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Cantor’s Defeat Explained

OK, so why did Eric Cantor, next-in-line to the Republican leadership, lose his seat in yesterday’s election?

1.  The Republicans have gotten so crazy that even Cantor was seen as a “RINO”  (Republican In Name Only) for being reasonable enough to support things like immigration reform. cantor For Cantor to be accused of being “liberal” is like accusing Bernie Sanders of being a “conservative.”  No sane person would believe it.  And therein lies your answer.    

2.  Hardly anybody voted.  Who can you always count on to vote?  That’s right — the extremists.  People who are angry.  And people who are politically active (who also tend to be more liberal and more conservative than the average person).  So when you stay home, they get their way.  And that’s why the guys elected often seem to not represent their constituents — because they really don’t.

3.  It was an open primary.  This means people who are not Republicans got to choose the candidate.  In open primaries, the opposite party will sometimes go out and vote for the candidate they think will be easier to defeat in November.  Democrats did this yesterday, although it is unclear whether it was in sufficient numbers to have made a difference, since Cantor was pretty well trounced.

So Cantor’s loss gives us good news and bad news.

Good news: Eric Cantor has lost his seat in the House

Bad news: He lost it to someone crazier than he is

Good news: This tea party guy won’t have the seniority or power Cantor had and so will do less damage

Bad news: It’s such a Republican district, the Democrats have little chance of winning in November

 

 

 

Editorial cartoon: Leave some behind

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Why does Fox News have such influence?

Seriously, why are they allowed to set the agenda so often?  Why doesn’t the rest of the news media just ignore them instead of taking the stories they create and making them appear as something?FoxNews

Fox News gets better ratings, but the average age of its viewers is 71.  I am not making this up.  It’s the network for old retired people who sit at home, angry at the world, holding onto biases and prejudices thrown out by the generations that followed them.  Why are we letting a bunch of cranky 71 year olds dictate our media policies?

Fox has consistently been found to be promoting lies and disinformation.  The watchdog web sites have called them out many more times than they have the real media.  It’s hardly “fair and balanced”  (in fact, that is one of their biggest lies).

They post misleading charts that their gullible viewers believe.  They push rumors as if they were facts.  They continue to insist that conspiracies exist behind every door, despite being called out over and over again about their lies.

And they don’t care, because they’re not a news network — they’re a propaganda machine.  So why do rational news reporters feel like they have to cover the same stories just because Fox does?  Why don’t they just ignore Fox when it says outlandish things about our veterans or when they say that Hillary Clinton has brain damage and so on?

That’s the mystery.

They certainly give political satirists like Jon Stewart plenty of source material, though.

(And no, just to cut off the inevitable bitching that “MSNBC is just as bad!” there are huge differences between the two.)

 

Editorial cartoon: Every man left behind

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Republicans know what them women folk want

A few weeks ago, Republicans in Colorado had a debate about “women’s issues” so their all-male slate of candidates could discuss the things women want. MichGOP They ran the debate like “The Dating Game” — including the theme music — because women clearly want their representatives to woo them like a suitor.

I am not making this up.

This week, Michigan Republicans wanted to show their solidarity with women by tweeting a picture of the all-male group reading “women’s magazines” with the text “Don’t say we don’t understand women.”

If I have to explain to you why this is wrong, you may be a Republican.

Editorial cartoon: I’m not a scientist…

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The Beatles remixed and remastered

I was thrilled when Apple released the remastered Beatles albums a few years ago.  The songs sounded so clean and crisp.  It was immediately noticeable on songs like “Dear Prudence” and the early work (wow, you can actually hear the bass now!).  They even fixed the mistake on “Day Tripper”!beatles_12a

However, it was not all that I had hoped for.

While the songs were remastered, they were not remixed.   The Beatles worked in mono up until “Abbey Road”, and the stereo mixes were an afterthought.  The earlier albums have all the instruments on one side and all the vocals on the other, which is very jarring and not pleasing.  Later albums are almost as bad.

When Apple released the “Yellow Submarine Songtrack” they remixed and remastered the songs, and the results are wonderful.  Compare “Nowhere Man” to the original version on “Rubber Soul” and you can hear the difference.  The multi-tracked vocals surround you.  I can imagine that if the Beatles had the technology back in 1966, this is how they would have wanted it to sound.  And then on the “Love” album, we finally got “I Am The Walrus” in true stereo, something I had waited 40 years to hear.

So my dream is that Apple is doing this for all of the albums.  I mean, why wouldn’t they?  People like me will rush out to buy the whole set, and they’ll make another vault full of money.

I also would love for them to get rid of the “Past Masters” albums and add those extra songs onto the CDs, where there is plenty of room.  I’d also include songs that were completed but never released (until the Anthology albums.)  Here’s where the extra songs would go:

PLEASE PLEASE ME

  • Love Me Do (single version)
  • From Me To You
  • Thank You Girl
  • How Do You Do It

WITH THE BEATLES

  • She Loves You
  • I’ll Get You
  • I Want To Hold Your Hand
  • This Boy
  • Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand
  • Sie Liebt Dich

A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

  • Long Tall Sally
  • I Call Your Name
  • Slow Down
  • Matchbox

BEATLES FOR SALE

  • I Feel Fine
  • Leave My Kitten Alone
  • She’s a Woman
  • Bad Boy

HELP!

  • I’m Down
  • Yes It Is
  • If You’ve Got Troubles

RUBBER SOUL

  • Day Tripper
  • We Can Work It Out

REVOLVER

  • Paperback Writer
  • Rain

SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

  • Only a Northern Song

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

  • Hey Bulldog
  • All Together Now
  • It’s All Too Much

THE BEATLES (WHITE ALBUM)

  • Not Guilty
  • Across the Universe (original version)
  • Lady Madonna
  • The Inner Light
  • Revolution
  • While My Guitar Gently Weeps (“Love” version)
  • Hey Jude

LET IT BE

  • Don’t Let Me Down
  • The Ballad of John and Yoko
  • Old Brown Shoe
  • You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
  • Get Back (single version)
  • Let it Be (single version)

ABBEY ROAD

  • Real Love
  • Free as a Bird

 

Editorial cartoon: Opening floodgates

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Wisconsin joins the 21st century

I love writing these posts.

Wisconsin has now joined 26 other states where either the legislature has passed marriage equality or a judge has ruled that they anti-marriage law was unconstitutional. (In some of those states, those decisions are still on appeal.) WI-Gay-Marriage Like Pennsylvania, it is surrounded by states that had been performing gay marriages for years without a single adverse affect.

It’s inevitable. It’s been inevitable for years. And finally, many on the right are acknowledging it. The fever in their fight is gone. Governor Corbett, here in Pennsylvania, didn’t even appeal the decision, and there’s no great movement in the state to urge him to do so (since the majority of people here are in favor of gay marriage).

Still, there are some who continue to argue that laws preventing people from marrying are perfectly constitutional. Their reasons make no sense (as every judge has held) but yet they keep making them.

These people are overwhelmingly elderly. They’re stuck in the 20th century. And I know it sounds cruel, but they are dying off — along with their antiquated notions of marriage.

Editorial cartoon: Before and after