Last night’s vice presidential debate allowed both sides to declare themselves winners.

“Joe was Joe,” as President Obama hoped for in an interview preceding the debate Thursday. Vice President Joe Biden was aggressive and went after Rep. Paul Ryan on taxes, foreign policy, the economy, and abortion throughout their 90-minute debate in Danville, Ky.

Ryan was on his game as well, inserting zingers of his own every time Biden interrupted him, which was frequently.

Unlike last Wednesday’s presidential debate in Denver, in which most agreed that Mitt Romney held the upper-hand on President Obama, both campaigns declared a victory in what was a spirited and informative debate. The vice presidential debate also delivered on addressing the key issues at hand.

According to a CNN post-debate poll, 48% of likely voters believe Ryan won the debate while 44% said Biden came away with the victory. But a CBS News poll came to an opposite conclusion. Fifty percent of uncommitted voters surveyed after the debate said they believe Biden won the debate, while 31% said Ryan did, and 19% deemed it a tie.

The debate moved quickly, covering a range of topics, as well as allowing for each candidate’s personal style to shine (cue Biden smirking). Biden unprovoked reminded Americans about Mitt Romney’s 47% statement and brought it in during the end of the debate, something which President Obama did not do during the Denver debate.

The attention now moves back to President Obama and Mitt Romney. While the vice presidential debate was clearly one for the history books, next Tuesday’s presidential debate at Hofstra University might help shape those undecided voters’ choices. Let the debate begin as to who can come up to the plate and hit the homerun needed to win the ballgame.

In the historical context, the United States of America is still young.  Yet even though we don't have as long a history as say the Italians, Chinese, or English, we have racked up an impressive list of historically important people.  George Washington fought to help form this country while Abraham Lincoln fought to keep it together.    Ben Franklin lit up the night sky with his kite and some lightning, while Thomas Edison brightened our homes with his light bulbs.

In the new book "The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th century" author Peter Dreier takes a look at the people who helped shaped the political, social, and technological landscape of the past century and today.  He breaks the individuals on his list up into 3 categories:  Activists, Thinkers, and Politicians.  “Each generation of Americans faces a different set of economic, political, and social conditions,” says Dreier “Unless we know this history, we will have little understanding of how far we have come, how we got here, and how progress was made by the moral convictions and courage of the greatest Americans.”

Some of the people on Dreier's list will come as no surprise.  Martin Luther King Jr, Albert Einstein, and Jackie Robinson were all leaders in their fields.  Yet, some might surprise you, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Moore, and Ted Kennedy, but not his brother John.  Take a look at the full list here.

Who do you think should have made the list?  Who should have been left off?  Find out who the Cyclists are surprised is and isn't on the list. And from looking back at our history hear Peter Dreier’s take on the current political landscape.  As the American philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. “

Check out an excerpt from the book below and be sure to tune in for the full conversation today at 3:40pm.

Excerpted with permission from The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20^th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame, by Peter Dreier.  Available from Nation Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2012.

 

Margaret Sanger

(1879–1966)

 

WHEN FEDERAL agents arrived at Margaret Sanger’s home with a warrant for her arrest in 1914, she calmly  ushered the men into her cluttered living room and quietly spent the next three hours explaining why she had mounted a campaign to promote birth con- trol, especially to women of little means. She had been  indicted  by a grand jury on nine counts of breaking federal laws against distribution of birth control information with her newsletter the Woman Rebel. The

potential prison sentence was forty-five years. By the time Sanger completed her persuasive argument, the agents agreed with her. Nevertheless, they said she had broken the law, and they had no power to rescind the warrant.

Throughout  her life, Margaret Sanger ran afoul of the law in her quest to promote women’s health and birth control.

Born  Margaret Higgins,  she was the sixth of eleven children  in a working- class family in Corning, New York. Her father, Michael Higgins, a stonemason, was a freethinking  atheist who gave Margaret  books  about  strong women and encouraged her idealism.  Her  mother,  Ann,  was a devout Catholic  and the strong and loving mainstay of the family. When her mother died from tubercu- losis at age fifty, Sanger had to take care of the family. She always believed her mother’s many pregnancies had contributed to her early death.

Sanger longed to be a physician,  but she was unable  to pay for medical school. She enrolled in nursing school in White Plains, New York, and as part of her maternity training delivered many babies—unassisted—in  at-home  births. Some of the women had had several children and were desperate to avoid future pregnancies. Sanger had no idea what to tell them.

Soon  after her 1902 marriage to architect  and would-be painter William Sanger,  she became  pregnant,  developed tuberculosis,  and had a very difficult birth,  followed by a lengthy illness and recovery. The young family moved from New York City to the suburbs for Margaret’s health, but two babies and eight years later, Sanger insisted that they return to the city.

In the city the Sangers were part of a left-wing  circle  that included John Reed, William “Big Bill” Haywood, Lincoln Steffens,  and Emma Goldman. Goldman had been smuggling contraceptive devices into the United States from

 

---

 

France since at least 1900 and greatly influenced  Sanger’s thinking.  Sanger joined the Socialist  Party and the Industrial Workers of the World, providing support for its strikes in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912 and in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1913. Sanger also returned to nursing,  working as a visiting nurse and midwife at Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement in the Lower East Side. Again, women repeatedly asked her how to prevent future pregnancies. In those  days poor women tried a range of quack medicines and dangerous methods to end pregnancies, including knitting needles. A turning point for Sanger came when one of her patients died from a self-induced abortion.  Sanger decided her life’s mission would be fighting for the right of low-income women to control their destinies and improve their health through family planning.

The Sangers went to France,  which was then,  with regard to contraception, the most progressive nation.  After learning as much as she could from the French, she returned to the United  States and launched her newsletter the Woman Rebel in 1914, with considerable backing from unions and feminists. As Sanger and her friends sat around her dining  room  table addressing newsletters, they brain- stormed what to call their emerging movement for reproductive freedom. From that conversation, the term “birth control” was born. Encouraging working-class women to “think for themselves and build up a fighting character,” Sanger wrote that “women cannot be on an equal footing with men until they have full and complete control over their reproductive function.”

Sanger also began writing on women’s  issues for the Call, a socialist news- paper. She developed two columns that later became popular books, What Every Mother Should Know (1914) and What Every Girl Should Know (1916). When she covered the topic of venereal disease, she went up against the US postal inspector Anthony Comstock,  a one-man army against all things sexual. In 1873 Congress had passed the Comstock  Law, which made illegal the delivery or transportation of “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” material and banned  contraceptives  and infor- mation about contraception from the mails.

Comstock  censored her column,  the first of many run-ins. He then seized the first few issues of the Woman Rebel from Sanger’s local post office. She got around him by mailing future issues from different post offices. Thousands  of women responded to the newsletter, anxious for information on contraception.

Sanger’s next project was an educational pamphlet, Family  Limitation, which described clearly and simply what she had learned in France about birth control methods such as the condom,  suppositories, and douches. She planned to print

10,000 copies, but there was great demand from  labor unions,  representing members from Montana copper mines to New England cotton mills. She scraped up enough money to print 100,000. Over the years, 10 million copies would be printed, and the pamphlet was translated into thirteen  languages. In the 1920s in Yucatán, Mexico, feminists distributed the pamphlet to every couple requesting a marriage license.

 

 

 

102    MARG ARET  SANGER

 

But before she could distribute Family Limitation  in the United States, Sanger had to go to court for the Woman Rebel, whose distribution  was the “crime” for which she had received the arrest warrant. With  very little time to prepare her de- fense and faced with a judge who seemed hostile to her cause, she made the snap decision to jump bail and flee, alone, to England. While in Europe,  she visited a birth control clinic in Holland run by midwives, where she learned about a more effective method of contraception, the diaphragm, or “pessary.”

By the time Sanger returned to the United  States, Comstock  had died. Her hopes were raised that the laws might not be so vigorously enforced and that she might not have to stand trial. A well-publicized open letter to President Woodrow Wilson,  signed by nine prominent  British  writers, including H. G. Wells, sup- ported Sanger and her work. Newspapers wrote about Sanger’s notoriety, and she gained sympathy when they reported that her five-year-old daughter, Peggy, had died suddenly of pneumonia. In the face of public pressure, the government dropped the case, but the laws remained on the books.

Sanger opened the nation’s first birth control clinic in October 1916 in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, primarily serving immigrant Jewish and Italian women. She, her sister Ethel Byrne (a registered nurse), and Fania Mindell (who helped translate for the immigrant  patients) rented a small storefront space and distributed flyers written in English, Yiddish, and Italian advertising the clinic’s services. Sanger smuggled in diaphragms from the Netherlands and tried to re- cruit a physician to properly fit them in her patients, but no doctors were willing to face possible imprisonment.  Although doctors were allowed to provide men with condoms  as protection  against venereal disease, they were not allowed to provide women with contraception.

