You know how sometimes when you've almost arrived home in your car, a great song will come on the radio and so rather than turn into your drive, you continue straight and then weave around nearby streets for about four minutes until it ends? That happened to me tonight when I was motoring up the boulevard and "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire cued up on KIOA. I turned off into my Sherman Hill neighborhood, the oldest in the city (est. 1870's), and found myself smack dab in the middle of a charming little Halloween block party.
Sherman Hill is marvelously underlit year-round by these old fashioned street lights patterned after the neighborhood's original gas-powered lamps, and I found myself unexpectedly staring at the frightening specter of Dr. Frankenstein's monster through the low-beams of my headlights. The first person protagonist of Mary Shelley's literary nightmare was moving slowly across my pathway ahead, carrying a heavy chain, standing seriously about eight feet tall (somehow), and existing rather lucky that I didn't ram him with the front grille of the Civic by sheer accident.
As I slowed down to pass, the ghastly ogre peered into my passenger side window, slowly waving the irons from which he had evidently just freed himself. If it were a dark and stormy night, I might have been scared literally shitless, but skies were clear above and I presently had Maurice and Verdine White jamming positive vibes into my ear. This was the most impressive Halloween costume I have seen in years, especially the aping of the gait and the impressive physical height of the Modern Prometheus, and looming, as he was, in this particularly spooky environment. Well done, anonymous neighbor. I can't imagine myself ever being this emotionally, randomly, or satisfyingly shaken if I was living in the suburbs.
---
The race to the bottom: "Human Resources Consulting Firm" Aon Hewitt has released a report stating that Iowa's public employees are overpaid because they reportedly make substantially more than private sector employees in similar positions... and this report should be completely disregarded. It's tried-and-true "Shock Doctrine" strategy to, after disarming labor unions, drive down private sector wages, and then continue the pay slash correspondingly across the board. This is the kind of government you get when your chief executive is a disaster capitalist like Terry Branstad or Augusto Pinochet.
---
The Des Moines Register's endorsement of Mitt Romney on Saturday is just another sign that the daily has become a vacant shell of its once-venerable self. I'm actually embarrassed for it. Granted, Obama's inept advisors treated the editorial board shabbily-- demanding that a face-to-face meeting with the candidate be "off the record," then after the meeting had been conducted, releasing the assayed transcript of the meeting to the media directly. How could the board publicly endorse Obama after the most secretive White House in our history had so nakedly exposed the paper's lack of journalistic guile and integrity? But the board didn't have to endorse either one of these two candidates. Writing an editorial instead that included the gut-busting claim that Mitt Romney has "fresh" economic ideas and then posting that editorial on their website so that any literate in the free world could read it is just 'dog in diapers' crazy. This won't turn out well for the company brand.
---
And then today in news from the Gannett Corporation's local outlet store, the editorial board scolds University of Iowa leadership and faculty for not being "tolerant" of so-called minority (read: conservative) political views even though the university had just won the frivolous lawsuit accusing them of otherwise. The board's support of this currently fashionable trend to treat all political ideas with equal respect, regardless of their merit, is aiding in a dumbing down of the nation that has made Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" a near-reality.
Also, this headline on the front of the Register's Wednesday print edition: "Ann Romney: Voters Can Trust Mitt." Thanks for that provocative challenge, gang. Sister-wife Ann was in Des Moines Tuesday night, and I guess that occasion warrants a level of media attention for the Romney campaign that won't be afforded on any day this year to 80% of the presidential candidates appearing on 2012 Iowa ballots, but I think I'll hold off on determining my vote until we know who Malia Obama is endorsing.
Another part of the world in which the outcome of the U.S. presidential election will have no impact is the occupied territories of Palestine. It's a sure bet that the Palestinians will continue to live under the thumb of the apartheid state of Israel whether it's Obama or Romney in the White House.
