Some Things Never Change

After a week of traveling, conferences, and a small bit of vacation, we returned to piles of e-mail, snail mail, old newspapers (many of which we'd already read online) - and a few story lines in the news that you might also have missed.

The May monthly jobs numbers came in lower than expected, but the private sector still had job gains, for the twenty-seventh month in a row under President Obama. However, the Republican policies of austerity continued to rob the economy of jobs from the public sector - meaning government. Meanwhile, the GOP continued to blame Obama for the jobs problem - even though the Republicans in Congress still have done NOTHING with the multiple versions of jobs bills President Obama sent them LAST YEAR. Many are speculating that the Republicans are purposely trying to sabotage the economy for their own political gain - speculation that may very well be true.

Mitt Romney and his campaign attempted a political stunt with protestors - but were blown out in the media cycle by former Senator John Edwards being acquitted of campaign finance violations (although the man is still a cad). Mitt Romney wouldn't repudiate Donald Trump and his insane birtherism - and Mitt also couldn't stop lying about Obama, Solyndra, or many other things. Meanwhile, an energy company Mr. Romney used Massachusetts taxpayer dollars to subsidize went bankrupt - meaning any critique Romney has of Obama on Solyndra has no validity.

Overseas, the Queen of England and the U.K. began celebrating 60 years of her reign, while a plane crashed in Nigeria. Syria's leader killed more of his people, and tried to blame the massacre on someone else, while Egyptians have returned to protest their current military-led government in Tarhir Square.

Meanwhile, back home, the state of Florida is being slapped - hard - by the Department of Justice, on its illegal voter purge, while the bigots in Nebraska look like they'll be forcing Lincolnites to vote on the rights of their fellow citizens.

Of all the stories you may have missed this last week, it's those last two that really stick with us the most, in the wrong way.

In Florida, the Republican Governor and his cronies have been attempting to purge the state's voter rolls of horrible people like a 91 year old WWII veteran, or a 40-year small businesswoman - not to mention an overabundance of blacks, hispanics, and Democratic voters. The Dept. of Justice stepped in at the end of last week and told Florida's governor to stop - or else.

In Nebraska, after Lincoln's City Council voted 5-0 to enact a "fairness ordinance" that would protect LGBT citizens, the area's bigots managed to gather enough signatures on a petition to put the issue on the fall ballot. While the petition itself may not be legal, according the city's lawyer, Lincoln's mayor has decided to follow through with the wishes of a small but vocal group of citizens anyway, by putting the idea on the fall ballot anyway.

The idea that the rights of other human beings should be put to a vote of the general population is, to many people, insane. If you put up a vote today in many parts of the United States, blacks and other minorities might be thrown back into slavery - and women would likely be relegated to second class status as well. The idea that a person - especially an American - should not have the same civil rights as his/her fellow citizens because of sexual orientation is as despicable to any sane person as the ideas of re-instituting slavery or re-subjugating women would be. The idea that only the votes of rich white men should be counted are equally offensive.

This fall's elections, across the nation, will be a CHOICE, not a referendum, and the choices are VERY clear this year.

You will get the choice between moving forward past the mistakes of the past, or pitting us versus them - American against American - going backward and repeating the same social and economic ideas that have failed many times previously.

We hope that whenever you go to the polls, you remember history - and choose to go forward.

Friday Funday: Making Memories

As we remind you every year, on this particular Friday, Memorial Day weekend begins today, carrying with it the usual broad variety of meanings; the end of the school year, the unofficial beginning of summer, high school graduations, and - as usual - our one week Memorial Day vacation.

While the holiday is officially Monday, we hope that you remember our U.S. servicemembers all year 'round - those currently serving, those whose active duty years are in the past, and most importantly, those that gave their lives for our nation.

This will be a special holiday this year, the first Memorial Day since the official end of the Iraq war - and hopefully one of the last before the end of the Afghan conflict. We offer our thanks to all of those who have served, and wish this year - as we have every year - that all of our service members come home sooner, rather than later, alive and well. For those that did not make it home, this holiday was meant to make us remember their sacrifices.

To us, Memorial Day is first about remembering those who gave all for their fellow Americans, without regard for their fellow Americans' race, gender, sexual preference, age, economic status, or any other factor.

It should also be a bit about remembering those who made it home - but we then forgot about.

Sadly, many in America have forgotten the sacrifices of our service members, in the past. Korea and Vietnam are perfect - and shameful - examples of how Americans ignored those who served, once they came home.

Others in the media have strongly noted over the last couple of years - including, more than anyone else, Rachel Maddow - that although the war in Iraq is done, as a nation we still haven't publicly celebrated the return of our Iraq War vets and those vets from Afghanistan who are also now home for good.