Instead, Sanger and Byrne provided the services. The  first day the clinic opened, they  saw 140 women. Women—some  from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts— stood in long lines to avail themselves  of the clinic’s services. After nine days, the vice squad raided the clinic, and Sanger spent the night in jail. As soon as she was released, she returned to work. Again, the police came, and this time they forced her landlord, a Sanger sympathizer, to evict them.

Following the eviction, Sanger, her sister, and two others were arrested for “cre- ating a public nuisance.” Ethel was the first to be convicted, and she responded to her sentence of thirty  days of hard labor by going on a hunger strike. After four days, the judge ordered her to be force-fed; it was the first time this punishment had been used in the American penal system. Headlines around the nation publi- cized her plight. “The  whole country seemed to stand still and anxiously watch this lone woman’s fight against an iniquitous  law,” wrote a reporter for the Birth Control Review in 1917. Ethel almost died before Sanger was able to secure a par- don from the governor and rescue her.

Sanger’s trial began on January 29, 1917. She was also convicted,  but the judge offered her a suspended sentence  if she would agree not to repeat the of-

 

 

 

MARG ARET SANGER     103

 

fense. She refused. Offered a choice of a fine or a jail sentence, she chose the lat- ter and spent thirty days in jail.

Sanger  appealed her conviction,   and a year later the New York Court  of Appeals upheld her conviction.  However, the judge ruled that physicians could legally prescribe contraception  for general health reasons rather than exclusively for venereal disease.

Sanger continued to fight for the right to disseminate birth control informa- tion and to import contraceptives from abroad. She launched the monthly Birth Control Review in 1917 and started the American Birth Control League (the pre- cursor to Planned Parenthood) in 1921, focusing particularly on physicians, nurses, and social workers. Two years later she opened the Birth Control  Clinic Research Bureau in New York, the first legal clinic to distribute contraceptive in- formation  and fit diaphragms, directed by women doctors. But it was not until

1936 that a federal district court in New York City ruled that the US government could not interfere with the importation of diaphragms for medical use.

Feminists and progressive reformers were divided over Sanger’s crusade for birth control. Alice Hamilton, Crystal Eastman, and Katharine Houghton Hep- burn (mother of actress Katharine Hepburn)  supported Sanger, but others, such as Charlotte  Perkins Gilman and Carrie Chapman  Catt, thought that birth control  would increase men’s power over women as sex objects.

To the detriment of her reputation and the cause of reproductive freedom, Sanger  was also attracted  to aspects of the eugenics movement.  In the 1920s, some  scientists  viewed eugenics  as a way to identify the hereditary bases of both physical and mental  diseases. Some,  however, viewed it as a means  of creating  a “superior” human race. Among them were leading Nazis, who opposed birth con- trol or abortion  by healthy or “fit” women in order to promote  a white master race. In fact, the Nazis banned and burned Sanger’s books on family planning.

Sanger’s primary  focus was on freeing women who lived in poverty from the burden of unwanted pregnancies, but by embracing eugenics, she appeared to be crossing the line in troubling ways. For example, in a 1921 article, “The Eugenic Value of Birth Control  Propaganda,” she argued that “the most urgent problem to- day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” Although many of the eugenics movement’s  leaders were racists and anti-Semites  who promoted involuntary sterilization in order to help breed a “su- perior” race, Sanger was not among them. Her embrace of eugenics  was intended to stop individuals from  passing down mental  and physical diseases to their de- scendents. She believed that reproductive choices should be made on an individual basis. She always repudiated the use of eugenics, including sterilization, for specific racial or ethnic groups. In the 1920s, when anti-immigrant  sentiment  reached a peak and some scientists sought to justify restricting immigration by claiming that some ethnic groups were mentally and physically inferior, Sanger spoke out against the stereotyping that led to the Immigration Act of 1924.

 

 

 

104    MARG ARET  SANGER

 

In 1930, with the support of W. E. B. Du Bois, the Urban League, and the Amsterdam News (New York’s leading black newspaper), Sanger opened a family- planning clinic in Harlem, staffed by a black doctor and a black social worker. In

1939, encouraged by Du Bois,  Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of Harlem’s powerful Abyssinian Baptist Church,  journalist Ida Wells, sociologist E. Frank- lin Frazier, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, and other black leaders, Sanger ex- panded her efforts to the rural South, where most African Americans lived.

Sanger remained an activist for birth control and women’s rights throughout her life. She helped found the International Planned Parenthood Federation in

1952. She spent the end of her career raising money for research. Her efforts contributed to the development of the birth control pill.

In 1961, Estelle Griswold, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Con- necticut, opened a birth control clinic in New Haven with Dr. C. Lee Buxton,  a licensed physician and professor at Yale’s medical school. They  were arrested in November 1961 for violating  a state law prohibiting  the use of birth control. They appealed the case to the US Supreme Court, which in 1965 ruled in Gris- wold v. Connecticut  that the law violated the right to marital privacy. The case es- tablished a woman’s right to control over her personal life and made birth control legal for married couples. This paved the way for Roe v. Wade,  the landmark 1973

Supreme Court ruling that recognized a woman’s right to c

 

 

"Wanna dance?"

We love to compare debates to prize fights, especially in our industry. In the days leading up to the debate, in the days following it, and live during the actual event - those of us in cable news will be talking about who hit the hardest, which punches landed, which punches missed, who was able to slip jabs, who had the best strategy, and who executed. Then we'll raise the imaginary hand of the winner. Ding. Ding. Ding.

But here's the thing, most debates aren't boxing matches. Romney won last week, when President Obama failed to come out of his corner, uttering "No Mas" before the match even started... We didn't see haymakers and body shots, we saw feints and daydreaming. Now after Vice President Joe Biden, and Rep. Paul Ryan circled each other aggressively, I'm supposed to get pretend every debate is a forum for candidates to slug it out?

I'm not holding my breath.

"I totally killed it out there."

Because usually, debates more-closely resemble middle school dances, than championship bouts. They exchange idle chatter, trying to avoid humiliating themselves. They stand across from each other, unsure of when it's OK make eye contact, and when it gets "weird." Awkward posture(ing) abounds. You can just tell everyone has too much cologne on. Phrases and slang get tossed around that even they don't fully understand. And God forbid a slow song comes on, and they have to go toe-to-toe for a few tense minutes (leaving room for Jesus, of course) - they spend that time worrying more about what their friends think, than they do about the person in arms' reach. And when it's over, each person will try to convince us they were totally killing it out there.

And honestly, that's what's we got last night A middle school dance. The music was nothing to write home about, and the handshakes were sweaty. Joe Biden played the hard-charging chaperone, frantically trying to protect his school's honor.

"You can't stand that close!"

And Paul Ryan came out with his hair combed, looking like he was wearing one of his daddy's suits.

"It's a little big in the shoulders, Dad..."

And every time they got close to each other, we - the tweeting peanut gallery - went bananas whispering sweet (snarky) nothings @ each other.

Man, they should have played more Coolio.

S.E., Krystal, and Steve preview the first and only Vice Presidential Debate between Vice President Joe Biden and GOP-rising star Paul Ryan comes live tonight from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. Check out who they think will steal the limelight in this epic VEEP showdown… it might not be Biden or Ryan. 

Also, tune in today at 3pm  for an in-depth analysis of the Biden/Ryan debate from the full team.

Esquire magazine came out with a Women We Love This Year and The Cycle’s own Krystal Ball has made the list! This list is in honor of the unveiling of Sexiest Women Alive issue.  Krystal is one of 23 women that have moved the hearts and minds of the editors at Esquire because of her actions.  As the article says “within ten seconds of her talking, you’ve already forgotten about her name.”  The full November issue of Esquire will be on Newsstands October 16^th or you can view the slideshow online now. 

We are only 26 days away until Decision 2012 is made. But tonight marks the duel in Danville, Kentucky where Vice President Biden faces Representative Ryan in the only Vice Presidential debate the two will have this election season. The format for the debate is simple: 9, 10-minute segments, each with a 2 minute response time followed by a discussion. The debate focus will be on foreign and domestic policy.  It is ABC’s Martha Raddatz’s moderating debut, and many are hoping she’ll be able to control both candidates better than last week.

Unfortunately for Vice President Biden his favorability view has declined since his 2008 debate with Sarah Palin, according to a recent Pew Research poll. 39% of adults view Biden as favorable while 44% view Ryan as favorable. Another survey conducted by Pew shows that 40% expected Ryan to do a better job in tonight’s debate compared to the 34% who expect Biden to succeed.