---
Said the Southbridge (Mass.) Pee Wee football coach after his team inflicted (at least) five concussions on their opponents in one afternoon, "This is a football game. Not a Hallmark moment." Almost every person involved with this game emerges a lunatic during its summary. A child of mine will never play football because the sport is infected with sadists even at the miniature level.
---
Nearly every baseball commentator I heard last week said that Detroit had the World Series advantage going in because they had four extra days to rest and to set their pitching rotation. Then they get swept out unmercifully and the same pundits say the team was hurt by the long layoff. Predictions in Major League Baseball: a trace of insight, a lot of guessing and rewriting.
---
Wanna watch Letterman without an audience? Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, tonight may be your night.
The YouTube clip of the week is this glimpse at a devastated four-year-old Cardinals fan Monday night, recorded after the San Francisco Giants took a commanding 7-0 lead against St. Louis in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.
I would never publicly exploit a child of mine this way, but I'm linking to the clip anyway because the boy's vocalization is almost identical to the one I made to my girlfriend over the phone that same night.
Nobody else is going to say it so I will: Commissioner Selig nailed it with his All-Star Game/home field advantage rule this year. It seems most observers hate this idea of his in which the league that wins the mid-summer All-Star Game gets home field advantage in the World Series in October, but I want it acknowledged that I've been on record supporting it from the beginning.
Is there a large element of randomness to this policy? Of course. Ninety percent or more of All-Star Game participants in any given year don't wind up playing in that season's Fall Classic, but what critics of Selig's rule never acknowledge is that the rule prior to this one was even more random. The leagues alternated years. You can't get more random than that. Your team would hard charge into the World Series, vanquishing all foes, only to find itself starting Game 1 in Royals Stadium or that great visual insult to the people of Minnesota and all of humanity, the Metrodome, only because it happened to be an odd-numbered year.
In this year's All-Star Game, three San Francisco Giants (Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey, Pablo Sandoval) and two St. Louis Cardinals (Carlos Beltran, Yadier Molina) helped batter Detroit's Justin Verlander around in the first inning for five runs on their way to an 8-0 National League victory. The Giant's Matt Cain started for the N.L., pitching two scoreless innings and getting the win. Three months later, the Giants edge the Cardinals for the pennant, host the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 with Verlander on the mound and Sandoval homers off him twice. Matt Cain to start Game 3 in Detroit. I am officially declaring the Giants' home field advantage this year the "least random" in World Series history. And as a bonus, the All-Star Game is more entertaining and league pride is back.
---
On a related note, Verlander would do well to stick with the Tigers for the duration of his career. As a Cardinals fan, I hardly ever see this guy pitch, but he's certainly the consensus "best pitcher in baseball" among your baseball media types. When I watch, though, he's getting pummeled by National League hitters. The Cardinals beat him twice in the 2006 World Series, banging out 12 hits and 7 earned runs over 11 innings. He has given up six runs and eight hits over three innings in All-Star Games (18.00 ERA) as a representative of the American League, and tonight he gave up five runs in four innings in Game 1. Another chapter in the Myth of American League Dominance.
American journalism is in such sorry shape that even Clark Kent is jumping ship. He quits the Daily Planet in the next issue of DC Comics classic "Superman." Kent is going to start blogging instead.
The reporter with more than seven decades of reporting experience under his belt has come to lament the descent of his profession into vapid entertainment. Kent says he originally joined the newspaper (in 1940) so that he could speak out on social issues that he couldn't comment upon in his personal life.
He identified "the last straw" on his decision as having watched the 2012 Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates. Said Kent, "I'm mild-mannered, but this is getting ridiculous."
---
The National League, the so-called "inferior" baseball confederation in North America, will extend its All-Star Game/World Series winning streak over the American League to 6 in the Fall Classic. Giants in 6.
While watching the Cardinals/Nationals series-- and the Birds' mighty comeback in Game 5-- at a bar in New York City, Will Leitch came to the realization that his Cardinals had morphed into a team that everybody but Cardinals fans roots against. If his belief is accurate, and it's a product of the team's on-the-field success, I hope he's correct. I must be further gone in my loyalty, though-- I don't see it. Of course, I watch the games at home.
