Slate Magazine: Mitt Romney- 'Binders Full of Women Meme to Take Over The World'

Source:Slate Magazine- binders full of Hilary?

Source:The Daily Press

"The most substantive moments of last night's presidential debate may have been President Obama and Mitt Romney's heated exchanges over Libya and energy policy. But the Internet has its own favorite: Romney's pronouncement that he was given "binders full of women" to fill jobs in his cabinet when he was governor of Massachusetts. That came in response to a question about the glass ceiling and gender bias in pay.   

Before the debate even ended, a meme had sprouted on social media. Within minutes, a Tumblr account appeared, with crowd-sourced parody images that included Hillary Clinton, an '80s teen idol, and Beyoncé. By this morning, the Facebook community "Binders Full of Women" had more than 250,000 members.

In a debate full of curious phrasing, why did Romney's binders comment stand out? Slate's Amanda Marcotte wrote that the inelegant phrase resonated because it underlined Romney's "utter unwillingness to address the true causes of inequality."  

From Slate Magazine 

Is Mitt Romney capable of getting through an appearance, debate or otherwise, without making a gaffe? Or maybe these so-called gaffes aren’t gaffes and he actually believes in this, let's say garbage and it just slipped out. Does Mitt even at this point where he’s clearly trailing in big Republican states like Florida, Virginia and Ohio (where he needs to win at least two of those states in order to win the presidency) even want to be president? Or is he writing a new book, perhaps political manual on how not to run for president if you want to win. The title of the book actually being: “Mitt Romney’s: How Not to Run For President.” Maybe he’s hoping he can get Congress even with a Democratic Senate in it, to repeal the 19th Amendment that guarantees all American women the right to vote. And with that he wouldn’t have to bother campaigning for female voters.

I imagine when it comes to life in general and in business, Mitt Romney is a tall, handsome, young-looking (for a Baby Boomer) intelligent, good man. But when it comes to politics, he must have slept in when God was handing out political brains. I haven’t seen a national politician this weak when it comes to appealing to average voters since George H.W. Bush in 1992. When he didn’t know the price of milk and his own Vice President miss spells potato. And this is probably because President Bush hadn’t been to a grocery store and bought his own groceries in over twenty-years at that point. 

If I’m a woman (and no I’m not looking for a sex change) am I supposed to feel good about Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women”? Or should I take that as a guy who probably watches too much Cinemax late at night, because he can’t sleep, because from all the coffee he drinks on the campaign trail?

As a presidential candidate, Mitt Romney is a gunslinger who always has his gun pointed at his feet and forgets turn the safety off. I don’t know how the man walks around anymore having shot off so many of his own toes. He barely beats a man who wants to take America back to 1955 in a national time machine where women weren’t supposed to work and perhaps even vote. Where gays were locked in prison cells and mental institutions, as well as closets. That being Rick Santorum of course and is now running against a President who struggles to hit fifty-percent when it comes to his own popularity. With high unemployment and weak economic growth. 

Mitt finds himself trailing in several big Republican states that he has to win, to a President who struggles to get to 50% approval. I mean is Mitt Romney really all the Republican Party has to offer for president? And is this the best they have? 

National Geographic: Prison Nation

Source:National Geographic- Prison Nation.

"With gangs and violence running our prisons, are inmates even more dangerous when they are released?" 

From National Geographic

Most prison departments in America (Federal & State) are called something like the Department of Corrections or the Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation. I'm all for punishing convicted felons in America in prison. The number one job that any prison has is to punish convicted felons, especially violent felons, and violent felons that represent serious threats to any free society and are serving long-term sentences. But that punishment should only start at taking their freedom away. 

Once someone is in prison, how they serve their sentence and spend their time, should be completely up to them. They get with the program, follow the rules, their prison sentence should be productive and if anything beneficial, even if they're serving life without any possibility of parole, because they would have the opportunity to give back to society, even while in prison. 

