Friday Funday: One America

It is Friday, so we’re going to be positive today - especially in light of the 5-4 Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, on Thursday.

Whether the ACA - still called ObamaCare by some - will lead to truly universal health care, or just mostly universal healthcare is a question far beyond our ability to forsee. As we noted on Thursday it will be quite some time before the effects of the Court’s decision are fully understood. Or as Paul Krugman said, "This ain't over by a long shot."

The most important and positive thing we can immediately pull from Thursday’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act is this. For the first time in our lives, no American has to be worried that they’ll lose their insurance coverage - or won’t be able to get health insurance - because of a pre-existing condition.

So if you haven't been to the doctor recently, for a check-up? Schedule it now.

Affordable health care is now no longer a luxury in America, or something only for the wealthy. That seems to be the idea so many on the right used millions and millions of dollars to try and sell to everyone. They failed.

Not surprisingly, the most extreme Republicans have already insisted they’re going to repeal the ACA. Of course, the likelihood of them being successful is probably about the same as one of our staff members growing wings overnight and flying away. Even Republican power brokers like David Frum has said repeal is a fantasy, and Republicans need to grow up. That said, we’re certainly willing to see them try.

As any student of history knows, now that the Affordable Care Act has been found constitutional, and even more of its component parts are put into effect over the next two years, it’ll be like Social Security, Medicare, or any of a host of other programs Americans have enacted over the last two hundred plus years. Once citizens get used to having affordable health care (like every other first world nation) the extremist fools screaming "socialism" will suddenly shut up. The idea of repealing “ObamaCare” will become utterly unimaginable to everyone but the lunatic fringe.

When all the dust has settled about this argument, it will be clear that the core of the inspiring speech Barack Obama gave nearly four years ago, at the Democratic National Convention, remains true today. "We ARE connected as one people.... If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother.”

“...Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.”

Regardless of what side you were on in the health care debate, when we celebrate our Independence Day next week, we won’t be celebrating being independent from one another.

We’ll be celebrating that we’re all together in this crazy experiment in self-governance called The United States of America.

One nation. With liberty and justice for all.
And now, thankfully, basic affordable health care too.

**We’ll be off next week, as large sections of the American population are also taking the week off. Paul will have a special cartoon next week, then we’ll return to our regular publishing schedule July 9.

The Decision

We're publishing today's edition early, just ahead of the Supreme Court's announcement of its monumental decision on the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

Like the individual decisions of the Justices themselves, some of our comments on this decision were written well in advance of today's publication. Like the other serious and weighty decisions the Court has made this week, today's announcement will not solve the health care insurance issue in this country. The Court's earlier decisions on labor union participation, or immigration or campaign finance issues did not solve those problems either.

Making effective, solid law has never been the proper role of the Supreme Court.

The job of making solid, well-thought, well-researched, effective, efficient law is the job of our legislative bodies - from village boards and city councils, all the way up to Congress. If we allow the wealthiest people and corporations to blanket our TVs, radios, newspapers and computers with sensationalism and half truths to convince us that sending our village idiots to DC to represent them (not us!) is a good idea, we have only ourselves to blame.

Making good law that works for all of us - not just the wealthiest or most extreme among us - is our collective responsibility.

Similarly, guiding our country is also not the role of the Court. It is the role of the President, who - among many, many responsibilities - carries the role of political leader. The role of the Executive Branch is also enforcement, as well as implementation.

It's easy for the millions of armchair dictators and media blowhards to scream and holler that the President should simply do whatever they say, as though the President were a king or a queen - or a dictator, as President Bush once lamented publicly.

Our President is not a dictator. He or she cannot simply send thousands of border agents to Mexico and Canada, and - POOF! All our immigration problems will be gone. The President can't simply send the Fifth Infantry to Wall Street, to forcibly penalize all those responsible for the economic disaster - or force insurance companies to put patient outcomes and efficient health care before the interests of their stockholders and profit motives.

The President may be the head of the Executive Branch - but fixing these iconic issues is not the sole responsibility of the current occupant of the White House.

No, the biggest decision and the most responsibility will still fall in the same place it has for over a century - squarely on the shoulders of the American people.

We're like a relay team at the Olympics that's still arguing about minor issues like who bought the shoelaces for today's race. Problem is, we're still in the starting blocks, where we've been for over a century, while every other first world nation has figured out how to provide basic, high-quality health care, as good or better than comparable care here in the U.S. And, for the most part, it's available to ALL of THEIR  citizens.

We still haven't even gotten out of the starting gates.

The most important decision that will face Americans this day - or this year - on how Americans will pay for decent basic health care, won't be coming from the Supreme Court.

We're not saying the decision the Supreme Court makes today is insignificant. Admittedly, it will definitely take far more than just a day or two to fully "unpack" the effects of their ruling, whatever it is. No matter what they decide, their ruling will not solve our health care insurance problems - even if their opinion is simply to allow the Affordable Care Act to stand as it is.

To make laws and implement solutions that will solve massive systemic problems like the cost of health care is our collective national responsibility. Our decision - the only decision that matters on health care insurance - is to act on the ruling the Court gives us today, so that we can fix this problem together.

It is long past time we, as a nation, decide to finish the task of taking care of the basic health needs of all Americans. That is the only decision that matters on this issue.

To make laws and implement solutions that will solve massive systemic problems like the cost of health care is our collective national responsibility. Our decision - the only decision that matters on health care insurance - is to act on the ruling the Court gives us today, so that we can fix this problem together.

It is long past time we, as a nation, decide to finish the task of taking care of the basic health needs of all Americans. That is the only decision that matters on this issue.

Castles In The Sand

Yesterday, we only briefly touched on the Supreme Court's decisions regarding campaign finance law and immigration. As we've often said, anything worth doing is worth doing well - which is why we took our time unraveling both decisions, which we will do for you today.

As a reminder for Thursday's Supreme Court decisions regarding both the Stolen Valor Act, and of course, the Affordable Care Act, we'll warn you in advance: These court decisions are not as easy to accurately decipher as many TV and radio pundits, and instant bloggers - from all political backgrounds - attempt to make it seem.

Regardless of the mental stability of its justices, there is a reason these difficult cases make their way to the Supreme Court. If these were easy legal decisions, the cases would never get this far.

