Sunday Night Tweets_ Remembering George

Here are some tweets from the 20:00/8:00 p.m. New York time hour; we should point out that the figure in the middle is Cam the Ram, the mascot of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo., and the judge beneath him is far-right Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. You will understand the reasons for these images as you read our tweet log. We also want to mention the passing of the great George McGovern (1922-2012) and we hope to have a full tribute to the man who lost the 1972 presidential election to Richard Nixon later in the week.

Gunaydin to those of you in Istanbul, Turkey, where it is not 9:30 a.m., and good morning to those of you in Dubai  where it is now 10:30 a.m., Monday morning.

Here are the tweets:

1) @PeterBeinart (Peter Beinart, a columnist for "The Daily Beast"): "George McGovern was a lousy pres candidate but not only was he right to oppose Vietnam, he was right to oppose to global containment itself.

2) @MarkKnoller (Mark Knoller is the CBS News, White House correspondent): "Moving statement from Nixon daughters, Tricia Nixon Cox and Julie Nixon Eisenhower on the death of George."

3) @denverpost ("The Denver Post"): "Presidential campaigns hit Colorado hard this week" (yes, that is our reason for Cam the Ram).

4) @HuffPostPol (Huffington Post Politics): "Michael Bloomberg invokes 'socialism' in criticism of Elizabeth Warren," in reference to the progressive Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts.

5) @thenation ("The Nation," a liberal magazine): "More than 1 in 3 Americans live on less than $46,042 for a family of four."

6) @CatalinaByrd (Catalina Byrd, a blogger in Baltimore): "I'm so sick of Black GOPs acting like they are victims, they things that are racist and insulting to Blacks supporting Obama" (yes, that is our reason for the image of Clarence Thomas).

7) @SarahkSilverman (Sarah Silverman, a provocative comedian/actress): "I could die of a broken heart from worrying if someone I pass on the street  is lonely."

10 People Who will Decide Election (9 of 10) _Iowa

Today, we are continuing our series of how a given person in each swing state could potentially play a pivotal role in the American presidential election, which will be watched from Dover, Delaware, to Dubai.

The image above is a campaign button for George McGovern (D) who is the oldest living man who has run for the president. The former South Dakota senator who is now 90 lost to Richard Nixon in 1972.

Here is a look at our fictional voter of the day:

Name: David Harrison

Occupation: Community College Teacher

Residency: Davenport, Iowa

Age: 35

Political Leanings: Democrat, will vote for President Barack Obama


It is no secret that like Big Bird on "Sesame Street" whom Republican presidential candidate turned into a social sensation when he said he would cut federal spending for PBS during the debate last week that teachers generally vote Democratic because the party has traditionally been more supportive of education and teachers' needs as well as school funding.

The Big Bird comment was the topic of a recent "Washington Post" column by Glenn Kessler which asked: "Does Mitt Romney want to kill Big Bird?;" the same newspaper also published a stunning column by college professor Frank Portnoy who argues that America's long marathon presidential race is good for the country. One can assume that both Democrats and Republicans may actually unite in opposition to Portnoy's theory, even intellectually it was fairly well laid out.

Among the stories in the most current issue of "The Quad City Times," which serves Davenport, Iowa, and surrounding areas, the local police department is seeking a three-year contract and a three-percent pay raise.

In the comments section, a reader who attended a Paul Ryan rally in Clinton, Iowa, said that the Obama campaign had taken her comments in which she asked the vice presidential candidate about his plan to fix the economy out of context.

According to "Politico," Obama has a 48-6 to 45.5 percent lead over Romney.http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://www.politco.com

http://www.sesamestreet.org

http://www.qctimes.com

Post GOP Convention Response ....zzzzzz

Mitt Romney, pictured above, did not get around to delivering his stump speech until circa 10:30 p.m. last night, which was apparently almost as late as when Democratic nominee George McGovern gave his party nominee acceptance beach at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami.

Our personal, which is assuredly a bit biased, New Jersey governor Chris Christie gave the best speech in Tampa whereas Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) gave the worst.

