The Impolitic

Newt won't back down

2012-01-27T18:12:00.000-05:00

Willard "Mittens" Romney is feeling all kinds of butch today. He's been out on the campaign trail boasting about his big victory in the debates last night. And to be fair, he did do better than he has recently. Guess all that instruction from Michele Bachmann's former debate coach is paying off. He lied with much more authority. Also expect the current polling in Florida is boosting his confidence.

Newt on the other hand looks a little shaken. After all his blustering about letting the people cheer, because freedom, Willard clearly bested him on the applause-o-meter last night. But never let it be said he won't go down fighting. Hell, he practically invented smear tactics for Pete's sake. Exhibit A, a new attack ad Newt launched on Romney today that pulls no punches.

Have to give his shop credit for a fast turn around. Expect they may have spent more time on the one I saw yesterday from his sugar daddy's SUPER PAC, which was even more brutal.

Don't count him out yet. He still has three days to turn it around. And oddly, as abhorrent as I find the man, I'm kind of rooting for Newt to pull off another upset. It would amuse me on several levels, not the least of which would be witnessing the establishment GOP meltdown.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Big Internet is watching you

2012-01-27T15:08:00.000-05:00

This google ad preferences meme has been traveling the internets for a couple of days. If you haven't seen it, they target the popup ads you ignore according to some kind of algorithum that's gauged by the cookies they sleathily embed in your computer. People have been checking and sharing their results and they're hilariously inaccurate.

Google thinks I'm a 55-64 year old male who is interested in combat sports. Not even sure what that means but the only traditional sport I follow at all is baseball. And I'll also follow any link that has to do with aeronautics, including ballooning and skydiving but pretty sure those aren't considered combat. But to be fair, I've often been mistaken for a guy on the internets.

Apparently, google isn't the only one who tracks you this way. Lots of other websites collect your click info. I checked them all and only one was even close to capturing my true essence.

The good news is you can theoretically opt-out from these cookies on all the sites except google. Me, I don't bother opting out of anything. I've found over the years, the more you opt-out the more spam ends up in your in-box. If you ignore them, sometimes they go away on their own. Kind of the same way I deal with trolls.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Huntsman gets a new job

2012-01-27T12:47:00.000-05:00

Ah America. Ain't it great. Where else can a kid pull himself up by the bootstraps from an ego-crushing loss in a political campaign and rise up a mere 10 days later to become chairman of an important charitable foundation?

Oh, did we mention said charitable foundation was founded by his billionaire father? I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. Certainly, in our society where only the lazy and unambitious are poor or unemployed, Jon was selected solely on his merits.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here

2012-01-26T20:21:00.002-05:00

CNN is live streaming so I'm watching GOP debate number Fifth Circle of Hell. Not sure how long I'll last. Definitely not going to live tweet. You want the snark go to the twitter or to that guy at the Guardian. He's good.

Addendum: Okay I lied. Going to liveblog this bit. Romney just announced he is having fun. I don't think he really is though.

Also too, this is the most amusing debate so far. Granted, it's a low bar.

[Original graphic Link includes brilliant theory on hell's thermic properties.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Romney fails in financial filings

2012-01-26T19:10:00.002-05:00

Buddhists have a saying; money is suffering. Mitt Romney is about to live those words. The twitter tells me the Romney camp optimistically predicted earlier that Willard's tax returns would cease making news after tomorrow. I assume that was before Romney's inconsistent financial filings hit the news wires.

Some investments listed in Mitt and Ann Romney’s 2010 tax returns – including a now-closed Swiss bank account and other funds located overseas – were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement the GOP presidential hopeful filed in August as part of his White House bid. [...]

A review by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau found that at least 23 funds and partnerships listed in the couple’s 2010 tax returns did not show up or were not listed in the same fashion on Romney’s most recent financial disclosure, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

The Romney campaign described the discrepancies as “trivial.” Of course they are. What's a few foreign tax shelters, more or less, among friends?

Paraphrasing a bit, a campaign spokesmouth pointed out Romney released 600 pages of tax returns for Pete's sake so why is anyone surprised that it's hard to keep track of that much money? Also they would like to point out they will have to pay an army of accountants overtime to straighten the filings out, thus Willard's personal contribution to the job creation just doubled.

Think this might come up in the debate tonight?