The massive wave of problems related to immigration that was handled in the Court's decision on Monday was a perfect example of how even the best plans and previous Supreme Court rulings can be washed away like so much sand, in the face of a tsunami.

In short, the court did not - as many, many, many legitimate media outlets said - uphold any part of Arizona's SB1070. For all the bragadoccio by Arizona's Gov. Brewer on Monday the fact is, the "Papers, please" provision of the court's decision was not the heart of the law. That provision allows law enforcement officers who have "reasonable suspicion" of someone's immigration status to stop them and ask them to provide identification.

That provision may also be on thin ice. As the Court itself made clear, and as legal scholars and others have confirmed, the Court is deferring to the earlier judgement of a lower court. Since SB1070 never really took effect, there was no way for the Justices to honestly judge whether it would work in practice. For now, that provision remains - but if Arizona law enforcement officers abuse it, which is entirely possible - that provision may also end up before the Court, and is likely to be struck down as well.

All the other provisions of Arizona's attempt at making its own, separate immigration law were smacked down very hard. Arizona - or any state or U.S. territory - is not allowed to have its own immigration policy. They cannot create new criminal charges that target immigrants. They cannot detain people indefinitely, because a person might be undocumented. Finally, certain Executive Branch actions regarding the application of Federal law - like President Obama's recent actions on immigration - are completely lawful.

In short, anti-immigrant forces got their race-based political excuse for legislation washed out in a wave of previous legal rulings.

Truthfully, the Court's other major decision on Monday - regarding campaign finance reform - while handled poorly, has a similar background.

In short, the high court  decided on Monday that whether or not states like Montana have had campaign finance restriction laws on the books for a single year or a century, states cannot set their own campaign finance laws, any more than they can set their own immigration policies.

We still firmly believe a less ideologically driven court would never have made its initial decision to allow corporations and wealthy individuals to effectively outright buy our elections.

That said, the consistency between the Court's decisions on immigration and campaign finance gives the Court back another small grain of credibility and legitimacy.

Depending on the decision the Court makes on health care Thursday morning, those grains of credibility may yet yet be washed away before the week is out.

Empty, Vague - And Hoping You Don't Notice.

As we mentioned Monday morning, this week will be filled with news and decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, that will prove more than a few things to the American people.

One of those things already proven on Monday afternoon was the complete lack of professionalism and infantile anger of several of the justices on the conservative wing of the Court, especially that of Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia's nakedly political ranting in dissent of the Court's 5-3 decision to strike down most of Arizona's SB1070 was passionate, if nothing else. The decision on immigration, released Monday afternoon, along with the Court's larger decision on the Montana campaign finance law, both served to lay bare the true positions of the extremists on the Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas, however, continued what has become a legendary habit of silence. Even at his most animated, Thomas seems to only display an occasional vague and dispassionate opinion. In short, Justice Thomas usually displays the kind of purposeful anonymity that most political media observers equate with GOP candidate Mitt Romney's "Mittness Protection" program.

Frankly, if only those two choices of judicial temperament are offered, we'd rather someone display the obvious partisanship of Scalia, to the nearly empty chair attitude of Thomas. At least we know where Scalia stands - even if he stands neck-deep in incompetence.

Thomas' attitude reminds us strongly of the current U.S. Senate race in Nebraska, between former Senator Bob Kerrey, and Nebraska state senator, Deb Fischer.

For quite some time now, Kerrey has been openly and publicly looking to interact, debate, and compare his ideas for helping Nebraskans to those of Fischer. The biggest problem Kerrey has run into with doing that is Fischer just hasn't seemed to want to debate anything - and it doesn't appear she's looking to do so at any time down the road, either.

We warned about Fischer's approach to campaigning back in mid-May, when she won the GOP nomination. Even then, we noted Fischer only won by remaining quiet - and then at the last minute, accepting the massive cash avalanche from the corporate right.

What even we didn't mention is that even as Fischer split the Republican Party, and quietly walked away with the nomination, she still failed to strongly let Republican voters - or really, any Nebraska voter - know what her positions are.

That Fischer's camp recently released a ridiculously biased poll, put together by a wholly unreliable Republican polling firm, that appears to have only polled by landline phone - an almost completely discredited method of accurate polling - hasn't kept multiple hack media outlets from bleating about a Fischer landslide.

What they've also missed, is the same thing we missed in May.

Fischer has yet to truly make any of her positions well-known - and as some in the Nebraska media have noted, she and her campaign have pretty much gone quiet.

Meanwhile, Bob Kerrey hasn't just been sitting around, waiting for Fischer. He's continued doing what Bob Kerrey has always done - plodding forward, meeting with other Nebraskans, listening to everything they have to say, even the ones that don't agree with him. He also continues to call out waste and abuse - like the corporate ag welfare Fischer's family readily collects.

In our collective experience, most Americans, whether they agree with a politician or not, at least want to know where those politicians stand.

Kerrey may not be as animated as Supreme Court Justice Scalia, but it's also quite obvious where Kerry stands. Fischer continues to display the same lack of passion as Justice Thomas, or even Mr. Romney.

To us, empty chairs, vague positions, and disinterested politicians have no business being part of a vibrant, effective government.

The Not-So-Fast And Superfluous

We're beginning this week warning you that the headlines and stories will be coming fast and furious this week - but likely the least important headline will be that of the partisan witch hunt surrounding the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, and the ridiculously named 'Fast and Furious' program.

Part of why the media will be flooded with news this week has nothing to do with the serious topics we'll be discussing. The fact is, since Independence Day falls in the middle of next week, nearly everyone who can afford to is trying to sneak in a five day weekend, one way or the other. For both politicians and the media, that means there really won't be much going on during the first week of July.

That means everything is getting packed into this week - so hang onto your backsides.

To start with, there are a large number of major decisions coming from our questionably just Supreme Court. The Court's decision on Arizona's SB1070 is due this week was released this morning and it will certainly have national ramifications. No matter what the Court decides, it's also nearly certain that Mr. Romney will have to try and defend his empty positions on immigration for the second week in a row.

