Friday Funday: It's Fall. Time For Battle! Grab Your Spoon.

Even though the weather isn't entirely autumnal in many places, it's obvious to our entire staff that fall is coming.

It's not just the chilly evenings in DC and Lincoln, or the trees that have begun (barely) to change colors. Major League Baseball has reached the end of its regular season, and most college football and volleyball teams - including our Nebraska Cornhuskers - are getting into their conference schedules.

We're even doing a little traveling, as we often do in the Fall.

We won't be in Madison, Wisconsin this weekend though, as we know a great many HuskerNutz will. We've got a few friends in Madison and we know it to be a welcoming and wonderful town (even if Wisconsin's loopy Governor isn't always so welcoming or wonderful), so if you're going to see the game this weekend, plan on having a good time, and enjoying a great game.

The match we're looking to see this weekend isn't one that ESPN's Gameday is likely to carry (though they might, now that we've mentioned it ). We wouldn't want Kirk Herbstreit to get his suit sticky, anyway.

The match we're wanting to sink our teeth into this weekend is between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The weapon of choice between these two titans?

Ice cream.

As the Lincoln Journal Star published Thursday, it seems that Wisconsin also has a dairy store that makes ice cream. Apparently, they think they have what it takes to beat the best that Nebraska churns out. [Yes, that was a dairy pun. No, we're not apologizing.]

We've previously mentioned our friends at the UNL Dairy Store, on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus. They've got some of our favorite flavors of ice cream (try the Maple Bacon - seriously), great cheese, and they also host the culinary offerings of the legendary P.O. Pears at the Dairy Store once a month during good weather. We've been acquainted with Dairy Store manager Bryan Scherbarth for many years, and we have to say - if it was a fair battle, on neutral territory we think Bryan and his staff at the UNL Dairy Store would win, hands down.

This weekend's event is going to take place at Madison, however - so we're asking those HuskerNutz traveling to the game to make a major sacrifice for their team...

Go eat Scarlet and Cream ice cream in Madison, at their version of the dairy store, Babcock Hall.

We know, being asked to eat ice cream you love in a strange place is a difficult task. Still, to show your Husker pride, we're asking you to show up for Bryan and the gang and help Nebraska to a UNL Dairy Store victory in Wisconsin.

Also, we'd like the football and volleyball teams to win this weekend. However, if we can't prevail at  either of those, we'll take the win at the Ice Cream Bowl.

Here's to a sweet victory this weekend, either way.

The Difference Between Improbable And Impossible

It should be no surprise to anyone that the right wing media threw visual, audio, and printed garbage at the President again yesterday, as he visited a school in the DC metro area. It should also be no surprise to see the shuffling of GOP 2012 Presidential candidates in multiple polls that came out yesterday.

We don't mean to sound jaded, but the facts regarding who is doing what - or NOT doing what - in Washington are very clear.

On Wednesday, President Obama was just getting back from a swing through the Western United States, where he made several campaign fundraising stops, and also visited young students and pushed for his jobs bill. Instead of heading to Capitol Hill to work with Congress - which he couldn't do, since BOTH the House and Senate are on vacation again - the President went to a DC high school, and gave the kids there his annual back-toschool message.

He could have told the kids what most of them already know - that even if they do go on to college or tech school, there may not be jobs available in their field of study when they get out. Instead, President Obama remained positive and told the kids to work hard, get good grades, and go on to almost any kind of post-high school formal education, from trade schools, to certifications, to community and four-year colleges.

The President's message was considered by some to also be a subtle jobs pitch - which is a good thing for a nation desperate to get its people back to work.

What's more, a group of 34 economists, after looking at the President's American Jobs Plan are now saying the $447 billion dollar plan would do exactly what the President says it would - help avoid a deeper recession, and spur job growth across the country.

It's obvious the President has gotten the message from the American people, on jobs and the economy - and he's trying to act on it.

Meanwhile, his opposition - the Republicans in Congress - haven't really been saying anything -- because, as we already mentioned, they're on vacation again.

The Republicans who'd like to become President, on the other hand, are still on the campaign trail - but they aren't really answering the President speech for speech on job specifics. They're busy swapping spots in the polls, apologizing for not being mean enough for the GOP base, while making sure not to be too mean so that they don't scare away the soccer Moms.

Of the two near-sisyphean tasks facing the Republican Party and President Obama, if we were forced to take one up, we'd actually prefer the economic rock President Obama has to try and push up the metaphorical hill. At least at some point, business leaders will realize they're not going to get a tax-free world. They'll look at the money they're losing by pointlessly fighting the President, and give up their no-win crusade, for a sensible, realistic alternative.

We're not sure if the current Republican Party will ever be able to find a single candidate for President they can all agree on - let alone a candidate that anyone not inside the GOP would be willing to vote for.

Sadly for Republicans, they don't have an unlimited period of time before the 2012 election cycle ramps up - and with Florida throwing a monkey wrench into the 2012 GOP primary calendar, Republicans look like they'll have even less time than they usually do to figure out who they want to pick as their nominee.

To us, the choice of who has the easier task seems fairly obvious.

The Realties Of Our Class War

There are times when we shake our heads in confusion and frustration as we look at the world around us. Maybe it's a form of the fog of war, the class war that Americans continue to be in ever more painful denial of these days.

Warren Buffet isn't the only one who's noticed that despite all the wringing of hands and broadcast lies, and column inches published trying to deny the truth, the facts still remain the same: America is up to its neck in a ongoing class war.

Lately, we've repeatedly been hitting you over the head with these facts:

Poverty has hit a 50-year high - yet the rich are still getting richer. One in four American children now lives in poverty. Real income hasn't significantly increased since 1967 - unless you're in the top ten percent, and then things look great for you.

We could sit here and list statistics and facts, and link to charts, until almost every word of our commentary was supported with reams of data as solid as granite. That still wouldn't solve the problems our country faces.

We have millions of people out of work, and millions more being underpaid - or overworked. Most of these people aren't lazy; there simply aren't jobs available that they're qualified for. They can't easily move to different locations, either.

We have a Congress that's been held hostage by the ideology of a small group of people on the far right. Their version of compromise is:  they get everything they want, and everyone else can go to hell. Since that's not realistic, our government limps along with short-term fixes that are more political theatre than actual results.

We have a President who is desperate to try and fix the problems of the country he's trying to lead - and a Congress that a majority of Americans don't trust to do anything right. Of course, it would help if they showed up for work more than one or two weeks a month. [They're on vacation right now. Again.]

The bills pile up, the layoff notices come in - some of them from banks that we Americans taxpayers paid to bail out, but now they refuse to do the same for us. Our kids have it worse than most of us ever did, and yet the solutions are right in front of us.

Yes, we need to tax the rich more. During the mythical golden age of the 50s that fake conservatives wax nostalgically about, the income tax rate on upper income earners was 90%. Other taxes were also higher.

Yes, we need to cut government programs. We've already been cutting in many areas over the last decade, as the economy declined. Where we haven't cut are places like wasteful military spending. Spending billions on a flying submarine when we have no need for one is stupid - and we have hundreds, if not thousands of similar projects sucking federal taxpayer dollars out of each of our pockets.

