Empty Chair, Teeming Imagination

When I heard that Clint Eastwood would make a surprise appearance last night, I flashed on his statement last fall about gay marriage and thought that maybe a Republican spokesman was about to go off the reservation. He went off the reservation all right, but in a sad, sad way. Also ... in a wholly revelatory way, when you think about it: The Republican "fantasy Obama" has finally commandeered their brains.

What Clint Eastwood said about gay marriage (in an interview with GQ magazine, Oct. 2011):

“These people who are making a big deal out of gay marriage? I don’t give a fuck about who wants to get married to anybody else! Why not?! We’re making a big deal out of things we shouldn’t be making a deal out of. They go on and on with all this bullshit about ‘sanctity’ — don’t give me that sanctity crap! Just give everybody the chance to have the life they want."

That Clint Eastwood would have been a breath of fresh air in fetid Tampa.

S.L.U.T.

Hattip: Tom Sullivan over at Asheville's Scutiny Hooligans.

Situational Convenience: Mr. Romney Has a Choice

Samantha Bee, razor-sharp at uncovering the cognitive dissonance at the heart of contemporary conservatism.

Lies of Omission, Sins of Commission

What Paul Ryan Said

“You see, even with all the hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the planners in Washington still didn’t have enough money. They needed more. They needed hundreds of billions more. So, they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn’t even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obamacare, and we’re going to stop it.”

What Paul Ryan Didn't Say (lying by omission)
Ryan's rock-star rise among conservatives came by drafting and advancing an unpopular plan to dramatically cut and privatize Medicare. That plan was included in both of his last two budget drafts, which passed the U.S. House under the Republican majority. Ryan's plan (not passed by the U.S. Senate) made the same cuts to Medicare that Obamacare did. The big difference is that Obama's cuts are being used to finance expanded health-care for all; Ryan's cuts would finance additional tax-cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
.......

What Paul Ryan Said

The Obama presidency “began with a perfect Triple-A credit rating for the United States; it ends with a downgraded America.” 

What Paul Ryan Didn't Say (lying by omission)
Standard & Poore's downgrading of the US's sovereign debt rating came in 2011 after Congressional Republicans -- led in part by Mr. Ryan -- threatened to force the country into default.

.......

What Paul Ryan Said

“A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant [in his hometown of Janesville, Wisc.]. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: ‘I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day.”

What Paul Ryan Should Have Said (active lying)
The GM plant in Janesville, Wisc., closed before Mr. Obama's inauguration. Plus ... what?! This young hero of the conservative movement is castigating a Democratic president for not bailing out another auto plant???

.......

What Paul Ryan Said

“[President Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission [Bowles-Simpson]. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.”

What Paul Ryan Didn't Say (lying by omission)
Paul Ryan was a member of Bowles-Simpson. He voted against the final commission report. Now he's in high moral dudgeon that its recommendations weren't acted on?

......

What Paul Ryan Said

“We have responsibilities, one to another — we do not each face the world alone. And the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of the strong to protect the weak.”

What Paul Ryan Didn't Say (lying by omission)
Almost two-thirds of the budget cuts mandated under Mr. Ryan's budget plan hit low-income people exclusively.

Hattip: Brian Beutler

Lying on a Grand Scale

Republican congressional candidate Mark Meadows, running in the NC-11 for Heath Shuler's seat, got two minutes at the Republican National Convention yesterday afternoon. Turns out you can do a lot with the truth in two minutes.

Without mentioning President Barack Obama by name, Meadows said the current administration “tramples on our First Amendment right to religious liberty by requiring all taxpayers to fund abortions.” ... 

Meadows did not explain how the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal money to finance abortions, is being circumvented. (Asheville Citizen-Times)

It's a lie that this particular audience will readily swallow, of course. Their platform calls for outlawing all abortion forever, and some of this bunch want to outlaw contraception too. In that kind of context, a lie like Meadows' hardly makes a ripple.

The Republican Big Tent Collapses on Pauleroids

Ron Paul delegates get majorly dissed in Tampa, don't take it well.