The fate of health care insurance will also be decided - temporarily - by the Court this week. Make no mistake; no one, on any side, will be happy with the result, as polls have already confirmed. Further, legal scholars have overwhelmingly agreed that if the Supreme Court follows its own legal precedent, the Affordable Care Act - including the individual mandate - will be upheld. These same scholars also fully expect that at least some of the law will be rejected by the Court - meaning the Court's decision will likely be more political, and less just.

No matter what the Court decides, the American people have made it clear, they DO like most of the provisions of the ACA. They just don't like them all grouped into the package known as "ObamaCare", thanks to the propaganda of the right wing.

There's more news this week than just what the Supreme Court is doing, however.

Politics in the Middle East are changing rapidly right now, especially on the heels of the presidential election results being released in Egypt. What's more, the civil war in Syria appears to be widening, as Syrian government forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet in international airspace. Turkey also has seen recent terrorist attacks from Kurds in Iraq - so the Turks retaliated by targeting Iraqi Kurdish sites with their jet fighters.

Meanwhile, the economy around the world is still fragile for most people, even while corporations are making their biggest profits ever. Wildfires are lighting up all over the Western United States, and the richest corporatists appear ready to buy the election for their Republican stooges. Student loan rates are also set to explode like a time bomb, and millions of Americans still need more and better jobs.

So what is our Congress doing to try and fix some of these disasters?

For its part, the Democratic-led Senate has been surprisingly busy passing some legislation, including bi-partisan efforts like the Farm Bill, which passed last Friday, 64-35.

The Republican-led House, however, has had the world's worst collective case of cranial-rectal inversion. Republican Darrell Issa has been on a partisan witch hunt of Attorney General Eric Holder in a desperate attempt to try and find ANYTHING he can use to impeach President Obama.

However, as Issa admitted to Fox over the weekend, there is no evidence of White House involvement in "Fast and Furious."

That's why President Obama's bold move to use 'Executive Privilege" on some parts of the DOJ's investigation of Fast & Furious isn't evidence of a cover-up by the White House. It's evidence of our nation's chief executive blowing past a GOP-controlled House of Representatives that have their heads up their backsides. Mr. Obama continues moving forward, doing his job, as he attempts to deal with some of the massive problems facing America - like immigration - without the help of Congress.

There's a hell of a lot going on in the world right now. That Republicans in the House are wasting time on this superfluous political stunt displays for everyone exactly where their priorities are. That would be right where Republican leader Mitch McConnell said they would be, all along - to take President Obama down at all costs.

Friday Funday: Effing Freedom

It's Friday, and we're returning to our regular habit of focusing on lighter subjects, and those that may just make you laugh. That's important to us, especially because we fully expect next week to be filled with more of the superfluous political attack on Attorney General Eric Holder, and a pile of rulings from a Supreme Court that's only partially about justice.

So... how about those nuns in busses?

Right now, Catholic bishops and Catholic nuns in busses, are crossing the country - and each other - in the debate about the Affordable Care Act. Just the mental image of busses filled with bishops, following around busses filled with nuns, hollering at the nuns, gives us at least a little bit of a chuckle.

In case you missed it, the bishops are traveling around in busses, insisting that Americans - not just Catholic Americans, but all Americans - campaign AGAINST the Affordable Care Act. The bishops specifically despise the provisions that say all health insurance companies must offer the OPTION to cover birth control in all their policies. As we've discussed previously, the ACA's changes don't include mandatory birth control, nor do they mandate free birth control - both often fictions that right-wing propaganda outlets continue to screech, long after those fictions have been proven false.

To put it bluntly, the bishops want to have the government take away the responsibility and right that Americans now have for their own reproductive health care.

The fact is, no matter what the bishops want, 98% of American women - including Catholics - have used birth control at some time. The large dose of irony involved in the bishops' chief complaint - that their rights are being infringed because they're not being allowed to use the government to infringe upon the rights of others - is one that makes us chuckle deeply. It's almost as though we're watching busses filled with Don Quixotes heading for the proverbial windmills.

Meanwhile, the nuns are also criss-crossing the country, using secularly proven facts - not their bibles - to promote their viewpoints. The nuns are pointing out that the budget and policy plans pushed by Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and the rest of the Republican Party, will actually create MORE poor Americans, worse social conditions - and probably more unwanted children.

As we've heard from media colleagues in the upper midwest , one group is certainly receiving warmer welcomes in many towns, especially from women.

For the bishops, their bus trip likely didn't get any better with the latest ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Court ruled on Thursday against sanctioning two major television networks - Fox and ABC - regarding the FCC's ban on vulgar words and nudity. Multiple TV and radio hosts immediately joked that they could now begin saying any of the legendary "Seven Words You Can't Say" on air, made famous by comedian George Carlin.

In truth, the Court's ruling doesn't lift the current ban on indecency in broadcast media. It was clear, however, by reading the Justices' opinions, that the Court may be looking at reconsidering the original 1978 "Pacifica" ruling, due to the changes in cable and the internet since 1978.

All of this may result in some cursing and swearing by those same wrinkled old, bitter bishops, trapped on their busses, traveling across the country - slowly.

Sometimes, our job on Fridays is tough, looking at the world and trying to find something to laugh at.

Occasionally though, we look around, see some crazy old men screaming hypocrisy at clouds, and our job becomes incredibly easy.

Maybe today it was simply divine intervention.

RomneyBot

For those of us who work in media and communications that also focus on politics, there's a hazard of the business we often find our colleagues in. The hazard is a myopic focus, and a nearly robotic reaction to get stuck, topically, inside the minutia of statehouses and "The Beltway" in Washington, DC.

For many reasons - not the least of which is that our staff is spread out across half the country - we usually don't fiind ourselves falling into that particular media morass. We're proud that we can take almost any subject and make it exciting.

[Of course, it helps massively to have one of the best editorial cartoonists in the nation - but we're a bit a biased that way.]

The one topic even we've struggled to make exciting, however, is Mitt Romney.

Journalist McKay Coppins is just the latest member of the media to publically note: news about Mitt Romney is bad for the media business. Most online media outlets dislike Romney stories because they drive down traffic significantly. Print media sources we know say top editors are aware that pictures of Romney on the front page drive down readership too. Our colleagues in televison say they've noticed the same problem - and we know intimately it's the same in radio.