While many expect tonight’s debate to be entertaining, it is unclear if this debate will alter the polls. According to Gallup, no VP debate in the 36 year history of televised VP debates, has meaningfully altered voter preferences. One reason is that the Vice Presidential is not a highly watched television event, as is the Presidential debate.  This year’s debate has even lower viewer expectations with only 54% of voters say they are likely to watch the debate.  That’s compared to the Biden-Palin debate 4 years ago where 69% said they were very likely to watch, and as we now know, 2008 generated the largest VP audience ever with 70 million viewers.

So what should we all be watching for in tonight’s debate? Politico came out with the top 5 things we should all watch for, you can find that here and don’t forget your Twitter buddy who can always help you understand the little nuances each candidate is saying and explain why you should be so interested in tonight’s debate.

With Romney and the President neck and neck in the polls it is becoming clear that every debate, campaign speech, and action each candidate (and vice presidential candidate) takes in the next 26 days matters in order to get as many votes as they can and win the Oval Office.  So how will Biden and Ryan each fair in tonight’s debate? Our Cyclists will have full pre-game analysis at 3pm with Krystal Ball live in Danville, Kentucky helping set the scene on what we can expect from tonight’s debate. 

From lucilleandmitt.tumblr.com

Let’s face it: for anyone who loves politics, the everyday back and forth can sometimes get a little monotonous. So it’s been nice to have memes and spoofs this election season – not only as a respite from the solemnity of the political day to day, but as a way to share laughs over politics with friends and co-workers. From a comedy stand point alone we've seen Memes, Tumblrs, and Twitter handles dedicated to political parodies (the collision of Arrested Development's Lucille Bluth and Mitt Romney is a personal favorite), plus the oldies-but-goodies from the satirical minds of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the cast of Saturday Night Live. 

On Wednesday, The Cycle hosts took a break and chose to take a more whimsical approach. This trip to what Toure called "Awesome Corner" isn’t the first time the hosts have chosen fantasy fun over what’s going on in the Real World. It’s like S.E. Cupp said on Tuesday: after covering politics for so long sometimes all a girl wants is “a long, slow, deep, soft, wet kiss that lasts for three days.”

Well, I’m not sure about the three days part, and the "wet" caveat may be a personal preference, but after so much seriousness, there needs to be some play. Check out the latest from Jimmy Fallon during his trip to Mr. Romney's neighborhood and hear the Cyclist's movie fantasies for Thursday night's VP debate.

Spoiler Alert: no sloppy make out sessions in these fantasies (sorry?), but there is no shortage of whimsy, either. 

Tomorrow night marks the one and only Vice Presidential debate where Vice President Joe Biden will face Representative Paul Ryan in Danville, Kentucky.  The format for the debate will be 9, 10 minute segments each with 2 minute response time followed by a discussion. The focus of the debate will be foreign and domestic policy. While there is a generation gap between the two, Ryan is known for being a numbers guy and Biden for not being afraid to say what he thinks.

Biden enters the ring with a 51% unfavorable view opposed to Ryan’s 44% favorability view, so Biden has to hit a homerun in order to boost his favorability. According to a similar poll, 40% believe that Representative Ryan will win the debate as opposed to the 34% who believe VP Biden will come away with a win. So what does VP Biden have to do to help the ticket? We ran it through our Spin Cycle and here is what they had to say (insert top of A link)

So with Biden and Ryan focused on prepping for tomorrow’s face-off President Obama and Mitt Romney are on the campaign trail. Today Mitt Romney continues through the swing state of Ohio as he tries to sway the voters  after a surge in the polls following last week’s debate performance. As  for the future, it could be anyone’s game. But everyone is putting their opinion into the ring as to what the President needs to do next Tuesday.

On today’s show we are speaking to Richard Dorment, Senior Editor at Esquire, about a new poll on the Presidential race.  As we roll towards November 6^th we are looking back on how we got to where we are,  who do we blame,  and is there anyone who can save us?  The economy for one, is a big question on the minds of millions of Americans.  

Governor Romney is running his campaign saying that the President has not helped America get things back on track, but this poll shows most people don’t blame Obama for their current hardships.  The Esquire/Yahoo! poll found that a majority of Americans blame Congress and former President George W. Bush for the current level of unemployment.  Maybe that’s why you don’t see President Bush out stumping for Mitt Romney.

And as a mutli-million dollar businessman, 50% in the poll don’t think Mitt Romney is in touch with the basic economic issues facing American families.  Only 38% of those polled feel the former Governor is in touch, compared to the 54% who think President Obama understands American families.

But it’s not all bad news for Romney.  In a head-to-head match up, 53% would rather have him do their taxes then the President.  

Tune in at 3:40pm for the full conversation and be sure to check out the full Esquire/Yahoo! Poll here. 

With the Supreme Court set to hear the Abigail Fisher case on Wednesday, The Cycle is brushing up on their affirmative action policy. The ruling has the potential for some big implications on our higher education system, and to dredge up some passionate debate from advocates on both sides of the issue. UCLA law professor, Richard Sander, and the Editor of the Harvard Law Review, Stuart Taylor Jr., co-authored the book "Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It," which argues that a Supreme Court ruling that would shake-up affirmative action policy in the United States may be exactly what we need. 

The premise of the book is a contested theory called "mismatch," which basically argues that minority students accepted into first tier universities – the Harvards and the Yales, for instance – are mismatched, and thus will not succeed there because they are "inadequately placed in schools where they cannot compete." Sander explains that teachers teach classes with their students' qualifications in mind and that students who did not meet those initial qualifications, but were accepted anyway, learned less. Preparation is key, and these authors argue that if you aren't prepared, no matter how good the school, there is small benefit in attending. Sander and Taylor see the practice – admissions based on race as "spinning out of control" and badly in need of some changes, especially considering it was created in the 1960's as a temporary practice meant to act as a catalyst for diversification in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. 

But mismatched students are only half of Taylor and Sander's argument. What the authors are arguing for is transparency. They want students to be made aware that the statistical deck is stacked against them and that they may be coming in less prepared than their fellow classmates. In effect being told that they are not only small fish in a big pond, but that they shouldn't really be swimming with these fishes anyway. 

Taylor and Sander also want to open up standards of affirmative action to take into account socio-economic status. Sander stated that colleges are more willing to accept the child of a black doctor before the child of a white or black cab driver. The socio-economic imbalance presented by Sander is supported by another statistic from the book, which says that high income black students receive four times the scholarship aid that low-income whites and Asians receive. 

Toure pushed back on this argument. Responding to Sander and Taylor's statement that there is "no evidence" that affirmative action works, Toure cited the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who said that "mismatch" was "junk science" and that the duo's work was "flawed." Scholarly standards aside – Sander retorted that their book had been peer reviewed and was up to academic-par – Toure's argument for affirmative action is definitely something to think about. Where Sander and Taylor are saying that students should attend colleges that they are qualified to attend, Toure is asking why would they, when they could – and probably should –go to Harvard or Yale? The Cycle host said:

"So it's better for black and brown students to go to second tier schools rather than to go to Harvard or Yale or first tier schools? The entire Supreme Court comes from Harvard or Yale, almost all presidents: Harvard or Yale, all the top of corporate America...so if we follow your prescription then the entire leadership of America would become entirely white, which is just barely a white washing of what we already have. How would that be better for America?"

Weigh in, in comments below.

For all the rhetorical overtures President Obama has made to the plight of the unemployed and underemployed, it doesn’t seem like he’s all that concerned about making sure Americans who are lucky enough to have jobs actually get to keep them.

Looming large over Obama’s re-election efforts are the automatic spending cuts, totalling $110 billion next year, scheduled to go into effect in January and stemming from Congress’ inability to come up with a way to rein in the nation’s debt.

Many folks stand to lose their jobs because of these cuts — but they shouldn’t expect much sympathy from the President, who is far more concerned about his own job than theirs.

Because of the potential $50 billion cut to defense spending inherent here, as many as 1 million jobs in that sector could be lost, according to Aerospace Industries Association, a Washington-based defense lobbying firm.

To continue reading the article click here. 

Two things happened yesterday that don’t seem unrelated. First, there was the release of a new poll in Ohio that showed Mitt Romney pulling closer to President Obama but still trailing by four points – thanks to a massive 36-point gender gap. Then came Romney’s statement to an editorial board that “there’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”

This is an extension of the strategy Romney employed at last week’s debate, simply playing dumb when confronted with the aspects of conservative ideology that are difficult to market outside the Republican Party base. In this case, there is a clear urgency for Romney in creating distance between himself and the right’s recent fixation on reproductive issues: A recent Bloomberg poll of swing voters in Ohio and Virginia found Romney leading among married mothers by a few points in each state – with the potential to open much bigger leads if he can work around the concerns they have about his views on women’s issues.