---
Maybe Leitch is right. ESPN's David Schoenfeld wrote something similar on Sunday night, "Consider this: From 2002 to 2011, the St. Louis Cardinals appeared in more games than the New York Yankees. They won more championships than the Yankees. Over those ten seasons, the Cardinals appeared in more league championship series than the Yankees. So maybe the Cardinals should be considered baseball's evil empire. Ok, ok... the Yankees spent about $1.87 billion on payroll over that decade-- more than twice the Cardinals' $900 million. But it is interesting to note that the team taking advantage of the addition of a second wild-card team is one of the National League's powerhouse franchises."
Schoenfeld is understating it. The Cardinals have 11 World Series championships, five more than any other National League franchise, and nobody in the Senior Circuit comes close to touching the Cardinals for postseason games played since 2000. They are the National League's powerhouse franchise.
---
Time for me to elaborate about my team loyalty, and to add to your Cardinals hatred: I thought Matt Holliday's first inning slide into second base last night was absolutely clean. If it wasn't, he would have been called out for obstruction. Giants second baseman Marco Scutaro only got hurt because he tried to complete the double play relay while a runner was effectively taking him out on top of the bag. You hang in, you take the risks. That's how it works. Pennant on the line, runner goes in harder, and the pivot man also stays in longer. They both did what they did because the stakes were huge-- inning over, or first and third with two out for the Cardinals in a must-win game for the Giants. As a two-time Oscar winner once said, "There's no crying in baseball."
---
Will the Giants retaliate later in the series? Well, some of us still remember Giants' first baseman Will Clark going in hard and high at second on Jose Oquendo in 1988, touching off a brawl between Clark and Ozzie Smith just a few months after the contentious 1987 NLCS between the same two teams. Twenty four years later, Oquendo is still in uniform 100 feet away from the collision as the Cards' third base coach-- this was the payback.
---
Donald Trump is capable of making even Alex Rodriguez likable. Whenever Trump starts pretending that his dominion extends to the sports world, like he's doing here, recall that he once single-handedly destroyed a professional football league.
I realize the Yankees are always the top story, but that was a pretty cool game in the District Friday night. I am absolutely tickled by the Cardinals' postseason, post-championship success so far, but there's no need for me to go into great depth reviewing the Cards/Nationals series. One team wanted it more than the other. The CM Blog called it five weeks before the series began.
This blog, 9/10/12--
Wow, I say also to the Washington Nationals following through with their Stephen Strasburg pitch limit. Strasburg is 15-6 for the 86-54 Nationals, who haven't won anything ever, even when they were the Expos for four decades, but perfectly healthy, the pitcher has been shut down for the year because of the number of pitches he's thrown. Unbelievable. The right decision? Of course it isn't. It borders on the fraudulent, but that's for Nationals fans to decide. I'm just glad he's not on my team. It's kind of funny to think of Chris Carpenter as a contrast. Carpenter is a two-time World Series champion with a 9-2 career post-season record, and a guy who has twice missed a year and a half to arm surgery (2002-2003 and 2007-2008). Think he would trade either championship for either medical procedure? Just as Strasburg is departing the pennant race, the 37-year-old Carpenter is about to be activated and re-enter another one, despite having had "season-ending" thoracic nerve surgery on July 3rd. I guess some guys like pitching and some guys don't.
The Nats are lucky though. Now Strasburg gets the entire winter off from pitching. Maybe they should hold him out of Spring Training, too, just to be safe. And the first half of next season. And...
---
Something else I accurately predicted in this space once: Major League Baseball would not move to fully implement instant replay until the Yankees got screwed by an umpire's bad call in an important game.
Here comes all the instant replay you could want.
