6. Why (and How) Romney Is Playing the Race Card
By Ron Fournier
Working-class whites are already more prosperous and secure than working-class minorities, but they’re less optimistic because they don’t believe they’re climbing anymore. They’re simply trying to hold on to what they’ve got, and see others grabbing at it.
Thanks to Romney, they see minorities grabbing at their way of life every day and all day in the inaccurate welfare ad. It opens with a picture of Bill Clinton (a man obsessed with Macomb County and Reagan Democrats) signing the 1996 welfare-reform act, which shifted the benefits from indefinite government assistance to one pushing people into employment and self-reliance. >> Read More
7. Team Romney Accidentally Publishes Victory Website
By Lara Seligman
Mitt Romney suffered a sound defeat but you’d never know it from his campaign’s victory website, briefly published by mistake on election night.
Political Wire’s Taegan Goddard captured screenshots of the transition website, which was taken down by Thursday morning. The website featured biographies of Romney and his vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, as well as pages dedicated to “The Inauguration” and to “Join the Administration.” >> Read More
8. Generational Warfare: The Case Against Parasitic Baby Boomers
By Jim Tankersley
I love my dad fiercely, even though he’s beaten me in every argument we’ve ever had except two, and even though he is, statistically and generationally speaking, a parasite.
This is the charge I’ve leveled against him on a summer day in our Pacific Northwest vision of paradise. I have asked my favorite attorney to represent a very troublesome client, the entire baby-boom generation, in what should be a slam-dunk trial—for me. On behalf of future generations, I am accusing him and all the other parasites his age of breaking the sacred bargain that every American generation will pass a better country on to its children than the one it inherited. >> Read More
9. Divided We Stand
By John Aloysius Farrell
The House and the Senate are in a state of near-paralysis over the country’s finances. Even conservatives—who generally embrace Thoreau’s maxim that the government that governs best governs least—show signs of fear and alarm about the government’s inability to get things done.
The United States has an aging population that is depending on underfunded federal health and pension programs during a time of sluggish economic growth, unrelenting international challenges, soaring debt, and pertinacious division.
The 2011 National Journal voting ratings offer little cause for optimism. Polarization remains endemic. Lawmakers march in lockstep with their party. Heretics are purged. >> Read More
10. Erupting Urinal Soaks House Press Gallery
By Billy House
A big splash occurred on Monday morning [June 4, 2012] at the House Press Gallery in the U.S. Capitol.
No, this wasn’t one of those unexpected guest appearances for celebrities to talk to reporters about some favorite cause.
This splash came from an exploding urinal. More specifically, something suddenly broke in the piping of the third-floor urinal, and water began spewing from beneath the men’s room door. >> Read More
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