On the January night in 2008 when he won the Iowa caucuses, Barack Obama delivered a victory speech that would reverberate forcefully across a divided America. Iowans, he said, had come together — Democrats, Republicans and independents — to stand as one in calling for a new politics of unity and hope. It was a message that would help carry him to the White House 10 months later.

“You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that’s consumed Washington,” the then-senator from Illinois said that winter night in Des Moines. “To end the political strategy that’s been all about division and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states. We are choosing hope over fear. We’re choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.”

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With his speech to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Paul Ryan attempted to reposition himself as someone other than the millionaire son of privilege and career politician that he is.

The Republican vice presidential nominee made the break with himself by talking about “guys I went to high school with [who] worked at that GM plant” in Janesville. Like a lot of other guys, and gals, across America, those guys lost their jobs when a multinational corporation shuttered a productive plant.

The problem is that Ryan’s has never taken the side of those guys, and of all the working Americans who will march Monday in Labor Day parades from Janesville to Detroit to Toledo and Pittsburgh.

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The Republican Party has committed to "vigorously" enforcing obscenity laws. A look at what that could mean.

It’s official: A Romney presidency would mean a renewed war on porn. This week, the Republican Party added the following line to its party platform: “Current laws on all forms of pornography and obscenity need to be vigorously enforced.”

Vigorously enforced. Just what does that mean? Which genres would be safe, and which taboos would be targeted? Would they go after wildly popular tube sites like PornHub or industry bigwigs like Hustler? I decided to talk to some experts to find out.

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