Romney, the Bloomberg poll showed, enjoys a clear advantage among these women on the economy, but has been hindered by, among other things, his vow to de-fund Planned Parenthood, his opposition to Obama’s decision to mandate insurance coverage of birth control, and his anti-abortion position. The new Ohio numbers, from a CNN poll released yesterday, speak to Romney’s challenge. Among men in the Buckeye State, he’s now clobbering Obama, 56 to 42 percent. But with women, Obama is winning by a 60-38 percent margin. That translates into a 51-47 percent overall lead for the president, but if Romney can erode Obama’s advantage with women even a little, he can make up that ground.

To continue reading the article click here. 

AP Images

by Charles Hitchins

Four weeks from today millions of Americans will be entering the voting booth to decide the next President of the United States.  In sports terms, this is the fourth quarter and with just 28 days to go, the race is still anyone’s game. Republican candidate Mitt Romney has jumped out to a 4 point lead in the latest Pew Poll of likely voters, getting a bump from his debate performance in Denver last week.  The Romney campaign is feeling invigorated.  Just a few weeks ago some strategists were talking about ways for the former governor to win without taking Ohio, now the campaign is rumored to be pulling staffers from Pennsylvania and sending them to the buckeye state.

With both candidates in Ohio today;  President Obama is at Ohio State University for a rally, while Governor Romney will be campaigning with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie throughout Ohio tonight.  But as the candidates battle for Ohio there is one campaign ad residents won’t be seeing on the airwaves.  The Obama campaign released a new ad targeting Romney’s comment about Big Bird during their debate last week.  "Big. Yellow. A menace to our economy. Mitt Romney knows it's not Wall Street you have to worry about. It's Sesame Street.”  Surprisingly the ad will not be shown in any battleground states.

Next up though is Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate.   Both Vice President Biden and Representative Ryan have been off the campaign trail preparing for the only time the two will come face to face.  And much like the first Presidential debate the two sides are talking each other up, saying that the other is the better debater.  We’ll find out who truly is the better debater in Kentucky on Thursday. 

For now grab some popcorn and settle in for an exciting few weeks.  There are two more Presidential debates and hundreds of hours of television left before you enter the voting booth.  

While, the clock is ticking towards November 6^th, this is the time the candidates need to shine.  Any mistake in the next few weeks could cost one of them the election.  

Madeline Levine, author of Teach Your children Children Well: Parenting For Authentic Success, joins the conversation during today's show to discuss her best selling book. Madeline Levine calls her book a "call to action" for parents on how to raise their children. The basic premise of the books is that we have reached a breaking point in how we raise our kids, where they grow up to believe they are only as good as their last success. So where is the happy medium? 

Be sure to tune in for the full conversation at 3:40pm today and check out an excerpt from her book below.

Introduction

Courageous Parenting—Taking the Long View

 

When The Price of Privilege was published in 2006, I thought I had written a substantive, if modest, book. After all, I was reporting on the unexpectedly high rates of emotional problems documented among a relatively small group of teenagers, those from families with high levels of income and education. While I assumed my audience might be small, I knew the findings were important and counterintuitive.  Privileged children, long assumed to be protected by family resources and opportunities, are experiencing depression, anxiety disorders, psychosomatic disorders, and substance abuse at higher rates than children from socioeconomically disadvantaged families who have traditionally been considered most at risk. In addition, while these privileged children often perform well on tests, they are frequently wily but superficial and indifferent learners in spite of the congratulatory e-mails and fat acceptance envelopes many of them receive from prestigious colleges.

 

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Based on a substantial body of research, The Price of Privilege suggests that our current fashioning of success, with its singular emphasis on easily measurable achievement, is a significant contributor 

to the high rates of emotional problems among affluent youth. Many academically driven kids take stimulant drugs to neutralize the exhaustion of excessively long hours of homework, cheat regularly

to maintain the high grades that have come to be viewed as matters of life and death, and resort to unhealthy ways of coping with overwhelming anxiety by substance abuse or self-mutilation. Just as this narrowly defined and hyper focused system stresses many students (and their families), so does it marginalize many more who either cannot or choose not to participate in a highly standardized, pressure-cooker education. These children find the interests and talents that they do have either ignored or trivialized, and disengage from school feeling unsupported and devalued. This leaves them vulnerable to high-risk behaviors such as substance abuse and petty crime, or a hopelessness that keeps them from succeeding even on their own terms. I proposed then—as I have again in this book—that the system responsible for these poor educational and emotional outcomes needs to be reexamined and reconfigured.

 

I expected to take a few months off for a book tour and related speaking engagements, and then return to the psychotherapy practice I had maintained for close to twenty-five years. That’s not what happened. Five years later I have returned to my clinical work only part-time. The Price of Privilege was reprinted seventeen times before it was released in paperback. The small group that I had anticipated would find the book relevant has morphed into an extensive and diverse collection of parents, students, business executives, clergy, educators, university administrators, and public policy experts. Apparently, many of the problems identified in The Price of Privilege—stress, exhaustion, depression, anxiety, poor coping

skills, an unhealthy reliance on others for support and direction, and a weak sense of self—are problems faced by large numbers of children across the country regardless of the socioeconomic status of their families. It turns out that many of these students are reporting high levels of stress whether they are trying to pass a high school exit exam or are juggling multiple AP courses.1 While historically children have cited either family discord or peer problems as being their greatest sources of stress, school is now identified as the number one stressor in their lives.2

 

Major governmental studies report that one in five American children and teens shows symptoms of a mental disorder and one in ten suffers from “mental illness severe enough to result in significant functional impairment.”3 These numbers are expected to increase by 50 percent in the next decade.4 The reasons for this are complex and varied. However, our children are increasingly deprived of many of the protective factors that have traditionally accompanied childhood—limited performance pressure, unstructured play, encouragement to explore, and time to reflect. Too many of our children are simply not thriving. We know it. Yet many parents are unsure about what to do.

 

To begin with, we must embrace a healthier and radically different way of thinking about success. We need to harness our fears about our children’s futures and understand that the extraordinary focus on metrics that has come to define success today—high grades, trophies, and selective school acceptances from preschools to graduate schools—is a partial and frequently deceptive definition. At its best, it encourages academic success for a small group of students but gives short shrift to the known factors that are necessary for success later in life. It makes the false assumption that high academic success early in life is a harbinger of competence in many spheres, including interpersonal relations and sense of self. Sometimes this is the case; often it is not. Perhaps of even greater concern, because it involves far more kids, is the fact that our limited definition of success fails to acknowledge those students whose potential contributions are not easily measurable. If we insist on a narrow and metric-based definition of success then we maddeningly consign potentially valuable contributors to our society to an undervalued and even bleak future.

 

The “authentic success” that is the subtitle of this book sees success and its development in a different light, one based not on anxiety, but on scientific research, clinical experience, and a sprinkling of common sense. This version of success knows that every child is a work in progress. It recognizes that children must have the time and energy to become truly engaged in learning, explore and develop their interests, beef up their coping skills, and craft a sense of self that feels real, enthusiastic, and capable. Authentic success certainly can include traditional measures of success such as grades and top-tier schools, but it broadens the concept to include those things that we intuitively know are critical components of a satisfying life. While we all hope our children will do well in school, we hope with even greater fervor that they will do well in life. Our job is to help them to know and appreciate themselves deeply; to approach the world with zest; to find work that is exciting and satisfying, friends and spouses who are loving and loyal; and to hold a deep belief that they have something meaningful to contribute to

society. This is what it means to teach our children well.

You will often come across the words well-being in this book as one of the hoped-for outcomes for our children. There is a reason why I’ve chosen well-being instead of happiness. Of course we’d all like our children to be happy, but we also know (albeit reluctantly) that life will throw curveballs at our children regardless of how hard we may try to protect them. The growth (emotional, psychological, cognitive, and spiritual) needed to make one’s way through life comes out of challenge, and challenge can bring disappointment, anger, and frustration. It would be foolish to want only “happiness” for our children. This would leave them stunted and poorly prepared for life’s inevitable difficulties. What we really want to cultivate is well-being, which includes as generous a portion of optimism as our child’s nature allows and the coping skills, and therefore the resilience, that make adaptive recovery from challenge possible. As an added bonus, researchers tell us that the very characteristics that are most likely to encourage our children’s emotional well-being are the same ones that will make them successful in the classroom.5 Not

surprisingly, optimistic, resilient, engaged kids report high levels of happiness.6

 

The precursor to authentic success is the growth of a sense of self that feels robust and genuine. Your child’s “self” is not lost or in hiding, waiting for you to flush it out. Rather, it is in development. Your

child develops a sense of self not simply because you’ve paid attention to and cultivated every interest and talent your child has. If our notions of child development stopped there, we’d continue to see the

entitled, narcissistic kids with poor self-control who worry us now. The bigger and more accurate picture is this: A strong sense of self develops through a process that includes a combination of genetics; the influence of family, peers, and mentors; the opportunities presented; and the culture we live in. It certainly is informed by the way you support the particular strengths and interests of your child, but

it also includes the ways in which your child interacts with the outside world, and, particularly, the values that are communicated in your household and in your community. Authentic success is being

“the best me I can be” not simply in isolation, but as part of a community, and it always includes a component of meaningful contribution and connection with others. We would do well to start thinking about success not in terms of today, the next grading period, or the next year, but in terms of what we hope for our children ten or twenty years down the line, when they leave our homes and walk into their own lives. Yes, it requires both courage and imagination to parent with this long view, but it is also the most effective way to ensure that our children have satisfying, meaningful lives.