The Little People Don't Appreciate Their Scripted Role

Ohio coal miners say they were forced to attend Romney campaign event under threat of job loss and ended up losing a day's pay.

What Is McCrory Hiding?

The mainstream media is beginning to notice the questions he won't answer about his personal finances.

Coming Attractions: The Do-Over

When You Need a Crutch, Reach for an Obama

This man is in charge of a WHOLE Texas county!

Okay, so there's this county judge in Lubbock, Texas, very near where I grew up. A Texas county judge is more like a county manager than a presiding tryer of judicial fact. As a county judge, he has the authority to raise local property taxes, which is exactly what he's in the process of doing, which in itself and in Texas fer crissakes, is foolhardy and suggestive that this particular county judge has taken leave of his senses.

When the local Fox TV affiliate asked the judge about why he's raising taxes, he did what any red-blooded Texas Republican would do. He blamed President Obama. And spun out one of the most singularly entertaining cover-ups of all time:

Judge Head said he and the county must be prepared for many contingencies, one that he particularly fears, is if President Obama is reelected. 

“He’s going to try to hand over the sovereignty of the United States to the UN, and what is going to happen when that happens?,” Head asked. 

“I’m thinking the worst. Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war maybe. And we’re not just talking a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy. 

“Now what’s going to happen if we do that, if the public decides to do that? He’s going to send in U.N. troops. I don’t want 'em in Lubbock County. OK. So I’m going to stand in front of their armored personnel carrier and say ‘you’re not coming in here.’ 

“And the sheriff, I’ve already asked him, I said ‘you gonna back me?’ He said, ‘yeah, I’ll back you.’ Well, I don’t want a bunch of rookies back there. I want trained, equipped, seasoned veteran officers to back me.”

Apparently, keeping U.N. troops out of Lubbock, Texas, because President Obama has declared a state of emergency because there's a general civil war erupting over his reelection ... why, that's expensive, folks! And you know what's the saddest part of this fantasy? The people in that part of Texas are quite capable of hearing that malarky and saying, "Yeah! Damn straight! We need to pay higher taxes to protect ourselves from Obama and the U.N.!"

Republican 2012 Platform: No Exception for Rape

Apparently, the national Republican Party is just Akin to increase the gender gap.

The Republican platform committee approved an "abortion plank" that rejects exemptions for rape, incest or even to save the life of the mother.

And you say that the phrase "the Republican war on women" is too extreme?

Mitt Romney's Not the Only Politician Hiding His Taxes

Stupid Stuff Republicans Say. What's Worse, They Believe It

Republicans who oppose abortion under all circumstances -- which is most of them, at least the ones running for office -- go to great lengths to justify their intellectual position that women are breeding stock and have no rights over when and if they give birth. Which is why Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin of Missouri relieved himself publicly of this opinion: "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing [pregnancy] down."

He opposes abortion under all circumstances, so he apparently needs to believe that a woman who's preggers from rape wasn't really raped at all. She must have consented, else those magical secretions every woman is capable of would have fried that sperm in mid-swim.

Turns out that this is a perennial myth touted by some Republican men (and some Republican women, eh, Virginia Foxx?). Robert Mackey has written a handy primer on the recent history of "God's little shield," which includes one dentist from North Carolina, Henry Aldridge, a Republican member of the NC General Assembly at the time he claimed this: “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.”

"Legitimate rape," "true rape," "forcible rape" (which is what Mr. Akin eventually said he meant) ... what gives here? The parsing of words is necessary for the stupidity to work. If the myth sez "real" rape can't result in pregnancy, then women who say they're pregnant from rape are fudging the truth, and therefore, O my brethren, the Republicans in the U.S House (including the ineffable Virginia Foxx) felt fully justified in 2011 in the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" to redefine the rape exception in federal anti-abortion law as applying only to "forcible rape." This law kicked up a hell of a fight in Congress and did not ultimately pass, though Mr. Akin, along with Paul Ryan and Virginia Foxx, voted for it.

Because they believe that shit.