We need to cut tax breaks for corporations and individuals. If tax breaks alone really generated jobs, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now experiencing. We are in this situation though, proving that tax cuts don't automatically generate jobs.

Most of all, we need to get back to reality.

When a person creates a job - a solid job that pays a fair day's wage for a fair day's work - and that job lasts a fair amount of time, then and only then does that person qualify as a "job creator." But there shouldn't be a special benefit to being a job creator that separates one class of Americans from another.

After all, under the definition of some - that any job is a job - even our editor's dog creates a job multiple times a day. That doesn't mean the mutt should get special treatment just for taking care of its business.

Scaring Up The Truth

To those of us who keep a watchful eye on politics and power in the U.S., the reality of what's happening on the American political right has recently become painfully obvious - both in the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, and in day to day politics.

While most Republicans remain in firm denial about it, the flailing and infighting on the right has long ago ceased to be the kind of mild conflict that could be kept under the "Reagan rule" (also known as the Eleventh Commandment) where Grand Old Party members never speak ill of one another. We're not even talking about the constant sniping that's been happening at the recent GOP debates, or the bizarre and somewhat contradictory results from the latest straw polls this past weekend. Both of those events were messy but merely continued to expose a political party at war with itself and with everyone else - which any honest, sane observer could have told you was happening already.

What's been truly disturbing is seeing the way Republicans and others on the right have been running around lately like crazy people, screaming about Warren Buffett. They demonstrate a lack of understanding of the real argument about the role of wealth in America - and the responsibility that comes with that wealth.

If anyone knows anything about Warren Buffett, they know that he's one of the richest men in the world - and that he has a great deal of experience with contracts of all types, lengths and sizes. Yet when Buffett wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in mid-August  titled, "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich" his point wasn't just the idea that he pays less in taxes than most of the people in his office.

He was breaking down, in detail, the responsibilities he and those like him carry due to the social contract of success in America.

What Mr. Buffett was pointing out is the same thing that Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren recently pointed out, and the same key fact that President Obama alluded to on Monday when he was answering the question of Doug Edwards - one of Google's original employees, now a multi-millionaire.

Obama said to Mr. Edwards - who asked the President to raise his taxes so that public services and the government could be run properly - “I appreciate the fact that you recognize we’re in this thing together,” Obama said. “We’re not on our own. And those of us who’ve been successful, we’ve always gotta remember that.”

Ms. Warren made a similar observation back in August when she said, "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

Warren continued, "You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

The reason that any of us succeed in America isn't because of divine right - the feudal idea that so many extremist Republicans seem to want to bring back as governing theory. They seem to believe that those who do well in life, who have wealth and influence were actually ordained by a higher power to be in such a position. They think they're rich because THEY are supposed to be rich - and if you're not rich like them, then you can eat cake.

What seems to terrify the fake conservatives of the extremist right is that there might not be some higher power that's chosen them to be blessed more than the rest of us. They're apoplectic that they may be forced to accept the fact that they are just as vulnerable to reality and calamity as the rest of us - and the ONLY defense they have against fate is to partner with all those who have contributed to their success.

As the old saying goes, the most successful among us stand on the shoulders of giants. Or as both President Obama and Mr. Buffett have put it, it's long past time we shared the sacrifices needed to get America going again.

Only those afraid of the truth will run from that fact.

Fighting The Inevitable? Do the Math.

Several times over the last few years we've kept you up to date with the skirmish over installing the Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska - and over the world's largest underground freshwater body of water, the Ogallala Aquifer. Polls have proven what we already knew - a majority of Nebraskans do NOT want the pipeline where the oil company wants it to be. TransCanada, the company trying to drive the pipeline through Nebraskans seems confident that they'll succeed in jamming the pipeline through. There are even indications some State Department personnel may have acted as internal lobbyists - and may have possibly been bought off.

In theory, the State Department is supposed to be listening to what Nebraskans want or don't want from the pipeline, at two hearings scheduled this week in Lincoln and Atkinson.

Many don't believe the State Department is listening at all. Contrary to the rosy picture some media outlets are attempting to propagandize with, the pipeline won't create very many jobs for Nebraska workers. Labor unions have been duped into thinking Nebraskans will get long-term stable, good paying jobs from this project. Most welders and installers will be brought in by the TransCanda corporation from outside the state, just as they've done elsewhere. Even IF the pipeline is allowed to be built, once the initial construction is completed - in little more than two years - those jobs will all go away.

Any claims that the Keystone XL pipeline will generate energy for the U.S. for years to come are also a load of bull. When oil is sold on the world market, it isn't labeled 'American' or 'Saudi'. Companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron sell any oil pumped in America at the going global rate - a rate determined mostly overseas by OPEC - and America doesn't get a discount because it's buying oil that was pumped here.

Further, as we already noted earlier this year, if there is an oil spill that gets into the Ogallala Aquifer we could be making the Great Plains an uninhabitable wasteland. Farmers, ranchers, and everyone else living in an area from North Dakota to Texas, and from the Rockies to the Missouri River could be forced to find a different source for drinking water and agricultural irrigation if tar sands oil leaks into the aquifer.

If you go to the meetings this week, we don't recommend trusting TransCanada's assurances about how safe they can be. TransCanada's rival, Enbridge, still hasn't cleaned up their "small" oil spill in Michigan from last year - the same kind of incredibly toxic tar sands oil TransCanada wants to pump across the Ogallala Aquifer. Formerly pristine Michigan wetlands that were perfect for hunting and fishing are still damaged, and don't look to be cleaned up in the forseeable future.

The disaster on the Yellowstone River in Montana that TransCanada promised would be safe is even more serious. That oil pipeline has now been turned back on after being reburied deep enough so that when it leaks, no one downstream is likely to know for years. Folks in every state along the Missouri and lower Mississippi would be wise to test their water quality far more often than they do now.

All of this unnecessary risk over an energy source that won't do anything to curb America's addiction to oil, makes little sense.

Meanwhile, the Chinese expect to grow their solar power use by over ONE THOUSAND PERCENT in the next four years. Chinese government officials are literally laughing at America's failure to jump on board the green energy technology explosion. Back at home, right-wing extremists continue desperately trying to claim Solyndra was a failure of the Obama Administration, even though much of its support and loan money was authorized under the Bush regime.

Regardless of what the paranoid idiots claim, the mathematical facts regarding the U.S. energy situation haven't changed.

Solyndra was only ONE of forty alternative energy companies our government supported - and the others have all succeeded to various degrees. The green economy will easily overcome Solyndra's bankruptcy. Meanwhile, an oil company responsible for both major and minor oil disasters in the last few years is supposed to be given a hands-off approach to endangering the primary water supply for millions of Americans living in the center third of the country? That doesn't compute.

When you add up the risks of endangering the food and water security of America for generations while possibly depopulating the entire central United States, against a few hundred short-term jobs that might not even go to Americans who live in the area where the work is planned, we just can't see the benefits.

