Did Mitt Romney really "create 100,000 jobs" with Staples? Simple answer: only if no one else was selling office supplies, stationery, etc. before Staples came along. What Staples did was force many competing stationery, office supply and computer stores out of business, probably shifting their employees into lower-wage jobs. Staples was just one more part of the Wal-Martization of our economy in the last few decades. In our system the wealthy few have the power to lay people off or force pay cuts and then pocket the difference for themselves. We have to come to grips with that, and fix the system.
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As Staples grew it overtook competing chains like Businessland and others. In other words, Staples took business from other, existing stores -- often local retailers. Staples did not “create” jobs, it shifted office-supply jobs from local stores, etc., probably to lower-paying jobs. (The former owners of local businesses certainly were worse off from this.) They likely even lowered overall office-supply, stationery, etc. employment in the larger economy.

After a wide-reaching child abuse scandal has rocked the university, Penn State finally removed the statue of its beloved and flawed football coach Joe Paterno this morning. The AP reports, "Workers lifted the statue off its base and used a forklift to move it into Beaver Stadium as the 100 to 150 students watching chanted, 'We are Penn State.'"

The university made the decision after an independent investigation from former FBI director Louis Freeh found that Paterno apparently lied about how much he knew about former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's child abuse. The scandal, which involved countless boys claiming that Sandusky abused and raped them (and Paterno and university officials knew about the allegations but never went to authorities), led to Paterno's retirement and Sandusky's eventual conviction, as well as soul-searching for a school that relies on the football program Paterno built.

This week the Romney campaign introduced "Paco", a taco-loving cartoon parrot, in hopes of appealing to Latino voters.

“How’s the meatloaf?” the fracking executive asks the waiter.

“Excellent,” says the waiter.

“There aren’t any peanut products in it, are there? I’m allergic to peanuts.”

The waiter explains that the chef doesn’t disclose the ingredients in his meatloaf, because it’s proprietary information.

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A few weeks ago, Santorum argued that we should combine church and state
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Then it was the insistence that Puerto Ricans speak English
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And now it's the scourge of pornography
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These views aren't "conservative." They're aggressive. They call for extending the government's reach and control over citizens' lives, not reducing it.
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