[Big thanks and a huge hug to my old pal blogenfreude who kindly linked in at Mike's Blog Round-up. It's been way too long since I've seen him on the internets.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Brent Bozell declares war on liberal media

2012-01-26T17:12:00.001-05:00

Lunatic culture warrior and self-appointed media watchdog Brent Bozell plans a $5 million attack on the "librul" media. Well actually he only has $3 million so far but apparently feels confident he'll be able to fleece the rubes for the other $2mil, no doubt with the help of his friends at Fox "News" who always are ready to lend a fellow Obama basher a hand.

Bozell plans to muster the troops of Wingnut Nation with a campaign conducted via "bumper stickers, billboards, traditional and online advertising" which will culminate with "the largest social media effort ever undertaken by conservatives." By golly, by the end of this campaign there won't be a single loyal Fox viewer in America who will believe a word the lying, character assassinating, liberal media says.

Rumors of his impending hire as a contributor on CNN so far remain unconfirmed. [original photo]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

No surprise, Newt lied, he has no friends

2012-01-26T15:30:00.000-05:00

You'll recall John King opened the South Carolina debate by asking Newt Gingrich about his second wife's claim he asked for an open marriage while he was boinking Callista on the side. Newt reacted with great indignation. Newt pounded the lectern and roared, "Every personal friend I have who knew us in that period says the story is false." Newt further claimed these friends were offered to ABC News and ABC refused to give them air time to refute Marianne Gingrich's allegations.

Well, now comes his campaign spokesmouth who admits, Newt lied. He has no friends who were willing to speak to ABC on his behalf. The only "witnesses" Gingrich proffered were his two daughters, who were duly quoted in the news cycle right along.

Politico calls this confession "(a)n important victory for John King in his ongoing effort to justify last Thursday's confrontation." Wonder what they're smoking over there?

John King still looks like an idiot. He had two shots at Newt. As someone who almost always thinks of a killer comeback an hour after an argument is over, I had some sympathy for his failure to confront Newt the first time. It was an unexpected and aggressive response. But King had another chance with a second interview. When King told Newt that the campaign didn't actually produce any alleged friends willing to testify on his behalf, he allowed Gingrich to call it a bunch of baloney. What kind of victory is that? It's pure journalistic incompetence.

King had plenty of time to prepare for the second round. As I mentioned after the debate, the appropriate response would have been to ask Newt to produce the names of these ignored friends. As it stands the victory goes to CNN for forcing the campaign to finally admit Newt lied.

Meanwhile, Newt still wins because his fan base doesn't watch CNN and I think it's a safe bet this won't be mentioned on Fox "News." [original image]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Bring out the Bibles, bring out the guns, Jesus is coming to town

2012-01-26T09:50:00.001-05:00

By Capt. Fogg

The headline in yesterday's paper summarizing the President's State of the Union message is 3/8 of an inch tall. The headline just under it, reading RICK SANTORUM RALLIES IN STUART is in bold face type and is much bigger. Welcome to the monkey house.

Santorum was here on Florida's Treasure Coast Tuesday, holding forth at the Community Christian Academy to parents and grade school students, a horror of which some are particularly proud. It's an "up-close look at politics in action," said school officials.

That live action, these politics, included a prayer by the 'Reverend' Dan Holland, affiliated with the school and the pastor of Community Baptist Church in Stuart, Florida.

"I like what he said in the South Carolina rally, where he said ' I come from a place where they have a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other'"

Rick Santorum doesn't need a script, because he really isn't saying much and with such an audience, it doesn't matter whether he makes sense or mangles facts or makes them up. Rick speaks from the pulpit and anything said Ex Cathedra will not be questioned by this crowd. Besides, it's precisely what they want to hear: Barack Obama is the worst president this country has ever had, who hates capitalism, wants to take away what God wants you to keep to yourself and is destroying our natural order of things. Don't forget this is a religion that demands that women be subservient, hints that black people should stay in their place and since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would vote for anything that hated Democrats.

Santorum's ever predictable message was about "family Values" "fiscal responsibility" and "ridding the White House of Barack Obama." One can take the last of the three as the real message since my idea of family values does not include veiled calls to armed crusade and lying about the economy.

An all-white group of 350 heard him say:

"we have to have a candidate who stands proudly, consistently, aggressively, forcefully for the values that made this country the greatest country in the history of the world."