It's not that there isn't plenty of controversy surrounding Romney. As we've noted previously, Romney seemes to have a habitual problem with being on all sides of every issue.

The problem is, Mitt Romney has always been on all sides of every issue. That's nothing new. Going back to his first campaign against Ted Kennedy, Romney was accused of just that problem. Mitt's flip-flopping nature hasn't changed, nearly twenty years later. There are even whole websites devoted to "Multiple Choice Mitt."

It's not just that Mitt Romney doesn't seem to have any firmly held beliefs, though. It's that he's a plain, white man, who is a very cautious politician, in some ways. That could be in part due to the gaffe his father, George Romney, made that ended the elder Romney's national political career.

As Garance Franke-Ruta, senior politics editor at TheAtlantic.com, noted: "Romney is a very cautious politician who benefits from operating under the radar and having the focus of the contest be on Obama," she said. "It's Mittness Protection, general election style. The more boring he is, the more attention — which in today's media means negative attention — focuses on Obama."

This is the same tactic - "Mittness Protection", as many in the media have called it - that Mr. Romney used throughout the GOP primaires for President too.

Added to that serial blandness is a very obvious tendency of Mr. Romney to pander to whatever group he happens to be in front of - especially if it's for money. While he refuses to give specifics to the media at large, when people pay thousands of dollars for a moment with Mitt, he tends to tell them whatever he thinks will open their wallets. The media had often assumed this over the last two decades - but earlier this year, thanks to hungry reporter Garrett Haake, that assumption was confirmed.

Finally, you can bank on the fact that most of America is aware of all of Mr. Romney's boring tendancies - and that they've already made up their minds on how they feel about Mr. Romney.

So what do you call someone who is one of the two major candiates for Preisdent, who actively attempts to appear as inoffending and mechanical as possible, while being willing to take the positions of whomever is funding his latest political campaign?

We call him RomneyBot.

Through The Looking Glass

In case you missed the news coming from the G20 meeting being held in Mexico over the past few days, President Obama and Europe's leaders both seemed to be looking at each other's problems and wincing, glad they were not in the other guy's shoes.

If you only pay attention to American media, we can see how you might have missed any news coming from the G20. From the meeting between President Obama and Russia's President Putin, to discussions about what to do about Syria, to the economic decisions that will likely influence nearly everyone on the planet, the G20 is quite obviously not the place for the kinds of amateur political stunts that lead the headlines in much of American political media.

That seriousness was very clear from the address and press conference President Obama gave last night, to U.S. and foreign media organizations, at the end of the G20 meetings.

Unfortunately, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's recent attempt to impose internal American politics on the Eurozone - specifically upon Germany - raised its ugly head, during the President's presser.

Much of the U.S. media either missed or purposely ignored the recent op-ed in the German business journal "Handelsblatt", written by one of Mr. Romney's top economic advisors, Glenn Hubbard. Hubbard's piece followed the vague line of Romney's own current economic plans, advising the Germans to increase austerity while ignoring investment - which is exactly the opposite of what Europe needs to do.

For those who understand that certain protocols involving international politics have been created for a reason, the blatant attempt by Mr. Romney to influence the economic policy of a foreign nation - in order to influence our own American elections - is just plain rude.

President Obama and the White House, as they handled other recent significant violations of respect and decorum, treated the op-ed published in the German business journal from the Romney camp with an amazing amount of class and respect. The White House barely uttered a word about the Romney camp's overreach, simply allowing Mitt Romney and his advisors to appear to be small and craven.

That continued on Tuesday evening at the President's press conference when he was asked again about the German op-ed piece.

President Obama deferred criticism of Mr. Romney and his advisors' op-ed back to the Romney campaign, and reminded the media that America has, "one president at a time and one administration at a time. And I think traditionally, the notion has been that America’s political differences end at the water’s edge.”

The President went one step further, reminding the gathered media that Romney's advisor, "may not be familiar with what our suggestions to the Germans have been" - which made both Romney and his advisor look like simple meddlers.

The fact is, France - one of the two most powerful economic forces in the Eurozone - has a new left-leaning government, one that has no plans to continue with the failed austerity plans that Mr. Romney and his advisors were pushing.

As the news from the G20 made clear, the leaders of Europe have begun to move towards the Keynesian economic ideas of President Obama, and France's new President Hollande, including significant internal investment. Europe's leaders also made it clear the previously non-integrated nature of the Eurozone will be changing rapidly, a reform President Obama and others have been urging for some time.

In short, the latest G20 meetings may have been one of the few gatherings of world leaders we've seen that actually seemed to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time.

We just hope all the G20 leaders follow through on their plans, speedily, or we'll all be poor examples for world leadership.

Very poor examples indeed.

Nailing Down The Reason For American Stupidity

As we climb through the stacks of articles and links each day about massive issues like the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling on the Affordable Care Act, or simpler issues, like Mitt Romney's flip-flopping on immigration, we continue to note an ever present theme - and we're not the only ones.

From Greg Sargent and Jonathan Bernstein over at the Washington Post's "The Plum Line" blog, to Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast, to Steve Benen at MSNBC, and Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly, many of us in the media have continually pointed out the unusual depth and breadth of lying being done by Republican politicians and officials, of all types and kinds this year.

Benen has twenty-two lists chronicling "Mitt's Mendacities", just from this year, just from Mitt Romney.

The lying isn't the theme we've noticed though - and it isn't why the working class, working poor, and the shrinking middle class of America feel like they're cowering in a trash can just to stay alive.

The single biggest reason that all those classes of Americans have continued seeing their wages fall, their retirement shrink, and possibly - thanks to one of the most untrustworthy liars in America, Supreme Court Justice Antonia Scalia -  losing their newly won health care insurance, is simple.

It's their own conscious amnesia.

Take a look at health care, for example.

Less than twenty years ago, Hillary Clinton was the First Lady, pushing for a plan for universal health insurance coverage. The Republican response to the Democratic idea of 'Medicare for all' was to come up with a plan for health care that kept private insurance companies in the health insurance system.

Republicans called that plan, "The Individual Mandate" - which is the same idea that the GOP and their shills on the Supreme Court are now so desperate to defeat, as part of President Obama's Affordable Care Act.

