Connie Schultz is one of my favorite writers and it pains me that so few women know who she is or have read her masterful, often poignant columns.

In 2004, in her Cleveland Plain Dealer column, she wrote a piece for women called,"And You Think It's a Pain to Vote".  It went viral, but Connie didn't always get the credit for it.  It traveled far and wide via emails and blogs and comments, credited to "Anonymous", if at all. 
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It has been several months since I, William K. Wolfrum, formally declared my intention to run for the office that I deserve to win. Since then, I have had multiple donors who have helped me spread my message across this great land.

My message is built on simplicity – I deserve to be elected to the office that I want to win. There are multiple reasons why I feel deserving. For one, I love America. Truly love it. I believe America is the greatest county in the history of countries. More than that, it is better than the nomadic tribes that preceded countries. America is just a kick-ass country and I love it. America is where dreams happen. Which is why I deserve to be elected to that office that I want. [Read more]

This space has recently opined that Mitt Romney's selection of Paul Ryan likely put the Presidential election out of reach, and also that President Obama would take a modest lead after the Democratic convention, as uncommitted voters would be swayed by President Clinton in a way they were not by the Marathon Man.  Check, and check.  The Democratic convention, even Scott Rasmussen has been forced to admit, has resulted in a substantial Obama bounce, placing the President ahead, outside the margin of error.  This column is about why the election is nearly over, and what that means. [Read more]

Last night, I was underwhelmed by Obama's speech but in the light of morning I think I was perhaps expecting a little too much, given the context of an extremely effective and well put together convention.  He is the president, not a cheerleader and he's trying to defend his program while showing how it will play out if he's given more time.

The problem is that Obama is dealing with a frustrated country full of people who want things fixed right now, even if they have no idea at all what they mean by that.  I'll let David Brooks, my favorite columnist in the world, explain it: [Read more]

One thing that Barack Obama has done absolutely right for education is change the student loan program. Romney and Ryan have made it clear that if elected they will switch things back to the old way. This small policy difference demonstrates the larger difference between today's Democrats and Republicans.
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Tonight, the most recent two-term Democratic president will address the party’s convention to make the case for Barack Obama’s re-election.  If everything works out, Obama will face a second term that will resemble Bill Clinton’s, where the President faced a powerful opposition party determined to undermine him. [Read more]

HEAVEN – God, the controversial creator of everything everywhere, has signed a new deal with the Democratic Party that will keep him in their fold for the next four years.

“This is just a thrill,” said God, 42. “There so much uncertainty in this game, but now I feel as though I’ve finally made it.” [Read more]

Yes, Bin Laden is alive and well in Brazil, where he’s running for office in the mid-term elections. His political aims? Apparently disillusioned by Jihad following his Pakistan bullet adventure, he is running to rid the nation of corruption and child labor. It’s a big move for Osama, who once made a living in Brazil in the bug extermination business.

Brazilians aren’t at all fearful of Bin Laden, and for good reason. They have Batman and Robin to protect them. [Read more]

Labor Day is a great day to remember some of the history of the American labor movement. Of course, our leading American newspaper is using the day to lionize Henry Ford without mentioning how fiercely Ford hated the labor movement. So, a little counter-programming:

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One of the first soccer games I attended in Brazil was a battle between Minas Gerais interstate rivals Cruzeiro and Atlético Mineiro. The crowd of more than 50,000 was evenly split between fans of each team, with each side separated from one another in the stadium.