Presumably that greatness was attained with Bibles and guns and anyone suggesting that we are in any way sinners, transgressors or less than perfect instruments of God's Christian ambitions, can go straight to Hell along with that apologist Obama.

They heard him howl about That Commie, apologist, freedom hating Obama bailing out Wall Street from the excesses and crimes the Republicans encouraged them in instead of using "free market forces" which would as any legitimate economist would likely tell you have brought that "greatest country in the history of the Universe" down to the level of Haiti. Still, the problem of galloping poverty isn't lack of resources, said Santorum, contradicting himself,

"the problem is in the home, the problem is in the churches, the problem is in the community. The people living in these woods are not the federal government's problem. . ."

Let's use poverty, disease and misery to fill the pews, because a just society is a commie, secular humanist Christ-hating society.

Perhaps he could have explained to me why the Republican's promise to provide jobs instead of food stamps while it's 'not the government's problem' isn't honest or consistent -- or how unlettered country folk with bibles and guns are going to help in the new anarchistic utopia he offers them -- but trying to present Rick Santorum as a rational candidate with any further agenda than dismantling all the rules that keep markets free, creating a new Christian aristocracy and most of all, hanging up that "White's Only" sign over the door at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is a scam and a con and a farrago of flim-flam as great as any in the history of the world.

People like me can wonder how dismantling our entire economic system, refusing to pay the bills, can be called Conservatism, or any of the other radical, ultra-Chauvinistic, Denialist and dishonest rhetoric that smells more like Attila's unwashed hordes, but the blue-hair church ladies, their God smitten and brainwashed children and the rest of the angry Community Christian Academics don't seem to care. There's just something wrong out there and they don't know what it is and the sick Mr. Rick and his sanctimonious rabble are at hand to point out the enemies and heretics for the burning.

"This is why the earth is more than something to run your damned pipelines through"

2012-01-25T19:34:00.000-05:00

Snow leopards. Sometimes Charlie Pierce and I think so much alike I wonder if we're somehow related. He could be my long lost brother. [original photo by leopard-pictures.com]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

A year late and a few hundred million short

2012-01-25T16:03:00.000-05:00

Charlie is right of course, Romney knew he was running for office, for Pete's sake and he also knew he's what us peons refer to as filthy rich. If he had just released a few years of his tax returns a year or so ago, chances are it would be "old news" and nobody would be talking about it now.

By waiting so long, and only releasing one year, this happened:

Who could have predicted an ordinary Swiss bank account and few innocent off-shore investments wouldn't win the undying admiration of people worrying about possible foreclosure because they're underwater on their mortgage? [Via Political Wire]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Everything changes

2012-01-25T14:46:00.000-05:00

I've been following him for nine of the ten years he's been blogging and never thought I would live to see the day when John Cole posted a photo of himself. Mixed reaction and not the world's most flattering pose, but my vote is adorable.

Meanwhile, my old pal, the blogger formerly known as Cernig of NEWSHOGGERS, who finally came out under his real name, Steve Hynd is moving to Editor In Chief of the Agonist.Org. Congrats to them both.

And my old friend Heretik has resurfaced at a new blog, Man Are We Screwed. Doesn't appear to be doing so many of the old photoshops we loved at his former blog, but he's still writing with a wit so sharp it could slice roast beef. Check out What Heretik learned at Sundance, in two parts.

Room to Move

2012-01-24T21:30:00.000-05:00

Song in my head.

Steve Benen has been at the Washington Monthly for so long, I had to google to remember the name of his first blog I read religiously, The Carpetbagger Report. He's possibly the most prolific blogger on the planet. He curates everything. He catches the stories early. He includes copious important context. Brutally honest but reliably equanimous in his opinions. When I want to get up to speed on an issue, I read him first.

This burst of nostalgia inspired by the news Steve Benen is moving to MSNBC. Feels like a good match. Congratulations to them both.

If called, Christie would serve

2012-01-23T21:02:00.000-05:00

Back from my dinner date with one last thought about my favorite conspiracy theory before we throw it back into the catch-all folder.

Steve M. flags New Jersey gasbag governor's interview on Meet the Press. I agree Dancing Dave's hero worship of Christie is nauseating. And I agree Christie's carefully phrased answers signal a decided interest in a changing his zip code to 20050. But not so sure it's the VP's doorbell he's hearing in the distance.