 

We’ve spent years being bombarded by the press about the competition for prized academic spots, told by corporations that we weren’t doing our jobs as parents unless we made every effort to give our kids a competitive “leg up,” and immersed in a culture that celebrates obvious and measurable performance over all else. When I first began traveling around the country, many parents found it difficult to take a clear-eyed look at the cost of too much involvement, too much “enrichment,” too much stress, and too little recognition of the real needs of children. Thankfully I no longer encounter much skepticism: the toll of a narrow version of success has become painfully obvious to most parents. What parents are clamoring for now are solutions. “What should I do?” has become the collective mantra of my audiences around the country.

 

Teach Your Children Well is my answer. We must shift our focus from the excesses of hyper parenting, our preoccupation with a narrow and shortsighted vision of success that has debilitated many of our children, and an unhealthy reliance on them to provide status and meaning in our own lives, and return to the essentials of parenting in order for children to grow into their most healthy and genuine selves. I will not shy away from providing concrete answers for concerned or confused parents when research is clear that children are most likely to benefit from one course of action over another. Parents are often willing to make changes faster than the institutions around them. The pace of institutional change can be positively glacial compared with the vigor of a parent who feels his or her child is in jeopardy. No matter where I speak in the country, the worried questions tumble out in predictable sequence.

 

• All the kids in kindergarten are reading. My son isn’t. What should I do?

 

• My eight-year-old son has been called a “gifted” chess player, but he’s refusing to go to a chess camp this summer. Instead he just wants to hang out with his friends at the local “adventure” camp. What should I do?

 

• My twelve-year-old daughter has three hours of homework a night and is exhausted. What should I do?

 

• My son seems content to get B’s, even C’s in high school. He works hard on his schoolwork but spends a lot of time puttering around in the garage. His counselor says he’ll never get into a good school. What should I do?

 

All of these questions are driven by the same concern: if we don’t get it right, our children may pay an intolerable price because of our uninformed, inaccurate, or poor decisions. Never before have parents been so (mistakenly) convinced that their every move has a ripple effect into their child’s future success. Depending on where you are in your own child-rearing cycle, some of these questions may seem foolish, others quite pressing and important. But even though there are always exceptions, it is easy to answer questions like these based on what we know from the scientific research. In other words:

 

• Many children can’t read in kindergarten. Don’t worry about it. Three years later there is no difference in reading skills between those who learned in kindergarten and those who learned a year or even two later.7  Finland, generally considered the world’s exemplar when it comes to education, doesn’t begin school for children until they are seven years old. Your child will feel bad only if you or the school turns normal development into pathology.

 

• Two of the major developmental tasks of middle childhood are developing friendships and sampling a wide range of activities. Kudos to your son for knowing his own mind. Having your child called “gifted” can be a siren song to parents’ ears. But remember that both Bill Gates and the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, were considered gifted. These two men had very different relationships to their gifts. You can certainly encourage your son’s talent, but ultimately you need to follow his lead on how much time and involvement he wants to put into chess. Certainly parents can force their children to cultivate a talent and rightfully insist that they have perspective their children lack. On occasion this works out, particularly if your child has a genuine talent. It’s rare, however, and it always puts your relationship with your child at risk.

 

• Research is clear that junior high students derive academic benefits from about an hour of homework a night, but not from more. Find out from your daughter’s teacher if she is having difficulties that are slowing her down. If she is, then she needs a lighter load and some help. If not, then talk to the teachers and school administrators about bringing homework time into line with known benefits. Get your community involved in a discussion about healthy amounts of homework. Kids who aren’t getting enough sleep are likely to be less engaged learners, and crabbier family members. Your first job is to guard your daughter’s health.

 

• In spite of grade inflation, a B is a good grade and a C is an average grade. We are all average at many things. With almost 4,000 colleges in the United States, college placement is about making a good match, not about winning a prize. Steve Jobs’s grandfather often talked about the long hours his grandson put into “puttering” in the garage. As long as your son is putting in effort, he’s probably doing the best he can. Your son will feel like a loser only if you treat him like one. Ask for another counselor

 

Although this book will provide these sorts of concrete answers, its goals are far more ambitious. Teach Your Children Well aims to help you identify and strengthen the basic strategies that are known to promote effective parenting. This will make it easier for you to stay on target as you guide your children through the different stages of development and help them strengthen the coping skills that they will need to move successfully from one level to the next. Think of child development as a scaffold. A scaffold needs a sturdy base in order to support its higher rungs. It is important that we respect this progression as our children climb rung by rung, and not push them to the top prematurely or without adequate support.

Good parenting skills make this climb safer, more satisfying, and ultimately more successful for our kids.

 

Additionally, by carefully examining the capacities and the challenges of children at different ages, Teach Your Children Well will give you the tools to differentiate between minor and expectable transgressions and more concerning problems. A normally diligent child who forgets a homework assignment is not the same as a child who makes a habit out of it. One needs little intervention from us, the other needs more, and we need to know if that’s a discussion, a reprimand, a consequence, or an evaluation. Teach Your Children Well will help you figure out when to hold back and when to intervene, when to compromise and when to stick to your guns so that you are a more confident parent.

 

The other major goal of this book is to help you clarify and prioritize your values and your definition of success so that there is greater alignment between what you believe is important and what is emphasized in your home and communicated to your children. Nowhere is the issue of values more alive for parents today than in our conflict over how hard we push our children to be academically successful, since we also recognize that their healthy development takes more than high grades. Do we believe in the importance of playtime but schedule our youngsters with a boatload of extracurricular activities because we worry that they might “fall behind”? Do we value spirituality but find ourselves measuring success by material possessions? Would we allow our child to compromise his integrity, say by cheating on an important test, if it helped him gain admittance to a prestigious school?

 

By applying the information, the relevant research, and a series of paper and pencil exercises in this book, you will be able to construct a personal definition of success that is in line with your family values, and with the skills, capacities, and interests of your particular child. Of course, no book, no matter how comprehensive, can possibly address more than a fraction of the dilemmas that are part of the everyday experience of parenting. But what Teach Your Children Well will do is help you construct and formalize a set of principles, grounded in research but unique to your particular family, that you can use as a compass to guide you through the inevitable thicket of parenting choices and challenges.

 

This book will ask a lot of you—it will ask you not only to recognize problems, but also to work diligently to change their causes.  I’ll also ask you to do some psychological work of your own. This is

critical; children thrive when their parents thrive. You will need to dig down deep and examine your own motivations, ambitions, and distortions. This is not easy work, but if you are willing to be both reflective and honest, I promise that not only will your child benefit, but you and your family will as well.

 

Here’s how Teach Your Children Well will proceed:

• The first section starts with an overview of our current high-stakes, high-pressure culture. How does this culture affect kids and families? What are the realities and the myths embedded in this lifestyle? Who stands to benefit and who stands to lose from a narrow view of success? Should this view be modified, and if so, why has this been so difficult to do?

 

• The second section deals with the particular challenges that children and teens face as they grow up and move from elementary through middle and high school. Understanding that children and teens have multiple tasks—growing up, figuring out their particular interests and talents, making friends, managing risk, and so on—can help us have a healthier perspective on academic achievement and a broader perspective on success.

 

• The third section presents seven coping skills that are known to be protective of children’s well-being and integral to the development of a sense of self. The more coping skills children have at their disposal, the more likely they are to successfully meet the challenges of growing up and finding their own definition of success. While some coping skills are more inborn and others are clearly an outgrowth

of interaction with parents and the world, they all can be strengthened. Specifics on how to do this effectively (and what gets in the way) are presented at the end of each coping skill section.

 

• The fourth section is directed at you, the parent. It includes a series of exercises designed to help you clarify your values and carve out a specific action plan for bringing more of what you value into your life, your children’s lives, and your home. In order to optimize the chances of making real change, this section also focuses on helping you evaluate your own history and explore how unresolved issues in your past may be contributing to current parenting issues or your reluctance to make the kinds of changes you would like to implement.