In fact, Justice Scalia is likely to rule in direct opposition to his own decisions and words from just a few years ago on this very issue. For a justice of the Supreme Court to blatantly ignore settled law, as well as court rulings he was part of just a few years ago, is proof enough that Scalia has absolutely no business sitting in judgement on the highest court in the land.

This is hypocrisy at the highest level - but instead of confronting it, the American people seem to have chosen to cower in a can and try to hide, as though evil like that will simply go away if we stay out of sight.

Mr. Romney's complete lack of principles on immigration is an even more recent example of this kind of selective amnesia.

Less than a year ago, when Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the GOP race, Mr. Romney attacked Gov. Perry fiercely over the issue of immigration reform. Romney took the extremist far right position, while ideas that Perry had - ideas very similar to the action President Obama took on Friday - were blasted as "amnesty" and harboring illegals. Gov. Perry's ideas were nothing of the sort - but that didn't stop Mr. Romney from crucifying Perry as soft on immigration.

Fast forward to this past weekend, when Romney didn't even have the strength of character to say whether he'd get rid of the President's policy of leniency on immigration for certain young undocumented immigrants.

A HUGE dichotomy like that deserves a massive shout of "Hypocrite" from Americans. Sadly, from most Americans - even Republicans - Mr. Romney's cowardice has only received a shrug, as most Americans crawl back into their cans, like a million little Oscar the Grouches.

If Middle Class Americans want to know why things have gotten so bad for them, we could certainly provide the answer - again.

We're just not sure it's worth the effort to repeat ourselves on this issue.

DREAMing Of Better Days

While Mitt Romney may have been avoiding immigration questions like the plague yesterday on CBS's "Face The Nation", many Americans are still talking about the Department of Homeland Security's official directive, announced by President Obama on Friday afternoon.

If you'd heard of the announcement at all, you may have only heard or read commentators talking about the new policy as Obama's own DREAM Act - which it really is not.

What the new policy is - in short - is a temporary easing of immigration policy towards younger undocumented immigrants, who were brought here by their parents as children and have basically grown up as Americans. These aren't new immigrants to America. They're kids who grew up here, and are now just becoming adults - young adults who aren't usually 'taking jobs from Americans' as anti-immigrant forces are crying about over their beers.

This new immigration policy isn't a "DREAM Act" - something the President stressed on Friday. It doesn't even put these immigrants-in-name-only on a path to full legal citizenship, as the initial bi-partisan DREAM Act attempted to do, or as the most recent Democratic version of the DREAM Act legislation proposed.

What the President's action does is give these young men and women a temporary reprieve, for a couple of years, so they don't have to worry about being deported. This also gives Congress time to figure out how to handle an issue they should have tackled long ago.

It was a near certainty that as soon as President Obama made his immigration announcement, the right-wing hacks and hyper-partisans would begin bashing and belittling him for it. This time, President Obama wasn't even finished giving his Rose Garden announcement when a right-wing wannabe journalist interrupted the President by shouting a biased question - one that the President did not have to answer, but did.

For now, we'll simply say that the guy who disrespected the office of the President so brazenly is an unprofessional hack - and we hope the White House Corespondent's Association bans him and his organization from the Press Corps immediately.

Other partisans followed close behind the interrupting fool - including Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who immediately claimed President Obama's actions on the immigration issue were politically motivated.

That claim is hard to see as anything other than sour grapes as the President's immigration action also mirrors closely the proposal of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who praised the Obama plan on Friday. Further, Mr. Obama's action is supported by multiple legal scholars, including Republicans and conservatives, who say the President's action is well within the powers of his office.

This kind of bold action is exactly what many Americans - especially progressives - have been wanting to see from Obama for some time. It shows that if the Congress is not going to act, the President will, when he can.

This action may have been good policy - but it was also good politics, as it's now put Mr. Romney in a bit of a bind on the subject of immigration.

None of this back and forth will lessen the worries of the anti-immigration supporters, who continue to cry in their beers that illegals are taking over America.

It also won't solve the issue of young men and women who've never known another country other than America as their homes - and are in most ways, as American as you or I.

A Time For Visionaries

Normally, for our Friday edition, we try to publish something a bit lighter - and we certainly plan on returning to that tradition next week. That said, there are times when it's more important to look ahead, into the future, and make the hard choices now to deliver what will be needed down the road.

That's specifically the choice Warren Buffett has made recently - more than once - by investing deeply in the newspaper and media industry. Choosing to rescue important media outlets, and not let them fall down the proverbial memory hole, may not deliver the best return on investment in the short term.  However, his investors will almost certainly reap the wisdom of his decision in the future.

Buffett's actions are similar to the starkly obvious choice that was laid out for Americans on Thursday.

We can choose a President and Congressional representatives who make decisions based on incontestable facts. We can pick those who try to compromise and find a 'middle path' to get SOME of what their constituents want, rather than insisting on 'all-or-nothing' tactics. We can opt for those who don't delay or skirt their duties to the nation and its people.

Or we can choose the other option - those who boldly, offensively, and arrogantly lie to our faces; who promise all kinds of things, but give no real details on how we can achieve them; who insist they will get what they want, no matter what; and who will always put off the hard choices until sometime down the road.

Those are the two visions President Obama and Mitt Romney laid out on Thursday - and the President wasn't the one who lied, multiple times, in his address.

The President made it clear - this election will not be mostly about social issues. It will be about economic growth, jobs, and solving our long-term debt. It will be about the steaming pile of garbage Obama and the Democrats were handed from the previous administration, what they have done to help the nation recover from that "gift" - and what they've been restricted from doing, without legitimate reason, by Republicans in Congress.

It will also be about what Mr. Romney says he will do to and for this country.

In short, Mr Romney has not been specific about what, exactly, he will do. Romney has latched onto the Ryan Plan, which is filled with tax cuts and deregulation, as a model. But the Ryan Plan has few specifics - and as Mr. Obama pointed out in his speech, that's a problem, since major cuts to all kinds of things, from medical research grants to fight cancer, to education funding could be cut.

From what we do know of Romney's plans, they will not benefit most Americans. Romney has stated he wants a new $5 trillion tax cut - 70% of which would be given to those making over $200,000 a year, according to independent sources. Millionaires would get a 25% tax cut. All these tax cuts would be lumped on the back of the Bush Tax Cuts, that we already cannot afford.

