I miss you.

I miss you so much. 5 years is a long time, but I still think about you every day. I would give every material possession and live in an alley just for the chance to see you one more time.  It’s so unfair, that you won’t be there to meet the one I fall in love with, or be there to hug me, or finally when I do get my act together, be proud of me. I love you Mom…I’m just so tired of losing the ones I love.

I feel like shit emotionally.

There, I said it. I sat here for about 5 and a half minutes trying to think of a crafty title for this “vlog” and I don’t think any of them quite convey how I’m feeling like the words above.

( ALSO: SINCE MOST OF YOU WILL NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO, BE ADVISED THAT THIS VIDEO IS NOT REFERRING TO ANYONE OTHER THAN MYSELF. I STATE IT MULTIPLE TIMES THEREIN BUT PLEASE - NO FACEBOOK DRAMA)

Here’s the video:

What does Zach do all day?

Here's my first "VLOG"...LOL

Romney: Put The White Back in the White House

Failing poll numbers, a disastrous start to a overseas trip, and a tax return scandal have left the Romney campaign with one strategy going forward: overt racism.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special. The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have.” (Unknown Romney Advisor – 7.24.12)

Abandoning even a dog whistle, Mitt Romney’s campaign has appeared to place their all-in bet in this November’s election on the racist tendencies of white Americans, laying an all-out frontal assault on the President by implying that he simply isn’t “American” enough to run our country – a code word, simply, for the fact that he is too black to run our country. Perhaps if the above quote was the only instance of the racist implications of the Romney campaign, it could be ignored. But, ThinkProgress has helpfully provided a full timeline of Romney statements that seemingly question Obama’s “American-ness”:

11:30 AM — OBAMA HAS TO ‘LEARN HOW TO BE AN AMERICAN’: “The men and women all over America who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses, from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world. It is the American way. And I wish this president would learn how to be an American. [Co-chair John Sununu, Romney campaign conference call]

1:35 PM — ROMNEY SAYS OBAMA’S POLICIES ARE ‘EXTRAORDINARILY FOREIGN’: “Celebrating success instead of attacking it and denigrating making America strong. That’s the right course for the country. His course is extraordinarily foreign.” [Mitt Romney, Pennsylvania]

The continued swipes over Obama’s multi-cultural upbringing are idiotically racist, the sign of a failing Presidential campaign that is trying to elect a man who has zero principles, has flip-flopped on almost every major issue, and now may very well have committed a federal felony in lying about his time at Bain Capitol. The Romney campaign is now providing only one real messaging talking point: reminding us over and over and over again that this President is black – and that Mitt Romney is the best choice for President because, well, he’s the whitest choice possible.
Where’s the racism coming from? It’s arrived in this fashion because Romney’s continued need to distract from near weekly major disasters in his campaign, most recently from the disastrous beginning to his foreign policy tour, beginning in the UK for the 2012 Summer Olympics:

Cameron soon rebuked Romney. "We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course, it's easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere," he said.
"I think we will show the whole world not just that we come together as a United Kingdom, but also we're extremely good at welcoming people from across the world," Cameron added. "I will obviously make those points to Mitt Romney. I look forward to meeting him."

Made a fool of by the Prime Minister of the country you’re visiting? Check. How about saying our most important ally is “Just a small island that makes stuff that nobody wants? Check:

England [sic] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions.

 What else?

Serious dismay in Whitehall at Romney debut. 'Worse than Sarah Palin.' 'Total car crash'. Two of the kinder verdicts #romneyshambles
— James Chapman (Mail) (@jameschappers) July 26, 2012

“Hours later, London Mayor Boris Johnson played on Mr Romney's earlier comments while revving up a crowd of thousands of people in London's Hyde Park.
Calling London "the greatest city on earth," Mr Johnson told the crowd: "I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready?"

This foreign policy nightmare, incensing nearly every important leader in what is our closest ally in the world, was preceded by a Titanic-esque disaster where he refused to release all but two years of federal income tax returns, most likely because he did not pay ANY federal income tax in the year of 2009:

As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasn’t spared major losses. And it’s possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legal—a safe assumption, it seems to me—the fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of just 14 percent in 2010 and that estimated he’d pay a similar rate in 2011.

That’s right folks – a single mother making $7.25 an hour paid more federal income tax in 2009 than Mitt Romney. It does really put into focus how, indeed, Mitt Romney is “not concerned about the very poor” – ironically, who are made up by a very large block of minorities. With updated polling now showing President Obama pulling away from Romney nationally and on the electoral map, it appears that a return to racism is the only way the GOP thinks they can win this election, and this time they don’t have John McCain to put the veto on it. Mitt Romney is one thing – a panderer. It is blatantly obvious that if he believed that burning a cross on the White House lawn would get him the Presidency, he would do so.