Do the math, folks. Kill the pipeline, before it kills us.

Friday Funday: Autumn, A Season Of Change

As we began looking at topics of interest for today, we had to laugh - heartily - at Paul's cartoon. Rarely has there been a more succinct statement of where our country sits on the issue of taxation these days. It's a massive change from the sane policy position of an America long past where - instead of peddling themselves as a speaker at a political event for one party or the other - Supreme Court judges might impart a simple bit of wisdom like, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society."

As we head into Autumn - the season of change - we're noticing how many more things around us also keep changing.

Another Lincoln legend, Barry's Bar and Grill, is closing after the Husker Football season closes. It's a place we've enjoyed many times over the years, both during football season and other times of the year.It wasn't that long ago that Barry's was rated as the #2 best bar in the nation for pregame football festivities. We've even held our North Central Chapter National Cartoonists Society meeting in Barry's Outback. We thank Lou Mary, Mike, and the Hambeltons for allowing a bunch of crazy cartoonists to take over their bar on a weekend when the Huskers weren't playing at home.

The changes aren't just happening in businesses, the weather, and the trees. Online, one of the tools we use - Facebook - is changing once again. Many people, including our own web monkey, aren't exactly thrilled with that development.

Sadly, a rock radio station we've enjoyed in DC also recently changed formats - temporarily - to another right-wing talking head repeater. We're aware the change is due to radio companies buying each other out, and not because right-wing talk radio is doing well (it's not). Still, it's not a change we're in favor of.

Not all changes are bad, though.

Apparently, household income in Nebraska grew slightly between 2009 and 2010 - which is an improvement for Nebraska. After nearly a decade where the income of middle class Americans fell by almost ten percent, we'll cheer a positive change in the status of working people any where we can find it.

Even the perception of beer as unhealthy has been changing. A group of scientists and brewers in Europe has apparently just released a study that says beer can be good for your health.

Of course, this last story of change came from one of our readers who lives in Denver, where the Great American Beer Festival is going on this weekend - so we're not quite convinced he's pointing us to an unbiased study.

Still, as seasons go, while we might complain and grumble a bit about the changes we see, the autumn rains, or even the chill in the air, we generally like fall. Our staff in our Palm Beach location even tells us they wish they could come back up to DC or Lincoln and enjoy the colors and brisk weather of autumn.

We'll see if they're still so intent on coming up and enjoying the weather when January comes around.

Excuses

We've never been big on excuses here at The Daily Felltoon. If we screw up, we'll cop to it - and if someone or something else fails in our production chain, we'll let you know about that too.

Sadly, we know we're not the norm these days when it comes to that kind of integrity. There are examples-a-plenty, from DC, New York, and many areas across the Northeast today.

The excuses from DC are sadly the exact same ridiculous problems, caused by the exact same arrogant and ignorant politicians, that almost blew up the world economy at the beginning of August. Once again, the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have purposely tanked another Continuing Resolution (in Washington-speak, a "C.R.") - and once again have put the Federal government on the verge of shutting down.

Long and short, Democrats wanted to help their fellow Americans in the Northeast who are still trying to recover from Hurricane Irene and the unusual earthquake near DC. Republicans, meanwhile, were trying to use the temporary spending bill to push ideological measures down everybody else's throats.

Of course, this is after the top Republican "leaders" in Congress tried to bully Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke into doing NOTHING to help the economy.

These are the same DC Republicans who excuse their own abusive and destructive actions with the same lies they've been telling for years.

To add injury to insult, in addition to dealing with the usual excuses and lies coming from that corner of Washington, folks in the Northeast may find themselves paying more this year for pumpkins for their jack-o-lanterns, or for pumpkin pies.

Hurricane Irene didn't just leave flood damage from New Jersey to Vermont She also destroyed a large number of pumpkins in the Northeast - meaning Northeastern produce buyers have been desperate to find pumpkins anywhere else in the country they can bring in.

Maybe they should try growing them in trees, like they do in Iowa.

Sadly, while these stories have all received some media coverage over the last twenty-four hours, the national media - which is primarily based out of New York City - has almost completely ignored a massive story right on their own streets - literally.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are now going into their fifth day - yet there's been no major media exposure for an event that most of the national networks could cover by sticking a camera out their sixth- floor studio windows. So far, the event has turned out considerably smaller numbers than the twenty thousand that protest organizers had hoped for. Still, the numbers for this protest are already far bigger than many ridiculous Tea Party protests that major media outlets have blanketed before - and the protestors are vowing to camp out indefinitely.

All this, yet... all that the major media outlets are giving the public on this story are excuses why they're not covering the story.

There are many things we can excuse in life - like the possibility that we may not be able to enjoy pumpkins in our DC location this Halloween.

However, the actions of Republicans in DC or the inaction by major national media in New York are things we just can't excuse - and we hope you don't either.

Winning At All Costs

As our longtime readers know, we generally despise the use of the 'politics as sport' metaphor that seems to run rampant through the media. A couple of times a year, though, we drag out our best sports and politics cliches from the old locker, and give it our best college try - which is what we're doing today. That's more than we can say for the current Republican Party.

To say the GOP is looking ugly for 2012 has nothing to do with their appearance.

To start with, President Obama's latest plans to tackle both jobs and the debt already have the support of significant majorities of Americans. Even worse for partisan Republicans heading into an election year, Congressional poll numbers are sinking somewhere below the Ohio State football team's poll numbers - and Americans are more unhappy with Congressional Republicans than they are Congressional Democrats.

The GOP playbook also seems to be all out of winning formations. It's obvious the go-to Republican technique of saying no to everything won't work anymore, with the trigger threat hanging over their heads. Bigotry and class warfare also seem to be headed for the bench.

To top it all off, their fans - Republican voters - don't seem too happy with any of the potential "team captains" running for the GOP 2012 Presidential nomination.

With all those factors against them, it doesn't surprise us at all that Republicans are trying to cheat the system, and change the rules.

The political right has already curbed early voting in multiple states, made it harder to register new voters, rolled back voting rights for ex-cons who have already done their time, and even eliminated voter registration groups like Acorn. Where they can, Republicans have tried to rig federal congressional redistricting processes to make Democratic-leaning districts disappear and give Republicans an unfair advantage.

In Texas, GOP arrogance led to them getting caught already in political hanky-panky.

Republicans' biggest unethical move for 2012 appears to be a direct assault on the Electoral College - from both sides of the ball.

In Pennsylvania, Republicans are attempting to change the way their state tallies votes for President. Their state GOP is trying to sell the idea that a system like Nebraska's and Maine's - a proportional system - would better represent the voters in Pennsylvania. While that may be true, it's also no secret their real intention is to try to use that proportional system to give Republicans more electoral votes overall - an idea that could backfire.

In Nebraska, the state GOP is claiming exactly the opposite as their teammates in Pennsylvania - that Nebraska should go back to being a "winner take-all" state in the Electoral College. The Nebraska Republican Party is even threatening with political excommunication any Republican state senator who dares to stand up for the state's current method of apportioning Electoral College votes.

