Fired up! Ready to Go!

President Obama Tells the Story of "Fired Up! Ready to Go!" at His Final Rally

Published on Nov 5, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom
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Mayor Bloomberg's Endorsement

Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change    
By Michael R. Bloomberg - Nov 1, 2012

The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast -- in lost lives, lost homes and lost business -- brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief.

The floods and fires that swept through our city left a path of destruction that will require years of recovery and rebuilding work. And in the short term, our subway system remains partially shut down, and many city residents and businesses still have no power. In just 14 months, two hurricanes have forced us to evacuate neighborhoods -- something our city government had never done before. If this is a trend, it is simply not sustainable.

Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be -- given this week’s devastation -- should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.

Here in New York, our comprehensive sustainability plan -- PlaNYC -- has helped allow us to cut our carbon footprint by 16 percent in just five years, which is the equivalent of eliminating the carbon footprint of a city twice the size of Seattle. Through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group -- a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities -- local governments are taking action where national governments are not.

Leadership Needed

But we can’t do it alone. We need leadership from the White House -- and over the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. His administration also has adopted tighter controls on mercury emissions, which will help to close the dirtiest coal power plants (an effort I have supported through my philanthropy), which are estimated to kill 13,000 Americans a year.

Mitt Romney, too, has a history of tackling climate change. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed on to a regional cap- and-trade plan designed to reduce carbon emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels. “The benefits (of that plan) will be long- lasting and enormous -- benefits to our health, our economy, our quality of life, our very landscape. These are actions we can and must take now, if we are to have ‘no regrets’ when we transfer our temporary stewardship of this Earth to the next generation,” he wrote at the time.

He couldn’t have been more right. But since then, he has reversed course, abandoning the very cap-and-trade program he once supported. This issue is too important. We need determined leadership at the national level to move the nation and the world forward.

I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.

If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing.

In 2008, Obama ran as a pragmatic problem-solver and consensus-builder. But as president, he devoted little time and effort to developing and sustaining a coalition of centrists, which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction. And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it.

Important Victories

Nevertheless, the president has achieved some important victories on issues that will help define our future. His Race to the Top education program -- much of which was opposed by the teachers’ unions, a traditional Democratic Party constituency -- has helped drive badly needed reform across the country, giving local districts leverage to strengthen accountability in the classroom and expand charter schools. His health-care law -- for all its flaws -- will provide insurance coverage to people who need it most and save lives.

When I step into the voting booth, I think about the world I want to leave my two daughters, and the values that are required to guide us there. The two parties’ nominees for president offer different visions of where they want to lead America.

One believes a woman’s right to choose should be protected for future generations; one does not. That difference, given the likelihood of Supreme Court vacancies, weighs heavily on my decision.

One recognizes marriage equality as consistent with America’s march of freedom; one does not. I want our president to be on the right side of history.

One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics.

Of course, neither candidate has specified what hard decisions he will make to get our economy back on track while also balancing the budget. But in the end, what matters most isn’t the shape of any particular proposal; it’s the work that must be done to bring members of Congress together to achieve bipartisan solutions.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that’s why I will be voting for him.

(Michael R. Bloomberg is mayor of New York and founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.)

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.

Can't we at least shuffle the shills?

Caught in the gooey interstices between "Breaking Amish" and "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" of USAmerican politics, I miss Tim Russert.  No offense to his talented son, Luke, but he doesn't have that rabid fervor and love of the noble sport, the process, and the people, that terrifying electorate.  The image of Tim and his white board is burned into my brain.  Please note that I almost refrained from saying anything about David Gregory.

Can't we at least shuffle the shills?  Less one-note angry shills, who tend to be old, ugly, and white, and more one-note, young, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, weird-haired, dogma-grunt, techWow shills.  Rah!

If you live in the States, I know you are going to vote, if you have not already, out of pure frustration.  Yes, it IS true -- if you vote early, the election nonsense will end that much earlier!  If you vote early *and* often, the Nobel committee will put you on the short list of your choice.  Also, as Joe Biden pointed out on Letterman last night, "If you vote early, you don't have to pay taxes."  Some of the other "Top Ten Reasons to Vote Early":

• "I'm not saying each early voter gets a free cheeseburger, but I'm not saying they don't, either."
• "Single and looking to mingle? Find that special someone on the early voting line."
• "Early voters will receive a $5 million donation from Donald Trump."

Does it not SUCK that it took this freak storm for "climate change" and "global warming" to be mentioned, and then mostly by the mayor of New York City, and not the candidates?  Does it not scare the freaking SHIT out of you to discover the distinct anti-science bias among the far right, the baggers?  How many women are now on an aspirin regimen for contraception?  According to the rotting planks of the Republican platform, in-vitro fertilization is a no-no that produces unacceptable bay-bees, but legitimate rape makes for fine, fat, God-adored little young ones, with mothers primed for a lifetime of selfless, penniless love.

It's not that I'm in lust with the only other viable party -- the Democrats.  The politicians I have long respected for having the courage of their convictions, for making being a pol real service to the populace... all seem to be dying.  Literally.

And yet, the oozing, stinky refuse of toxic algae lives on, doing the Horizontal Slinky Slime.  Happy belated birthday to Grover Glenn Norquist.  May the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose.  I mean -- and I know you've either read this already or heard it read to you, but what's one more reminder of the unsettling mindset? -- just look at this crap:

All we have to do is replace Obama. ...  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. 

