’t begint to make that statement true.

The Huffington Post Reports:

WASHINGTON — Presumptive vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan said on Sunday that while he turned over “several years” of tax returns to the Romney campaign during his vetting process, he would only make two years of tax returns public for voters.

The Wisconsin Republican, appearing alongside Romney on “60 Minutes” for their first joint media interview, seemed poised and assured throughout the 15-minute segment. When pressed with a question about tax returns — a topic that has dogged Romney — Ryan had a ready answer.

“It was a very exhaustive vetting process,” he told CBS’s Bob Schiefer. “It is a confidential vetting process. So there were several years. But I’m going to release the same amount of years that Governor Romney has. But I got to tell you Bob — two, I’m going to be releasing two, which is what he’s releasing -– what I hear from people around this country, they are not asking, ‘Where are the tax returns,’ they are asking where the jobs are? Where is the economic growth?”

So John McCain has seen a decade’s worth of Romney’s tax returns, because it was essential to vetting him for a potential VP slot, but We The People don’t get to, even though we’re supposedly vetting him for the presidency? And likewise, Romney demanded that Ryan provide him with “several years” (3, 5, 10?) of tax returns, because it was essential to vetting him for the VP slot, but We The People have to make do with two cherry picked years from each of them?

The only thing one can conclude from this is: there’s politically tone deaf, there’s just plain deaf, and then there’s Mitt Romney.

“We discourage people from walking over hot coals,” San Jose Fire Department Capt. Reggie Williams told the San Jose Mercury-News, after more than 20 people had to go to the hospital with second and third-degree burns during a Tony Robbins event.

[Merc: 21 People Treated for Burns After Firewalk]