---
Surprise, surprise. You stick taxpayers with a bill for $313 million, and they start to feel entitled. The thousands of empty seats at the new Yankee Stadium for games one and two of the American League Championship Series, four seasons after the park opened, are a hilarious postscript to the team's impressive pilfering of the New York City treasury.
Last night, stadium ushers were reportedly instructed by the club to sit down and help fill in the empty seats so embarrassingly visible on television. It's almost worth the Yankees advancing this far in the postseason tournament just to hear that story.
And you can't blame it all on the new higher ticket prices at the state-of-the-art "House that Ruthlessness Built." Even the $15 tickets through the re-sellers couldn't move on Sunday. But if the team has any luck at all, they've played their last game at Yankee Stadium for the year.
---
I just coined that phrase "House that Ruthlessness Built." That's mine.
---
Commissioner Selig says he wants to do away with locker room champagne celebrations. Hmm. It's times like these that I'm sorry that so many fans actually believe that a league commissioner holds a dictatorial position, and also that the commissioner may himself believe it. Why does baseball still have a commissioner anyway? He's just an employee of the owners pretending to be impartial. The office of the commissioner is such a 1920 idea, which, come to think of it, may explain why now he's pushing for Prohibition.
---
I would like to reiterate that Giants catcher Buster Posey did not win the "batting title" of the National League. His teammate, Melky Cabrera, did- according to all of the rules of the game in place at the beginning of the season. Cabrera's mid-season drug suspension should not disqualify him. This is like proclaiming George McGovern the winner of the 1972 presidential election after Nixon resigned.
My negative feelings towards Paul Ryan are very visceral. Of course his politics are the worst-- intellectually dishonest and mean, but part of it too, I think, is combining that with his age. He's really the first prominent candidate for national political office of my generation, and I'm starting to understand why Bill Clinton was so vehemently disliked so early on by the "boomers" in the Republican party.
I look at Ryan and see every fratboy abercrombie d-bag in the Iowa State College Republicans circa 1996, howling at the imaginary shadows of affirmative action and "femi-nazis," altar boys at the feet of Rush Limbaugh. That's why, even though Joe Biden can be distasteful at times, it was so much fun to watch him Thursday night treating Ryan, and in particular, his comments on entitlements and Iran, with the derision they deserved.
Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams described the scene best, "Biden’s laugh is utterly brutal because it takes Paul Ryan, the marathon-exaggerating, dumbbell-curling, wannabe manly man and does the absolute worst thing imaginable to a guy like that. It points at him and makes him a fool. It says, “Yeah, tell me another one, Backwards Baseball Cap.” It’s at once furious and dismissive. It understands that at the heart of humor there’s a howl of pain. That why it’s the favorite weapon of choice of the trod-upon. And it says to the American voters the most undermining thing imaginable: 'You see this fella next to me? What a goddamn joke.'"
The votes were counted this past weekend, and Hugo Chavez is victorious in his bid for a fourth term as the President of Venezuela. A hearty congratulations are in order. Over a decade and more, South America's most highly-profiled Bolivarian socialist has caused neoliberal economists and militarists to project an ocean of spittle in their whiny invectives and mistruths, and his re-election, barring a C.I.A. coup attempt more successful than the one in 2002, ensures that the vast oil reserves that the nation of Venezuela possesses will stay in the hands of the Venezuelan people, and out of the hands of multinational oil companies for at least six more years.
The presidential election that just took place in Venezuelan should be the envy of every American voter. As U.S. politicians and behind-the-scenes operatives attempt to purge the voter rolls in districts all across this country, and as corporations attempt, with building success, to purchase American elections outright, the Venezuelan election took place with total transparency and record-breaking participation. Every election-governing body was there to witness, from the U.N. to the European Union to the Organization of American States. Chavez won because he had the numbers fully in his favor, numbers he has maintained with the overwhelming support of Venezuela's poorest citizens, since his ascent to power in 1999. More than 80% of voters turned out for the election, an astonishing percentage, and though there are legitimate political divisions in the country, 54% of voters chose Chavez, compared to 45% for his American-backed opponent. There was no electoral college results to report because, evidently, Venezuelans realize that idea is stupid.