This suggest to me, Christie is musing about a street address that starts with 1600:

Christie also suggested Sunday that his previous aversion to the idea of being president was more about having to spend a year-plus campaigning, rather than how ready he was to take on the job. Does it?

“Everybody’s misunderstood what I meant about saying being ready for president,” Christie said. “I meant that, you know, being ready to leave the job that I had and being ready to run for president of the United States, with all that entails. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t feel ready to do it.”

Preemptive revision of the one remark he's made that could haunt him in a two month long campaign?

Maybe I'm reading too much into it. But, the Village punditry is talking about a brokered convention. The buzz gets louder over time. Guessing Christie is listening.

Sure it's a long shot. But it doesn't hurt to be ready, just in case your dark horse comes in.

If it ain't brokered, how are they going to fix it?

2012-01-23T15:38:00.000-05:00

I was planning to let my favorite conspiracy theory rest but with Newt's big win in South Carolina, the panic among the GOP establishment demands a brief resurrection. This comes up today because Josh at TPM noticed GOP pundits wishing for a savior to emerge from the shadows and rescue their primary from this lunacy. Josh runs the numbers and rightfully notes it's much too late for someone to jump in via the traditional route.

I tweeted Josh to mention the wishful thinking I've seen rests more on a brokered convention. Not making that up. I don't have cable but Angry DougJ saw it on the morning after South Carolina. And I saw a few headlines roll through Memorandum suggesting it as well.

Josh then tweeted: To answer: I think in the 21st century, brokered convention guarantees loss in Nov. & who convinces Newt/Mitt to give up their delegates?

I have an answer to that. It wouldn't fit into a tweet, but let's review my old posts. If you think about it, a draft in August leaves a candidate with only two months of media exposure. Which happens to be about the same length of time every GOP frontrunner who is not Mitt has enjoyed the adoration of the base. I wouldn't bet money that they couldn't win with that strategy.

If the primary battle does continue until the convention, all the candidates will have fatal flaws well exposed. Party is fractured. Not exactly a path to victory either. What do they have to lose with a draft? And my money is still on Chris Christie as the guy they would pick to save them. Sure he's had some exposure as Romney's wingman, but he's said nothing on the campaign trail yet that has hurt him. He's wowed the crowds at every stop. Not impossible for me to envision, if it indeed did come down to Mitt and Newt, that Mitt could be Christie's VP instead of the other way around. Mitt is still young enough to parlay a VP slot into one more future run for top dog in eight years.

And as for Newt, hell, how hard is it to buy him off? They could do it with a straight money bribe. Or they could offer him a high profile slot in the administration where he could parlay his grifting skills into a personal fortune.

Again, not saying I believe it's a plausible theory, but never say never, especially given politics as they're practiced in this age.

Off the hook

2012-01-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

Why I love the twitter machine. This, from 1964, showed up in my stream with the caption, "They seemed so dangerous then." So they did, but in retrospect, they look so innocent compared to what happened after...

Via my long time pal A. Rascal, who introduced me to the fabulous Michele Hush, who not only has an exquisite eye for the gorgeously historic sounds and images of my era but is on a mission I admire and support. Instantly fell in love with her blog dedicated to rescuing the endangered word "divinipotent." Click over and check the sidebar to find other words in need of adoption.

It's Mitt's turn

2012-01-22T17:02:00.000-05:00

Willard "Mittens" Romney wants his turn darn it, so don't you try to jump the line.

Crankiness is just so presidential. [via Think Progress]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Who does Romney think he's fooling?

2012-01-22T15:47:00.001-05:00

So after his thrashing in South Carolina, Romney announced he'll be happy to release his tax returns on Tuesday so everyone will stop talking about it. His use of the plural is somewhat misleading. He's only going to show his 2010 return and an estimate for 2011. Which is good enough for Newt, who says as far as he's concerned, the issue is behind us. However it seems unlikely to shed much light on Willard's finances. Easy enough to sanitize the current returns. And willing to bet a few people might be interested in taking a look at his returns from his prime years at Bain.