Previously.

Yesterday, Paul Ryan gets heckled at Virginia townhall: "Why did you lie about accepting stimulus funds?"

Virginia Foxx Hearts Paul Ryan

Virginia Foxx, in the arms of Paul Ryan

WHAT SHE SAID
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan stand in stark contrast to the failed policies and divisive values of the Obama Administration. I cannot think of a better choice to help Mitt Romney lead America's Comeback Team than my friend Paul Ryan.

WHAT SHE MEANT
A hard man is good to find.

..........

WHAT SHE SAID
For years, Representative Ryan has been a bold, principled leader in the fiscal reform movement. With honesty, he's communicated the gravity of our government's financial crisis, and he's had unmatched nerve in proposing real solutions, devoid of gimmickry and demagoguery, to lead the country in a better direction.

WHAT SHE MEANT
I said, “Paul is that Atlas Shrugged in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?” And he said, “Ha ha, you are a gorgeous conservative, and I could eat you with a spoon for your adherence to the economic views of Ludwig von Mises.” And I said, “I will cook you breakfast, and we will have hash browns and tomatoes from my garden, which I picked and planted and weeded and cross-pollinated myself.”

........

WHAT SHE SAID
I've stood with Paul Ryan since he authored his first comprehensive budget bill, and I will continue to stand with Mitt Romney and Paul as they make their case for smaller government and restored prosperity to the American people. This is an election of ideas, and Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate solidifies that. Together they are a testament to American values and the principles of hard work, individual responsibility, and the belief that government should celebrate, not diminish, the success of its citizens. What a tremendous contrast.

WHAT SHE MEANT
You wanna get outta here? Go someplace where we can, you know, talk. I mean, without him? He’s kind of a drip, but you’ll go places. Please please please take me with you! I’ve got some food in my purse that I’ll share. Promise!

"Youthful and Good Looking" Enough To Sway the Ladies?

The Wall Street Journal -- let's get serious -- picked Mr. Romney's running mate.

And now the WSJ editorialists are worried that the Obama campaign is going to publicize Paul Ryan's extensive legislative record on women's issues, thus off-setting Ryan's otherwise sterling attractiveness to (empty-headed, easily led-by-the-nose) women. He's "youthful and good looking," opines the WSJ, but is he "youthful and good looking" enough to overcome what his voting record actually sez about his attitudes toward women.Which those awful Chicago thugs and Kenyan socialists are busily researching:

1. Paul Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

2. Paul Ryan would outlaw all abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.

3. Paul Ryan really despises Planned Parenthood.

4. Paul Ryan is on the record as wanting to outlaw some forms of birth control.

5. Paul Ryan would outlaw in vitro fertilization.

Been watching Facebook reactions to the WSJ's suggestion that women are pure suckers for "good looking" ultra-conservatives and am sharing a couple here:

Funny that. The only people I know who find Ryan attractive are white Republican males.

He's not hot at all. He's creepy. His eyes are cold and dead, reflecting only the absolute absence of empathy.

Let the Distancing Begin

Gotta hand it to McCrory. He knows a non-starter when he sees it (via Under the Dome):

McCrory tried all he could to avoid any association with Ryan's controversial federal budget proposal, which would severely cut discretionary funding that trickles down to the states.

But for all his dodging, he's stuck with that lead balloon.

Paul Ryan's Problem With Government (Hint: It Enabled His Career)

Some parts of Paul Ryan's biography that neither he nor Willard will be talking about:

...Social Security built Paul Ryan. Ryan's father died when he was 16, and Ryan then received Social Security survivors benefits until he was 18. He was able to save his Social Security to help pay for college. Ryan likes to talk about how he used loans to pay for college, but the fact that he went in with a big chunk of savings thanks to Social Security is something he doesn't emphasize quite as much. 

The next part of Ryan's origin story as he tells it is that he worked three jobs to pay off those loans. What he doesn't so much say is that he worked three jobs in much the same sense any kid who's spent a summer with a paper route, mowing the occasional lawn, and babysitting on Friday nights has worked three jobs. 