If these were old-fashioned, sane, moderate Republicans, this kind of unprincipled, amoral spiking the ball would be called what it is - cheating - and would never be tolerated.

Of course, if the current Republican Party was controlled by old-fashioned, sane, moderate conservatives, they never would have gotten themselves into this mess in the first place.

Class Warfare, Math - And Who Will Win In The End

As expected, President Obama announced a budget reduction and revenue generation plan yesterday as a companion piece to the American Jobs Act he announced a week and a half ago. Even before his Rose Garden presentation on Monday, the heads of many in the GOP began to explode in rhetorical flames, as they cried out that President Obama's proposal to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires was class warfare.

The President was prepared for their false cries, and he threw their lie right back into their faces. “This is not class warfare,” Obama said. “It's math.”

President Obama's right. Since 1950, American businesses grow FASTER when the top level of taxes is HIGHER. It's not a direct causal relationship - meaning higher taxes don't automatically mean faster growth. It is, however, a fact that Republican claims that lower taxes always equal faster growth are complete lies.

That's not the only lie those on right are spewing as they desperately try to fight the facts of the President's math.

As the non-partisan CBO mentioned this summer, if Congress simply does nothing – something the current GOP-led House is incredibly good at doing – by sometime around 2018, the federal budget will balance. That inaction would absolutely cause massive problems for the Medicare and Medicaid programs, among other government services Americans expect - but the federal budget would be balanced.

Unlike the Tea Party Republicans at the last GOP debate, most Americans don't generally think letting people without health insurance die is a good idea. In fact, most Americans - by a three-to-one margin - have NO problem raising taxes on those in our society who can afford it the most.

It's obvious that President Obama has gotten that message from the American people loud and clear. His tax and budget plan would include a tax for millionaires and billionaires - a tax that would affect less than three tenths of one percent of Americans. In a country of over 310 million people, when you can help 309 million by slightly increasing the taxes of less than one million of the wealthiest individuals, it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that decision is a no-brainer.

Yet, the Republicans are claiming the President's entire plan is class warfare.

Let's make sure everyone understands the math. The President and 75% of the American people - including one of the richest Americans in the world, Warren Buffett - want the rich to pay a little more (which they can easily afford), while the middle and working classes get to keep many of their current tax breaks. Since the middle and working classes will spend more of their money sooner, that would boost our economy faster in the short term. This plan could also allow us to make sure doctors get more of their Medicare and Medicaid payments, and help pay down America's debt - which will help keep interest rates low when the next growth boom happens, which is a benefit to every American.

Meanwhile, Republicans and conservatives and the other 25% of Americans want MORE tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, which they CLAIM will bring jobs to America. If their claim had any weight behind it, the unemployment rate in America should be at a record low, since Americans are playing less taxes proportionately than they've paid in over sixty years.

Point blank, Republican math about the President's latest plan is wrong in virtually every way we can imagine. Maybe they need some time with a high school math teacher we used to know who hung meat hooks on her walls as motivation to get the answers right. Or as political reporter and McLaughlin Group regular Eleanor Clift once told right-wing politico Pat Buchannan, “Class warfare is when we burn down your houses, Pat."

Either way, if it's a war the richest Americans and the Republican Party want, they need to remember: the most important math is that there are millions and millions more Americans who agree with the President on his plan than there are those who stand with Republicans and the rich.

It may burn the GOP's hide - but both the odds and the facts are simply not in their favor.

Monday Detour: What If... Bachmann Had Been President In The '50s?

Today, we're fairly certain what the right-wing screamers on the radio and their bubble-headed bleach-blonde cohorts on the fake news channel will be bleating about. After all, the cries from the right that "Obama is a socialist" (this time, because he's proposing a tax on millionaires and billionaires) or that he's a bad, bad man (the rumors from the latest semi-fictional tell-all) are nothing that propagandists haven't already said a billion times already.

With that in mind we're going to take a detour today to talk about a hypothetical question that Paul came up with, after listening to NPR and having a discussion over the weekend with our good friend, theatre director and professional cartoonist, Bob Hall.

The question, begged by the comments at the most recent Republican debate, was this: If Michele Bachmann had been President in the 1950s, would she have fought against the government mandated polio vaccinations, and relegated thousands of children to being free from those awful polio shots, so that they could spend their lives in an iron lung or otherwise have been permanently disabled?

It's not entirely hyperbole, or a fantasy discussion.

In case you missed it last week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Bachmann had a royal fight in the GOP debate over Perry's 2007 executive order requiring that sixth-grade girls in Texas get vaccinated against HPV - the Human Papilloma Virus. All too conveniently, the manufacturer of the vaccine, Gardasil, happens to be Merck Pharmaceuticals, a substantial contributor to Perry's previous political campaigns.

Of all the candidates attacking Perry, Bachmann seemed the most livid about Perry's actions - but we're not quite sure why. In all the time Bachmann has been in politics, both at the state and federal level, she's never once made crusading AGAINST vaccinations a major part of her legislative resume (which is incredibly thin).

Furthermore, Ms. Bachmann's ridiculous claim - a claim that Bachmann says she was only passing on from one of her supporters - that vaccinations cause retardation, is an outright lie.

Perry's claims that he was trying to fight cancer and "protect life" ring hollow - which, coming from a Governor who has overseen more than 234 executions hardly seems sincere. The key question seems to be one of what right the government has to implement programs that improve public health.

While there are currently no federal laws mandating vaccination, all 50 states have them - and the constitutional right of the government to mandate vaccination has been upheld by the Supreme Court on multiple occasions, many years before the 1950s.

Even IF the world had been turned upside down, and Ms. Bachmann somehow had become the President of the United States during the era when Dr. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine, her protestations would have crashed and broken against reality: both vaccinations and health care mandates work, if created and implemented properly. Legally and ethically, the U.S. and state governments not only can mandate certain actions regarding public health, but they have a responsibility to do so.

We tend to think the millions of Americans who've received the polio vaccine in the last fifty years, along with the millions of young Americans who've recently gained or kept health insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act - Obamacare to its detractors - would also tend to agree that mandates and health care are pretty good policy at times.

Friday Funday: It's Toonfest Time!

Once a year, for the last decade or so, one or more of us have trundled our belongings together, packed up, and headed for the place where every REAL Disney fan knows the magic really came from.

We're not talking about the Magic Kingdom. That's just up the road from our Florida offices, and we can go there, with a discount, any time we feel like it.

No, the REAL House of Mouse, where the world's most well-known cartoon mouse came to life in the mind of a young man, is in the small town of Marceline, Missouri, the boyhood home of cartooning legend Walt Disney - and Disney's Hometown Toonfest.

We're proud that Paul Fell Cartoons and the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society (NCS) have been such strong promoters of this event over the last 13 years - and if you're anywhere in near Missouri (or if you can catch a great discount flight to K.C. or St Louis) we highly recommend you join us this weekend.