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

Little Jimmy Dickens - May The Bird Of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose
Uploaded by Memories64 on Aug 28, 2010

The Republican Debate: "An exchange reminiscent of Abbott and Costello's Who's on First routine"

GOP debate: Mitt Romney grows foggy on contraception

By Robin Abcarian
January 7, 2012, 7:25 p.m.

It was an exchange reminiscent of Abbott and Costello’s famous Who’s on First routine. George Stephanopoulos repeatedly asked Mitt Romney about whether he thinks that states have the right to ban contraception, and Romney repeatedly replied that he had no idea why Stephanopoulos would ask such a question.

In fact, Stephanopoulos was prodding Romney about whether he believes there is a constitutional right to privacy as the U.S. Supreme Court has found in two landmark cases, 1973’s Roe vs. Wade, and 1965’s Griswold vs. Connecticut , which found that states do not have the right to ban contraception. In that case, the court cited a right to “marital privacy.”

In recent days, Rick Santorum has raised Griswold on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. He believes Griswold and Roe were incorrectly decided by the Supreme Court because, in his view, the Constitution does not contain a privacy right.

But when Stephanopoulos asked Romney about this issue, Romney seemed to have absolutely no idea what he was talking about.

“George, this is an unusual topic that you’re raising,” Romney said. “States have the right to ban contraception? I can’t imagine that states would want to ban contraception. If I were a governor or a legislator in a state, I would totally oppose any effort to ban contraception. So you’re asking -- given the fact that there’s no state that wants to do so -- you are asking could it constitutionally be done? We could we could ask our constitutionalist here,” said Romney, gesturing to Ron Paul. The audience erupted in laughter and applause.

Stephanopoulos could not be dissuaded from pursuing his question.

“I am asking you, do you believe states have that right or not?”

Romney seemed perplexed, and annoyed: “George, I don’t know whether the state has the right to ban contraception. No state wants to. The idea of you putting forward things that states might want to do that no state wants to do is kind of a silly thing, I think.”

At that point, as the audience applauded, things got a little strained.

[Read the rest of Abcarian's article HERE]

groggy and unwashed

look up groggy and unwashed in the dictionary and i'm the illustration.  my last cogent memory of anything done intentionally dates from early this morning, and even then, was incomplete.

staring at the computer screen (as it sucks my brains out through my eyes), i began ogling an article about the discovery of a shark hybrid species off the coast of australia.  i suppose the article might have situated the shocking news inland -- one of the more likely spots being the yeperenye shopping centre in alice springs, home of the rusty zipper (formerly bruce deans menswear), premier source of fancy dress.for the discerning shark.

right.  so i pay attention to stuff like this, because i am fascinated by the idea of actually knowing when and how something may be in the midst of evolution.  is that just not so totally awesomely cool, as notions go? i figure that the human evolutionary process, at least in the strict biological sense, will not be revealed to us, you know, because the intelligent designer is too intelligent for such shenanigans.  it just would be teleologically uncool.

although, and bear with me here, we may have glimpses of the subtle metamorphoses -- our teeny-weensy shape shifts -- in quantifiable moments such as the iowa caucuses.  i am pretty sure that years of inbreeding and one major clusterfuck of an all-nighter with an overly friendly "domesticated" species have resulted in our own little bit of hybridization. and just as the hybrid black-tip now hunts outside the limits of its previous incarnation, its realm of influence perversely expanded from tropical to more temperate waters, these freaking tea baggers are worming their way into the mainstream.  did i write that out loud?  anyway, theories have been  proposed, under the table (under *my* table, anyway), involving survival enhancements such as the repurposing of various facial muscles involved in the complicated act of sincerely smiling -- most notably the orbicularis oris and the platysma, the one diverted from "the playing of all brass instruments and some woodwind instruments," the other from "the expression of melancholy" (grimacing).  markedly republican budgets and educational policy have seen to the essential demise of most school music programs, and the grimace is antithetical to righteousness-based politicking. the main reason these intimations of evolutionary shift  have only recently come to light -- beyond the paucity of opportunities for vivisection -- is that the contribution of alien dna seems to be limited to behavioral modifications.

right.  so.  here's the intro to AFP's amy coopes' article on the world's first hybrid shark.  i'm thinking of a nap, though if i don't shower soon, fred is going to be moving out.  it's just one dilemma after another around here, where there are no evolutionary improvements in sight.  i wonder what's happening in iowa.*

Scientists said on Tuesday that they had discovered the world's first hybrid sharks in Australian waters, a potential sign the predators were adapting to cope with climate change.


The mating of the local Australian black-tip shark with its global counterpart, the common black-tip, was an unprecedented discovery with implications for the entire shark world, said lead researcher Jess Morgan.


"It's very surprising because no one's ever seen shark hybrids before, this is not a common occurrence by any stretch of the imagination," Morgan, from the University of Queensland, told AFP.


"This is evolution in action." [Read the rest of the article HERE]

AFP Photo/Pascal Geraghty

* i managed to scope out the news with what was left of my computer-drained central vision.  it's 11 pm and the folks in middle america deem santorum and romney to be about equally worthy.  the word is that they are separated by some ridiculous amount -- like 75 votes.  ron paul is cruising at third, a few percentage points behind, and newt is fourth, perry fifth.  i think bachmann is trouncing huntsman.  i'm not sure, though.  those wacky iowans!