Ryan has been in Congress since he was 28. Before that, he worked for Wisconsin Sen. Bob Kasten and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback. The sum total of his work experience outside of Congress is a couple part-time or summer jobs as a waiter, fitness trainer, and Oscar Mayer salesman, stints as a speechwriter for a Republican advocacy organization and for Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, and one year doing marketing for his family's construction business. That's it. The guy who will be Mitt Romney's running mate in a campaign founded entirely on the message that only private sector experience counts and that President Obama isn't a fit leader because he hasn't run a business hasn't worked in the private sector beyond what the average kid a year out of college has done.

Laura Clawson.

Ignorance CAN Kill

The Winston-Salem Journal takes on the anti-science know-nothingism of the Republicans in the NC General Assembly, which decided, by virtue of statute, that our low-lying coastal counties are prohibited -- prohibited -- from planning for sea-level rise.

Another by-product of Tea Party extremism, as the Journal editorialist correctly divines:

Tea-party Republicans put the environmental movement and climate science on the wrong side of the culture war that is gripping the United States. Therefore, they refuse to recognize that the planet is getting warmer, seas are rising accordingly, and man is playing a part in both. It matters not that the vast majority of real scientists provide hard data to support their projections. To the tea drinkers, facts and science don't count, only anger at the left does. 

This would all be kind of humorous, in a Stephen Colbert sort of way, if so much didn't ride on sea-level-rise projections. They guide development along our beaches. The state and local jurisdictions have already allowed far too much construction along our hurricane-prone, sandbar-based coast. Now they are refusing to plan ahead for higher seas that will devastate investment on the coast.

We Owe Ayn Rand for Paul Ryan's Political Career

Ayn Rand

Gosh, "Paul Ryan" is practically an anagram of Ayn Rand, who was, as a matter of fact, Paul Ryan's guiding light, his philosopher of choice, the ultimate inspiration for his notorious "Paul Ryan Budget" that would further reward the already wealthy and punish the weak.

Congressman Paul Ryan was known for passing out copies of Atlas Shrugged to his Congressional staff.

In 2005, Ryan said, "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. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."

"Collectivism" is the Randian term for any social contract that sees helping the poor as an obligation of the strong, rich, and powerful.

Ryan's attempts now to distance himself from the Russian atheist  is just what American politicians do: rewrite history, attempt to change their stripes, hide their real motivations. That he would need to distance himself, deny his Creator (so to speak), is made abundantly clear by such Rand pronouncements as this one: "It was the morality of altruism that undercut America and is now destroying her.”

The late Gore Vidal had a bit to say about Ayn Rand and the impulses that made her fashionable among young hotshots like Paul Ryan:

Ayn Rand's "philosophy" is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.”

The Ryan Budget is evil. That isn't an over-statement.

Somewhere in North Carolina

Hattip: PH

So Now It's "Vulture" + "Voucher"

Was it what we used to call a Freudian slip when Mitt Romney this morning introduced Paul Ryan to the nation as "the next president of the United States"?

It's funny because it's true? Ryan so clearly outshines Mittens, has values he won't compromise on, knows what he thinks, stands firm for his beliefs, and will be the real Director General of the Romney/Ryan administration?

Shades of Dick Cheney and his vice-president George W.

Ryan is young, attractive, articulate, and, according to the famous "Ryan budget," dedicated to the proposition that the rich need to be richer and the poor can learn to eat wallpaper and like it.

The choice of Paul Ryan as Willard's running mate will be extremely popular with Romney's right wing, the Tea Party, but the necessity of bucking up his base here 90 days from the election also serves to highlight just how weak Romney is. He might have broadened his base instead, reaching out to the moderate middle via Tim Pawlenty or to the growing Hispanic population via Marco Rubio.

Ryan accentuates Mittens' weakness.

Let the dissection of the "Ryan Budget" commence!

Landmarks in Stoopid Campaign Stunts

Hattip PW: Never have your candidate do something for the camera that he never does in real life.

