The Colbert Report: Ex-Gay Therapy Debate

Therapy aimed at turning gay kids straight can cause depression and suicide, but outlawing it would require America to sit back and let people be gay.

The Colbert Report: Jim DeMint’s Resignation

Tea Party icon Jim DeMint announces his resignation from the Senate, but which handsome young conservative will South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley appoint to replace him?

The Daily Show: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Best of Times

Bill O’Reilly celebrates America’s greatest tradition — a fevered ruling class lamenting the rise of a diverse new class that will destroy the American experiment.

The Colbert Report: General’s Hospital

David Petraeus’ affair is all anybody in Washington can talk about, which might be why the country is in financial ruin.

The Daily Show – Fox News Meltdown

The party of personal responsibility blames the mainstream media, Hurricane Sandy and the Obama smear machine for Mitt Romney’s loss.

In a Democracy You Get the Government You Deserve…

The Self-Sufficiency of States?

Chattanooga Times Free Press: Clay Bennett Cartoons – Power Restored

Americans like to complain about and question the role of government. However, when disaster strikes, Americans, who once scoffed at the idea of federal services, are typically the very people demanding federal assistance from government agencies like FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, works together with state and local emergency management officials to coordinate governmental responses to disasters that overwhelm the resources of local and state authorities in the United States. In the immediate aftermath of a disaster, FEMA can provide food, water, shelter and medical assistance for disaster victims as well as longer-term recovery assistance through low-interest loans to businesses and homeowners. FEMA has been involved in recovery efforts following natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires, and following man-made disasters, such as the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 and the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Nevertheless, half the country truly believes the government, specifically the federal government, is never the solution and always the problem. Yet, they were silent during the explosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, the September 11th terrorist attacks, the destruction caused by hurricanes Katrina, Irene, Issac, and now the inevitable devastation of hurricane Sandy. Moreover, the governor of any state impacted by a disaster will only receive assistance if they, not the federal governement, first declare a state of emergency and formally request from the president that FEMA and the federal government respond to the disaster. Not surprisingly, all governors representing states impacted by the aforementioned hurricanes jumped at the opportunity for federal assistance despite the fact that some have openly questioned the purpose and function of such services in the past.

The above Clay Bennett political cartoon raises serious questions concerning the function of government and federal services. Is government the solution or the problem? Is there any state in the union that is truly self-sufficient?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

Related articles

• Obama to visit FEMA headquarters Sunday: Hurricane Sandy briefing (blogs.suntimes.com)
• Romney Has Said He Wants To Privatize Disaster Relief Because The Debt It Creates Is “Immoral” (alan.com)
• Mitt Romney voices stronger support for FEMA (boston.com)

A Party in the Electorate

voting day in a small town (Photo credit: Muffet)

In the final days before an election candidates and their campaigns ramp up their ground operations to mobilize the party-in-the-electorate—the great mass of party faithful, occasional, and cross-over supporters that can lead to electoral victory.  The term party-in-the-electorate is most often used to refer to the base of a political party; likely voters who have time and time again come out to vote for party candidates.  They are the dependable votes that a candidate must turnout on the day of the election, and they are the foundation that must be built upon by the addition of party-leaning and cross-over voters.  As the election nears, candidates will barnstorm as many states, town halls, diners, and stadiums as they possibly can.  Candidate voices will fade and crack and their messages will become more strident, often times revealing the real uncertainty in their voices.

The secret to the presidential election of 2012 will not be determined by the swing of undecided voters as they make their votes, as many pundits have restated and restated over and over again for months now.  Rather, the election of 2012, like most elections before it, will in fact be determined by the turnout of the party-in-the-electorate.  If democrats turn out in sufficient numbers in states like Ohio, Virginia, and even Florida, President Obama will only have to add a respectable number of undecided voters in those states to win an electoral landslide.  In the days after the election pundits will talk about the role of the “undecided” voter in the election, but the final words will eventually turn to women, Hispanics, African Americans, young people, blue-collar white voters and how heavily they showed up in the polls.  If the democratic base stays home Mitt Romney wins—period.  Do your own analysis in the days and weeks ahead.  Watch the news, follow the polls.  The position I have staked out in this blog will be easily tested, and I welcome it.

–DENNIS FALCON

Related articles

• Missing From CNN’s Debate Focus Group: Latinos (crooksandliars.com)
• The Colbert Report examines the undecided voter (VIDEO) (washingtonpost.com)
• You Really Wanna Know Who The Undecided Voter Is? (nyulocal.com)

The Party of Archie Bunker

Publicity photo from the television program All in the Family. Pictured are Carroll O’Connor (Archie Bunker) and Michael Evans (Lionel Jefferson). In this episode, Archie visits a local blood bank to donate and meets his neighbor, Lionel Jefferson, who is also there to donate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Archie Bunker is a fictional character played by Carroll O’Connor in a popular 1970s series All in the Family.  Despite being depicted as a hardworking family man, Bunker was also an assertively prejudiced blue-collar worker famous for his condescending and bigoted persona against feminists, communists, hippies, homosexuals, Jews, Catholics, immigrants, and all ethnic minorities. Archie got away with his prejudice demeanor because he personified the attitude of many of his generation at the time. Namely White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) male.

Based on the current republican platform (party platform is a list of socially relevant, urgent, controversial, or complicated topics or issues supported by a particular political party) and statements concerning public policy from prominent republicans, the current perception of the GOP does not match the party of Eisenhower, Goldwater or even Ronald Reagan. Official statements concerning legitimate rape, self-deportation of immigrants, that Obama supporters are all welfare recipients dependent on government and lack personal responsibility, not to mention the idea that today’s Russia is no different than yesterdays Soviet Union , have collectively revealed the Republican Party to be the party of Archie Bunker.

If that is the case, does that mean the Democratic Party is the party of George Jefferson? More importantly, what can Governor Mitt Romney, as the republican nominee for president, do to change this perception of the GOP?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

Related articles

• Archie Bunker on gun control (surfer53.wordpress.com)
• Archie Bunker, Diversity Champion (cpanow.picpa.org)

The Colbert Report Mitt Romney’s Debate Rhetoric & Body Language

Mitt Romney distances himself from everything he said on the campaign trail, but his confident facial expressions are what really mattered.