It’s incredible the damage Mitt Romney has done to himself in the last few months. Before April, even I didn’t think Mitt Romney was actually a bad guy – he may have been disconnected from reality, ignorant of the masses, but at least he donated to charity and didn’t actively seem to cheat the system – but the last few months have exposed the true Mitt Romney. A political chameleon who will do anything and everything to gain power and money – who cares so little about the average American that his wife publicly talks about “you people” with disdain in interviews. Now he’s stooping to the level of David Duke, George Wallace, and the 50’s era mentality of white, heterosexist supremacy over all affairs. What a disgusting man – and not a man fit to be President of the most diverse country in the world.   

False Idolatry

America’s sophomoric obsession with gun worship claims more victims; when can we grow up?

The second major American gun massacre in the last two years has occurred in Aurora, Colorado, where a gunman killed 12 and wounded 50 at the midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises, with a 6 year old among the injured and many under 18 wounded, possibly critically. This comes on the heels of the Jared Loughner incident in Tucson, and is Colorado’s second major gun massacre in the last 20 years, with the other being the Columbine High School massacre. Ironically, a Politico/NRA fluff piece came out just yesterday, with the normal gun nut contingent bleating the typical “that black man is coming to take our guns” bullshit that has become so acceptable in American society:  (from gunbanobama.com)

Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history. Senator Obama says “words matter.” But when it comes to your Second Amendment rights, he refuses to speak honestly about where he stands. In fact, Obama hides behind carefully chosen words and vague statements of support for sportsmen and gun rights to sidestep and camouflage the truth.
But even he can’t hide from the truth forever … his voting record, political associations, and long standing positions make it clear that, if elected, Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history.

Indeed, even the President is fearful of attempting to pass even common sense gun control legislation, perhaps something that would have prevented the deaths of more innocent Americans. The spectre of the NRA, who believe that Americans should be able to concealed-carry AK-47s and rocket launchers because it’s “constitutional” (it’s NOT), has successfully scared any politician with half of a brain away from attempting to pass any type of comprehensive gun legislation since the Columbine disaster. Does it take a room full of dead teenagers to force politicians into action in this country?
It’s time for America’s fascination with gun worship to end. An obsession with guns that has no room for safety and common sense is something that should be out of our psyche by the time we turn 16. It’s sophomoric, idiotic, and deadly. Bill Maher sums up my views on the gun society in America perfectly:

“I find the gun laws in this country incomprehensible,” Morgan told Maher, and the latter took a shot at explaining them by explaining the culture. “I look at guns like antibiotics… sometimes you need them, but I don’t kiss my antibiotics, I don’t worship them” the way some worship guns, he explained. “Rick Santorum likes to talk about theology… this is a theology in this country, this is a religion.”
While Maher understood the value of having a Second Amendment, he noted that the context in which that amendment was written could not have anticipated the way guns evolved in the ability to do harm. “The Constitution could not foresee assault weapons,” he noted, adding once again that “no one is saying that we are attempting to create a gun free society, just reasonable limits.”

Please join me in calling on our state and federal legislators to back comprehensive gun control legislation TODAY. A FULL FEDERAL assault weapons ban, ban on the sizes of clips, and real training and control on weapons. No more dead children – no more mothers crying – no more high school shootings. Let’s burn the NRA down and grow up as a country – if we don’t, who knows who will be next?

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The Fierce Urgency of Now

Presidential politics continues it’s onward march towards November, with the Obamacare ruling now in the rear view mirror. The affirmation was another big political win for the President, who has faced down the “Democrats always lose” cliché and come up a winner on a few big issues:

• Immigration reform: Swing states overwhelmingly support the President’s move to halt deportations.
• Same-sex marriage: the President’s endorsement of same sex marriage appears to have pushed public opinion over the hump and into the favorable column – including in the African-American community.
• Health Care Reform: after the Supreme Court’s affirmation of Obamacare, polls have found support on the rise for the legislation across the board, with support now nearing 50%.