Some fantastic cartoonists will be there this year, including Lee Judge, whose work you've probably seen in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Playboy, Washington Monthly or National Review. Bill Whitehead, a longtime humor writer for Hallmark Cards, and the weekly editorial cartoonist for the Kansas City Business Journal (for twenty years), will also be at Toonfest.

Jeff Keane - the inspiration for the legendary Jeffy from The Family Circus cartoons will be running around Marceline too - though we're not going to follow him around with a dotted line, like in the cartoon. The second- generation cartoonist and current creator of The Family Circus, is also a two-time former President of the NCS, and a long- time colleague of Paul's.

Finally, as far as the official guests go, Glenn McCoy, one of our own North Central Chapter members, one half of The Flying McCoys, and one of the most versatile cartoonists we know (and are proud to know), will also be in Marceline to help us celebrate the life of Walt Disney (and maybe pick up the bar tab this time).

We love autumn, and we love the Toonfest too. While it's mostly a festival for the town and the north central region of Missouri, there are people that come from all over the world to enjoy the Toonfest.

The festival focuses a great deal on exposing kids to the depth and history of Walt Disney, beyond the hyper-commercialized image most of us are used to seeing. It's a wonderful event, filled with cartoon artwork and fun.

For us, it's a way to celebrate the coming of autumn, a chance to catch up with old friends, and meet some new ones, as well as a chance for us to see the work of great cartoonists we're proud to share our broader media field with. If you ever get the chance to go, we highly recommend it.

We hope that, whatever you do this weekend, you get a chance to revel in the camaraderie, commiseration, companionship, and contentment that can only be found in the company of good friends.

If good food and fine beverages are a part of that? Even better.

Enjoy your weekend.

America's Perception Problem

The bitter truth about today's topic is that you likely haven't seen it covered - or if so, only briefly - in print, broadcast or web news this week. We're talking about the poverty problem in America, a topic that most media outlets seem too weak, spineless, or incompetent to properly cover. If we seem angry today, we are.

U.S. poverty levels have hit a fifty year peak, rising to 15.1%, or 46.2 million Americans. The poverty level has also been rising for over a decade - and American wage-earners have seen their lowest levels of Real Income since the end of the first Bush recession, in 1994.

Still, the gutless wonders that pass for media executives these days think that Americans don't want to hear about poverty, jobs, or politicians who are too cowardly to fight for American workers.

They are ninny-hammer idiots and cowards as well.

Americans DESPERATELY want to talk about jobs right now. More than that, Americans want EVERYONE... from the news media to their politicians, working to create jobs right now. Americans strongly favor President Obama's America's Jobs Act - as a whole plan - by nearly fifteen percentage points. When you dig into the poll numbers, and break the President's plan into smaller pieces, a supermajority of independent Americans - more than two-thirds - agree with the President's plans: to extend the payroll tax exemption for workers; to give federal money to state governments for teachers, firefighters, and police personnel; and to increase federal spending on roads, bridges, and repairing or replacing schools.

Americans aren't worried about their government spending money. They WANT their government to spend money, right now, to help create jobs. Americans are worried about this jobs crisis - a crisis that didn't begin in 2008, but in 2001.

The facts don't lie. For nearly sixty years, there were rarely more than three unemployed Americans for every job opening, and the ratio was usually below two-to-one. Since September 2008 - the beginning of the Lesser Depression - the ratio of jobseekers has never fallen below three-to-one. Near the end of the Bush Administration, it was as high as seven-to-one.

Since this current President has taken office, that number has slowly but steadily inched down.

Now, President Obama is out barnstorming the country, again doing everything he can to try to get even more Americans back to work. People in his administration may have even tried so hard to help create jobs, they may have applied a bit more pressure than they ethically should have, to try to get a solar power company in California to create jobs and help alleviate poverty.

What are the Republicans doing to fix America's jobs and poverty problem?

They're attempting to get the President investigated. Again. They're looking at using state laws to try and rig the 2012 Presidential elections. And of course, they're telling every lie they can think of to assure the American people that they're really working on the jobs plan - even though House Republicans haven't done a damn thing about generating jobs for anyone, and don't plan on doing anything anytime soon.

Even some House and Senate Democrats who understand how truly dire the situation is are going out on political limbs, even suggesting rules for the super committee that will keep the outcomes from the committee focused on legislation that will generate jobs in the public sector, and force or entice jobs to be created in the public sector.

The fact is, right now, there are also millions of Americans who are mad at the President. They're not mad because this horrible economy is his fault - in fact, they correctly blame Congressional Republicans for this economic disaster. However, they also recognize how dire the poverty and jobs situation in America is - and how few people in power are actually willing to deal with any of it.

The President is. Some U.S. House and Senate Democrats are, too. Sadly, it appears Congressional Republicans still believe that if they pretend not to see the poverty problem in America until next year's elections, they'll be able to blame the whole thing on President Obama.

All of us may have been blind to our poverty problem for far longer than we should have - but we hope Americans aren't stupid enough to keep believing we shouldn't do everything we can to fix it.

Cheshire Cat Government

If you're a Nebraskan, or if you've kept up with Nebraska news over the last few years, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services - also known as HHS - and their failed child welfare privatization efforts are in the news again.

This time, the very public release of a highly critical audit of the Nebraska HHS by State Auditor Mike Foley has appeared to have struck speechless many in Nebraska's state government - especially Gov. Dave Heineman.

Of course, we don't believe that either Heineman, Nebraska state senators, or officials at HHS are truly shocked.

The man in charge of the Nebraska HHS, Kerry Winterer, disagrees vehemently with many of Foley's findings. Whether Winterer's department was actively hiding the negative facts that Foley has since discovered, or HHS was simply privatized into incompetence doesn't change the fact that this privatization effort has been an utter failure.

The disasters of privatizing Nebraska's child welfare & juvenile services system are a subject we discussed even before we began publishing the Daily Felltoon. History has proven our hypothesis correct, that the privatization of Nebraska's child welfare system wouldn't work, would cost the state more money, and would be less effective for the most important users of the system, kids.

Foley's audit appears to have finally assigned finite costs to those failures. While his conclusions are extremely disconcerting, they don't surprise us. Under the failed privatization effort of Nebraska's child welfare & juvenile services system, costs went up, not down, as was promised by Republicans who jammed the plan through the Unicameral. Millions of dollars of state funds were spent on overpayments to private providers. Some of those same providers of services to kids - like foster care monitoring - went out of business, even after overpayment, as the privatization was never designed to pay them the full cost of their efforts, anyway. Confidential patient info was improperly shared, and several subcontractors were underpaid, or even unpaid.

In short, the effort to privatize a government system that was supposed to take care of Nebraska's most needy children has now destroyed that system, given millions of Nebraska tax dollars to private companies, and left no system capable of handling the juvenile services needs of thousands of Nebraska kids.

The question that many Nebraskans - and truthfully, people across the country - should be asking is this: Where was Governor Dave Heineman while all this was going on? He had been one of the driving forces behind the effort to privatize HHS - yet six weeks after HHS received a draft copy of Foley's audit, they hadn't discussed it with the Governor, and apparently, the Governor has yet to read the report.