Battleground North Carolina

Ari Berman is a good reporter, with some prior experience on the ground in North Carolina, and his Nation article is intensely interesting, but John Grooms' comment appended at the end is distant thunder that we'd be wise to heed.

An Oracle for Ignorance

David Barton

David Barton, the Texas evangelist and pseudo-historian who wants to demolish the wall between church and state, published a book on Thomas Jefferson that apparently transformed that great skeptic of organized Christianity into something resembling ... well, David Barton. And now the publisher, which specializes in Christian books, mind you, has pulled the book from the market because they've concluded that David Barton just plain makes stuff up. (Hattip: GS)

We have followed David Barton's career before. He is a slick propagandist with a forked tongue.

$omney, Faking a Following

When a politician suddenly gets tens of thousands of new Twitter followers, the tech-savvy get suspicious.

Swiss Miss

Hattip: Shyster

The Cold and Pitiless Gaze

Meet NC House member Larry Pittman, who represents Cabarrus County and who lists "Pastor" as his main occupation. He might want to brush up on the Sermon on the Mount, given the way he's emailing really nasty trash-talk.

He recently went after Planned Parenthood like a mad dog, saying that it "deals out nothing but deception, death, personal devastation, and moral degradation. Never will I agree to give that bloody, indecent, immoral organization one penny. I will not be satisfied until it is outlawed."

The "not one penny" is in reference to the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly and their decision to cut off all funding to an organization that provides over 18,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, over 11,000 life-saving breast and cervical cancer screenings, and contraceptive services to more than 61,000 women every year in North Carolina.

With informed government officials like Larry Pittman, the North Carolina Republican Party is sufficiently stocked.

A Sign of the Time

Occasionally, Mondays produce the most counter-intuitive headlines:

GOP steers clear of gay marriage issue

When Democrats announced that their 2012 platform would include a historic first — gay marriage written in as a plank — the reaction from mainstream Republicans was near silence. 

There were no statements blasted out from Mitt Romney’s campaign. The same was true for the Republican National Committee. Romney has yet to address the fact.

The pushback came largely from social conservatives and evangelicals, who pledged to make same-sex unions an issue going forward and insisted the stand will hurt Democrats.

Source: Politico.

'Course, what's true elsewhere in this nation ain't necessarily "operative" in North Carolina, at least, not yet.

"Probably"

Senator "Bank-Run" Burr, who sent his wife to the ATM back in 2008 to take out as much cash as possible before the general public found out what was about to happen to the nation's financial system, sez that Mitt Romney has "probably" paid taxes according to "the letter of the law."

That, of course, is precisely the problem, that by "the letter of the law" gazillionaires have everything rigged for their benefit, thanks to senators like Dick Burr. But no matter.

Bank-Run Burr sez that if he were Mitt Romney, he wouldn't release any more tax records.

Yeah. We get that.

Birds of a feather could not be any flockier.

No Fox in THIS Henhouse

Why are these people laughing?

Right-wing "news" shows its ass:

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission wanted to change a broadcast regulation that mandated penalties for news programs that don't tell the truth. The Commission wanted a slight adjustment, changing the regulation to apply only in cases when broadcasters know the information they are sharing is untrue and when it "endangers or is likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public." This easing of the reg on truthfulness was being pushed by Canadian PM Stephen Harper, a conservative known as George W. Bush's "Mini Me."

The Commission forthwith called for public imput on the proposed change, which resulted in "a tidal wave of angry responses from Canadians who said they feared such a move would open the door to Fox TV-style news and reduce their ability to determine what is true and what is false."

So the Commission has dropped any plan to change the regulation: broadcast news in Canada still can't lie about the truth, knowingly or unknowingly.

Which apparently has put a sudden end to a planned expansion of Fox-style broadcasting in Canada.

Mitt Romney Would Not Make the Olympic Fencing Team

Lords of the Universe: Mitt Romney & pals at Bain Capital, posing with 20-$-bills

So Sen. Harry Reid, who knows a shiv from a butter knife, sez that someone high up at Bain Capital told him that Mitt Romney paid zero taxes for ten years. Trying to parry that thrust, Romney pours into a friendly ear (Sean Hannity) the following: "Well, it’s time for Harry to put up or shut up."