Further, if Romney and the Republicans completely repealed the Affordable Care Act, 33 million Americans would lose their health care - and according to the middle-of-the-road estimate, 19 million more Americans would lose Medicaid.

While all of this was going on, one of Mr. Romney's favorite Republicans, Senator Mitch McConnell has now said Senate Republicans will sit on their asses and refuse to confirm any more Federal judges this year. This, while the military-industrial complex has begun to threaten to fire thousands just before the fall election, because Congress isn't doing anything - because the GOP-led House is on vacation. Again.

As we said previously, a starkly obvious choice was laid out before Americans on Thursday by President Obama and Mr. Romney.

We can be mature, deal with the tough issues now, and make tough compromises, while we plan and invest for the future.

Or we can lie, obfuscate, be vague, and have wealthy political donors attempt to buy the election for us now.

For our part, we'll follow the similarly wise lead of Mr. Buffett and invest for the future. We hope most Americans make the same decision.

Who's Laughing Now?

For more than four years we've been warning you about what would happen to elections in the United States, with respect to the Citizens United case. While our current online records don't go back that far, we have copies of Paul's cartoons and our commentaries in hard copies. Terrifyingly, virtually everything we and many others warned about is, sadly, coming true.

This will be the most expensive election season in history. It already has been, so far. As forecast, Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans are abandoning the pretense of donating to both major political parties, by giving to Mitt Romney and the GOP at a 7-1 rate, so far. In short, Wall Street has fully become the political Johns to the whores of the Republican Party.

Or maybe, more appropriately, Wall Street has become the puppeteer pitting the Middle Class against itself.

The latest example of this depraved behavior was the donation of $10 million on Wednesday by billionaire neo-con casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, to the Romney-affiliated 'Restore Our Future' Super PAC. If you're wondering about Mr. Adelson's specific political judgements, let us remind you that he's the same man who threw $21 million down the political rathole of the Newt Gingrich campaign during the GOP Primary races. Much of that was spent on ugly television ads, designed to cleave the center of the Republican Party from the far right.

Oh, yes. Oligarchy is alive and well in America again - and it was disgustingly evident on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Jamie Dimon was in Washington, DC to testify - and nominally apologize - to Congress. Dimon, CEO of one of the largest financial firms in the world, JP Morgan, recently lost billions making risky bets, as we wrote about last month. Virtually every Republican on the Senate Banking Committee that Dimon was appearing in front of was expected to grovel at his feet - and they did not disappoint. The politicians at the highest levels of the GOP may be gutless and spineless, but they've long ago learned that sucking up to Wall Street - especially since Citizens United - will often get them what they want.

As Brian Beutler of TPM noted, "..with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination [of Dimon] into a coronation," with members of both parties showing deference to the latest idiot that could have destroyed the entire world economy.

Don't think the corporatism of the American political system stops there.

Mitt Romney himself, on a right-wing talk radio show on Wednesday proposed the idea that the Presidency - and in fact, all elected positions - should be treated just like the position of a CEO. If the elected official achieves his or her fiscal targets, they should get a bonus. If they don't, they wouldn't get a bonus. This idea might sound great, to some - or like an old Saturday Night Live skit to others. But what would happen when the official in charge isn't wholly responsible for meeting every goal? What if the official has to, for example, work with a legislative arm that wants them to fail - or work with private sector companies who don't care if the city, state, or country fails?

There is still one hope, oddly enough being discussed right now, probably as you're reading this, behind the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court - and courtesy of the Montana State Supreme Court.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in February, when the Supreme Court first looked at the Montana case, “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this Court’s decision in Citizens United, make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations , ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’”

The Wall Street wealthy think they've already purchased this election, at nearly every level. However, the same court that broke more than a century of precedent in Citizens United may be forced, by their own recent words, to admit their previous decision on this matter was less than just.

We'd recommend those corrupt rich folks stifle themselves for now. The last laugh may be on them, after all.

Slime Job

As we have done from the start here at The Daily Felltoon, when a person or organization deserves credit for a job well done, we proudly give that credit, even when others may forget to. Likewise, we also feel we have a duty to call out hypocrisy and outright false information when we see it - which, sadly, is far more often than we'd like it to be.

Today, unfortunately, is a disgusting display of the latter. A slimy, pink, suck-up job by a media outlet with whom our staff members have all had a significant amount of interaction over the years.

In case you missed it, the editorial board of the Lincoln Journal-Star decided to run an opinion piece in their print and online editions this week praising  Gov. Dave Heineman and Nebraska, as well as Iowa and South Dakota for continuing to order ground beef containing "pink slime" - the more common name for the substance the beef industry calls "lean finely textured beef."

The editorial in the Journal-Star almost could have been a propaganda piece written by Beef Products Inc., the company that produces and sells "pink slime". The piece was practically a love letter to Heineman and BPI. Not surprisingly, the Journal-Star editorial board also left some important information out of their overly friendly endorsement.

For one thing, if Dave Heineman is to be considered an expert on food safety because he enjoys an occasional hamburger, then our editor's dog Shadow could also fall into the same category. While we don't always agree with the Governor, we highly doubt that his interest in keeping business flowing to BPI's factory in South Sioux City, Nebraska is directly connected to his taste buds.

As the Sioux City area overlaps the only three states in the country to still be purchasing or allowing this kind of meat product to be used in K-12 schools - Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota - we have a solid bet that political contributions also have something to do with these decisions.

In fact, with a quick click over to the non-partisan OpenSecrets.org, it's obvious that BPI and its related entities were top contributors to four members of Congress, two Republicans and two Democratic members, spread between Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota.

In its piece, the Journal-Star's opinion board also did more than its share of name calling and image smearing against those who are opposed to "pink slime", like celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. Their opinion piece failed to mention that whatever one thinks of Mr. Oliver, that fact is that "pink slime" is not the top quality pile of meat product the Journal-Star attempts to describe.

It's also important to note that much of the rest of the Journal-Star often contains some high quality journalism, just as much of the beef industry produces other quality products. This piece came from the opinion section, however - and its quality was severely lacking.