What was the Republican governor of Nebraska doing instead of taking care of the needs of Nebraska's children? Grinning from ear to ear, bragging and talking up the state (that he's supposed to be running) to more than a hundred business representatives from foreign countries.

Disgustingly, it appears that nearly everyone connected with this HHS privatization effort has had a cheshire cat plan all along. Just keep smiling and nodding, while shoveling the tax dollars of Nebraskans into the pockets of their business buddies. Just keep smiling until the problem fades off the pages of the newspaper and disappears from view. Just like the Cheshire Cat from Alice In Wonderland disappears in the classic animated feature, bit by bit.

Thankfully, due to the diligent Mr. Foley, we have a feeling Gov. Heineman and others aren't smiling that Cheshire Cat smile today.

On Being Uncompromising

We're fairly certain that today - at least initially - our longtime readers may be a bit surprised by our stance on the topic of the day.

In case you missed it yesterday, President Obama, as promised during his big jobs speech last Thursday, delivered the complete initial legal version of his jobs bill to the House of Representatives. As any good House Speaker should on such an important bill, John Boehner immediately sent it on to the non-partisan CBO - the Congressional Budget Office - to have them officially "score" the bill.

For those of you who may have forgotten, scoring the bill is where the number-crunchers at the CBO go through the proposed legislation to see if the items requested to have government money spent on them will be able to be paid for - and actually be likely to deliver the outcomes promised.

All this is perfectly normal, including the speed at the which the proposal is moving from the President's bully pulpit to the House of Representatives, to the CBO.

Here's the shocker: We now think it's time that the President take an uncompromising approach to his jobs bill.

Yes, we've hammered for years on compromise as a tool that both sides need to employ- and we still believe that's true.

There are times, however, when wise individuals must make a stand - and we're very glad that the President is finally taking a position to insist that Congress get off their collective asses and finally do something to help the economy.

It's not as though the President hasn't outlined in the bill exactly how to pay for every piece of the legislation. He's even built in a $20 billion cushion, in both cuts and revenue increases. Tax hikes on those Americans who can most afford it are part of his plan, including a direct change on how "carried interest" - a concept that has allowed some of the wealthiest Americans to evade paying taxes for years - would be handled. He's also outlined some cuts that will likely anger members of both parties, and many smaller constituencies.

Every item of this proposal is exactly as President Obama said it was - tactics and methods to handle a jobs and financial crisis that everyone is deeply familiar with.

There are those Republicans, however, who are already wailing and gnashing their teeth, stomping their political feet and threatening to refuse to work with the President. They're calling him hypocritical, saying the President has called for compromise throughout his whole tenure and NOW he's being uncompromising.

We think the President is being uncompromising at exactly the right time.

When Bank of America, who the American people bailed out less than three years ago, announces it's going to fire 30,000 people; when a two-tiered wage system that significantly shorts American manufacturing workers is becoming normal; when 9% unemployment has become the "new normal" ... it is high time to be uncompromising about fixing the jobs and economy problem.

It is a good thing to see that at least SOME of the Republican congressional leadership - like Mr. Boehner - seem to be starting to grasp the true nature of the jobs crisis we face. However, the numbers of Republicans in Congress who actually get it are still too small.

"It" is an uncompromising fact.

If the economy doesn't improve in the next fourteen months, it won't just be Democrats and the President who will be destroyed by an economy that continues to limp along. Republicans will also be blown out of office by their willingness to destroy the Obama administration while ignoring the nation's REAL troubles.

If President Obama - and frankly, anyone who supports his jobs plan - are going to be labeled as "uncompromising" in their efforts to put America back to work, that's the kind of lack of compromise we're more than willing to support.

Giving Thanks Through Humor And Healing

Last week, America prepared to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on our nation. At the same time I [Paul] was honored to join a group of cartoonists from the National Cartoonists Society on a trip to Norfolk, Virginia and Bethesda, Maryland on a trip to visit and draw for some of our wounded warriors and active duty military personnel at a number of different hospitals and military installations.

The NCS has a long-standing tradition going back to WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam of going out to entertain the troops wherever they may be. In recent years, NCS teams have visited places like Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany and countless bases stateside. Our goal is to express our appreciation to these remarkable people for the job they do and the sacrifices they make to keep us safe here at home.

Our group consisted of Dr. Joel Goodman, founder of The Humor Project, who travels the world giving presentations on humor in the workplace and humor in healing. Our cartoonists were Mason Mastroianni, who draws the classic comic feature, “B.C.”; Jeff Bacon, whose cartoons appear in “Navy Times” and “Marine Times”; Bruce Higdon, freelance cartoonist and illustrator; and yours truly, Paul Fell. We were escorted throughout our 5-day trip by Leanne Braddock, retired Navy Commander who now does counseling for the wounded warriors and their families.

We began our trip in Norfolk, Virginia, where we visited the Portsmouth Naval Hospital to meet and draw for marines and sailors who are recovering from their wounds and receiving rehabilitation before returning to active duty or civilian life. We spent the morning drawing for these men and women in hopes of expressing our appreciation and to provide a brief respite from what is for many of them, a long ordeal of recovery. At the same time, Joel Goodman was doing his presentation “Humor and Healing” for hospital patients and staff.

Later that day, we visited the Portsmouth Navy base, where we were told we would see the largest collection of naval power in the world. They weren’t kidding. As we boarded the cruiser USS San Jacinto, we were surrounded by nuclear aircraft carriers, assault ships, destroyers, and naval vessels of every kind. We received a tour of the ship and then proceeded to the chiefs’ mess where we drew for the crew. As always, our scheduled stop of 90 minutes ran overtime. The crew members kept coming by for drawings, and we were happy to oblige.

After a travel day we visited the Bethesda/Walter Reed medical center. This is yet another huge facility where the wounded receive top-notch care for their injuries. It is truly sobering to see the extent of the wounds these soldiers, sailors, and marines have endured and the long and painful rehabilitation they go through. What truly touches your heart is their determination to move on with their lives and how their situations impact their families and loved ones. We spent part of our day drawing in the main lobby of the hospital for anyone who could stop by. Later we were taken to the acute care facility where the wounded are first housed when they are evacuated from the combat zones. When their condition is stabilized, which could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months, they are transferred to another part of the complex where they are housed in apartment-like facilities. Their families can then stay with them as they begin the long healing process.

This was my first NCS trip to draw for the Wounded Warriors and I already have my name in for another. Our association has groups preparing to head overseas next week and again in October. Time and time again, we received heartfelt thanks from the wounded, their families, and medical staff for these visits. In reality, we, as cartoonists are the honored ones, and we get even more out of these visits than those who have sacrificed so much for our country.

Time For Heroes

With the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks this weekend on our mind, and the President's jobs speech still resounding in our ears, we began to gather our thoughts for today's commentary. As we knew when we began this week, today's commentary would be about heroes.

As a cartoonist, Paul has drawn heroes and caricatures of heroes for years. Today, he's continuing a tradition that many of our friends in the cartooning and media business have been involved in for years: visiting real heroes, through Navy, Army, and USO programs.

