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Tribute Songs #2 – Empty Garden

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 18, 2012
Posted in: Tribute Songs. Tagged: Elton John, John Lennon. Leave a comment

This is the second in a series of posts about Tribute Songs.  Our second tribute song is written and performed by Elton John.  Let’s listen…..

Elton and John became very close in the mid-1970s during the period that John and Yoko Ono were separated (a period referred to as the “lost weekend”).  John was more than a little out of control during this period and it seems that he and Elton had some good time 🙂   Checkout the picture of the two them below….

I think that Empty Garden is the best of the tribute songs written after John’s murder.  What do you think?

Mitt Romney – Binders Full Of Women

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 17, 2012
Posted in: Politics. Tagged: Binders Full Of Women. Leave a comment

I just watched the second debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney.  President Obama chewed him up and spit him out tonight……way to go!

The most interesting comment might have been Mitt talking about “Binders Full Of Women”……..what a great idea!   Maybe this is a whole new line of Republican attacks on Women…..”A woman’s place is in the binder”

Let’s Celebrate – Supreme Court Upholds Ohio Early Voting

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 17, 2012
Posted in: Celebrate, Politics. Tagged: Metallica. Leave a comment

The Republicans have not given up on suppressing the minority vote.

The latest proof of this is that even though an appellate court overturned the Republican effort to prevent early voting (which we celebrated on this blog a few days ago), the Republicans in Ohio refused to abide by that ruling.  This forced the Democrats to take the issue to the Supreme Court which today ruled to uphold Ohio early voting.

The Republican actions on suppression are absolutely disgusting….thank God for the Supreme Court!

The details on this topic are provided below in an article from the Huffington Post so check it out if you are interested….but first let’s celebrate.  I found this Metallica cover of a song called I Just Want To Celebrate……..let’s listen.

Supreme Court Approves

Ohio Early Voting On Final

Weekend Before Election Day

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a last-gasp appeal by Ohio Republicans and approved early voting for Ohio residents on the weekend before Election Day.

Ohio’s Secretary of State John Husted had refused to enforce last week’s appellate court decision, in which a three-judge panel came down on the side of the Obama campaign and blocked a law that would have limited early voting.

Husted remained adamant that Ohioans should not be allowed to vote on that weekend, which was a prime voting period for minorities in the 2008 election.

The Supreme Court’s order was one line long: “The application for stay presented to Justice [Elena] Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied.”

In response to the Republican-backed law to limit early voting, the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party had sued the state, asking a federal court to restore voting during those last three days on the grounds that Ohioans would not have equal access to the polls otherwise.

Ohio Republican leaders said their motivation was to make things easier for election administrators. But the appellate court noted that some Ohio election administrators actually preferred having those extra days of voting — and that in either case, the “proffered interest in smooth election administration” wasn’t sufficient reason.

Husted’s refusal to establish a statewide rule definitively restoring voting over the final weekend before Election Day added more confusion to an already chaotic run-up to the elections, stalling efforts by African-American churches to shuttle people to the polls after church on Sunday.

Soon after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Husted issued a directive to local election boards, setting uniform hours for the three days before the election: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday and Monday, and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The Obama campaign expressed delight with the ruling. “We now turn our full attention to educating Ohio voters on when and how they can vote along with presenting the clear choice they face when selecting their next president,” Bob Bauer, general counsel for the campaign, said in a statement.

The early-voting period began two weeks ago in Ohio, but in accordance with the new law, mostly during working hours.

“Justice has prevailed,” said Pastor Rousseau O’Neil, of Rockdale Baptist Church in Cincinnati, who has taken part in several Souls to the Polls campaigns. “We saw that early voting made a tremendous difference four years ago and I suspect that it will have a tremendous impact this time around as well.”

“At this time in our lives and in this country, we can not afford to go back to a time when so many people were denied the right, in any form or fashion,” O’Neil said. “We’ll come out in droves.”

Completely Wrong – Let Me Count The Ways

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 16, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Tagged: Completely Wrong. Leave a comment

Had enough?  I didn’t think so……..here is one more.

Want To Win The Election…..Buy It – Completely Wrong

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 16, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Tagged: Completely Wrong. Leave a comment

Thanks to NPR for this great article below about how SECRET rich donors are attempting to buy the election for Romney.  Compare where the Obama and Romney campaign funding comes from and then tell me, with a straight face, that you believe that Mitt Romney is going to be looking out for the average American!