From the New York Times to NPR, to a host of other mainstream media organizations, the truth about "lean finely textured beef" remains the same. It's a substance that is composed of trimmings, that previously wasn't even considered high-enough quality for dog food. Multiple tests, by the USDA and others, have confirmed "pink slime" is still significantly more susceptible to contamination, including dangerous forms of E. coli and salmonella.

It short, while it may receive a passing grade from the USDA, this meat product will never be at the head of its class of products - much like the item which spurred our well-thought rebuttal today.

Thankfully for us, well researched commentary remains the fact-based, steak-like product line of perspective media, which we produce daily with pride.

Some things are worth savoring.

The Euro Mess: Enfermo y cansado

While there are still plenty of political issues to deal with inside the U.S., we're taking a look abroad today at one of the biggest issues that could affect - or possibly infect - everything from this year's U.S. Presidential election to the cost of every consumer good or service in America. Of course, we're talking about the Eurozone mess.

To start with, the financial troubles of the Eurozone are a bit more complex than most Americans are used to.

The Eurozone is an economic and monetary union, that has seventeen member countries, who all share a single currency - but don't share the same political leadership. The biggest economic hindrance to each country solving its own economic problems is that no Euro member country has its own currency. So combined economic and political strategies like those used by the Fed in the U.S., or the PBOC (People's Bank Of China) in China - strategies to control inflation and help spur employment - are tricks the individual political leaders of Euro nations simply don't have at their immediate disposal.

Some Euro nations - Greece in particular - have never learned how to budget and govern with this strange lack of control over their currency. The Greek tradition of giving heavily socialized benefits, with the plan to pay them off on the second Hemera Areos (Tuesday) of never, many long years down the road, has been discussed many other places, almost to death - so we won't linger on it here. Suffice it to say, the people of Greece have some tough decisions to make this month.

Some of the problems Eurozone countries share, however, are the same as the problems that collapsed the U.S. economy during the end of George W. Bush's presidency in 2008. We outlined some of those failures last November, when we looked at Iceland last year.

The single biggest economic problem Euro nations and America share involves the Wall Street tycoons who hyper-inflated the real estate market in the U.S. during the early 2000s. They did the same thing to many other European nations too, like Spain. When the real estate bubble began to burst in Spain, its size - and its restrictions as a Euro nation - meant Spain's economic depression was far worse than the recession in the U.S.

"All of this is great background," you're probably thinking. "But what I really want to know is, if the Eurozone collapses, will the U.S. economy also get sick and die?"

The simple explanation is, if the economy across Europe collapses, yes - it will have a negative impact here in the U.S. But no, our economy won't likely "die." As more than one political pundit in the U.S. has noted, in some ways, President Obama's reelection hinges far more on what happens in Europe over the next six months, than what will happen in Congress (which will probably be nothing).

Economist Paul Krugman - who has consulted on some of these issues in Europe - is still very pessimistic that those controlling the Eurozone will get their act together in time, before at least some of the negative effects of Europe's issues hit American markets. To some degree, they already have, so he's already at least a little bit correct..

All is not doom and gloom from Europe, however.

As economics journalist Matthew Yglesias noted last weekend, when the European Central Bank agreed to lend Spanish banks the money they needed, the ECB loaned the money without draconian political strings attached - which may be a first for the ECB.

For one thing, it means the ECB does have some level of trust in the Spanish banking and political systems, however meager that trust may be.

For another, it may mean some of the forces behind the ECB and the Euro are ready to take some of the measures necessary to truly make the Euro a real workable concept - like a true banking union, or Eurobonds. If nothing else, it does make the likelihood that stimulus funding to Euro nations, like that being proposed by the new French government, will be authorized.

All that may be good news, but as the latest warnings surrounding Italy confirm, until those controlling the Eurozone contain some of their problems, we'd strongly advise staying away from European investments.

And if you have any Euros in your wallet, you may want to put on gloves before you exchange them at the bank... just in case.

Fake Concerns, Real Arguments

If you've been following the news lately, you may have noticed that Americans from seemingly every political background are protesting nearly everything these days.

From the intolerant misogynists insisting their "religious freedom" gives them the right to force others not to have access to birth control, to the bigots thinking gays and lesbians should still be second-class citizens, every angry American seems to be protesting about something these days. Even the angry overweight denizens of New York City have been hollering about their right to keep gulping their 48 ounce soft drinks - a right that their Mayor Bloomberg is trying to take away from them.

For all the heated rhetoric and significant media coverage that each of these topics has received, you'd think they were each equally important in this November's elections - which they're not.

One of the most important issues that will be decided this fall was played out in the middle of the day, last Friday, between President Obama and Mitt Romney. If you were watching the national news media, though, you may have only caught part of the argument.

At a press conference on Friday morning, President Obama was asked about his accurate comparison of Mitt Romney and the GOP's policies of austerity, to the failed policies of austerity in Europe. The President responded by comparing the private sector job growth in America to the public sector job losses in this country. He said that, relatively speaking, "The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by, you know, governors or mayors... who don't have the same kind of flexibility as the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming in."

Of course, the right wing propagandists - who rarely care about the facts anyway - couldn't stop focusing on Obama's words about the private sector doing fine, as Dave Weigel pointed out. What their purposeful ignorance of the President's context missed is that the private sector IS doing fine, compared to the public sector. Chart after chart, statistic after statistic proves Obama is right.

America's economic and jobs problem is in the lack of hiring in the PUBLIC sector - government hiring - just as the President said it is.

Mitt Romney also made news on Friday afternoon, mostly noticed by those few in the media who hadn't already left early for the weekend. It began when Mr. Romney tried to come out and take Mr. Obama's words out of context - as Romney has done from the very beginning.

What ended up happening was that Mr. Romney revealed to the world that he has absolutely NO idea of what the problems in the U.S. economy really are.

Romney said of Obama, “He wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

Even the governor of Wisconsin said, Sunday morning, that Romney got the message of Wisconsin's election wrong.

The biggest problem is, this isn't a gaffe by Romney. This is Romney's policy - a policy of austerity, of choking off assistance to the cities and states, of abandoning them on their own, at exactly the time they need the Federal government. This displays a complete inability to understand the fundamental nature of our government - and our economy.