 

Teach Your Children Well refuses to accept the false dichotomy that in order to be successful children have to be physically run into the ground and emotionally disengaged from themselves, their families, and their studies. We do not have to choose between our children’s well-being and their success. Both are inside jobs. They are developed when kids are guided and encouraged to build a sense of self internally. To not be overly reliant on others for definition or validation. To trust that their parents are on their side and have their back, as they go about figuring out their interests, skills, capacities, identities, and values. Certainly externals matter. Kids have to follow the rules, master content, learn appropriate behavior, and

conform when necessary. However, our kids have had a huge helping of external expectations and demands that have crowded out the time and energy needed for the exquisite and necessary internal

work that is the bedrock of a healthy sense of self.

We know far too much about promoting healthy child development to continue to tolerate the myth that success is a straight and narrow path, with childhood sacrificed in the process. The truth is that most successful people have followed winding paths, have had false starts, and have enjoyed multiple careers. Academic excellence will always matter, and parents are right to maintain a high bar for their children. But there are other skills that are likely to be particularly important to success in the twenty-first century—creativity, innovative thinking, flexibility, resilience in response to failure, communication skills, and the ability to collaborate.

 

Unless success is experienced internally, in alignment with one’s interests, skills, and values, it never feels truly owned and can’t confer either the pleasure or the protection that real success provides.  Many kids have become proficient at image management. They have high grades or special talents, and a quick read of them suggests that they are successful. However, a deeper examination of these children shows that their external success is superficial and even meaningless to them. “I am only as good as my last performance” is what they really believe. Success that is not authentic, that doesn’t feel real or “owned,” never feels like success at all. Not to us. Not to our children. The “imposter syndrome” that all of us feel from time to time becomes a permanent state of affairs for our children when success feels inauthentic. Ultimately, it is only our children themselves who will pass judgment on their success, or lack thereof,

in their lives.

This book is about choices and courage. Choices about how we view success, raise our children, and expend our energies and resources. It is also about the courage to make the changes we believe in even in the face of collective pressure to act otherwise. We live in a culture that has had a great deal to say about raising successful children. Much of it is dead wrong. Too often we are asking the wrong questions. Which school? How many AP courses? Which extracurricular activities? It’s not about whether kids should study more or less. It’s not about “rigor” versus play, where we score on international testing, or whether children should be indulged more or have their feet held to the fire.

 

Rather, the real questions are broader and more long-term. How do we create environments in which children thrive? How do we help them find, and keep, the sparks that kindle deep interest and real engagement with learning? How do we help them to live up to their potential? Advance their abilities to contribute? Find meaning?  Develop their most genuine selves? These are the questions we need to ask, to think about, to work on. Given all the time, money, concern, and love we expend on our children, let’s make sure that we’re focused on the questions that really matter. Children cannot be defined by their grades, trophies, or “fat envelopes.” Not even by the sum of these things. They are whole people, and to see them as anything less is a form of parental blindness.

 

It’s time to reassert our parental prerogative. We need to decide for ourselves what we value, which activities denote real accomplishment, and which are superficial. We need to insist that the schools that serve our children be committed to developing the potential of every student and be just as vigilant about their physical and mental health as they are about their test scores. It’s time for us to reclaim our good judgment as well as our children’s well-being, and return our families to a healthier and saner version of themselves.

 

Did you know there is a sweet side to politics? With 4 weeks until election day the equal oppurtunity bakers of Georgetown Cupcakes have created a "Democratic Donkey" and a "Republican Elephant" cupcake in an assortment of flavors. You can purchse these election special cupcakes at their Georgetown, Bethesda, MD, New York (SoHo), and Boston (Newbury St.) locations as well via national shipping.

The store is also keeping track of how many each side orders as their official "Georgetown Cupcake Poll." So can this election be decided in the kitchen? What flavor and icing will the Cyclists choose? Tune in to the Spin Cycle to find out and be sure to check out the Georgetown Cupcakes website to place your order today. 

Paul Ryan, we are discovering, does not always handle follow-up questions that well.

The latest evidence came yesterday afternoon, when an interview with a local television reporter in Michigan turned testy and was ended by Ryan’s aide.

The dispute was ostensibly over gun control. Asked by the reporter, Terry Camp of WJRT in Flint, if America has a gun problem, Ryan responded that the country has a crime problem. “Not a gun problem?” Camp asked. “No,” Ryan replied, arguing that existing laws should be enforced and that “the best thing to help prevent violent crime in the inner cities is to bring opportunity to the inner cities” – for “charities, and civic groups and churches” to teach people “good discipline, good character.”

“And you can do all that by cutting taxes – with a big tax cut,” Camp replied.

“Those are your words, not mine,” Ryan said, at which point his aide stepped in to end the interview.

To continue reading the article click here. 

AP Images

What really matters when it comes to who will be the next President of the United Stated? Is it Foreign Policy? The Economy? Job Numbers? Gas Prices?  Or something completely different? With 29 days to go until election day we are zoning in on the real issues as voters enter the election booth on Tuesday November 6^th. Is there an event or a series of events that shapes a person’s mind to help them determine who they want to lead the country for the next 4 years?

While the debates are important, can they really erase months of campaigning? If President Obama doesn’t step it up at Hofstra on October 16^th and Romney wins again can someone say with certainty that the election is over? President Obama went into last week’s debate with a 5 point lead in the Gallup Tracking poll, but now that same poll shows they are tied at 47%. Does that mean the debates really sway people?  Or is your decision already made up by October?

Could it be that the new unemployment number of 7.8%, a four year low, which is the same as when President Obama took office, is helping the President stay ahead in polls?

These are just some of the possible questions that could be going through people’s minds as we each zone in on the real issues facing us before we cast our vote.

However, as each candidate gears up for the next 29 days of campaigning we will continue to see more ads released, especially in the swing states. Team Obama has raised $327 million while Team Romney has raised $392 million with each continuing the fundraising battle until the bitter end. During today’s show Politico’s Senior Washington Correspondent, Jonathan Allen, joined the show to help us answer these questions.

But, the real question we all need to be asking ourselves as we gear up for Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate is how factual are the polling numbers? As each candidate is trying to spin the numbers in their favor, 72% who watched last week’s debate believe Romney won the debate. But will that help him come election day? Nate Cohn, Staff Writer at The New Republic joined the conversation during today’s guest spot to help the Cyclists crunch the numbers and understand if the bounce Romney got from last week’s debate will really last.

Take a look at what he had to say

As we enter another Lame Duck session in Congress it is looking more unlikely that congress will actually agree on a long term deal to avoid falling off the $600 Billion Fiscal Cliff on New Years Day. That is an average tax increase of $3,5000 for 90% of Americans that will take affect if Congress does not act. Speaker of the House John Boehner is saying a large scale Lame Duck deal will not happen, but what is the right thing to do? Should we expect a short term fix? Our Spin Cycle will debate the question during today’s show be sure to tune in.

Political satire shows such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and even SNL, have moved beyond entertaining the viewer to now educating them on a political level. Many Americans, especially those in the younger demographic, get their daily political news from these late night news outlets in order to escape the real world but at the same time be able to know what is happening around them.

Joining today's show is Alison Dagnes, Author of A Conservative Walks into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor, to discuss her book. 

Be sure to tune in for the full conversation at 3:40pm today and check out an excerpt from her book below.

Prologue

Otto von Bismarck is credited with saying, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” While true, politics are an important part of our society, and thanks to C-SPAN, we can watch the sausage-making happen live. Thanks to the rest of the media, we have nonstop winded reports and breathless analysis of all the politicking around the sausage-making, which makes for some pretty vivid descriptions of the meat grinding. Our political system is a big and messy one, and in modern America, it is also extremely divisive. It is, then, quite fortuitous that there is political humor with which to mock and distract us from the agonizing sorrow of modernity.

And on Monday, movers went to the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, Texas to transfer Bush’s belongings to Washington. The move itself took very little time once workers discovered that Bush had nothing upstairs. Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but as a comedian, with George W. Bush coming into office, I feel like the owner of a hardware store before a hurricane. I hate to see it coming but I have to admit it’s good for business (Miller 2002).

But after September 11, Miller became an outspoken supporter of President George W. Bush and the Bush administration’s antiterrorist policies, and this switch angered many of his fans on the left. He didn’t anger me as much as he confused me, but he managed to annoy my friends who turned to me in bewilderment, wondering what I still liked about the guy. Miller was proud of his slide right, and asked in response to critics, “Well, can you blame me?” (Weinraub 2004). When speaking about the September 11 attacks, Miller said:

Everybody should be in the protection business now. I can’t imagine anybody not saying that. Well, I guess on the farthest end   of the left they’d say, “That’s our fault.” And on the middle end they’d say, “Well, there’s another way to deal with it other than flat-out protecting ourselves.” I just don’t believe that. People say we’re the ones who make them hate us because of what we do. That’s garbage to me. I think they’re nuts. And you’ve got to protect yourself from nuts (Weinraub 2004).