Study: Secret Donors Significantly

Fueling Pro-Romney TV Ads

Since April, most of the TV ads supporting Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have come from outside groups, not from Romney’s own campaign. And those groups raised more than half of their money from secret donors, according to a six-month study of ads.

From April through September, Romney for President aired slightly more than 144,000 ads on broadcast TV. The outside groups supporting him ran nearly 250,000.

That enabled Romney to start saving cash for a last-minute TV blitz, which has just now begun.

This is the first presidential campaign since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling of 2010. And it’s giving us a good look at how that decision and other recent court cases have changed politics.

Citizens United allowed corporate spending in support of individual candidates. But former Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason says the big effect was on donors’ thinking.

“I think there are two things going on. One is that the explosion of reported spending sort of encouraged more big donors to get into this space, to give large sums of money and be more active in politics,” Mason says.

“The second thing that occurred is people looking around at the different reporting and other legal consequences,” Mason says.

SuperPACs sprang up soliciting donors for seven- or even eight-figure contributions.

But for some donors, the trouble with a superPAC is it has to disclose their names. But other groups — the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt groups known as social welfare organizations — do not.

“For donors who wanted to spend money on politics but perhaps not have their names disclosed publicly, the (c)(4) option was much more attractive,” says Mason.

Soon after Citizens United, Karl Rove and other Republican Party leaders founded the 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS and the superPAC American Crossroads. They became the biggest outside advertisers for Romney, spending an estimated $70 million since April attacking President Obama on TV.

More than half of the money has flowed secretly through Crossroads GPS.

Earlier in the election cycle, tax returns from Crossroads GPS showed that nearly 90 percent of its funds came from as few as 16 donors; two donors gave $10 million each.

“I think it defies common sense to think that these … ‘social welfare organizations’ — that exist apparently to attack political candidates, sometimes support political candidates — that they are truly educational or socially oriented,” says Sheila Krumholz, director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. “I don’t think anybody buys that argument.”

NPR and PBS NewsHour used data from Kantar Media CMAG — which tracks political ads — to do this analysis of presidential campaign advertising. It tracked ads since April 10 — when former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum dropped out of the race, essentially ceding the Republican nomination to Romney and marking the unofficial launch of the general election campaign — through Oct. 10.

Ad Spending By Outside Groups, April 10-Oct. 10

Party Affiliation Amount Spent Donor Status Percent
Democratic $20,032,460 Disclosed 86.6%
Democratic $3,101,280 Undisclosed 13.4%
Total Democratic $23,133,740
Republican $69,112,620 Disclosed 44.4%
Republican $86,600,860 Undisclosed 55.6%
Total Republican $155,713,480

Source: Kantar Media CMAG

The analysis shows how Crossroads GPS and another social welfare group split the burden of advertising this year. They alternated a few weeks at a time, almost always putting at least $1 million per week into anti-Obama ads.

Crossroads’ partner is Americans for Prosperity, which has the backing of billionaires David and Charles Koch.

For the 501(c)(4)s, donor secrecy is an essential element. The ads themselves are often indistinguishable from superPAC ads.

YouTubeThe superPAC American Crossroads spent about $11.5 million on this ad, the most widely distributed of any of the ads by outside groups attacking President Obama’s job record.

The ad aired most often by any of the outside groups attacks Obama’s job record. The superPAC American Crossroads spent about $11.5 million on it.

The second most common ad is from Crossroads GPS. It cost roughly $8.5 million and carries a similar message, saying Obama has failed to create a significant number of new jobs. Its tagline: “Tell President Obama: For real job growth, cut the debt. Support the new majority agenda.”

Neither ad tells the viewer to vote against President Obama.

The story among Democrats is simpler: 91 percent of the ads have come from the Obama campaign, financed with donations that are capped at $5,000 and disclosed.

As for liberal outside groups, they spent $3 million from secret donors — compared with $87 million by conservative groups.

“Will this money ever be disclosed?” asks Krumholz. “We have no idea the degree to which this is funded by wealthy individuals or organizations for whom it’s far preferential to fly under the radar.”

Occasionally, information about secret donors leaks out. But those leaks have in no way kept up with the flood in secret contributions.

Long Song Tuesday #36 – Only a Dream

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 15, 2012
Posted in: Long Song Tuesday. Tagged: Mary Chapin Carpenter. Leave a comment

One of my favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter songs!  Let’s listen…..

Being the oldest child in my family, I never experienced an older sibling moving away like in this song but I well know that feeling of loss that she is talking about!   I identify with all of Mary’s songs on that same, very personal, level.   She is without a doubt my favorite female singer/songwriters.