But if prison inmates don't get with the program and just try to continue their criminal careers while behind bars, those are the inmates that the prison has to come down hard on. At that point, it's no longer just about taking their freedom away from society. But you need to take their freedom away in prison as well, so the staff can be as safe as possible, but the inmates as well who just want to serve their sentences so they can get out and not come back to prison. 

2/3 of all prion inmates are not just released, but end up back in prison. Which again gets to my original point about the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. You want less crime on the streets, let's have fewer inmates who break the law not just while inside, but in society once they're free from prison. Which is why we have to have things like education, counseling, job training, and real work for prison inmates where they can even make real money legitimately while in prison, so they have the skills that they need to live in a free society and be productive and not have to break the law to support themselves and end up back in prison at taxpayer expense.

Associated Press: University of Texas President- 'Diversity Benefits Us All'

Source:Associated Press- The President of the University of Texas, speaking about the decision.

"Supreme Court justices questioned the University of Texas' use of race in admissions in a case that could lead to new limits on affirmative action. The plaintiff in the case, Abigail Fisher, and the university's president spoke to reporters. (Oct. 10)"

From Associated Press

To me affirmative action is about equal protection under the law. Which is a core part of our Constitution. That all Americans regardless of race, ethnicity or gender, are entitled to the same protections under the law. Meaning that people in this country can't be denied access or rights because of their race, ethnicity or gender, that we can't be denied a job, housing or college, because of our race, ethnicity or gender, meaning the public or private sector. That no one regardless of race, ethnicity or gender can be turned down from these things, because of their race, ethnicity or gender.

Which gets into  my problem with affirmative action: if affirmative action was solely about recruitment, making sure that all Americans, especially people who come from underdeveloped backgrounds, in other words grew up in poverty and we as a society were going to reach out to these people, to let them know the benefits of getting a good education and a good job and so-forth, then I would not only have a problem with it, but I would also be in favor of it. But thats not what affirmative action is about.

The other part of affirmative action, is literally denying people an education or a job, because of their race, that there are too many of a certain race of people here and they can't accept anymore of that race at this time. Even if you are more qualified for the spot than the person or people we are considering for it right now. And to me as a non-lawyer that strikes me as unconstitutional on its face.

ABC News: Nightline- Bill Weir: 'Melrose Place Cast Reunion'

Source:ABC News- the cast of Fox's Melrose Place.

Source:The Daily Press

"Amanda, Kimberly and Billy, the stars of the hit '90s TV drama, discuss their favorite moments."

From ABC News 

I only caught the last couple seasons of Melrose Place, because at first I thought the writing was kinda cheesy. And I’m not a big fan of soap operas to begin with, but I was flipping around one Monday night, in I believe 1997, looking for something to watch before Monday Night Football. Which at that point I watched every Monday night and I caught a little of Melrose Place and I figured what the hell, I would watch a little of this before the game.

And I couldn’t stop laughing, it was a very funny show with people constantly screwing over other people and doing it in such a casual way and the writing of it was actually pretty good.

I’m not a soap opera expert obviously, but I think a good soap opera has all the selfishness and people screwing others with very little fear about the consequences for themselves or the people they are screwing. As well as the crazy lives that only people in Hollywood could live and write into a script.

But a good soap opera has great writing, very funny writing and very funny people in it. Which is why I’m actually a late, but definite fan of General Hospital, because that show essentially has a cast for comedians or comedic actors. Who are also great actors and combine both roles very well. People who improvise and with writers who give them great lines.

ABC News: ‘Lee Harvey Oswald Has Been Shot (1963)’

Source:The Guardian- the day that Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby in Dallas, in 1963.

Source:The Daily Press

“James R Leavelle, the detective who was handcuffed to Lee Harvey Oswald when the killer of John F Kennedy was in turn shot dead by Jack Ruby, has died. He was 99.

Lee Harvey Oswald is shot by Jack Ruby in a corridor of Dallas police headquarters.