We thought we'd do something a bit different with this entry by using seven terms to describe the Republican convention: they are Zippy the Pinhead, Albert Einstein, Che Guevara, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Pan, Kyla Ross (a member of the Fierce Five Olympic gymnastics team) and Yakubu Adesokan, the Nigerian paralympic weight-lifter who won gold this week at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London; we do owe Mad Libs as our inspiration for this:


"The 2012 GOP Convention seemingly featured everyone from Condi Rice to Zippy the Pinhead this week in Tampa. One of the highlights/lowlights was when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) essentially compared President Barack Obama to Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina might have benefited with a quote from Albert Einstein, so liberal critics of her Tea Party politics would come to the realization of just 'how smart' she is. When Ann Romney said her husband should be president, she mentioned how great she was as the title role of Peter Pan in a fifth grade play. She also said he was as funny as Charlie Chaplin, which drew an applause from Karl Rove and John McCain. Last night, every Olympic athlete except Kyla Ross came on stage to endorse Romney, and then retreated to the hot tub backstage. Paralympic athlete Yakubu Adesokan was considered for a speaking lot until his birth certificate disclosed that he was born in Nigeria. "


http://www.rubio.senate.gov

http://state.nj.us/governor

http://www.thehill.com

http://www.theonion.com

http://www.floridadems.org

http://www.zippythepinhead.com

Quote of the Day/Week- Bob Dole

Since today is Super Tuesday, which means that Republicans in Georgia, Tennessee and Ohio and seven other states will choose their candidate to represent the party in the general election against President Barack Obama, we thought we would quote a famous Republican.

This month, we will be quoting men who got their party nod, but failed to win the general election. Here, we will quote Bob Dole, 88, and on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time," we will quip George McGovern, 89, who lost the 1972 election to Richard Nixon.

Dole represented Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1969-1996. Though he is most known for losing to Bill Clinton in the general election of 1996, Dole was also Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976. He is thus the rare individual who was on the ticket with an incumbent president who was not that president's vice president (Ford's veep was Nelson Rockefeller) and also one of the few people who was on two losing tickets. This is made more ironic because Dole is a Republican, and they have a 5-3 advantage over Democrats in terms of the presidency since 1968.

Dole was born in Russell, Kan. He went to the same high school as his Republican U.S. Senate colleague Arlen Specter, who stunned The Hill by becoming a Democrat as the GOP was moving more to the right.

Dole's wife Elizabeth Dole was also a U.S. Senator, as she represented north Carolina for one term. Bob Dole has also said publicly that he hopes Newt Gingrich will not become president of the United States.

Here is the quote of the day/week from Bob Dole, which helps confirm my view that the National Zoo in Washington, DC, and the U.S. Congress may have more in common than one might think:

"If you're hanging around with nothing to do and the zoo is closed, come over to the Senate, you'll get that same kind of feeling there and you won't have to pay."

Quote of the Day- Noam Chomsky

Today's quote comes form one of America's leading liberal activist Noam Chomsky, 82, also a philosopher, who has (according to Wikipedia) described himself as a libertarian socialist.

Chomsky got considerable recognition during the 1960s for his vocal opposition to the Vietnam War which was articulated in his 1967 essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals."

In 1988, Chomsky, along with fellow activist Edward S. Herman came out with the book "Manufacturing Consent..." which was highly critical of mass media and its Orwellian ability to influence people's decisions.

I have agreed with Chomsky on some issues and differed with him on others, especially the notion he proposed during the Iraq War, that America, Israel and Turkey (my late father's country) were the real 'axis of evil.' But, like him, I was very opposed to the Iraq War and the George W. Bush presidency.

Ironically a conservative friend of mine in North Carolina is an admirer of Chomsky! But, by the same token, I have a profound interest in Richard Nixon even though I would have probably voted for his opponent George McGovern had I not been two years old in 1972.

Recently, "The Nation" sold a Gnome Chomsky, a gnome shaped liked Noam chomsky, for a fund-raising item. And, Chomsky is prominently featured on shows that air on Link-TV.

Here is today's quip from Chomsky:

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune."