As Barack Obama and Mitt Romney duke it out, several of our contributing RPs — including Krystal Ball, Michael Steele, Jeff Smith, Rod Jetton, Jason Grill, John Y. Bornw, III, and The RP himself — will be providing their live commentary of the debate. Read below.
And you too can join the fun. Simply go to your normal Twitter account and use the hashtag #RecoveringPol. Your tweets will appear below LIVE!
Feel free to interact with the RPs by using their handle (i.e. @JeffSmithMO) in your tweets. They are likely to respond and engage.
<Tweets from @RecoveringPol/rps
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Great debate moments.
It is the season of debates, it seems.
Which got me wondering: What is the greatest closing argument I’ve ever seen in a debate? How about you?
The answer that kept coming up for me was a debate I watched in college several years after it took place. William F Buckley, Jr. debated a California governor who later became our president.
And won.
The issue was one I cared little about: The Panama Canal Treaty.
But there was a modern eloquence–and elegance, passion, wit, and substantive command of the issue at hand that impressed me more than any other debater in any other debate I had seen before or since.
Here is the clip. Agree or disagree, you have to admit, you are watching a master debater at the top of his game:
By Jason Atkinson, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
We only have 24 Hours to go. If you want to donate, now is the time. Click here
I want to thank everyone, all 82 of your so far, who’ve believed in me, this idea, and this film.
I told Jeff Martin, the Producer, imagine 82 people from across the globe, standing together in one room, cheering us on.
For me, this is unfulfilled. Making this film, changing hearts and minds through the human side of this river’s recovery, is something I just have to do.
By Bradford Queen, Managing Editor, on Mon Oct 22, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
After 80 years in print, Newsweek will cease production on paper and move to an online-only product. [Bloomberg]
Fox News matched some of the network’s ratings records with the first three Presidential debates. [THR]
With New York Times staff still at odds with management on contracts, they may begin withhold bylines and photo credits until an agreement can come together. [Romenesko]
With a little more than two weeks until Election Day, GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin’s Saturday fundraiser was highlighted by a questionable analogy.
Two months after his “legitimate rape” comments sparked a firestorm of criticism, PoliticMo captured audio of Akin in Springfield, Mo., comparing Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill’s work in office to that of a dog.
“She goes to Washington, D.C., it’s a little bit like one of those dogs, you know ‘fetch,’” Akin said. “She goes to Washington, D.C., and get all of these taxes and red tape and bureaucracy and executive orders and agencies and she brings all of this stuff and dumps it on us in Missouri.”
“It seems to me that she’s got it just backwards,” Akin added. “What we should be doing is taking the common sense that we see in Missouri and taking that to Washington, D.C., blessing them with some solutions instead of more problems.”
After a successful debut of our new virtual debate feature last week during the second presidential debate, we’ve decided to try it again — bigger and better.
Tonight, at 9 PM EDT, when President Obama and Governor Romney square off for the third and final time, more than a half dozen of our contributing RPs — ranging from Michael Steele to Krystal Ball to Jeff Smith to Rod Jetton to Jason Grill to John Y. Brown, III to The RP himself — will be offering their contemporaneous comments via Twitter, and The Recovering Politician’s home page will provide a live feed of their tweets.
Even better, you are asked to join in. Simply go to your own Twitter account, make your statement and be sure to type the hashtag #RecoveringPol somewhere in your tweet. Your tweets will also be broadcast live here at The Recovering Politician. If you agree or disagree with a point a certain RP is making, you are encourage to call them out — type in their handle (i.e. @JeffSmithMO) to your tweet. In all likelihood, they will respond to you.
So, please join us tonight for some fun civil dialogue as the presidential candidates make their final case to the American people.
By Chris Schulz, RP Staff, on Fri Oct 19, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
For the upcoming an election, a proposition in California can have lasting effects for the nation and the world. Should genetically modified foods be labeled? [aljazeera]
Some new varieties of fruits and vegetables may be appearing at your grocery store soon. [wsj]
A new study links rises in temperature to more frequent and larger hurricanes. [latimes]
Traditionally oil friendly Texas has drawn a line in the sand for a new pipeline. [yahoo]
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Oct 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Street ball showdown!
East End Style.