The icing on the cake is that coupled with these political wins, the Obama campaign has, without question, has dropped the centrist triangulation that we are used to from Democratic campaigns such as Clinton and Kerry, using issues such as same-sex marriage, income inequality, and fairness as issues to draw a very clear line of distinction between the President and Mitt Romney. It’s pretty clear that President Obama has, for the most part, delivered the goods as promised in 2008 to his progressive base – with many of those legislative wins coming in the face of a Tea Party controlled house. A glance at some big progressive wins during the first four years of Obama’s term:

• Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
• Passage of first major healthcare legislation in over 40 years
• Equal pay for women (Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act)
• Ending the war in Iraq
• Saving the American auto industry
• Made sexual orientation a protected federal class for hate crimes
• First sitting President to endorse same-sex marriage
• Halting deportations of DREAM-act eligible immigrants

We could go on and on, but I think it’s fair to say that most did not expect even half of this list to happen before the end of the President’s first term.

The constant refrain from the left after another Democratic campaign loss was “Just run to the left – be a REAL Democrat!”. Barack Obama has offered liberals the chance to finally prove that statement right. While the idea that the Obama administration is “liberal” in the grand scheme of things is questionable, in terms of the American scale, Barack Obama is the most liberal President we’ve had in over 30 years, and his recent moves to the left have now left progressives with no excuses – this is the guy, now is the time, and this is the moment. Miles Mogulescu explains the importance of November’s election:

Such a victory for a Republicans -- the most virulently reactionary American political party in historical memory -- would likely result in British/European-style austerity that would plunge a country already experiencing an unnecessarily slow recovery from the deepest recession since the 1930's into a full-blown depression. It would likely lead to tax cuts for the wealthy that would only increase the economic inequality between the top 1% (and top 0.01%) and the 99% that has been widening since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. It would likely lead to the unraveling of the economic reforms of the Progressive era, the New Deal, and the Great Society including Medicare and Social Security, which have done so much to turn America into the first largely middle class society in history. It would unravel even the relatively mild regulation of Too Big To Fail Banks of the Obama administration and make another financial crisis more likely. It would restore the neocons to leadership of American foreign policy which could lead to further unnecessary wars. It would lead to the appointment of up to three new Supreme Court Justices in the mold of Scalia/Alito/Thomas who would block progressive reforms for a generation to come.

In addition to the non-political ramifications of a Romney victory, it would also serve as a sign to both parties that liberals were wrong – that if someone campaigned to the left, it would just result in a loss. It would provide validation and a mandate to the neo-conservative right to move our country’s Overton window to the right at an even faster rate – destroying civil rights gains for minorities, LGBT’s, women, and even religious minorities. The America of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann could very well become a reality – threatening to halt the liberalization of the next generation of Americans.

So when you think about this November, keep in mind that this could be our last chance to put up a major fight against the continued shifting of our country’s political spectrum to the right – our last opportunity to take back the real America from the far right, Christian fundamentalists who want to rule our country as the American Taliban.

The First “Gay Chief Justice”?

Liberals from coast to coast have started the meme that John Roberts is looking to tear us down via the “long game". But his Obamacare ruling may signal something dramatically different on at least one major issue.

Chief Justice John Roberts is the talk of the town after he was the swing vote in a 5-4 ruling to affirm Obamacare, President Obama’s signature legislation, in a situation where the law being stricken down could have resulted in a November loss for the President. Now it looks like credible reports are stating that Roberts may have flipped his vote halfway through the process out of an interest of the long term legitimacy of the court:

In addition to private jostling within the Supreme Court, it appears that the public spotlight was a factor. The CBS report points to how Roberts pays attention to media coverage. With his court's reputation on the line, one source suggested that the chief justice became "wobbly" in the eyes of his conservative counterparts.


As the court made its historic Affordable Care Act ruling on Thursday, suspicions arose regarding Roberts being scared off by Justice Antonin Scalia. The Daily Beast highlighted one theory from a reader who clerked on an appellate court.

The idea that while a staunch conservative, Roberts is also interested in seeing the long term legitimacy of the court prevail was popular with the left, and for good reason...


A discussion on the legitimacy of the court would have started the moment the law was struck down – especially since the court’s 4 dissenters did not just strike down the individual mandate, as expected, but the entire legislation. Adam Winkler, writing for Huffington Post, examines his motives:

With this deft ruling, Roberts avoided what was certain to be a cascade of criticism of the high court. No Supreme Court has struck down a president's signature piece of legislation in over 75 years. Had Obamacare been voided, it would have inevitably led to charges of aggressive judicial activism. Roberts peered over the abyss and decided he didn't want to go there.
Roberts' decision was consistent with his confirmation hearings pledge to respect the co-equal branches of government, push for consensus, and reach narrow rulings designed to build broad coalitions on the Court. He promised to respect precedent. His jurisprudence, he said, would be marked by "modesty and humility" and protection of the precious institutional legitimacy of the Court.