During intermission, I wandered around the stadium, coming to the area where police had cordoned off the sides. On one side were fans of Cruzeiro, the other side fans of Atlético, both sides taunting one another. Then, the taunting got too intense. And the police tear gassed the lot of us. [Read more]

Every so often, somebody tells the story of Henry Ford, friend of the working man.  You see, he paid his workers a higher wage, helping to transform a population of Detroit immigrants into part of a mass affluent American middle class that supported America's economic growth for the better part of the 20th century. It's a nice story that appeals to common sense.  Ford built not only cars, but a customer base for its product.  It's the perfect counterpoint to globalization's "race to the bottom" for wages. [Read more]

WARNING: It's Labor Day and I'm feeling the love for labor, so what follows will be totally biased and in no way fair or balanced.  (If you've been wondering what fair and balanced really means, go ask your two-year-old.  It'll make as much sense as any other definition you've ever heard, but it'll sound so much better coming from the mouths of babes.)

Way back in 2010 when the Supreme Court said yes, indeedy, corporations are people, too, it started a whole new revolution in this country.  If corporations are people then a government of the people, by the people, and for the people takes on a whole new meaning.
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I've been trying to lay off Clint Eastwood's surreal conversation with furniture, even as facebook friends urged me to blog about it. (King Lear also talks angrily to an empty stool, and my friends have suggested I blog about that.) But I do want to talk about what that incident reveals about Mitt Romney. It was the most revealing moment of the Republican convention. That Romney turned the mike over to Eastwood in prime time, with no script, tells us who Romney really is.
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I went to see my shrink today.

"Doc," I said to him after I'd sprawled myself on the couch, "I'm thinking about breaking up with my guy Barry."

"Is that so?" he replied. I like Doc. He's got this way of saying things without saying anything.

"Yeah, I mean, we've been together for what four years now? I'm just not sure it's going anywhere. It's like a...a rut. I was depressed when we started. I'm still depressed." [Read more]

The media is abuzz about the speeches at the 2012 GOP Convention in Tampa, critiquing them on style, effectiveness, the number of laughs, the number of attacks on Barack Obama--especially the attacks on Obama.  Clint Eastwood even got an invisible Obama to sit in an empty chair and become the foil for some raucously out-there jokes.
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All that talk about how many years of tax returns Mitt Romney will release obscures the real question. It's not how many years he won't give us. It's which years.

What Romney doesn't want to give us, most of all, are his taxes from 2008 and 2009, the years of the crash and the bailout. Those returns tell us how Romney's personal fortune weathered those years, how much he might have lost, and how much he might have profited.
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The Republican National Platform of 2012 "may be the best one ever adopted" according to Phyllis Schlafly.

That's high praise for a party that once demanded the "utter and complete extirpation" of slavery from America's soil.

But if the Schlafly is guilty of shortsightedness, she holds a longer view than most Americans. 88-years-old and vigorous as ever, Schlafly was one of the conservative pioneers who first nudged the G.O.P. to the right many years ago. At that time, few would have imagined the radical platform that the the Republican Party has just endorsed. Schlafly's success reveals how it came to be. [Read more]

Since David Brooks made a funny, the universe has been out of balance.  Ross Douthat, Brooks' mini-me conservative in The New York Times op-ed land, has righted the balance with a perfectly ridiculous column about Ann Romney's convention speech. [Read more]

 I can't say for sure (because there's no definitive source that I could find), but calling Chris Matthews "Tweety" started about three years ago, probably on Twitter.  All I can say about it is that the first time I saw it in print I instantly understood the connection. Whether it refers to "Tweety Bird" in the cartoons, or the incessant tweeting some birds do just to drive you crazy on a quiet morning, it conjures up a kind of squeaky, never-ending cacaphony.  Tweets with no seeming function except to make sound.   Tweets and trills and calls and caws, over and over again, no matter when or where or what the occasion. [Read more]

What is "civility?" The media daily bemoans its absence from our public discourse. How uncivil! How rude! On the other hand, people are allowed to libel certain public figures with impunity and no complaints.

This morning, Chris Matthews got tired of the pearl-clutching and accused RNC chairman Reince Preibus, who was bemoaning the "incivility" of the Obama campaign, of leading a party that's playing the race card at every hand. (Video below.) He did this because the Republicans have been playing the race card at every hand.
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