Real Monsters

In general, movies that have been made from comic books in the last few years have been relatively true to their origins - often including the gritty and shocking nature of some of comic-dom's darkest and most evil villains. From what we've heard, the incredibly evil villain in the new Batman movie - the character of Bane - is much the same as his original portrayal in the comic book.

What the character of Bane is not in the new Batman movie is what the real-life hatemonger Rush Limbaugh tried to make his Dittohead listeners believe: that the character Bane is a representation of the corporation Bain Capitol, which Mitt Romney once ran and helped found.

Even Bane creator, cartoonist Chuck Dixon - well-known in the comics community as a staunch conservative - said that Limbaugh's conspiracy theory was "ridiculous."

Sadly, the propagandist Limbaugh's actions simply remind every decent American that there are indeed real life monsters that walk and talk among us everyday. All too often, those monsters try to choke the very lifeblood from us - and from our most cherished institutions.

For example, our right as Americans to have our votes count.

We've been paying particular attention to voter suppression tactics throughout the nation this year, by way of the heroic efforts of non-partisan policy institutes, like the Brennan Center For Justice. As the Brennan Center's latest report (released on Tuesday) notes, "Ten states now have unprecedented restrictive voter ID laws. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin all require citizens to produce specific types of government-issued photo identification before they can cast a vote that will count."

This attack on voting rights has not been a bi-partisan attack on the rights of Americans. The monstrous attempt to suppress and effectively kill the votes of millions of Americans has come almost completely from the conservative Republican corner of the political universe.

Thankfully, decent honorable Americans have been fighting against the brutal attacks on voter rights, most being made through the use of so-called "Voter ID" laws. These laws are almost always simply voter suppression efforts against minorities, the poor, the young - and often, the elderly. It's no coincidence that most of these individuals also traditionally vote Democratic.

While the battles against these all-too conveniently applied Voter ID laws have been heated, many of these laws have recently been running into real, honest justice in courtrooms across the country - like the legal decision in Wisconsin yesterday, permanently killing their voter suppression law.

The courts aren't the only place where monsters are being fought. We also realize much of the political landscape has recently become more littered than usual with violent rhetoric. As certain candidates for office lose their composure and get angry, they're beginning to call each other names, and take their opponents comments out of context.

We get it. No one likes to lose a contest or a game.

Governing, however, is NOT a game, as we've mentioned many times before. Were it only about winning, it would be called "winnerment."

Winnerment is a gum. Government is a responsibility - one with very real consequences for handling that responsibility poorly.

One of those responsibilities is to protect the voting rights of all Americans - rights that are in still in very real danger, from some very real monsters.

The Romney Surprise

Much of the media has been focused on Mitt Romney's still-secret tax returns for much of the summer. It's been only recently that the American people finally began to clue in on the fact that Mr. Romney may have something very serious to hide.

Now, finally, with pressure mounting from both directions, the Republican candidate for President is looking more and more desperate. Like a new father holding his baby at arms length - a child with an overflowing diaper - Mitt can't seem to face the fact that the answer to his problems is to take a deep breath, and clean up the mess.

In short, Mitt's been overreacting, crying about being bullied while still stubbornly refusing to present multiple years of his tax returns. That makes Americans believe that Mr. Romney may have something to hide.

The Obama campaign's current tactic has capitalized on that doubt, in a very brutal and direct way. Importantly, the Obama campaign has brought a crucial point to the attention of a growing number of Americans: As voters, we have very little hard data on how Mitt Romney has handled his business or personal finances.

For a candidate who continues to claim that his business experience makes him the best candidate for President, Romney's refusal to present his tax returns simply adds more questions about his conduct and character.

Without Mr. Romney's tax returns to judge whether he's been lying, or to whom, speculation is rampant about what Mr. Romney could be hiding. As conservative stalwart George Will noted, "The cost of not releasing the returns are clear. Therefore, [Romney] must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them."

One professional speculation is that Mitt Romney simply may not have paid any federal taxes in 2009, by using offshore tax havens like his accounts in the Caymen Islands. Other expert analysis also notes that Romney could have paid tax rates during the last decade that are FAR lower than the rates paid by most Americans. For a candidate who's made it clear he wants to lower taxes on the wealthiest, while raising everyone else's taxes, such a revelation could be politically deadly for Romney.

Other things Mitt's tax records could reveal include that he made have made even more money from Bain Capital than he's previously claimed, that he may have had to pay some serious fines, that he's got more offshore tax havens we don't know about, or even some problematic deductions.

Hovering over all this is the reminder that Sen. John  McCain picked the incompetent half-term Gov. Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney to be his Vice Presidential running mate four years ago. As McCain noted in an interview on Tuesday, the blunt truth, as McCain saw it, was that Sarah Palin was a better choice than Mitt Romney.

Whatever is in Mr. Romney's past, it must be one hell of a load of... unpleasant stuff, if Mitt would rather run for President with the tag "Sarah Palin was more qualified than me" than simply release his tax returns for the last ten years.

No matter how you look at it, it's going to take a lot of paper for Mitt to clean up this mess.

Hot Battered Corn

In case you've been spending your time stocking a freezer, or you've been on a trip to somewhere cold  - like Greenland - the unusual heat and drought conditions striking most of the U.S. have probably caught your attention.

Come to think of it, no matter where you've been on Earth lately, you've probably recognized that the long-term weather patterns aren't what they used to be.

For those ignorant corncob-chomping types at the neighborhood barbecue who continue to insist that this is just another heat wave like the ones that have come and gone for ages now, there was some serious news on Monday.

The National Climatic Data Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that for the first time in over fifty years, that more than half the U.S. is under moderate to extreme drought conditions. Further, those conditions don't look to improve this year. If you judge the nation under "abnormally dry" standards, more than 80 percent of the U.S. is in trouble right now.

In short, this isn't just another heat wave - and it doesn't just mean higher electric bills and more sunscreen.

Long-term drought, something much of the U.S. is hovering on the edge of, affects everything from paved highways to barge travel, from grocery prices to energy costs. Of course, the massive corn and soybean crops that have become a hallmark of America since World War II are also being seriously affected. As we noted last Friday, in our "Midwest Roundup" links, the state of Nebraska has shut off all irrigators, statewide, who claim surface water rights - that's more than 1100 farmers overall.

Admittedly, we've been stepping up our efforts this year to penetrate the thick skulls of climate deniers, so they understand that this isn't just another hot summer. Other media organizations have also been stepping up their efforts at educating and informing.

A recent poll from the Washington Post and Stanford University seems to show that those efforts to sow some real insight about climate change haven't fallen on completely deaf ears. Most Americans now understand climate change is real, and that major weather events like droughts are getting worse.

We don't mean to sound like some kind of monster, swallowing up all hope for a better tomorrow.

Even Republican surrogates for Mitt Romney, like former Deputy Secretary of Energy Linda Gillespie Stunz, have admitted that candidate Romney would be open to possible carbon-pricing legislation - the formerly Republican idea of "Cap and Trade."

Further, there are still plenty of technological innovations that we can develop and use to make our lives better. For example, anthropologists recently figured out the water delivery system for a 2000 year old Mayan village that was hit by drought for four months every year - but kept their people hydrated year 'round.

The point is, we all must be willing to accept that we have a problem and that we need to develop innovative ways to deal with the causes and effects of global climate change.

Especially if we'd all like to keep enjoying some of the best things in life - like eating hot buttered corn - instead of watching our corn crops be constantly battered by the heat.