Under Chavez, the Venezuelan government spends 43% of its budget on social programs. There have been 22 public universities built in Venezuela in the last 10 years, and the unemployment rate there has dropped from 20% to 7%. (Though I'm sure Jack Welch doesn't believe it.) Illiteracy has become almost non-existent, and in a 2010 Gallup poll, Venezuela was rated the fifth happiest country on the planet, ahead of the nations of Israel, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Ireland. (The U.S. finished twelfth.)
Chavez is a thorn in the side of the United States imperial government because he espouses economic independence for the people of his country and for all of South America. He's threatening as hell to the Empire because his political success, and in his wake, the success of other socialist leaders coming to power in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador, reveals the timid grasp that the corporatists of the United States and Western Europe still hold over that continent. There are few political developments occurring anywhere on the globe that can rival the excitement of the modern Bolivarian movement.
---
Naturally, the Air Force did a fly-over at Nationals Park on Wednesday prior to the first postseason baseball game played in Washington D.C. since 1933. But if we're serious about showing off our nation's armed forces at these events, and displaying an accurate representation of the modern military, at what point do we replace the F-16's with drones?
---
One rarely comes across really interesting and well-written reviews of a comedy concert. I'm going to see Bill Maher on stage Saturday night, for example, and I predict the local paper doesn't even send a reviewer to the show. However, this is one of those great-- albeit not particularly positive-- reviews.
I recommend to you a tiny... tiny little film called "Al Shearer: The Other Black Guy Running For President in 2012." This mockumentary stars former "Punk'd" cast member Al Shearer as himself, running for America's highest political office. Shearer and his producers have created a nifty little comedy in that enduring spirit of "Roger and Me," and also, they put me in it.
Shearer and crew were in Iowa late last summer to film during the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines and the Republican Straw Poll in Ames. The head of the Iowa Green Party, who lives outside the Des Moines/Ames area, called me and said the film's producers had contacted her searching for a party representative in Des Moines to speak with Al. There aren't many registered and active Greens to choose from here so I got the assignment. At the time, "Candidate Al" was considering joining a political party as part of his campaign quest.
Now you're probably thinking at this point that the wise man would take a long pause before agreeing to speak on camera to a guy who made his bones on a hidden camera, practical joke reality show-- and you would be right. So I jumped at it. Al and I sat down to talk on a warm weekday afternoon at Smokey Row Cafe, an eatery just blocks from my house. He asked me questions about the Green Party, for which I was a state legislative candidate in 2008. Most of his questions had to do with smoking pot, which he evidently enjoys in his leisure time and also associates with the Green Party. (This is also the part of the interview that made the final cut of the film.) He met too with a local representative of the Tea Party, and a clip of that appears as well.
I've been very excited about this movie for over a year, but I haven't been talking or writing about it because I was worried about how I would appear. My plan all along was to keep my mouth shut, seek the movie out after about 12 months, watch it, and then tell people that it exists only if it passed my "embarrassment" test. If it didn't, I would take it to my grave, because chances are, you wouldn't find it on your own. There are a few things I might change if I could (I look very nervous to me, and I'm a performer who definitely needs makeup), but it ultimately passed this test. And the movie as a whole made me laugh a lot. That's a bonus.
As I told you, this was a small movie. You will not find it in a local theater, or even on Netflix. It debuted on iTunes in June, and that's where I found it. It cost me (and would also cost you) $5.99 to download, $7.99 if want to see my grill in HD (not system recommended). I warn you in advance that it is not suitable viewing at a workplace computer, at a Republican Party fundraiser, or for any eight-year-olds whatsoever. (Sadly, we will not be able to screen it at next summer's Moeller Family Reunion.) Al's hijinks on-camera include taking a transgender prostitute to a bank's corporate office in an effort to get her a financial bailout, peeing on Herman Cain's campaign bus, and passing out dildo-styled straws at the Ames Straw Poll.