Besides, this paltry offering hardly fulfills historic precedent. As Steve Benen notes:

When Barack Obama ran in 2008, he released returns for the previous eight years. When Bill Clinton ran in 1992, he disclosed 12 years. As we were reminded on Thursday night, when George Romney ran, he set “a groundbreaking standard,” releasing 12 years of returns. He said at the time, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.”

Our man Mittens could take a lesson from his Dad. Granted Papa Romney didn't win, but at least he set a standard for telling the truth. A family legacy that his son now trashes daily with every shameless falsehood he spews on the campaign trail today.

Addendum: Of course, you realize that Tuesday is also when President Obama gives his State of the Union speech. A mere coincidence, I'm sure.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Till we meet again Congresswoman Giffords

2012-01-22T14:29:00.004-05:00

Not unexpected that Gabby Giffords is stepping down. Still. Fair warning. Grab some kleenex before you watch her goodbye (for now) video.

Tears of sadness and anger that she would be robbed so cruelly of her life's work. But she's a strong woman and made great progress already. Like to think she'll make a full recovery someday and a triumphant return to D.C.

That's no dog whistle

2012-01-22T12:59:00.000-05:00

Of course, you know by now Newt trounced Willard in South Carolina's primary yesterday. The exit polling showed the voters were most concerned about the state of the economy and many decided on their votes only at the last minute, choosing Newt based on his debate performance. And by that they don't mean that he presented a grand, cohorent plan to repair said worrisome economy.

Hearing a lot of talk about dog whistles this morning. That was no dog whistle that enthralled the true conservatives of the south. Newt pulled out a high powered bullhorn with the volume set on 11. He won their hearts with his sneering putdown of Juan Williams, his self-righteous indignation at the despicable, elite liberal media daring to question his morality and his only slightly more subtle jabs at that uppity usurper in their White House. Visions of a cowed "Nobama" on the debate stage dance in their befuddled heads.

What does it mean going into Florida? Damned if I know. This is weirdest primary ever but I'm thinking not much. For one thing, the twitter tells me turnout was nearly historic. About 100K more turned out than might be expected. I'm also told it was an open primary, meaning Democrats could vote in it. Wondering how many Dems may have decided to help keep the GOP freak show going for the pure entertainment value.

In Florida only Republicans will be voting. And Florida conservatives are not all the sons and daughters of the Confederacy. They include a lot of transplanted Yankees of some means who are less likely to hold Willard's wealth and awkwardness in glad handing the hoi polloi against him.

It's politics, so anything can happen. It's a fool's game to predict the whims of a fickle electorate all too easily swayed by slick campaign ads. My guess is Willard is still looking good for it in the long run. But one thing I know for certain, the "elite" media is delighted with last night's outcome. Judging from my tweet stream, they're very much looking forward to spending some time in sunny Florida.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Not that much

2012-01-21T16:19:00.000-05:00

Sadly I seem to have lost the links that went with photo. The twitter has been cranky and seems to delete my saved tweets randomly, so I don't remember who to credit for this, but here's a screenshot from some journalist at a Mitt Romney event.

Only saw the single tweet so not sure if this is just for the media or if everyone is expected to pay $450 to access the internet. Wouldn't be surprised if it was the going rate though. For a guy like Romney, who thinks making some $374K in a year on speaking engagements isn't very much money, I suppose $450 seems like pocket change.

Ain't no doubt about it - Updated

2012-01-21T14:00:00.001-05:00

If one can believe the latest numbers I saw on the twitter this morning, the winner in South Carolina tonight is a given. Newt was polling at 40% to Willard's 26%, which is good news for me. But that I mean, my creds as a prognosticator are going up again. Somewhere on the tweetie machine, I predicted that SC would not be the race that crowned Willard as the nominee apparent.

And to say Romney looks a bit awkward when he's down grossly understates the situation as aptly illustrated by this morning's "Hamgate."

Romney steps into Oliver's grits.

Tommy's Ham House in Greenville is a must stop on the campaign trail. Unfortunately, for Willard, both he and Newt were scheduled to arrive at the same time. Newt suggested an impromptu debate but Willard chickened out. He arrived early and rushed out before Newt got there. But he didn't leave before he stepped into Oliver Knox's breakfast. Let's look at that again, in live action.

Of course, Willard and Newt are both awkward when their numbers are down, albeit in different ways. And they're both obnoxious when they're up. So one thing for certain, if Newt's polling holds up in the results, he's going to be simply insufferable going into Florida.