About Bush, Miller said in 2006:

The beautiful thing about Bush is that you always know where you can find him. That approval rating could go up to 70 or down to zero, and he ain’t changing . . . We’re in a war on terror, he knows it, and he’s willing to let everybody hate him, but he’s going to do what he feels he has to do (Deggans 2006).

He could have been talking about himself – someone willing to lose support because of his convictions. And lose support he did. At the same time that Dennis Miller turned rightward, Jon Stewart took the helm of The Daily Show ( TDS ) from former host Craig Kilborn. Stewart’s TDS became far more political than his predecessor’s version, and in the years following the September 11 attacks, as the United States first invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, TDS became the go-to place for comedic analysis of some very serious subjects. Pretty soon, Rolling Stone magazine said Stewart’s brand of faux-journalism “beats the real thing,” the national party committees gave the show press credentials to cover their nominating conventions, and a public opinion poll after the death of Walter Cronkite named Stewart as the most trusted newsman in America. Big-name politicians began to appear on the show, and eventually included one sitting president, which gave the program more authority than ever. To recap: during the first years of the Bush administration, one of the more prominent political satirists lost some of his audience because he became “too conservative,” and a thundering mass of antiestablishment satire, led by the wild popularity of TDS , made its way into the meme. This odd confluence of events, combined with my steadfast devotion to Dennis Miller, made me look around and wonder, why is there so little conservative satire? It must have been a significant scarcity—I noticed it and I’m fairly liberal.

I glean from interviews that Miller and Stewart are friends, but even so it must have felt weird for Dennis Miller to watch his mantle as one of the nation’s leading political satirist fall so greatly. Miller still has a strong career today: although his HBO show was cancelled in 2002, he went on to cohost Monday Night Football for two years; he hosted another talk show, this one on CNBC, from 2003 to 2005; and he went to Fox News starting in 2006 as a guest commentator, first on Hannity & Colmes and then on The O’ReillyFactor where he is currently featured on a weekly segment called “Miller Time.” He also presently hosts a three-hour radio program  that is syndicated by Westwood One, and he tours frequently as a comedian, performing in largish venues around the country. He remains a popular and well-known entertainer, if perhaps not as popular as he was once was, and can be characterized as the most prominent conservative satirist in America today. But that’s not a very big statement because there is a sizable dearth of conservative satirists around. It is thanks to my Miller Fan Club membership that I embarked on this research project to find out why he was so alone.

I set out to answer this question by interviewing a significant number of comedians, satirists, and writers. This, of course, was actually a gambit to do “research” by talking with some very funny people, but along the way I discovered a great deal about humor, ideology, and modern political satire. I learned that political humor in general, and satire specifically, is a tough calling—one that beckons a fairly specific type of person to its ranks. But I also learned that the art of comedy shapes a joke based on audience, market, occasion, and context. I learned that conservatives believe in liberal bias and liberals don’t, that the satirist is separate from his (or her) material, and that none of these answers are complete or easy to reconcile. Modern political humor is a rich and important field, one that provides some of the most forceful and incisive commentary around today. But in our increasingly particularized political media system, there are efforts now to denounce the merits of political satire because conservatives say it is biased. So is it biased? Yes. Is this a problem? No. There are certainly more liberals in the trenches of political humor than there are conservatives, and this book addresses that. Political ideology does inform the material produced, and so there is an ensuing imbalance in the humor, but it is far outweighed by the fact that the driving force of modern satire is antiestablishmentarianism, and there is a mighty big difference between comedy and activism. Ideology clearly plays a role here because liberalism serves as a better foundation for satire than conservatism does, simply by virtue of its philosophy. Put another way: conservatives want to maintain the status quo and liberals want to change it. Satire aims at questioning the power structure—so why would conservatives want to do that? The short answer is, they don’t. But then why would conservatives complain about liberals dominating the satire industry? Because modern political humor has become a powerhouse of cultural influence and Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and their brethren wield an immense amount of sway among voters, especially young ones. When Fox News calls Jon Stewart an activist, it is specifically to discredit his political commentary, at least among Fox’s viewers. And since Stewart spends a fair amount of time denouncing Fox News, all of this makes sense. But conservatives can relax, because for all of Jon Stewart’s power, in the end he is an entertainer first and a liberal second. Furthermore, his liberalness makes him question all authority figures, and not just those on the right. The point of satire is to differentiate between what is and what should be, something those at The Daily Show and other political satirists do quite nicely, regardless of the politics involved.

I will admit that I was desperate to talk to Dennis Miller himself, and I threw my academic credentials at him, bundled in numerous interview requests. If my husband was quietly concerned about potentially erratic behavior on my part when I met the inspiration for my research, he needn’t have worried: Miller rejected my every advance. At first he simply ignored me, but when confronted by the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-brother-of-a-friend with my request in hand, he was pretty adamant about it. So while Dennis Miller never spoke with me (although it certainly was not for lack of trying on my part), many other comedians and satirists did. I owe these men and women a tremendous amount of gratitude for their time and their insight, for without them I would still be guessing the answer to this question: who brings the funny and what does this funny look like?

I am not an expert in comedy. I am a political scientist who is interested in the way political messages are communicated and received. And so this book examines the politics of political humor so that we may better understand the role and consequence of modern political comedy and satire in America today.

It’s no guarantee that he’ll succeed, but the set-up is kind of perfect for Joe Biden: a chance to show tens of millions of Americans who watched in bafflement as President Obama rolled over for Mitt Romney in Denver what a real debater looks and sounds like.

Later this week, Biden will share the stage with Paul Ryan for the vice presidential debate. It’s still unclear what (if any) polling damage the Democratic ticket sustained from Obama’s listless performance, but at the very least it’s fair to say that Democrats are more apprehensive than they were before Denver. Romney last week mixed broad-stroke rhetoric and confident, if factually flawed, assertions to paint himself as an utterly reasonable, swing voter-friendly moderate – exactly the sort of widely acceptable vehicle for economically anxious swing voters his campaign is predicated on appealing to.

Obama’s refusal – or inability, or strategic reluctance, or whatever it was — to pounce on any of the many openings Romney gave him during the debate flummoxed Democrats (in some cases, comically), and left them wondering what will happen if the president doesn’t step up his game in the next two showdowns.

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The new national unemployment number is 7.8%, a number much lower than expected.  The youth unemployment rate dropped as well but it is still at 11.8%.  On top of poor job outlook, the average college graduate is $28,600 in debt!  These students need to find good, stable jobs to pay off the education they just earned, and whoever takes over for the next 4 years will have to make this a priority.

As we near election day it is becoming clear that in order for either President Obama or Governor Romney to win the Presidency they will need the youth vote. In 2012 there are approximately 8 million new youth voters.  Most are incredibly enthusiastic about casting their vote for the first time.

Matthew Segal, Co-founder & President of Our Time, joined the table today to discuss his new campaign to help get the youth back to work. He is working on a new documentary called Up To Us, which shows the struggles of two young Americans, one working for AmeriCorps and another looking for a public service job.            

The verdict is in. President Obama’s debate performance was a bust. There is no other way to look at it, Mitt Romney won and President Obama lost. However, what many expected to be a poor jobs report Friday turned into a stronger one than expected. Unemployment fell to 7.8%, the lowest in four years and matching what it was when Obama took office.  That number fell despite the economy adding a net gain of only 114,000 jobs.  For a little perspective, we need to add 357,000 jobs each month over the next three years to bring the rate to a healthy 6%.

The numbers were certainly better than expected but they don’t exactly add up.

So of course we had to bring Peter Morici and Jared Bernstein to help us understand the numbers and both sides reaction. 

Check out what they had to say

With October being national anti-bullying month it is important to remember that bullies come in all ages, shapes, and sizes. Did you know that 1 in 5 teens are bullied in school and 160,000 kids miss school every day beause they are too afraid of being attacked or intimated. But, if someone is willing to step in and intervene then there is a big chance that the bullying behavior will stop.

On our show today is Carrie Goldman, author of Bullied: What Every Parent, teacher and Kid Needs to know About Ending the Cycle of Fear. She has written a guide for parents that offers advice on how to help kids deal with bullies based on her own personal experience.

Be sure to tune in for the full conversation and check out an excerpt below. 

With practice, kids can measurably improve how they treat others.  Maria, a former child bully, was one such girl who worked hard at becoming a better friend.   She explained to me, “When I did bully someone, it was as a result of my temper, and it wasn't because I always intended to hurt them.  I always felt bad afterwards and would get a lot of guilt.  I didn't want to let my temper control my actions, so I made an effort at learning to control my temper.  As I grew older, I got better at it.  In the end, I guess it was not wanting to feel guilt that helped me to stop hurting others physically and psychologically.  I wasn't an evil child, I just needed to learn.” 

