Democratic Forum Tweet (3 of 3): That's a Wrap

With images of Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley (pict. top), MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow (pict. center) and They Might Be Giants (we are using them to fill space, and it looks a suitable image for a finale). TMBG is actually on tour right now in Australia.

O'Malley is running against Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Dick Cheney (that's a joke) for the Democratic party's 2016 presidential nominee.

Tonight's debate took place at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC, where my late grandfather Dudley "Doc" Sturgis once taught economics. We also noticed the sharp irony that the last GOP debate took place at Colorado University in Boulder, Colo., a progressive college town, and the current Democratic debate is taking place in a zip code which has probably voted for every Republican candidate since Chester Arthur.

Here are the tweets:

1) Secular Talk: Bernie Sanders runs circles around the other candidates when it comes to both substance and confident messaging.

2) Catholic Democrats: Bernie Sanders has become a lot sharper when discussing racial disparities and ways to address racial inequality.

3) Pat Bagley (liberal political cartoonist for The Salt Lake Tribune): Bernie Sanders isn't proposing anything more radical than what Eisenhower implemented in the '50s.

4) Suzy Khimm (liberal journalist with "The New Republic"): Free points for media-bashing wooooooo.....

5) E.J. Dionne, center-left columnist for the Washington Post: Smart move by Bernie Sanders to criticize 'stupid' Republican attacks on each other and to say Democrats don't want to campaign like that.

6) Andrea Mitchell (NBC News reporter): Rachel Maddow to Bernie Sanders: What is the misconception about you? He says people think I'm grumpy.

7) Anna Douglas (Rock Hill Herald): Maddow asking the gun Q. Had to know this was coming.

8) Jessica Valenti (The Guardian, UK): I really do enjoy watching Bernie.

9) Zaid Jilani (progressive Muslim activist): Bernie is doing well in this Dem Forum. He's coming off as very loose; I think better than the debate."

http://www.theymightbegiants.com/

http://yorkdems.com/

http://scdp.org/

http://www.msnbc.com/

http://www.heraldonline.com/

http://www.winthrop.edu

Top Ten Comics from The Washington Post (Sunday Edition): We Endorse Dustin for President

Greetings to our blog readers in Croatia, Israel, and India.....

During our lunch hour, we took the Mental Floss Presidential Quiz, and we forgot about Chester Arthur, who was president 20 years after the Civil War. Our sincerest apologies to his descendants. Otherwise, we named all the presidents correctly, even Rutherford Hayes and Martin Van Buren.

Here are our top ten favorite comic strips from "The Washington Post." First place, goes to "Dustin," where a water balloons gag (pict. top) ends with a brilliant zinger. Second place goes to "Lio," a comic strip with dark, gothic humor, which this week features a Grim Reaper gag (pict. center), and lastly in fifth place, the lazy American male is lampooned in "Rhymes with Orange."

"Hagar the Horrible" is not actually out tenth favorite comic strip, but we thought we would start our own running gag, by having it in tenth place every week. Here's the list:

1. Dustin

2. Lio

3. Doonesbury

4. WuMo

5. Rhymes with Orange

6. Foxtrot

7. Zits

8. Brewster Rockit

9. Prickly City

10. Hagar the Horrible (Pearls Before Swine would've actually gotten tenth place)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

http://www.dustincomics.com

http://www.gocmics.com/lio

http://www.gocomics.com/lio

Quote of the Week- Chester Arthur

It is quite ironic that Vermont, which is perhaps the most liberal state in America, was the birth state of Republican President Chester Arthur (1829-1886). Arthur, who was the 21st president, got his promotion to the oval office rather quickly as his predecessor James Garfield was assasinated by Charles J. Guiteau, who was later hanged in Washington, DC, in spite of considerable evidence that Guiteau was mentally ill.

Garfield was shot in Long Brnach, New Jersey, on July 2, 1881, but the 20th president remained alive until Sept. 19.

Arthur would only serve out the remainder of Garfield's term, and his own would end abruptly as he died on Nov. 17, 1886, at age 57, a mere 103 days after leaving office on March 4th of that year.

This quote illustrates that some of the men who were president in the 19th century may have problems coping with the modern presidency:

"I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business."

This month, we hope to quote famous New Englanders around Monday of each week. Last week, we quoted poet E.E. Cummings.

SIDEBAR: Though I missed the film's screenings in North Carolina, I am very interested in a new documentary film by Trenton, NJ, filmmaker Kevin J. Williams called "Fear of a Black Republican" even though I'm neither African-American or a Republican. As one might expect, the very conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is featured in the film.

The documentary will be screening in Wilmington, Del., on July 28 at 7:00 p.m.