Is China Burning? (Gordon Chang) from Forbes Magazine
"The short-term effect of the rioting, therefore, should be limited. Moody’s says the longer-term consequences will be “difficult to determine,” but they could prove to be detrimental to China’s economy for three principal reasons. ..."
Can Romney Get a Majority? (Andrew Hacker) from the New York Review of Books
"Most striking, of course, is the plunge in the percentage of voters willing to call themselves Republicans. This decline has been long building, and not wholly due to George W. Bush’s record. Down to not quite a quarter of the voters, the GOP will need a surge of outside recruits if it hopes to win this year. That Democrats have held steady suggests a continuing loyalty to Obama, despite some dissent in the party’s liberal wing. (Eight years of Bill Clinton taught stalwarts they can’t expect to get all they want.) Indeed, Pew interviews found half again as many Democrats as Republicans praising their party for “standing up for its traditional positions.”"
President Obama: The Democrats' Ronald Reagan (Andrew Sullivan) from Newsweek
"With his first term behind him, Obama is poised to be as significant a president as Reagan—tackling the deficit, spearheading immigration reform, and jolting the GOP back to sanity."
Obama Ticks Up on Romney in Tight Race (James Hohmann) from Politico
"President Barack Obama has opened a national lead in a tight race that's been static for much of the year. — A new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll of likely voters finds little good news for Mitt Romney but a race that remains competitive."
Can this Election Settle Anything? (E.J. Dionne) from the Washington Post
"Romney’s 47 percent remarks finally unshackled the more moderate conservatives who know how destructive the Ayn Rand/tea party approach to politics has been. Some are talking about a Republican organization, similar to the old Democratic Leadership Council, to pull the party closer to the center."
On Democracy: Mitt Tells the Truth (Bill Moyers and Michael Winship) from billmoyers.com
"If you had reported as long as some of us have on winner-take-all politics and the unenlightened assumptions of the moneyed class, you wouldn’t find the remarks of Romney and his pals all that exceptional. The resentment, disdain and contempt with which they privately view those beneath them are an old story."
Mitt Romney, On 60 Minutes, Cites Emergency Room As Health Care Option For Uninsured (Terkel and Stein) from the Huffington Post
"Downplaying the need for the government to ensure that every person has health insurance, Mitt Romney on Sunday suggested that emergency room care suffices as a substitute for the uninsured."
Obama Campaign Releases First Ad Targeting Mitt Romney's '47 Percent' Comments from the Huffington Post
Wow. This ad hits hard on a lot of different cylinders.
"President Barack Obama's campaign is launching its first television advertisement targeting Mitt Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay income taxes, arguing the GOP nominee should stop attacking others on taxes and "come clean" on his own."
Romney’s Class Warfare (Eugene Robinson) from the Washington Post
"Romney obviously believed he was among friends who shared his worldview, which I would translate as: “We must stop coddling the servants.” ... To all the single parents holding down two minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet, all the seniors who saw their savings dwindle and had to go back to work part time, all the breadwinners who lost their jobs when private-equity firms swooped down to slash and burn—to all struggling Americans, it must come as a surprise to learn how irresponsible they’ve been."
Romney, GOP are Stuck in Old America (Bill Schneider) from Politico
"Romney is the worst presidential nominee since Barry Goldwater and George McGovern. Don’t expect Romney’s vote to collapse to the 38 percent that both Goldwater and McGovern got, however. There are probably enough anti-Obama voters out there to keep Romney’s share of the vote above 45 percent. But not much above that. Romney’s gaffes have exposed him as painfully out of touch with ordinary Americans."
The Presidential Perception Gap (Schoen and Tarlov) from the Daily Beast
"When it comes to ranking the presidents, there's plenty of disagreement between historians and the public. Douglas Schoen and Jessica Tarlov explain why."
Who Can Pull the Plug on the Romney Campaign? (Sasha Issenberg) from Slate
"Romney’s biggest problem is that more than one-half the money he has collected this spring and summer from his most generous donors is controlled by entities whose priorities may no longer align with his by election day. ... The worst scenario for the Romney campaign would come if the national or state parties begin to see his candidacy as a lost cause, or decide to make congressional majorities—or gubernatorial, state row-office or legislative races—a priority instead."
Take a Look at What Paul Ryan Did to His Own Congressional District, and Be Very Scared for Your Country (Roger Bybee) from Alternet
"Child abuse and suicide is skyrocketing, the number of battered women has tripled, foreclosures have tripled, wages plummeting, and more."
Ann Romney Cancels Interviews After Stop It Controversy from politicususa.com
"In Omaha for a closed to the press fundraiser for her husband Friday, Mrs. Romney was supposed to give interviews to several reporters but canceled due to the controversy over her blow up at Republicans on a radio interview, in which she ordered Mitt’s Republican critics to “stop it.”"
There's part of me that cannot help but empathize with her comment here (and the clear pressure-cooker environment I suspect she and Mitt have been living in lately). BUT ... welcome to the big leagues! You are no longer running against Newt, Rick, or Herman -- and this time the prize is the presidency of the USA. And, in my view, the media circus only gets worse on that bigger stage. So she and Mitt will have to show they can handle all of this (and much worse) with the grace and calmness that the current incumbent has demonstrated. It is now a job requirement.
What "grace and confidence" am I referencing? Check this out from 2009!!
Child Asks Obama:"Why Do People Hate You?" from YouTube
At a a town hall in New Orleans, a child asks President Obama "Why do people hate you?"
RICHARD III NUGGET!!
Discovery of Skeleton Puts Richard III in Battle Once Again from the New York Times
"For more than 500 years, King Richard III has been the most widely reviled of English monarchs. But a stunning archaeological find this month here in the English Midlands — a skeleton that medieval scholars believe is very likely to be Richard’s — could lead to a reassessment of his brief but violent reign."
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