Here is the Republican party platform from 1956. It's very worth reading, for the stark contrast to the party's platform in 2012.

The latest version of the proposed 2012 Republican Platform was erroneously posted on the RNC website yesterday and quickly pulled. You can read it here. Here are summaries by the Washington Post and LA Times.

Shorter version of the comparisons: A party that has gone to hell in a handbasket in the last 50 years. [More...]

NYTimes:

Neil Armstrong was a quiet self-described nerdy engineer who became a global hero when as a steely-nerved pilot he made “one giant leap for mankind” with a small step on to the moon. The modest man who had people on Earth entranced and awed from almost a quarter million miles away has died. He was 82.

Rest in peace.

Update (TL): Video added, at 2:57 seconds in, you can see Neil Armstrong step on the moon and say, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

From an AP interview of the president:

"I can't speak to Governor Romney's motivations," Obama said. "What I can say is that he has signed up for positions, extreme positions, that are very consistent with positions that a number of House Republicans have taken. And whether he actually believes in those or not, I have no doubt that he would carry forward some of the things that he's talked about."

This is a critical point. Mitt Romney is a weak man of little conviction except that he should be President. He will do as he is bid by the extreme base of the Republican Party. No Pat Buchanan primary challenges for him if he can help it. At a conference I attended last May, conservative legal scholar Michael Greve said:

[Liberals cannot] seriously believe that, but for their extravagant positions, we would hand over the country to Opus Dei, bind our wives’ and daughters’ feet, allow George Soros or David Koch to buy their very own Congressmen, or for that matter toss ailing widows and orphans into the streets. The real fear is that the Constitution might pose some limit to progressivism’s anything-goes imagination.

Michael Greve does not call the shots in the GOP, and neither will Mitt Romney. The President has it right - whether he believes it or not, Mitt Romney will implement the extremist GOP agenda.

In a comment in her post defending Romney's birther joke, Ann Althouse writes:

What we're talking about -- or really just feeling -- is that Obama might not be sufficiently American. That's what Romney found a way to say with a smile. It's not about "defending" Romney for telling the joke or explaining the joke. Something has been made a topic: Obama's insufficient commitment to American values.

I see. It's mot an appeal to racists, just a little McCarthyism. All better.

Speaking for me only

Hurricane season is about to arrive in the Southeast. Isaac has hit Jamaica and will be headed to Guantanamo next, and presumably on to Florida.

If you're there, please take extra precaautions.
And try to sing. I hear it's a good stress reliever. To get you started:

This is an open tread, all topics welcome.

The state has filed its response (available here) in the 5th District Court of Appeals to George Zimmerman's request for a Writ of Prohibition seeking to have Judge Lester removed from the case.

Shorter version: The judge gave Zimmerman a well-deserved tongue lashing, but his fear he won't get a fair trial from the judge is not objectively reasonable, and thus his motion to recuse was not legally sufficient and Lester was right to deny it.

None of the comments by the trial court rise to the level of being legally sufficient to establish an objectively reasonable fear by Petitioner that he will not receive a fair trial by the judge. Instead, the judge was simply giving Petitioner a well deserved tongue lashing for allowing others to mislead the court about his passport and his financial situation.

The test is whether a reasonable person in George Zimmerman's position would fear not getting a fair trial from this judge. [More...]

5th Avenue and 34th Street was not a good place to be this morning. 8 people shot, the shooter and at least one other are dead.

The New York Post says the cause was a dispute between coworkers.

He could throw millions at his his lawyers, and in the end, the deck was stacked against him. Sometimes, you just need to know when to hold them and when to fold them. Lance Armstrong folded today. He really had no choice.

The US Doping Agency can take away his medals and titles, and prevent him from competing in the future, but it can't take away his memories and all the good times he had. He's still ahead.

I'll be on Daily Kos radio with Jesse LaGreca this morning at 11 Eastern.

Listen here.

See this:

Open Thread.

What a nightmare. In 1996, Kristin Bunch was 21, pregnant and living in a mobile home with her three year old. A sudden fire engulfed the trailer, killing her three year old. The police said it was arson and claimed she went into her son's bedroom, doused it with a liquid accelerant like kerosene or diesel fuel and set it on fire. She was charged and convicted of felony murder and arson and sentenced to 60 years in prison. Arson investigators testified at her trial that burn patterns indicated the fire was arson.

After 16 years in prison, she was released on bond today pending a retrial, and went home with her jubilant mother and now 16 year old son (whom she gave birth to in prison.) In March, the Indiana Court of Appeals set aside her conviction, finding it was based on invalid, outdated science and the prosecutor had withheld critical evidence at her trial. (Great work by Kristin's post-conviction team, including the Center on Wrongful Convictions.)[More..}

An egg with two yolks. Twin yolks, no less. They are reported to occur in 1 of 1,000 eggs, so they aren't that rare, but today is the first time I've ever cracked an egg and seen them. It didn't taste any different than a regular egg but it was very strange to look at and contemplate how that happens. It used to be considered a good omen -- either of plenitude or that twins are in one's future. Since twins are definitely not in my future, I'll hope it signifies a plenitude of something good is on its way.

I'm less surprised about Prince Harry's nekked pix than am I that he flies commercial.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Mark O'Mara announced today on GZLegalCase he is shuttering the Facebook page the legal team created in April. In part, it's served its purpose. In other respects, the discussion in comments on the FB page have been a hindrance.

One of our published goals is Discouraging Speculation, and Facebook, by its nature, does not help us with this goal. Every post made on Facebook becomes an open thread where anyone on the site can comment, and comments inevitably lead to conversations about evidence and speculation about guilt or innocence. This type of conversation is a natural part of discourse, and there are plenty of places on the Internet where it is appropriate for this to happen, but it need not happen on a page hosted by the defense.

[More...]