Coming out of the two national conventions, Nate Silver of the NY Times/Five Thirty Eight Forecast sees President Obama up 100 electoral points as of September 9, 2012.
NY Times: Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight Forecast 9-9-12
Study: No negative impact on military from repeal of DADT
As the US celebrates the one year anniversary of the repeal of DADT, a new study shows that the change has had no negative impact on military readiness, morale, or unit cohesion.
Aaron Belkin and his colleagues at the Palm Center conducted extensive interviews over the past six months with retired generals and admirals, anti-repeal activists, active-duty servicemembers, and watchdog organizations on both sides of the issue, in addition to analyzing the experience of several military units and media coverage. Here’s what the study found about the impact of gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops serving openly:
- Repealing DADT has had no overall negative impact on military readiness, including cohesion, recruitment, retention, assaults, harassment, or morale.
- Greater openness and honesty post-repeal may have actually increased understanding, respect, and acceptance.
- Recruitment has remained robust.
- There has been no increase in violence within units; in fact, many harassment disputes can now be resolved in ways that were not possible when servicemembers could not disclose their sexual orientation.
- Unit morale was not impacted, except on the individual level depending on a servicemember’s personal position on the issue of DADT.
- LGB servicemembers did not come out en masse.
Even among staunch opponents of open service, no evidence of negative consequences to repeal could be found. Any concerns that allowing LGB servicemembers to serve openly was some sort of “social experiment” that would encumber military readiness were unfounded.
Via ThinkProgress
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan plan to cut tax “loopholes” – but won’t say which ones
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan made the rounds of news talk shows to say they plan to cut “tax loopholes.”
BUT they won’t say which ones.
Will it be the mortgage interest deduction? That is one of the biggest tax deductions available to the middle class.
Charitable deductions? Same thing.
State and local taxes? Same thing.
Losing those deductions amounts to a big tax hike on the middle class.
If you buy a home this year, the next few years provide large tax cuts in mortgage interest deductions. Thousands of dollars. How do you feel about losing a $6,000 tax deduction? $10,000 tax deduction?
The Romney/Ryan “plan” is to not tell you what you’re voting for. I think most middle class tax payers would like to know WHAT Romney/Ryan plans to cut before they vote for them.
2012 Las Vegas Pride Festival
GREAT time at Las Vegas Pride Festival yesterday.
Michael and I spent time browsing the booths with our friends Alex and Gordon, watched a LOT of the entertainment on the big stage (including best bro Matt Zarley singing his opening song above). The big stage was hosted by Las Vegas’ favorite news anchor Chris Saldana from Channel 8 News and then Jaymes Vaughan of the Chippendales (and soon to be on The Amazing Race).
Vegas Pride continues to get better and better each year. Better entertainment, better management of a huge event, and great fun. You see soooo many people you miss throughout the year, and it’s a really healthy, friendly environment.
I love the folks dancing in the Matt Zarley video above. I tried to get a bit of the crowd to show how full the lawn was in front of the big stage. And this was early in the evening – about 6:30.
Round of applause to everyone at Southern Nevada Association of Pride Inc.
(btw – sorry for the weird camera work. YouTube said it would “fix” my shaky camera work, and it’s kinda funky… But you get the idea).
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| Me, Gordon, Jaymes, Michael, Chris, Alex at 2012 Las Vegas Pride Festival |
Ohio: President Obama up by 5 points over Romney
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Ohio finds President Obama leads Mitt Romney by five points, 50% to 45%.
This is huge folks. Ohio will be the center of the election from here on out.
No Republican has ever been elected President without winning Ohio. If President Obama takes Ohio, Romney’s path becomes possible but very difficult.
Also, if President Obama takes Ohio, his path becomes much easier.
Watch Ohio.
President Obama and the Pizza man
This AP photo is making the rounds on social media today. HuffPo has the story:
In Florida for his bus tour on Sunday, President Barack Obama made an unannounced stop at Big Apple Pizza and Pasta in Ft. Pierce. There, the shop’s owner, Scott Van Duzer, lifted the president off the ground: Obama entered the shop saying, “Scott, let me tell you, you are like the biggest pizza shop owner I’ve ever seen,” according to a White House pool report.
Van Duzer, 46, is a big guy: He is 6′ 3″ tall and weighs 260 pounds. After Obama was lifted up, he said “Look at that!” Man are you a powerlifter or what?” He continued, according to the pool, talking about Van Duzer’s big muscles. “Everybody look at these guns,” he said. “If I eat your pizza will I look like that?”
According to the above-linked story, Van Duzer is a lifelong registered Republican who voted for Obama in 2008 and plans to do so again.
(h/t JoeMyGod)
Broadway: Original video press footage from “Chess”
I actually got to see this short lived production.
Great voices and great score. The staging failed a bit, but the show had some thrilling moments.
Snippets of some of the major numbers from the musical:
Someone Else’s Story – Judy Kuhn
One Night In Bangkok – Philip Casnoff
Terrace Duet – Judy Kuhn & David Carroll
Anthem – David Carroll
Pity the Child – Philip Casnoff
Demi Lovato burned by X Factor USA contestant; Simon Cowell amused
Britney is umcomfortable; Demi (who I’m told is a singer) is burned; and Simon Cowell is amused…
This sounds like a fun show kids.
Not.
US Paralympics team “Call Me Maybe”
Ok, just ONE more…
I love these guys. Great athletes, great Americans. Wow, do they do us proud.
Our team finished with 96 medals overall – 30 Gold, 29 Silver, 37 Bronze – at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.
USA! USA! USA!
Minnesota Vikings Chris Kluwe on MSNBC talks about his smackdown of Maryland lawmaker
Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, whose blistering letter defending gay rights has made him a hero to the LGBT community, says he wrote it because “it’s an issue of free speech and civil rights.” Kluwe, whose brother in-law is gay, has been actively involved in the advertisements in support of marriage equality in Minnesota. He wrote the letter in response to Maryland House of Delegates member Emmett C. Burns Jr. who asked the owner of the Baltimore Ravens to censor players after linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo defended marriage equality. The Ravens released a statement saying, “We support Brendon’s right to freedom of speech under the first amendment.” Kluwe says he and Ayanbadejo haven’t yet spoken, but he hopes to soon. “I think it’s great the Ravens came out in support of him,” Kluwe says. “As athletes we have this very prominent platform where we can affect social change. It behooves all of us to do the right thing.” Via the Advocate