Album Of The Week #19/My Final Playlist – Life, Death, Love, and Freedom

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 15, 2012
Posted in: Album Of The Week, My Final Playlist, myfinalplaylist. Tagged: John Mellencamp. Leave a comment

Life, Death, Love, and Freedom is a great album by John Mellencamp but probably not what you have grown to expect from him.  As Rolling Stone said in their review of the album: “There’s not a bright, catchy riff or fist-pumping populist anthem to be found among these brooding, low-key songs about growing old, sick, lonely and pessimistic.”

I’ve managed to find performances of most of the album’s songs for you to listen to (see below).  I am really interested to hear what you think.  Unfortunately, I was not able to find For the Children so I will have to create my own video for it, load it on YouTube, and do a post later this week with a link to it.

One song to watch for is Country Fair.  The story in this song is absolutely scary (I have been to a lot of County Fairs and I can identify with the story)!  Here are the lyrics to County Fair for those that are interested…

Well the County Fair left quite a mess
In the county yard
Kids with eyes as big as dollars
Rode all the rides
Strip artists and con artists
Put on quite a show
And made some money
Then left town
Where they went I don’t know

Hey all you suckers
I heard a fat woman say
Come on in for fifty cents
You can stay in here all day
So I took a chance
I went inside
Wasn’t much there to see
So I asked her for my money back
And she just smiled at me

Saw Princess Tonyika taken off all her clothes
Rode some rides and played some games
Saw the Wild Man from Borneo
There was a black man playing the blues
Talked to some friends I hadn’t seen in a while
Through a football through a hoop

Well I saw them loading up their trucks
Taking down the rides
Folding up all the tents
There’s a full moon in the sky
Some were laughing some were cussing
As they worked
Saw one of them making love
To a local girl

I was minding my own business
It was quarter after two
When a fella walked up and said
Hey man
I remember you
And then he shoved me
And pulled out his knife
Stuck me three times in the chest
And I died that night

For the like of me I can’t remember
Who he was
And why he’d put a knife in me
In the dusty parking lot
Everybody said
What a shame it was
But he knew better than staying out
Past twelve o’clock

Some people put no value
On a human life
And there are places we all go
That just ain’t safe at night
If somebody would do this to me
They just might do it to you
So be careful where you go
And what you say or do

Well the County Fair left quite a mess
In the county yard

Now the songs….enjoy!

Longest Days

My Sweet Love

If I Die Sudden

Troubled Land

John Cockers

Don’t Need This Body

A Ride Back Home

Jena

Mean

County Fair

For The Children

Look for this song in a post later this week!

A Brand New Song

Need A Study To Support Your Tax Plan….Pay For It – Completely Wrong!

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 15, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Politics. Leave a comment

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have been continually citing six “studies” as being supportive of their tax plan.  Come to find out these studies are almost all from highly partisan sources and in some cases even paid for by the Romney campaign.  Not exactly objective…..and completely wrong.  The article below is from an interview with Romney’s top advisor who was finally challenged about the “studies”.  Thanks to the Huffington Post for the article.

Ed Gillespie Challenged On Studies

Supporting Romney Tax Plan

WASHINGTON — For the first time publicly, the Mitt Romney campaign was asked Sunday to defend the six studies it routinely cites as supportive of the candidate’s tax plan.

The studies have been called into question for weeks now, as only one or two of them are actually academic. The rest are blog posts and op-eds, some written by the same author, others by conservative sources. One study cited was actually paid for by the campaign itself, though the campaign has since replaced that study with another.

More problematic for Romney is that a number of them reached conclusions that he would find uncomfortable. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein, for instance, said that Romney’s tax plan could work mathematically if it eliminated deductions and exemptions for individuals making over $100,000 per year. A Princeton study put that figure at $200,000, though the author told Bloomberg News that the figure may need to be brought down to pay for Romney’s 20 percent across-the-board reduction in tax rates.

Still, the Romney campaign continues to cite those studies, including during the presidential debates. On Sunday, Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked top adviser Ed Gillespie whether that was misleading.

Gillespie: These are very credible sources, and, you know…Wallace: One of them is from a guy who is – is a blog from a guy who was a top advisor to George W. Bush. So these are hardly nonpartisan studies.

Gillespie: Look, Chris I think if you look at Harvard and AEI [American Enterprise Institute] and other studies are very credible sources for economic analysis

Wallace: You wouldn’t say that AEI is a conservative think tank?