It’s the sports equivalent of a gang fight. Two factions face off like the Bloods and the Crips—but instead of using automatic weapons they settle their differences on the basketball court. Sure it’s a little more civilized way of settling differences—but only a little. It’s still brutal, raw and puts everything on the line in a no-holds-barred free-for-all, where only one side emerges as a winner. Sometimes it’s in teams; sometimes a single player is selected by his “gang” to “represent” the entire gang in a game of one-on-one. It was the latter game that I found myself in the crosshairs of as my gang’s point person on a chilly, overcast morning back in the fall of 1971.
Some people say that high stakes gangland throw downs like this only happen in the inner-city, in the proverbial “West End.” Most the time that’s true. But not this time. The setting was the extreme East End at St Francis in the Fields elementary school, where I had just transferred for third grade and today was the first day of school. It was good to see my peeps again. I had been gone for a year—on hiatus. I had spent second grade at Sunnyland. No, that’s not what they called Juvee back then. It was a small private elementary school in Ft Lauderdale, FL where my family had moved the year before on business and I went with them. But my compadres at St Francis weren’t sure what had happened to me. Only that I had gone away for a while. And now I was back. And that’s all they needed to know.
The tension between third and fourth graders at St Francis in the Fields was palpable that first day of school—spilling over from last year’s unresolved tension between second and third graders, stemming mostly from tether ball disagreements.
Like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s famous feud, no one could remember the details. Only that a rivalry had developed that wasn’t going away until it was settled. And today was the day. And this was the place. The third grade boys were feeling especially emboldened this day with me back. I was known in second and third grade circles in those parts as a fairly accomplished basketball player.
It soon became apparent to me that I was their ringer—and would represent my entire gang, or grade, as we settled our differences Old School. On the basketball court at recess after second period. The fourth grader’s choice of leader was not a choice at all. It was a forgone conclusion that no one dare question. His name was Allen Lavin. Allen was tall, athletic and handsome—and already good with the ladies (not afraid of cooties. In fact, fearless around the threat of cootie exposure.) I remembered him from a year earlier. I could easily picture him in my 8 year old East End mind one day playing in the NBA. I could imagine him dominating both on the court and then off the court wearing a full length mink coat while holding forth at the after party. He just had that charisma and cockiness of a natural leader who couldn’t fathom ever losing.
Allen Lavin was from a well-heeled horse breeding family in Oldham County. But don’t be fooled by his pedigree. Lavin was all about street ball—first and last—and everyone in the lower school knew he alone owned the basketball court when it was time for recess.
And then there was me. I was a bit of an enigma. A quiet but determined scrappy kid. Short but fast and with a bit of a chip on my shoulder that made me feel I had to prove something. I was the guy that could surprise you. And others felt it. I wasn’t like the Lavins. My family wasn’t part of the Establishment. We were more nouveau riche. Sure we could afford the private school tuition, but as they say on the East End streets, “We hadn’t gotten in country club yet.” And there were external signs of class differences too. I didn’t wear a belt. It wasn’t that we couldn’t afford belts…but rather I didn’t wear them because I had a mild sensory disorder that made some clothing articles, like belts, feel very uncomfortable to me. And then there was the other reason I kept to myself. I felt not wearing a belt gave me an advantage at sports. I wasn’t limited in my range or movement by a belt. There were aerodynamic reasons I chose not to wear a belt. And it made me lighter. And I knew I would need every advantage going up against Allen Lavin.
Read the rest of… John Y’s Musings from the Middle: Street Ball Showdown!
By Bradford Queen, Managing Editor, on Fri Oct 19, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
The Politics of the Screen
Superman will stay in the hands of Warner Bros. A federal judge denied the heirs of the comic’s creator an interest in the brand. [LA Times]
The Andrew Breitbart biopic lost its bid for a PG-13 rating. The MPAA found the language too harsh. The full release will now be delayed a week because of the squabble. [The Hollywood Reporter]
‘We Are Legion’, a brand-new film covering the group of “hacktivists” known as Anonymous, was well received at Austin’s SXSW festival. If you’ve been following the group that has reportedly launched cyberattacks on the Pentagon and has threatened to destroy Facebook, you’ll want to see this. [NYT Review]
As Barack Obama and Mitt Romney duke it out, several of our contributing RPs — including Krystal Ball, Michael Steele, Jeff Smith, Rod Jetton, Jason Grill, John Y. Bornw, III, and The RP himself — will be providing their live commentary of the debate. Read below.