We firmly agree with Rachel's sentiment, that there should some way to publicly remember, celebrate and thank the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, wherever they live.

Although the official position of the Pentagon is that we should not celebrate Iraq and Afghanistan until all troops are home from both wars, some cities across the nation have already decided to go ahead with their own parades - and we hope your hometown is one of those places.

Even if it isn't, if you know someone who has been a member of our armed forces, or if you see someone this weekend who served, or is still serving, thank them. All our service members, past and present, are well worth remembering this weekend and throughout the year.

As we noted last year, to us this weekend shouldn't just be about remembering. It should also be about celebrating the things many of our nation's finest gave their lives for.

In that spirit, we salute the millions of young people graduating from high school this weekend, and celebrate their accomplishments.

If you're spending this weekend volunteering your time, energy, and effort helping others? We salute you too.

As we've said previously, America isn't just a country. It's a series of communities and people tied together by common bonds, including the belief that things can always improve if we work together and believe in one another. We give each other hope to keep reaching farther; to keep working harder (and smarter);  to do the right thing, when it would be easier to do the wrong one. All of that is possible, thanks to those who were willing to give their last measure so that the rest of us might have one more day, week, month, or trip around the sun.

We hope you remember this weekend, and our service members - but we also hope you celebrate the opportunities they allowed all of us to have.

Enjoy the weekend.

We'll see you when we return June 4.

Missing The Point - Repeatedly

We've gotten more than a few grumbles from certain quarters lately - a few subscribers have even dropped their daily e-mail subscriptions - because of how harsh we've been on the Republican Party and its candidates in recent commentaries.

As is typical these days, there are those on the right who think we're "in the tank" for the Democrats, ignoring comments like our obvious - and deliberate - calling out of formerly rising Democratic star Cory Booker, in Wednesday's edition. There are also those on the left who are equally disgruntled, and who insist Obama and the Democrats haven't done enough - no matter what they have actually done.

From our perspective, we've just been telling the truth - to both of the above groups, and everyone else too. Right now, the truth is, as Vice President Joe Biden noted this week: "This is NOT your father's Republican Party."

Unless, of course, your father was a Cro-Magnon, with a penchant for beating on things.

As we and many others have noted many times recently, the un-evolved style of racism, bigotry, and classism in the modern GOP,  may be the end of their party. Unless the GOP moves away from its offensive and nativist policy positions, the simple facts of changing demographics in the United States that keep appearing in piles of studies and polls - including the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll -may render the GOP extinct in the not-too-distant future.

Even so, right-winger Kevin Williamson over at the National Journal attempts to avoid the GOP's recent knuckle-dragging attitudes on race, immigration, and sexual orientation by re-writing history, the way conservatives wish it were - or as Jonathan Chait says, in a way that "absolves their own ideology of any guilt."

No matter what lies conservative extremists tell themselves on this issue, it won't change the fact that their political actions - like denying an honest DREAM Act - will continue to divide factions of the GOP from itself.

This isn't the only way Republicans are driving wedges into their own party - and the country.

There are also those who keep insisting Mitt Romney's experience as a casino capitalist, at vulture capital firm Bain Capital, is a good measure of his fitness for the job of President - including Mr. Romney himself.

As we and a pile of others pointed out this week, Romney's experience maximizing profits at the expense of jobs, for a small group of investors doesn't qualify him for the job of President anymore than it did Michael Milken, back in the 1980s.

It also doesn't help Mr. Romney's position when he calls himself a 'numbers guy', and then proceeds to get all the numbers wrong on critical issues like unemployment. He also can't even explain what - exactly - he learned in business school, when asked directly, as he was by journalist Mark Halperin.

Furthermore, while Republicans keep trying to push the idea that President Obama is some kind of "tax and spend" boogeyman, the facts simply don't support them there either. As the Wall Street Journal - that bastion of liberal journalism - made blazingly clear on Wednesday, Federal spending under President Obama has increased at the slowest rate since the end of the 1950s. As former journalist and current White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told the press corps, "Do not buy into the B.S. that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness."

On subject after subject, time and time again, Republicans and conservatives keep being intellectually lazy on nearly every major subject we can think of. [And yes, it IS making them dumber, and more conservative, as studies keep proving - which is a vicious cycle.]

This is not the Republican Party of days gone by. Those kind of Republicans could usually admit when they were wrong, and move forward, together, with Democrats and independents to make progress happen again.

Today's Republicans need to put down their metaphorical mallets, and quit driving wedges into their party, and our country.