Gillespie: I would say it is a right-leaning think tank. That doesn’t make it not credible.

Wallace: It doesn’t make it nonpartisan.

Gillespie: It does make it nonpartisan. It’s not a partisan organization, I can tell you, there are many instances where there have been things AEI came out with and said, I didn’t find it to be necessarily to be helpful to the Republican Party.

Wallace: Would you say Brookings Institution is nonpartisan?

Gillespie: I would say the Brookings Institution is left leaning and nonpartisan.

Let’s Celebrate Another Victory – President Obama Leading Among Early Voters

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 15, 2012
Posted in: Celebrate, Completely Right, Politics. Tagged: Completely Right, Rare Earth. Leave a comment

Headline from Huffington Post…the details are provided below (if you are interested) but let’s celebrate first!

I can’t get enough of this song!  This clip is from the Midnight Special TV show in 1973.

Here is the story from the Huffington Post…

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are neck and neck in opinion polls, but there is one area in which the incumbent appears to have a big advantage: those who have already cast their ballots.

Obama leads Romney by 59 percent to 31 percent among early voters, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling data compiled in recent weeks.

The sample size of early voters is relatively small, but the Democrat’s margin is still well above the poll’s credibility interval – a measurement of polls’ accuracy – of 10 percentage points. (full graphic: http://bit.ly/RmeEen)

With the Nov. 6 election just more than three weeks away, 7 percent of those surveyed said they had already voted either in person or by mail (full graphic: http://bit.ly/SWm5YR).

The online poll is another sign that early voting is likely to play a bigger role this year than in 2008, when roughly one in three voters cast a ballot before Election Day. Voting is already under way in some form in at least 40 states.

Both the Obama and Romney teams are urging supporters to vote as soon as possible so the campaigns can focus their door-knocking and phone-calling operations on those who are still undecided or need more prodding to get to the polls.

Early voting was a big part of Obama’s victory over Republican John McCain in 2008, and his campaign aims to repeat its success this year.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates the campaign’s efforts appear to be paying off, although its advantage could erode as Election Day approaches.

The Obama campaign says it is leading among early voters in Iowa and Ohio, and trailing by a smaller margin than 2008 in several other swing states. It expects its early voting efforts will help the campaign weather a blitz of negative ads expected to saturate the airwaves in battleground states in the final weeks before Nov. 6.

“We’ve made early investments in battleground states – where we’ve been registering folks and keeping an open conversation going with undecided voters for months – to build a historic grass-roots organization that will pay off when the votes are counted,” spokesman Adam Fetcher said.

ROMNEY CAMPAIGN CITES POST-DEBATE ENTHUSIASM

The Romney campaign says it is leading or even with Obama among early voters in several closely fought battleground states, including Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire. The campaign says it has seen a spike in volunteering and voter enthusiasm among Republicans since Romney’s strong debate performance against Obama on Oct. 3.

“Not only are we keeping pace with the vaunted Obama machine, but we believe our ground game will put us over the finish line on Election Day,” said Rich Beeson, the Romney campaign’s political director.

George Mason University professor Michael McDonald, an expert on early voting, said it was difficult to tell how the results so far could affect the outcome of the race.

In North Carolina and Maine, Democrats seem to be voting in higher numbers than 2008, while Republicans seem to be voting in slightly lower numbers than four years ago, he said.

In Ohio, where voters do not register by party, early voting appears to be higher than normal in both Republican and Democratic areas, McDonald said.

In Iowa, about twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans have voted by now – a potential warning sign for the Romney campaign, he said.

“Romney needs a change here. The good news for Romney is day to day, incrementally, the numbers shift in his direction, so he may be able to catch up,” McDonald said.

The accuracy of Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. For the 6,704 people who were asked whether they had voted yet, the credibility interval was 1.3 points. For the 361 people who replied that they had already cast their ballots, the credibility interval was 10 points.

Now It All Makes Sense….Mitt Romney Is Herman Munster

Posted by thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard on October 14, 2012
Posted in: Completely Wrong, Doppelgänger, Politics. Tagged: Completely Wrong, Eddie Munster, Herman Munster, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan. Leave a comment

As promised yesterday, here why Paul Ryan looks exactly like Eddie Munster.

Mitt Romney is Eddie’s daddy, Herman Munster.  The family resemblances are amazing!

Well there is one difference….the Munsters were funny.  Mitt and Paul….scary and not at all funny!

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