The men and women that Paul and the other cartoonists are drawing for this week come from many different situations. Some are injured soldiers and sailors in hospital wards, while some are healthy service members stuck on long-term duty stations and ships, both here in America and abroad.

The cartoonists are doing what they can, to help their fellow Americans get through a tough time. They're taking pictures with the troops, drawing them and their friends, telling jokes - trying to help them get a breather from the daily grind of their lives. Some have major injuries. Many simply do the things that keep our armed services running smoothly, things that rarely garner public recognition. Yet they're heroes, each and every one.

If you ask almost any one of our living Medal of Honor recipients, they'll all say nearly the same thing: that they're not really heroes either. When they took out whole groups of enemies in insane firefights, they were just protecting their friends, their fellow Americans - their family by another name.

Many of the heroes of 9/11 would answer that question in much the same way, if we could ask them. The buildings were falling - but they were going to do the job, to the best of their abilities, do it all the way, until they couldn't anymore.

When we repeat the words of our web guru's granddad - that anything worth doing is worth doing well - THIS is what we mean by "doing well."

Our President - the President of EVERY American - once again was trying to do his job well when he spoke to Congress, and to every American citizen, Thursday night. He called on us to act on the most pressing crisis of our time, the jobs and economic crisis.

Mr. Obama laid out his plan, and he made it VERY clear that we will ALL be expected give up some things for the greater good of our nation. Excesses in Medicare WILL be examined. Corporations and the wealthy WILL pay more in taxes. And if we fail to help each other, it is all of us together that will have failed, not just him alone.

The President will put the details of his together bill by next Tuesday, and submit it to Congress. Then Congress will need to act - not next year, not in fourteen months. NOW. But it's not just up to them. We, the American people, will need to push Congress every step of the way, day after day.

Like some of the heroes that Paul and the cartoonists are visiting this week.

Being a hero isn't just something that can be spun into an exciting story, a Hollywood movie, or a great cartoon. Heroes include the kind of individuals who tear apart a ship, and retrofit it so that we can protect our country with better, safer, faster ships. It's grueling work sometimes, work that takes not just hours or weeks, but months and sometimes years of doing the same thing - and doing it well.

The actions of heroes aren't just a single moment or a single day - and they shouldn't be just a single day's events for any of us either.

The heroes of September 11th didn't just show up on September 9th and become members of the NYFD or NYPD. They took years to become heroes. Some of the heroes that have died since that day passed away due to weeks and months spent digging through the rubble. Day after day.

Now it's our turn. We are each faced with a fundamental choice: we can choose to accept the ideas put forth by President Obama to help our fellow Americans, or we can look no farther than political labels and automatically ignore the most pressing needs of our time. Some of these people, our family by another name, have been out of work or severely underemployed, through no fault of their own, for years. Ignoring them is no less neglectful and dishonorable an action than ignoring our soldiers who come home physically whole, but mentally and spiritually damaged.

Our fellow Americans need heroes.
It's time - long past time, actually - that we become the heroes we need.
It is time we did everything well. Every day. No exceptions.

No excuses.

Hoping For The Real Thing

As we expected, last night's GOP debate at the Reagan Library looked more like an Obama re-election committee than a group of potential challengers to President Obama.

We hoped for specifics from the Republican candidates; we got very few. We wanted honesty; we got very little. We wanted more discussion of how each candidate would create jobs; we heard mostly the talking points and platitudes we sadly expected. Romney's big moment, where he defended Social Security seems to directly contradict one point of his 59-point jobs and economic plan from earlier this week. Perry lied like cheap rug. Michele Bachmann just seemed to fade away.

Of the eight foolish, ill-informed, pandering puppets on the stage, only Jon Huntsman appeared to us to be even marginally worthy of competing for the Presidency. We're not the only people who thought he won the debate last night.

Truthfully, he may have been the only REAL Reagan Republican on that stage.

If President Obama did anyone a favor by agreeing to move his speech on jobs to Thursday evening, it was the GOP candidates on that stage in California Wednesday night. If he'd given his speech before the Republicans spoke, they may have looked even more inept than they did.

That doesn't mean we're giving a pass to the President tonight - or in the 2012 campaign.

We're well aware of the information that has been leaked about the President's speech tonight: that there will be about a $300 billion stimulus, and that it will include things like payroll tax cuts for WORKING Americans and infrastructure spending - both items that Republicans have supported in the past.

Those are good ideas - ideas that have already proven to create jobs through the stimulus, though the original stimulus should have been MUCH larger, as many of the best economists have been saying all along.

We're also aware that the Republican talking heads and the right-leaning corporate media will continue screaming that regulations and a tax burden are the real problem, even though that lie has already been debunked by many of the private sectors' most successful businesspeople and economists.

Like an infant who's learned that screaming and tantrums result in attention and treats, the extremists on the political right have come to think that if they scream their lies until everyone else becomes weary and gives in, their version of reality will somehow prevail. Like that same infant, they must be re-trained to learn that behavior is unacceptable, offensive, and ultimately won't get them what they want.

What they want on the right is the same thing many on the left want tonight. They want to see President Obama take full command of his position.

He needs to be bold. He needs to be direct. He needs to tell Congress that they WILL get off their lazy asses and do something to help America get back to work - or he will use every inch of leeway accorded to the Office of The President and he will begin programs to put Americans back to work himself.

And then on Friday, he needs to follow through. Immediately.

America needs help. NOW. As we said, earlier this week, we don't expect the President's speech tonight to solve all of the country's woes. To think that words alone will solve the issues would be ridiculous.

However, if President Obama wants to convince independents, Democrats, and Republicans alike that he's the right choice in 2012, he needs to be at his best tonight.

Time For Specifics

This week may feel busier than usual - and not just because it's a shortened week for many Americans due to the Labor Day holiday. There's a lot going on this week, both politically and personally. Of course, the second of two GOP debate events this week is tonight - and the President's address to Congress on jobs is tomorrow.

Millions of American kids also returned to school this week, and those schools that began their semester before Labor Day are now truly digging into the material. They're getting down to details - and that's EXACTLY what every candidate at EVERY level should be thinking about right now.

As a former Capitol Hill staffer pointed out to a fellow journalist this week, the average voter doesn't care about specifics. An American voter who spends more than five minutes thinking about which Congressional candidate to vote for, is more thoughtful than most of his or her fellow citizens.

That doesn't negate the truth: to be better, to have a better nation, we must rise above the seductive simplicity of the five-minute, slogan-voting mindset.

That means getting specific, this week, about jobs.

To his credit, the jobs plan that Mitt Romney announced on Tuesday is more specific than anything that anyone else has put forward so far. In a 160-page booklet, Romney's plan calls for tax cuts of almost every tax you can think of, more oil and natural gas drilling, protectionist trade policies, and even deeper cuts to federal spending and federal aid to states. To his detriment, his jobs plan does NOTHING to solve the biggest single problem facing American businesses - the massive lack of demand at all levels.

Don't look to Rick Perry for better specifics.

