Gobama 2012!

Time to remind the public that in our midst, there are two sets of really smart, skilled people doing valuable work. One group uses their talents to make money and the other group uses their talents to make a difference. There is social value in both if pursued with integrity.

Karen Finney would be a great fill in host. She's an actual Democrat actually. She isn't acting. She's real.

Not sure if anyone had posted this, but the New Yorker had an article on Paul Ryan. I wondered why I had been hearing more about him lately, any maybe this is part of why.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/06/120806fa_fact_lizza (Aug. 6)

Fussbudget
How Paul Ryan captured the G.O.P.

As much as he relished the battle against Obama—“European,” he repeated, with some gusto—his real fight was for the ideological identity of the Republican Party, and with colleagues who were content to simply criticize the White House. “If you’re going to criticize, then you should propose,” he told me. A fault line divided the older and more cautious Republican leaders from the younger, more ideological members. Ryan was, and remains, the leader of the attack-and-propose faction.

“I think you’re obligated to do that,” he said. “People like me who are reform-minded ignore the people who say, ‘Just criticize and don’t do anything and let’s win by default.’ That’s ridiculous.” He said he was “moving ahead without them. They don’t want to produce alternatives? That’s not going to stop me from producing an alternative.”

...

His father’s death also provoked the kind of existential soul-searching that most kids don’t undertake until college. “I was, like, ‘What is the meaning?’ ” he said. “I just did lots of reading, lots of introspection. I read everything I could get my hands on.” Like many conservatives, he claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand. After reading “Atlas Shrugged,” he told me, “I said, ‘Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.’ What I liked about her novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.” He dived into Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Milton Friedman.

In a 2005 speech to a group of Rand devotees called the Atlas Society, Ryan said that Rand was required reading for his office staff and interns. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he told the group. “The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” To me he was careful to point out that he rejects Rand’s atheism.

...

As in 2009, Republicans are divided between those who think they can win by pointing out Obama’s failures and those who want to run on a Ryan-like set of ideas. Romney seems to want to be in the first camp, but during the primaries he championed the ideas in Ryan’s budget. Ryan is frequently talked about as a future leader of the House Republicans and even as a long shot to be Romney’s running mate. He surely would take either job, but he seems better suited to continuing what he’s been doing since 2008: remaking the Republican Party in his image. You can’t “run on vague platitudes and generalities,” he told me earlier this month. He was speaking about Bush in 2004 and Obama four years ago. But he clearly believes that the same holds true for Romney in November.

And speaking of clean air...

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2012/120809.asp

Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania Have Worst Toxic Air Pollution from Power Plants

Franz Matzner, NRDC associate director of Government Affairs, said: “For too long, Americans have had no choice but to breathe toxic air pollution. Thanks to the EPA, the air is getting cleaner. But we need lawmakers who will help clean up the air we all breathe --- not lawmakers who do the bidding of Big Polluters trying to repeal safeguards that protect children’s health. This and future Congresses should let the EPA do its job so ALL Americans can breathe easier.”

...

Of the Toxic 20 list, both senators from eight states supported a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to stop the mercury and air toxics safeguard: Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. Meanwhile, both senators from three states: Michigan, Maryland and Delaware voted against the measure. The remaining nine states had mixed votes among their senators.

...

The states on the "Toxic 20" list (from worst to best) are:

1. Kentucky
2. Ohio
3. Pennsylvania
4. Indiana
5. West Virginia
6. Florida
7. Michigan
8. North Carolina
9. Georgia
10. Texas
11. Tennessee
12. Virginia
13. South Carolina
14. Alabama
15. Missouri
16. Illinois
17. Mississippi
18. Wisconsin
19. Maryland
20. Delaware