JFK files reveal FBI warning on Oswald and Soviets’ missile fears

Read more

Leavelle’s daughter, Karla Leavelle, confirmed her father’s death to the New York Times.

Kennedy was shot dead on 22 November 1963, as he passed through Dallas.

Reporting for the Guardian, Alistair Cooke wrote: “The motorcade was going along slowly but smoothly when three muffled shots, which the crowd first mistook for fireworks, cracked through the cheers. One hit the shoulder blade and the wrist of Governor [John] Connally [of Texas] who was taken with the president to the hospital, where his condition is serious.

“The other brought blood trickling from the temple of the sitting president. His right arm flopped from a high wave of greeting and he collapsed into the arms of Mrs Kennedy, who fell unharmed. She was heard to cry ‘Oh no’ and sat there all the way cradling his head in her lap.”

Kennedy was declared dead at Parkland Hospital.”

From The Guardian 

“LEE HARVEY OSWALD HAS BEEN SHOT! (WFAA-TV COVERAGE)”

Source:David Von Pein- WFFA-TV News in Dallas, bringing ABC News’s coverage of Lee Harvey Oswald being transferred from Dallas city jail, to county jail in 1963.

From David Von Pein

A crazy month November, 1963: First the President of the United States, Jack Kennedy is assassinated, the National Football League suspends its games the following week, and then the man who assassinated President Kennedy, is killed himself.

November, 1963 sort of looked like the world was coming undone and perhaps the last time that president’s were allowed to be that open and vulnerable in public. And that security was even tightened for people suspected of killing high-profile people whether they are politicians, or other celebrities.

Great books and documentaries have been made about these stories and the Federal Government thought they figured out how to deal with people who are so intent on assassinating politicians. But they let someone slip through in 1981, when John Hinkley was almost successful in murdering President Reagan, when the President was leaving a hotel at the Mayflower in Washington. All of these events have made the American presidency less public and more closed to the American people.

A lot of people, columnists like George Will and others say and believe that the 1963 JFK Assassination was the end of the 1950s. And that assassination brought in the radicalization of the 1960s. And brought in a fairly violent decade. I and others would argue that a lot of that radicalism was necessary at least as it had to do the with civil rights movement and then later the anti-Vietnam War movement.

A lot of people were simply murdered in the 1960s that no one except for perhaps the haters of those murder victims see as positive things, like President Kennedy, Dr. Martin L. King and later Senator Robert F. Kennedy. 

Associated Press: 'Raw: Voters Go to the Polls in Venezuela'

Source:Associated Press- I guess you could call this democracy in action in Venezuela.

"Pres. Hugo Chavez's crusade to transform Venezuela into a socialist state is being put to the stiffest electoral test of his nearly 14 years in power. Voters started lining up hours before dawn to cast their ballots in the presidential election."

From the Associated Press

Chavez socialism may be headed out of power in Venezuela and they become a real democratic republic, With power less centralized.

Associated Press: Mark Hamrick: 'US Jobless Rate Falls to 7.8 Pct., 44-month Low'

Source:Associated Press- Mark Hamrick with this report.

"The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years." 

From the Associated Press

When you are running for reelection as President of the United States, whether the economy is solid, or struggling (and in this case struggling) it's the trends in the economy that you need to be looking at. As well as who gets better ratings on the economy according to the voters: you or your opponent. 

You would think in a normal election, 2012 would be similar to let's say 1992 for the Democrats or 1980 for the Republicans, where the opposition party looks not only to win back The White House, but do it in a blowout and win a landslide in Congress as well. But the fact is Republican nominee Mitt Romney is still losing the polls both in the popular vote and in the Electoral College as well. And Senate Democrats seemed poised to at least hold the Senate in 2012 and pick up seats in the House. Why? Because the economy has been growing steadily in 2012 both in growth at 2% and jobs created as at around 200,000 a month. 

President Obama gets better ratings on the economy than Governor Romney, according to the voters. So if you are the Obama Campaign right now, the trend lines look good for you as far as reelection.