Let's-go Oak-land. Right field bleacher diehards wave their flags. Today, the A's start a four game series with the Yankees as they have won 10 out of their last 12 and the people around here are muttering "playoffs". Now, don't hold your breath on that because the A's have ZERO offense, but stranger things have happened...
Back to the real(?) world:
How bad will the propaganda get? Really bad. It's only July, and the Romney team is altering reality to make attack ads. Regarding the "you didn't build it" campaign of deception that's starting now: "However, there is no question that this edit is highly misleading. It deliberately removes multiple sentences about the broader theme of Obama’s speech that preceeded the 'you didn’t build that' quote in order to deprive it of its actual meaning as Obama plainly intended that. And it creates the false impression of a seamless transition from the first sentences about successful business people into the key line about them — a recontextualization that turns it into a direct insult." Mitt Romney, pathological liar. And if the MSM doesn't call this sort of thing out with investigation and revulsion, look for it to continue. And get worse.
Cognitive dissonance in polling. From the NYT/CBS poll yesterday, check out the disconnect here - Romney leads Obama on "jobs and the economy", 49-41. But when it comes to whose policies will "help the middle class", it's Obama 52-38. And you can't tell me the electorate is discerning enough to note the nuance between the two - but I can believe it is all in the wording of the question.
Bain was started with foreign investors using tax-sheltered money from shell companies in Panama. Shocked not.
Obama is doing what the Democrats should have been doing all along - building a network in the red states. From the Boston Globe: "The chances are exceedingly slim that such efforts will flip a state like Alabama into the blue column come Election Day. But the work here is part of a longer term “50-state strategy” put in motion by the Democratic Party last decade. The objective is to build the party apparatus in states that have been traditionally Republican and make them eventually winnable for Democrats." Duh.
The sequester deal is going to take a huge bite out of domestic programs - far more than it will hit defense spending. Politico: "Among those cuts: the elimination of 2,300 National Institutes of Health research grants; nearly 100,000 children losing Head Start services; and no more child care assistance for 80,000 kids. Not to mention 12,150 fewer patients with access to AIDS Drug Assistance Program benefits and 169,000 people who would not get access to substance-abuse treatment programs." The consequences of kicking the can down the road will fall on the most vulnerable. Again.
And those House Republicans who were all about "cutting spending?" Seems they got a case of cold feet, and now they want the President take the fall for it and lay out his details. No dice.
The House is also back on the "drill, baby, drill" kick, insisting that we open up more coastal areas to leases that will shore up the oil companies' bottom line (leases are counted as assets) and use to play on the market. Nothing like using our natural resources to reap those on-paper-only profits.
I run across a lot of bizarre stories in my travels, but this one made me stop and laugh: What in the world could anyone want with 550 David Hasselhoff stand-up cardboard displays? Can't see them fetching a big price on e-Bay or anything. Or can they?
Off to enjoy more of life's great mysteries...