My part in it (which is actually clean enough for network television broadcast) lasts about a minute and comes at about the 28-minute mark of an hour and 19 minute production. What's also a bonus is that the movie treats the Green Party as the equal to the Democrats and Republicans. For the first time in recorded media history, a Green Party representative was interviewed and didn't have to talk about whether or not the party is "viable." This was nice.
So enjoy the film at iTunes with my endorsement, and remember, it's not to late to vote for Al Shearer for President in 2012. He's the other black guy running for president.
-
Warning: This trailer for the film is also not work-appropriate.
Correct call in Atlanta tonight on the infield fly rule: shortstop is camped under the ball, could make the play with no difficulty, runners on first and second and less than two out (one). According to the rule book, umpire has discretion-- not to mention the obligation-- to call the infield fly, as soon as he sees this. Contrary to TBS TV reporting after the fact, the call wasn't even late by the umpire. He couldn't call it until the shortstop got underneath, and it was a very high fly ball. It looks like a bad call to the fans because when the ball drops, it looks like the umpire assumed something that didn't happen. But the ball didn't drop because Pete Kozma couldn't catch it. Every honest fan of any rooting interest has to admit that. He let it drop because he thought he had been called off by the left fielder. I guarantee you most fans squawking don't realize either that the infield fly rule can-- and often does-- apply to balls hit into the outfield. As broadcaster Ron Darling pointed out, an infield fly can be correctly called on a ball hit to the warning track, in theory. The umpire's hand went up before the ball dropped. That's also not in dispute, so Braves and their fans know, deep down, that they're trying to steal something here.
The Cardinals, not the Braves, should have played the game under protest because the reaction of the fans throwing garbage on the field caused an 18 minute delay. The Cardinals' reliever had to wait through that entire time, preparing to throw a pitch with a three run lead, and the tying run, a six-time All-Star, coming to the plate. In Major League Soccer, the game officials immediately issue a forfeit, or make an announcement threatening forfeit for the home team in such a situation. A warning here would have been absolutely appropriate. Tonight, because there wasn't, the Cardinals were then compelled to remove that relief pitcher during the half-inning, when he was due to bat first in the following. The Cardinals' manager goes to his closer early with this necessity, and has to employ a double-switch. Because the pitcher is in the 6th spot, the player doubled out of the lineup has to come from the heart of the Cardinals' batting order. For defensive purposes, it's slugger Matt Holliday, but it's still a 3-run game, the tying run is up, and Holliday has been on base four times in the game, including a dinger. Very difficult situation for the Cardinals-- to say nothing of the fact that Braves fans are throwing beer bottles onto the field of play when nine of the players are standing out there. It was a shameful, shameful scene in a way that had nothing to do with the umpires.
---
On an unrelated note, who's going to stop this Cardinal train again this year! Possibly nobody. What unbelievable poise displayed by this team tonight. While the Braves kicked the ball around for three errors, the Cardinals, in a do-or-die game, beat a pitcher that had given his team, entering tonight, a 23-game winning streak in games he had started-- a friggin' Major League Baseball record! Just terrific. The Cards overcame their own bad, late call in the second inning, when the home plate umpire granted a Braves batter a late time out request during a strike three pitch with two outs. (The Braves batter proceeded to homer for two of the Braves' three runs.)
The team that played the best game won tonight, and the best team in baseball-- as the Cardinals have been continuously since August 25th of 2011, grinding to victory after victory despite the losses of their best position player (maybe ever), their ace pitcher for almost all of this year, their Hall of Fame manager, and his Hall of Fame pitching coach-- are still refusing to die.
11:33pm update: MLB's executive vice president for baseball operations, "It looked, to me, like it was infield fly." Umpiring supervisor Charlie Reliford also points out tonight that umpires are instructed not to call the infield fly rule until the ball is descending-- to avoid misjudgment on their part. This is exactly what umpire Sam Holbrook did. Asked if he got the call right after the game, Holbrook says, "Absolutely."