There’s a fairly decent argument to be made that while Roberts personally may have been in favor of invalidating the mandate, he realized the impact of the of that ruling, and if that led to an Obama loss in November, it’s very possible Democrats would have made it long term mission to eventually weaken or end the institution. So it’s obvious that at least some portion of that line of thinking played into his choice – the idea that a court has a long term legacy and he doesn’t want to be looked at by history as the Chief Justice that led the Supreme Court right off the cliff.


While there’s talk of this being a nessessary choice so he can muster "political capitol” needed for future conservative rulings, the one place where liberals may take heart in this ruling could lie in marriage equality legislation that will certainly be brought before the court starting next term. The future of a Prop 8 challenge making it to the Supreme Court is murky, but we’re almost guarenteed to see the lawsuit against the Defense of Marriage Act make an appearance on the docket for next year, according to SCOTUSBlog:

Placing before the Supreme Court another huge cultural controversy, the House of Representatives’ Republican leaders on Friday afternoon asked the Justices to uphold the constitutionality of the 1996 federal law that limits all federal programs and benefits for marriage to legal unions of a man and a woman.   This could set the stage for the Justices to take up the issue of same-sex marriage in their next Term, opening October 1.   The new petition is here; the case does not yet have a docket number assigned.

The argument for the meteoric rise in public acceptance of LGBT marriage and the effect that the President's endorsement of same sex marriage has been pretty extensively covered, even by this blog. See my article here for more detail, but for the sake of space, we're going to operate under the assumption that public support levels will continue to rise at at least some rate for the foreseeable future, and it is now a mainstream position, supported by polling numbers.  


So, if we can all generally agree that Roberts places some priority on the way history sees his court, does that lead to the possibility that he sees the logic in siding with the liberal wing on marriage equality? He certainly understands the way that history looks at those that stood in the way of interracial marriage, and we've already examined his possible historical motives on his Obamacare ruling. It seems to me that if he is so concerned about the legacy of the “Roberts Court”, this would be a much more obvious place to make a stand than unpopular health care legislation. Does Roberts want his court to be the final one that stood in the way of a major civil rights victory that is all but certain to any but the most blind? Or could he craft the ultimate legacy and join a select group of American justices that can make a true claim to pushing our country forward?


If Roberts is playing the “Long Game”, as some suggest, that may not be the worst thing for Democrats. Roberts does seem to understand that history doesn’t look kindly on politically and religiously fueled extremism, even if it took him a while to realize that his court was starting to become a rubber stamp for those extreme positions. Now it's time to put that theory to the test - will the Roberts Court be the last court that denies LGBT Americans the right to marry those we love?

And Jesus Said, "Let Them Die"?

On the heels of one of the GOP’s biggest political losses in more than a decade, Republicans have responded with a message: we still want to “Let them Die”.

In case you descended into a coma for the last four days, you’ve heard that the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 decision, affirmed Obamacare almost in full, including the individual mandate that may have been key to the success of the legislation in practice. The affirmation was a huge blow to conservatives nationwide, who had begun the end zone dance roughly last week and even began celebrating like fans of a sports team that just won a championship while Chief Justice John Roberts was reading the actual findings of the court, where he affirmed the legislation with the four left-leaning justices on a government taxation power argument. CNN and FOX also managed to blow their loads prematurely, hedging their bets on a dramatic setback for the Obama administration and barely able to contain their glee, and Republicans nationwide set “delete” button speed records and learned a valuable lesson in pre-scheduling Tweets.


The “unexpected” (to put it mildly) setback put the Republican Party on it’s heels. An Amber Alert should have been issued for Mitt Romney, who didn’t make a statement on the legislation for over an hour after the ruling, and the resulting day long social media extravaganza (buzzfeed.com has a decent summary) confirmed that apparently, there was just no plan for this to happen, so messaging wouldn’t be required. But, the dust has settled, and it appears that the far-right Christian warriors of our country are going all-in with the message that Obamacare must be repealed, and replacing it isn’t exactly at the top of the priority list.

WALLACE: I just want to ask, what specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?
MCCONNELL: That is not the issue. The question is, how can you go step by step to improve the American health care system. … We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a Western European system.