I recalled Coloroso’s statement that bullying is about contempt when I received an email from an Australian man named Ross, a former bully who wanted me to know that Katie’s story inspired him to write the following confession:[ii]

In my second year of high school, for reasons unknown, other than he was possibly different in some way, I took a real dislike to a student a year behind me. And I picked on him. I recall one day giving him such a hard time that he lost it and lashed out, hitting me once. So, full of righteous indignation, I went after him and gave him a pounding. A teacher appeared on the scene, breaking things up. Still full of myself, I angrily claimed the other had hit me. Other students however quickly told the real story, that I had been the instigator. I wasn't exactly one of the popular crowd anyway (anyone seeing the irony?). So I was in trouble, my then less-than stellar reputation among the teaching staff dropped that much lower, the victim went on his way and I left him alone after that.

I did not give him much thought for several years until my younger sister commented one day that this young fellow had attempted to kill himself, partly because everyone 'hated' him.

That revelation really floored me. I was one of those arsewipes who had helped drive this kid towards suicide, even though I had left him alone for several years. By then I was at a senior high school and hadn't even seen the kid for more than a year. But, my God, did I feel guilty.

The next year, that same student now appeared at the same senior high school. So I made a point of saying 'g'day' to him. The look of mixed relief and gratitude on his face made me feel even worse. Out of a sense of guilt, I kept saying hello any time I saw him around the school. It eventually ceased being a thing of guilt and instead became just a natural thing to do. Did we become friends? Not really. But I think he appreciated knowing there was at least one person around who was going to at least make some sort of effort. And my greeting was always answered with a big, toothy smile.

That was thirty years ago. I have no idea where that young man ended up or how he is doing. I hope he is doing alright. Chances are that he's actually doing better than me. But I like to think that I have never forgotten the lesson that he didn't ever realise he had taught me. I like to think I haven't picked on anyone since.

Ross, fueled by his own feelings of contempt and inferiority, picked on a boy who was different.  Unlike Maria, Ross did not feel guilty immediately after the acts of bullying.  Ross most likely felt a stronger sense of entitlement than Maria, and this protected him from his own conscience for a longer period of time.  Distance and maturity softened Ross and positioned him to experience true feelings of contrition upon learning of the boy’s suicide attempt.  This is where Ross diverges from lifelong bullies – he recognized the consequences of his actions, and his genuine remorse spurred him to make conscious improvements in the way he treats others.  Arthur, Maria and Ross are hopeful examples of how people can change.  Unfortunately, not all bullies are capable of feeling true remorse.  Ludwig said, “Some kids come into this world and are raised without an internal moral compass.  I tell those kids, ‘Even if you don’t think it is wrong to hurt someone else, you should treat them respectfully out of self-preservation – what if the kid you bullied comes in with a gun one day?’”[iii]  Columbine serves as chilling proof that Ludwig’s words have real merit to them.

In some cases, a child who acts like a bully needs intense help in all aspects of his or her life.  At Washington Elementary, which uses PBIS, Steps to Respect and Second Step to guide bullying prevention, there are several students in Tier 3 (the individualized intervention level) who are at extremely high risk for aggressive behavior.  For these students, Washington offers a Wrap Program.  Kate Ellison, the school’s principal, explained, “A wrap means that home, school and the community all “wrap” around the child to offer support.  I will go to a family’s house, as will our teachers and social workers, if that’s what it takes to get more connection between home and school.  There is value to connecting with families in their home space.” 

The family of the “wrapped” child drives the wrap and identifies the support systems that they want to include in the wrap.  For example, one boy’s family chose the involved parties to be: the child, the family, the YMCA, the school, the church, a social worker, a teacher, a behavioral specialist, and the principal.  “We met with the child and talked about his strengths and needs and how to meet those needs,” Ellison said, “and when we ask, the community of Evanston really steps up and participates.”  At Washington, the members of the wrap meet every six weeks to review data and to see how the goals are being met.  The school coordinated four wraps for its most at-risk students in the 2010-2011 school year, and all had positive results.  Ellison told me, “Wraps go on as long as we need them; it could last for a child’s entire academic career here at Washington.”[iv]

[i] Author’s interview with Barbara Coloroso, February 13, 2011

[ii] Hamilton, R. (2010). I was a bully. Retrieved from http://wordsmiff.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-was-bully.html

[iii] Author’s interview with Trudy Ludwig, March 8, 2011

[iv] Author’s interview with Kate Ellison, May 20, 2011

After listening to everyone pre-heap praise on The Master, and sitting through a rant of Touré extolling its many virtues... I knew I was going to see it. After all, "It's going to be nominated for a bunch of Oscars." A seminal film, with performances of a lifetime - they told me. Just wait 'til you see Philip Seymour Hoffman! Joaquin Phoenix is amazing! Amy Adams like you've never seen her before!

How could I not go see it? I considered paying $20 for the ticket, just to show them I appreciated the opportunity!

Well let me tell you, I did go see it. And I want $50 back. 

Touré!  Touré!  How could you smile and sell me this bag of beans? Oh there were performances, alright. Amy Adams stared straight into the camera, and proved she doesn't have pores. Joaquin Phoenix challenged Clint Eastwood's pant-altitude. And Philip Seymour Hoffman showed that when called upon, he can play a character that is kind of like - but definitely isn't - L. Ron Hubbard. 

There was no crescendo. It started with some great cinematography, and then left a gaping hole in the experience. Plots didn't connect, performances didn't connect, I sat for more than 90 minutes before I realized: Nothing. Was going. To happen. 

Phoenix's role as damaged (and demented) Freddie Quell was discomforting. Not because it it was a stark look into post-traumatic stress syndrome, or because it was a man in need of help, not faith - but because the character wasn't built into enough dimensions for me to care. 

It seems that people got so swept up in the "fact" that they were making an Oscar-worthy movie... they forgot to make it Oscar-worthy. 

The plot wanders and dies. And as much as I like Hoffman as an actor, even his charisma can't save this ship from sinking. The only person that deserves credit is Mihai Malaimare Jr., who almost fools you into enjoying this flim with his beautiful imagery. His shots of the Navy men on their ships, and the "sessions" between Hoffman and Phoenix are gorgeous. But the script is too thin to do his pictures justice. 

Now this isn't to say The Master is boring - in fact, there were so many scenes that felt jarring, I'm not sure one could be completely bored. The character of Freddie Quell specifically - is far too unbalanced to allow for such a thing.  Too often, though - scenes started to feel heavy-handed. Late in the movie it started to feel like every scene was between fifteen and seventy-five percent too long. I just don't see how this movie could garner acclaim, and  I dare anybody to try explain to me the "artistry" of Amy Adams giving Philip Seymour Hoffman a handy-snack in the bathroom. Which was a classic case of: What are they... Is she? Oh, they are. Oh, oh no. Ugh. Why?

This movie's downfall is the fact that while the actors showed real commitment, the writer and director did not. Lancaster Dodd is never unpacked, we get no real explanation of his "earlier work" (the science fiction) and we get no idea of what comes next (the cult-like religion). The vague allusions to "the cause" and the trepidation around actually portraying Hubbard himself leave the entire experience far too flimsy to enjoy. Honest to God, the only real high point was seeing that Landry from Friday Night Lights is getting big roles. Plemons, playing Hoffman's son has the most honest line of the entire movie. "He's making it up as he goes along." Which - by the time it was delivered, rang true to just about everyone in the theater. 

I understand that art is subjective - and in cast you can't tell, this is my first movie review ever. It's not what I'm here to do, and it won't be something you see from me often. But I needed to take a stand. The Master isn't enjoyable and it isn't good. And you shouldn't spend money on it unless you're aware that you may very well be wasting that time and money. I verbally accosted Touré as soon as he got to work after seeing this movie. Not because he's responsible for me seeing it, but because anybody out there saying it's amazing, clearly has some kind of ulterior motive. Or they're in on a joke that everyone is playing on me. Or you're too afraid to say you hated it. Or I only saw the outtakes. Something.  

Hell, maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. See it for yourself and decide. But I wish I saw Looper. 

The news overnight was that Mitt Romney had decided to do a mea culpa for the secretly recorded “47 percent” remarks that rocked his campaign a few weeks ago, calling them “just completely wrong” in an interview with Sean Hannity.

This came 24 hours after a debate in which Romney labored to present himself as more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, objecting insistently when President Obama tried to link him to conservative economic ideas that would threaten the safety net. And it came a little over a week after Romney invoked his own Massachusetts healthcare law – a law that served as the blueprint for ObamaCare and that Romney ignored as much as possible during the Republican primaries — as proof of his commitment to aiding poor and middle-class Americans.

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