In fencing terms, Mitt Romney, faced with an opponent with a sharp point, turns to face the curtains and punctures his own trial balloon.

With an opening like that, Harry Reid thrusts back:

There is a controversy because the Republican presidential nominee, Governor Mitt Romney, refuses to release his tax returns. As I said before, I was told by an extremely credible source that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years. People who make as much money as Mitt Romney have many tricks at their disposal to avoid paying taxes. We already know that Romney has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. 

Last weekend, Governor Romney promised that he would check his tax returns and let the American people know whether he ever paid a rate lower than 13.9 percent. One day later, his campaign raced to say he had no intention of putting out any further information. 

When it comes to answering the legitimate questions the American people have about whether he avoided paying his fair share in taxes or why he opened a Swiss bank account, Romney has shut up. But as a presidential candidate, it’s his obligation to put up, and release several years’ worth of tax returns just like nominees of both parties have done for decades. 

It’s clear Romney is hiding something, and the American people deserve to know what it is. Whatever Romney’s hiding probably speaks volumes about how he would approach issues that directly impact middle-class families, like tax reform and the economy. When you are running for president, you should be an open book. 

I understand Romney is concerned that many people, Democrats and Republicans, have been calling on him to release his tax returns. He has so far refused. There is only one thing he can do to clear this up, and that’s release his tax returns.

Oh, Mitt, you really are proving yourself the rich twit you've always seemed. We love the smell of frying baloney in the morning.

The Billy Graham Ghost-Writers

"Let me tell you about Billy Graham, just as he is," writes Steve Knight, "because based on what I experienced working for the man for six years, two statements issued under his name last week (and one earlier this year) significantly collide with the well-established values of this great humble faith leader."

The statements issued in Billy Graham's name that Mr. Knight is referring to were the political calls to action to pass the anti-gay Amendment 1 in May and the more recent evangelical support for a certain chicken-centric mega-corporation's anti-gay pugnaciousness. Mr. Knight on the shifting priorities at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), which put out the statements in Mr. Graham's name:

Mr. Graham had never made political statements like this in the 62-year history of the ministry, and BGEA's evangelistic crusades have never partnered with corporations like Chick-fil-A, although they easily could have .... Now, to have three of these statements come out in the past three months -- and a very obvious commercial for a fast-food chain -- causes me to wonder if this trickle will turn into a flood, right at the end of Billy's life.

Mr. Knight sees the hand of Franklin Graham in all this politicizing of evangelism, and if this is indeed how things are working, it's waaay beyond cynical. It's downright cruel:

My concern is that here's how things like this continue to work: Franklin Graham (or Franklin and his sister Anne Graham Lotz) have an agenda (in all three of these cases, "traditional marriage"), they get a BGEA copywriter to draft the text, then a BGEA graphic designer does the layout (in the case of the ad), Franklin approves the copy and/or design, then Franklin drives out to Little Piney Cove (Billy's cabin home outside of Asheville, N.C.) and holds the piece of paper in front of Billy and asks, "Daddy, can we publish this?" And Billy nods (or whatever he's capable of doing at this point in his life), and Franklin goes back and publishes this stuff with his good father's name all over it. 

Billy Graham is 93 years old, in the advanced stages of Parkinson's disease (among a host of other age-related ailments). He's been having fluid drained from his brain on a regular basis for over a decade. When I worked for BGEA and Mr. Graham was still leading evangelistic crusades around the country, it was well-known that all of his sermons, articles, letters and books were ghostwritten -- and had been for quite some time.

When Sending a Postcard Just Isn't Enough

We haven't been by the intersection of Hwys. 105 and 321 to look, but we hear that all 86 of Mr. Furman's Wendy franchises in North Carolina have been told to post this in-your-face political message. His right, as it is our right not to eat at any of his franchises. This pic is from Asheville.