Sadly, the inability to understand the fundamentals of our economy was the exact same problem the previous GOP nominee for president also had four years ago. For two elections in a row, one of our two major political parties has nominated someone who has no understanding of how economics really works. If Americans are looking for a reason to protest, that is a truly important problem, worthy of yelling and hollering about. We doubt you'll find many Americans ready to camp out over this issue, though.

If Americans want to get angry, to get out in the streets, to protest and chant, we have no problem with that. In fact, we think it's sometimes a great idea.

The problem we have is when Americans are too stupid to see that protesting the inability to buy a Big Gulp the size of a bucket does not deserve the same intensity as having the GOP repeatedly nominate candidates for the Presidential race who don't even understand the basic nature of our government or the economy.

One of these things is worth crying about. The other isn't.

Friday Funday: Keeping Things Straight

It's been a busy week, filled with passionate topics and people. So much has happened since we returned on Monday, yet at least one very important thing seems to have been missed this week in much of the Nebraska media - a proper send-off for a Nebraska treasure.

In case you missed it, Ed Howard, a friend, colleague, and journalist, both on the Nebraska level and on the national media scene, passed away this week at the age of 63.

It's Friday, so we have no plans to be maudlin about Howard's death. We have a feeling Ed wouldn't appreciate that very much, and might even be a real pain in the assinine (his phrase) towards us if we got too weepy -  especially because our Friday edition is supposed to be positive.

We're also not going to screw around though. Ed was a brilliant mind and a real character. So we want to share a few positive notes about Ed Howard with you, in case you didn't know him like we did.

Over the years, Ed was responsible for more great political information in Nebraska than most folks realize. He was the institutional memory of politics in the state for virtually everyone, from either major party - and all the smaller political groups and parties too.

When thinking about all Ed did for media and journalism in Nebraska - and indeed around the country - it's easy to get a smile on your face, if you enjoy high quality reporting, like Ed did.

As another one of our media colleagues noted on Wednesday, Ed was a long time writer for the Associated Press, in more than one bureau around the country. Ed was also one of the founding editors of StatePaper.com, and for many years now, he wrote columns for the Nebraska Press Association to go along with the Capitol News cartoons of our Editor in Chief, Paul Fell.

As he told us many years ago, Ed welcomed criticism of his work. More than once he told us, "My record, personal and professional, is what it is and I stand by it. Bad and good."

If more media organizations - and politicians - had Ed Howard's philosophy, we are certain the entire country, and indeed our world, would be better for it.

As our own policy mirrors Ed's, we know that at least here that kind of integrity in media still continues.

Before we head off for the weekend, and raise a toast to Ed, we want to leave you with some parting words he left us in an e-mail a while back.

Ed wrote to give us some great advice and told us he really enjoyed The Daily Felltoon, that we were "spot on" with the cartoon, commentary, and news links we'd published in that day's edition.

After a short suggestion on how we could improve our research the next time we tackled the same topic, Ed ended his brief missive with this:

"Keep Fell on the straight and narrow.
Or, at least try to keep him straight. Narrow is obviously not in the cards, [at The Daily Felltoon].
Best regards."

Thanks for everything, Ed. Best regards to you too.

Falling Down Stupid

As educated individuals deeply familiar with history and human nature, we weren't entirely surprised by the results of Tuesday's election in Wisconsin. Sadly, they were another example of the kind of selective myopia that has allowed the floor to drop out from under the average American worker over the last thirty-to-forty years.

Many of the biggest blowhards on the right - both in the media, and in the Republican Party - are somehow still delusional over Walker's "win." Apparently, they think Tuesday's Wisconsin elections gave them some kind of mandate or template on how to defeat the supposedly all-powerful unions - who continue to make up an ever smaller percentage of the American population.

As we pointed out on Wednesday, even as Scott Walker won the right to keep his job, President Obama beat Mitt Romney soundly in Wisconsin's exit polls - by anywhere from seven to twelve points. Further, Wisconsin Democrats picked up a state Senate seat and now control the Wisconsin Senate - which effectively prevents Governor Walker from doing anything crazy until the end of his term. Finally, this same right-wing template of voter suppression and flooding the race with dark money backfired when the Republican Party tried to snuff out union rights in Ohio this past year.

That said, if those people controlling the GOP's political fortunes want to see Walker's "win" as instructions on how they should move forward in every race this year, we certainly invite them to try that.

What the race in Wisconsin did make clear were two key items - neither of which included voters approving of Walker or his three-card-monty style budget policies that haven't actually fixed anything in Wisconsin's budget.

The first item Tuesday's election made clear was that Wisconsinites still have some standards about what recall elections should be used for - even after suffering through elections approximately every sixty days for the last fourteen months.

In short, most Wisconsinites think recall elections should only be used on officials who have committed official misconduct while in their current office. Walker is under at least two major investigations of potential misconduct he committed while in his previous office. However, Wisconsinites don't seem to think he's done anything truly illegal during his current stint as governor - so they let him keep his job.

The second item Tuesday's Wisconsin election proved is that labor unions are not the powerful counterpart to corporations that the right has been desperately attempting to make them.

Unionization rates in America have been on the decline for decades, for multiple reasons, including jobs being outsourced overseas and corruption in specific unions, like the AFL-CIO. That was thirty years ago or more, however. Times have changed - and unions these days are generally less corrupt than the corporations conservatives compare them to, like Target, Whole Foods, and Wal-Mart.

Whatever the reason, what is also true is that as unionization rates have decreased in America, income inequality has increased drastically since the 1970s. America has turned its collective back on unions, yet without anyone protecting the rights of workers, corporations have done to America exactly what they exist to do - maximize profits at ALL costs.

Unions are not evil. They don't want the corporations that employ their workers to collapse. As writer Hamilton Nolan noted on Wednesday, "Any union that bankrupts the parent company is a failure, because all the union members end up unemployed... A union does not throw off the balance of power in the workplace — lack of a union does."

That balance is now off, severely. If American workers - union and non union alike - want incomes to stop falling, and American businesses to grow, unions must be brought back to power again.

Otherwise, as political scientist Jonathan Bernstein, and founding father James Madison noted, if all elections are high-stakes and at least threaten to be permanent decisions, then the losers will prefer other options to democracy.

That - to us - is falling down stupid.