Mitt Romney should be well off the polling pace in this whole American presidential extravaganza. In the Department of Derailing Gaffes, that video tape of him telling a room full of fat cats that 47% of Americans are deadbeats should rank just below telling the country you want to tax cake.
But President Obama wouldn't, or couldn't, attack Romney for those "47%" comments during the debate last night because the same group of donors Romney was pandering to in that ballroom speech is the same group of donors the Democrats want to proposition tomorrow.
---
The biggest embarrassment that moderator Jim Lehrer should be feeling this morning is not over being pushed and shoved around on live TV by Mitt Romney, but that he was chosen at all to be the debate moderator. Like the political conventions, these side-by-side interviews that the media refers to as debates are commercials for the two dominant parties. Long gone are the days when citizen groups like the League of Women Voters sponsored the televised debates and third-party candidates could earn, through polling traction, a place on the stage.
Republicans and Democrats joined forces in 1988 to create something called the Commission on Presidential Debates to help keep competing parties out of the equation. (Ralph Nader was excluded from the debates in both 2000 and 2004 despite solid majorities of Americans in those election years telling pollsters they believed he should be in them.)
Today, America's largest corporations rush to be the debate "sponsors" instead, throwing money at both parties and the process in an effort to appear civic-minded. They throw hospitality parties on the scene, where the reporters you see previewing and recapping the debate on television eat and drink for free.
The Commission on Presidential Debates may be the single largest obstacle in the United States to the potential political success of the political parties outside the oligarchy. There is almost a 100% positive co-relationship between a candidate being allowed to participate in a nationally-televised debate and that candidate being viewed as "viable" by the voters and the media.
So it goes without saying that it cannot be allowed to happen.
The Center for Public Integrity has called the commission "a secretive tax-exempt organization," and in 2008, that group uncovered that 93% of the contributions to the non-profit commission had come from just six donors, the names of which were blacked out on a financial statement provided to CPI. Though the D.C. Circuit Court rejected a lawsuit brought by Nader in 2000, it remains to be seen how a commission empowered by Congress can exclude candidates that are constitutionally-eligible to be on the ballot.
And as for Jim Lehrer, when this commission that's only been comprised at any given time of Democrat and Republican party hacks chooses you to moderate such a staged event, they're really just telling you that they trust you not to go off script or pose a question that might embarrass one candidate or both. Not a reputation I would think a journalist would want to have, but then they keep lining up for the assignment.
---
Romney's lying last night was savage. Even some of his opinion statements were dishonest. At one point, he claimed that preventing future generations of Americans from inheriting a massive budget deficit was a "moral" issue for him. This is a man with a $200 million net worth that brags about paying a 14% tax rate. So I don't believe him.
---
Imagine you go to the Musee du Louvre in Paris. Are you imagining along with me? You proceed into the palace in search of Leonardo da Vinci's master work on canvas, the Mona Lisa. As you cast your eyes upon it, you discover that someone has scissored off roughly the top quarter section of the painting.. say, from the very top down to right around eyebrow level. That emotion you're now feeling in your imaginations is what I feel when I hear a radio station play Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do" and they cut off the Dizzy Gillespie part.
The Chicago Cubs play tonight with a little history on the line. There are three games more to go in the regular season, and the club owns a season record of 60 wins and 99 losses. Just one defeat in the final triplet of games against the 53-106 Houston Astros would mean the Cubs' first 100-loss season since 1966.
Surprisingly, with this achievement almost in their grasp, tickets on StubHub for tomorrow night's game at Wrigley Field can be had for a surprisingly small amount...
AVAILABLE NOW:
From Lulu Publishing, March 2018, "Lies My Blogger Told Me: The Best of the Chris Moeller Blog 2004-2017." Visit Lulu.com, search "Chris Moeller," or contact us directly to secure a copy.