Paul Osterman, an economist at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, recently proved this by examining, in depth, the supposed miracle of Texas job creation. Rick Perry may have created millions of jobs in Texas - but they are some of the worst paying jobs in the nation.

We'll have plenty of chances to hear the specifics from the GOP contenders tonight - and we certainly hope they'll actually provide some specifics on their jobs plans, instead of merely attacking President Obama or one another while mouthing talking points and platitudes.

The President himself will also have to give us more specifics than he has in many of his speeches over the last two and a half years. If Mr. Obama writes down his specific proposal, and presents that to Congress, there will be little chance for those who oppose him at every turn to say he isn't being specific enough. Sadly, though, we highly doubt that any proposal, no matter how specific, would satisfy a Republican Congress that is increasingly disrespectful to both Mr. Obama and the office of the President. Right now, even the psychological specifics say Republicans are likely to vote against ANYTHING President Obama suggests, simply because he's suggesting it.

Even the latest specific polling data backs this statement up. In category after category, by solid majorities and pluralities, Americans agree with the specific economic POLICIES President Obama continues to support.

What they don't support are the results of those policies so far - policies that have been specifically stymied and stopped by the Republican Congress.

The single biggest specific question that every candidate for President in 2012 needs to answer is this: If Congress stops you at every turn, how are you going to bypass them, and still get the work of the American people accomplished?

Cowards And Heroes

Make no bones about it; the focus this week will be on two topics - jobs and heroes. They are fitting subjects in a week that began with the Labor Day holiday, and which ends with the tenth anniversary of the disasters of 9/11.

On Monday, a handful of 2012 GOP Presidential candidates held the first of TWO debate-like events this week -  without Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who flew back to Texas to posture but not really do anything about the wildfires ravaging his state. Not surprisingly, at the forum hosted by Tea Party poser Sen. Jim Demint of South Carolina, the five Republican candidates attacked the President - though they also increasingly went after each other.

Meanwhile, the REAL President Obama - or at least the version of him that won the election in 2008 - gave a rousing speech at an AFL-CIO Labor Day event in Detroit, Michigan. His message was positive, upbeat, and didn't include discussions of the debt, deficit, or "shared sacrifice." Instead, the President addressed the war on workers, as well as the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican Party.

The President said, "I know it’s not easy when there's some folks who have their sights trained on you. After all that unions have done to build and protect the middle class, you’ve got people trying to claim that you’re responsible for the problems middle-class folks are facing. You’ve got Republicans saying you’re the ones exploiting working families. Imagine that."

For once, the President didn't back down on his criticism of Congressional Republicans and their plan to bog down the country's business for the forseeable future - and he told Congress they MUST pass a jobs bill and they needed to give tax breaks to working class Americans, if they were going to give them to anyone at all.

"We’re going to see if we’ve got some straight shooters in Congress. We’re going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party," the President said. "You want -- you say you’re the party of tax cuts? Well then, prove you’ll fight just as hard for tax cuts for middle-class families as you do for oil companies and the most affluent Americans. Show us what you got."

His speech was good - but we sincerely hope he backs it up with action for a change.

There are a great many things the Executive Branch of the U.S. government cannot do alone - including save the economy. While President Obama may have presided over eighteen straight months of meager but positive PRIVATE job sector growth, the lack of Congress in doing anything meaningful on jobs or the economy has lead the public sector - local, state, and federal governments - to cut jobs so hard any private sector growth has been cancelled out. The lack of participation by Congress is the biggest single reason everything the President has tried so far to help spur our economy has ended up returning only half-baked results.

There are 535 voting members of Congress and nine Supreme Court justices, as well as over 210 million voting-age Americans (but no voting corporations) who are all part of this government.  Millions of these same Americans need jobs that corporations and businesses - who are sitting on billions of dollars in cash - have yet to create, at least not in this country.

We don't expect the President's speech on jobs this week to magically create massive demand in the marketplace - the REAL reason private companies and corporations have remained siting on the sidelines for so long. Even if private sector growth exploded, until we correct the gaping loopholes in our tax code that the rich and corporations fly through all the time, the public sector still won't have the money it needs, and America will continue hemorrhaging public sector jobs.

We also don't expect Congress - especially the Republicans in Congress - to do anything on the jobs front. Most of the cowards on both sides of the Congressional aisle were too afraid to even have town hall meetings with their constituents last month. They sure as hell aren't likely to upset their corporate campaign donors by pushing for a more just tax code in an election year.

What we do expect this week, from both President Obama, as well as his Republican challengers, is some hard details on how they plan to enlist the millions of Americans who have been waiting to become heroes in our own economic recovery.

What those details and plans will reveal is just who is ready to lead this country forward, towards progress. Those millions of Americans who have been without work for far too long are watching closely, and will surely remember this week come election day 2012.

What Labor Day SHOULD Mean

Today is Labor Day, a day for Americans to celebrate and honor the real working-class individuals who made America the legendary country many of us remember. Labor Day is meant to celebrate the struggles of those who stood up for and were part of the working class, whose sacrifices have given large numbers of people in America and worldwide lives that are more that just simply existing.

It was never exclusively the rich - the "job creators" as Republicans try to call them these days - that brought about the long-term stability and prosperity of the working class. It was working men and women, and organizations like labor unions, that caused those in power to finally take the concerns of working people seriously.

Sadly, in America today, Labor Day has ceased to have much meaning at all.

Of course, when you have a political and social system that's been unjustly set against those who truly work for a living, by those who don't have a clue on what it is to do an honest day's work (or what an honest day's work is truly worth), you get the kind of inequality in the workplace Americans currently face every day.

Many of you are among those workers who don't know what it's like to be part of a workforce where employers didn't treat you like a number, like a replaceable part, just another money-sucking expense. Today we offer you a few facts to help you understand who and what Labor Day is supposed to celebrate - and why some would like this holiday and its meaning to be forgotten.

If your pay, or your work schedule is based (even loosely) on the idea of a 40 hour work week, big business bosses didn't do that for you. Organized labor and collective bargaining did that. Corporations have fought the 40-hour work week for years, and they usually break that rule whenever they can get away with it.

Unions gave you the eight hour day and the 40 hour work week, and by doing so gave you the weekend you just finished - or may still be enjoying.

The minimum wage you started earning as a young worker? Labor unions helped to get that for you, too.

Even though pension plans and access to health insurance have been shrinking more and more over the last thirty years, the basic ideas of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would never have happened without the support of the working men and women of organized labor. Our general system of retirement planning and health insurance in America would also never have been possible, were it not for men & women of unions fighting - and, sadly, dying at times - for Americans to have those benefits that we now too often take for granted.

Without working class Americans & their unions, children would still likely be working in factories, as they do in many other places in the world.

Today, if you are lucky enough to have the day off, we simply ask that you think about the reality of working life in America - and around the world - and realize a key fact.

No matter what economic class you currently live in, or what you think of labor unions and the American working class, without them, your life and the lives of millions of people would be drastically different - and likely MUCH worse.

Enjoy your day off (if you're indeed lucky enough to not be working today) - and remember those who made it possible for you to have any days off in the first place.