While those that paid attention always knew the “replace” half of “repeal and replace” was as sincere as a Kardashian marriage, the fact that Republican leaders are okay with publicly stating they want to rip life saving treatments away from millions of Americans, or give companies the ability to discriminate based on your bad luck in getting colon cancer, is a pretty stunning thing as a messaging strategy. Especially for a party that loves to label themselves as the the political wing of mainstream American Christianity, says PoliticusUSA:

The conservative Christian agenda is rapidly becoming as far-removed from Christ’s teachings as the Sun is from the Earth, and as the country devolves into a hate-fest toward the poor and impoverished, it is little wonder the rest of the world views American Christianity as little more than a bastardization of Ayn Rand ideology. The level of hate and greed that is becoming the hallmark of the religious right is a disease that is being transmitted, ironically, through churches all across America, and it never ceases to amaze humanists how a Christian adherent can clutch a bible to their bosom while working tirelessly to strip assistance from the poor, and worse, condemning them to poor health and an early death because they consider something like affordable health insurance a privilege.

Indeed, the thought that this morning, thousands of church congregations may very well lead their prayers by asking God to repeal Obamacare while at the same time calling themselves followers of someone who spent quite a bit of time healing the sick, is nauseating and so twisted that it’s hard to comprehend for anyone who has a brain cell.  The chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party takes the hypocrisy a step further by calling for a second American civil war and justifying armed rebellion as a “Godly” action:

To resist by all means that are right in the eyes of God is not rebellion or insurrection, it is patriotic resistance to invasion.
May all of us fall on our faces before the Heavenly Judge, repent of our sins, and humbly cry out to Him for mercy on our country. And, may godly courageous leaders rise up in His wisdom and power to lead us in displacing the criminal invaders from their seats and restore our constitutional republic.

Of course, the Republican Party has made the practice of jumping the shark further to the right almost a campaign plank in this cycle, but this time may be the first time where virtually no dissent has been voiced, even by the so-called “moderate” Republican wing. McConnell’s statement of the Republican position moving forward no longer tries to couch the fact that they just don’t give a shit if you die because health insurance is too expensive, or you can’t get insured because of past conditions. Health insurance is a privilege, sort of like a BMW or a mansion, that should only be attainable by those who have proven their self-worth via bank account balances. That’s their version of the American way, and the way they interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ, a man who would fit the description of “Community Organizer” perfectly. America is still the ONLY industrialized country in the world to not provide citizens with universal health care via a public option – apparently, the entire rest of the world missed the mark when declaring access to quality health care a fundamental human right, not a optional payroll deduction when you are lucky enough to have a job.


So now that Obamacare is guaranteed to take effect for the foreseeable future (no matter what GOPers want you to think), the discussion will begin to shift to what Obamacare does for Americans. While the Affordable Care Act generally polls poorly among voters, every one of the major portions of the legislation has popular support – at commanding levels:

61 percent of respondents favored allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26.

72 percent of respondents wish to maintain the requirement that companies with more than 50 workers provide health insurance for their employees.

82 percent of respondents favored banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions

Some Republicans, such as Allen West, may have recognized this and initially tested the waters with forms of legislation that would allow popular provisions to stay in force while acting to damage the President’s credibility via a political loss. But it’s clear with the last two days of Republican talk that nothing but a full repeal is an option. While the ACA may stay unpopular with the Republican base, the second chance that the President and Democrats are now able to take advantage of, and the media has been highlighting already, is the highly popular tenants of the law. With polling support for these issues already high across the board, there is virtually no chance that support for the legislation will go down over the next few months, and there is a very good chance that support will go up due to the renewed focus on tying each part back to the legislation as a whole.


Over the next four months, the President and Democrats across the nation are going to be able to offer a very clear cut choice: are you really interested in voting for a party that wants to re-instate the right for companies to deny people based on pre-existing conditions? Do you really want to take young adults away from their parents health plans at a time when high quality jobs are so hard to find? Do you really want to stand with the Republican Party and say in unison, “LET THEM DIE!”? Because now, you’re not just taking legislative inaction on the issue, you are supporting an active campaign to rip affordable health insurance out of the hands of millions of Americans who have never had the ability to get it before; a cruel and morally abhorrent action that could only be justified by the moral compass of a playground bully.


My bet’s is that most Americans aren’t interested in this “Atlas Shrugged” inspired indifference to their fellow citizens, and this Obamacare decision will be a long term win for Democrats as well as a long term win for Americans everywhere. But if we do choose the wrong road and hand the keys to Romney and crew in 2012, how do we deserve anything else as a country? The choice is clear, high-profile, and provides no grey areas – this election has become more important than ever. Do we still believe in helping each other, or are we really the nation that is so concerned about a couple percentage points on a tax return that we’d rather just let those in poverty die painfully?