It probably won't stay up long, catch it while you can. Incredible performance by the Who. Peter Townsend and Roger Daltry just rocked it out of the stadium and across the ocean. Well done, London.

Via On the Issues: Here are some items from Paul Ryan's record on crime-related issues:

On Crime:

• Voted NO on expanding services for offenders' re-entry into society. (Nov 2007)
• Voted NO on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons. (Jun 2000)
• Voted YES on more prosecution and sentencing for juvenile crime. (Jun 1999)

On Drugs:

• Voted YES on prohibiting needle exchange & medical marijuana in DC. (Oct 1999)

[More...]

A New York Times editorial today calls Paul Ryan a "man of cramped vision."

A candidate [Mitt Romney]of no details — I’ll cut the budget but no need to explain just how — has named a vice-presidential running mate, Paul Ryan, whose vision is filled with endless columns of minus signs. Voters will now be able to see with painful clarity just what the Republican Party has in store for them.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adds:

Mr. Ryan’s budget “will hurt hungry children, poor families, vulnerable seniors and workers who cannot find employment,” the bishops wrote in an April letter to the House. “These cuts are unjustified and wrong.”

[More...]

Romney: I'm Lost and I Can't Find My Way Home.

Ryan: The Wrong Turn

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

How does it feel
To be Without a Home
Like a Complete Unknown
Like a Rolling Stone

To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ?

Ryan/Romney FAIL!

Congratulations, President Obama. You just got the vote of the boomers and Seniors. [More...]

Is anyone waiting with breathless excitement? USA Today reports:

Mitt Romney will announce his vice presidential choice on Saturday, the campaign announced late Friday night. The announcement is scheduled to take place during an event at the U.S.S. Wisconsin, a retired U.S. battleship.

Busy work day today, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Link.

Converse civilly please.

Update (TL): I wrote the following last night forgot to post it: [More...]

Now pull the other one:

Donald Trump has declined an offer to deliver a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention, sources with knowledge of convention plans tell Newsmax. But Newsmax has learned that the billionaire businessman has been asked to give a big “surprise” at the convention in Tampa, Fla., which begins on Aug. 27.

Is the surprise that he is going to pull the squirrel off of his head? Of course this is all complete nonsense. The GOP offered Trump a speaking role if he agreed to not accept it. But I think it was worth pressing Romney on this point - did you offer Trump a spot at the GOP convention? Cuz, we'd like to hear that answer.

I'll be on Daily Kos Radio with Jesse LaGreca at 11 Eastern. Listen here.

Why we are Democrats, FDR's Second Inaugural Address:

But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.

I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.

I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.

I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.

I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

But it is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope—because the nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country’s interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Open Thread.

Remember this? Look what's happening now - U.S. and Gulf Allies Pursue a Missile Shield Against Iranian Attack:

The United States and its Arab allies are knitting together a regional missile defense system across the Persian Gulf to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack, according to government officials and public documents.

When Hillary Clinton proposed this idea in 2008, I wrote:

This is excellent strategic thinking, providing a great alternative to armed intervention in Iran and allowing for hard headed and rational diplomacy with Iran on the question of nuclear weapons. Personally, I would LOVE to get a reaction from Barack Obama to this statement from Hillary Clinton.

President Obama has now reacted as he certainly must approve of this policy. Anyone want to revisit their thinking from 2008?

Matt Yglesiais writes:

Broadening the tax base to finance big cuts in tax rates is the heart of Mitt Romney’s economic plan. Obama made the elimination of deductions the centerpiece of his plan to raise more revenue from the corporate income tax, and Senate Democrats are counting on broad tax reform as a key element in Democratic budget policy if Obama wins in 2012. But in specific terms, Washington remains hooked on the allure of tax breaks. ... [E]ven if major tax reform somehow does occur, the lesson of the Olympic Tax Elimination Act is that Congress is likely to undermine reform at world-record speed.

Uh, duh? Regular readers know that I have argued that elimination of tax loopholes rarely survive the "reform." There is always a good reason to give a "tax break," especially for "job creators." Maybe liberal wonks will understand this now. We can not cut tax rates, period.