Update: Seems only fair to offer Oliver's eyewitness account of the "Thrilla in Greenvilla."

Where were you when I needed you

2012-01-21T13:06:00.000-05:00

I really could have used this photo Chris Hayes commissioned for his TV show a few weeks ago when I wrote this post on "zany" Newt.

It's exactly as I envisioned it, had I only possessed a photoshop program and the ability to use it. But it's a keeper. Think we'll find a use for it again before this horror show is over. [original photo]

So long Marianne

2012-01-20T15:23:00.002-05:00

I fell asleep just before the promised "explosive" interview with the second Mrs. Gringrich aired on Nightline last night. Just as well since having watched the archived video, it's clear we were seriously pwned by ABC. One wonders what about it required such soul searching as to when to air it. Especially since they leaked the "open marriage" punch line early on, giving Newt plenty of time to come up with a defense before John King so lamely lobbed the question first thing at last night's debate.

They couldn't have engineered the narrative more transparently, or any more in Newt's favor. Today's news cycle is all about Newt's indignation at despicably being subjected to questions about his despicable behavior.

Anyone could have predicted this interview would be a bomb. The second wife, who cheated with him on the first wife would have to come up with something better than, gee he wanted an open marriage, to gain any sympathy. And what was with the bit about meeting with the arms dealer in Paris? She looked as smarmy as Newt with that denial.

Besides, everybody knows about Newt's past affairs. The base considers these to be mere peccadilloes. Ancient history that the men secretly admire and the woman accept with resignation because most of them have forgiven their own husbands for such passing lapses of fidelity. Besides, Newt admitted his sins and asked God for forgiveness. That's good enough for them. The only thing that might have resonated with that crowd would have been Newt's refusal to support his past wives and families after the divorce.

The story that should have been hyped was the legal pleadings from Gringrich's first divorce. How he abandoned his first family, leaving them so destitute they had "no lights, no heat, no water, no food in the home." Their church held a food drive for them. Newt didn't give them a dime until the court forced him to honor his obligations.

But the second wife? Of course the reaction is meh. Maybe it's true that Newt has friends who would testify she was overstating the transition to wife three. If so, maybe the media could ask him to produce them. But otherwise, as far as the base is concerned, "It's time that we began, to laugh and cry, and cry and laugh about it all again." Or not.

Of thee I sing

2012-01-20T14:19:00.000-05:00

There may be nothing more cringe inducing than a politician who treats a speaking engagement like a Karoke contest. I still have nightmares from watching the video of John Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagle Soar." But some do it better than others. Herman Cain suffered no small amount of mockery after he sang that gospel hymn, "He Looked Beyond My Faults." Which paled in comparison to the outpouring of derision when he sang, "imagine there's no pizza."

The pizza song was worthy of the snark, but I thought he pulled off the gospel song pretty well. It was weird but he has a decent voice so it wasn't that painful. However, when it comes to singing pols, President Obama is the new king of soul. Everybody is posting this one, and so am I, just so I have it in the archives forever.

But that's not the half of it. His Al Green is the best, but check out his Aretha and Dionne Warwick. Man, but our POTUS can sing. Hoping more of these turn up so TPM can put together a mash-up for future historians.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Romney's inevitability slip sliding away

2012-01-19T15:53:00.000-05:00

Tough day for Willard "Mittens" Romney. His commanding lead in South Carolina is disintegrating. Latest polling shows Newt Gingrich as the frontrunner and his lead widens by the hour. Which ought to make tonight's episode of the Endless Debates a bit more interesting. Newt just can't hide his arrogance when he's ahead. And chances are he'll want to draw some blood before he gets beat up by his second ex-wife on Nightline tonight.

Meanwhile, Iowa finally got around to sort of certifying their caucus vote and the final tally shows Santorum actually won in Iowa by 34 votes. Or make that at least 34 votes. It seems eight districts mysteriously lost their ballots in the interim, so the vote can never be really certified but it's likely it would have raised Santorum's margin if they were counted. Not that it really matters now except Willard can't claim two victories in a row and has no chance to be the first ever to win three in a row. Willing to bet he already wrote that into his anticipated victory speech.

Which makes this picture Oliver Knox posted on twitter all the more poignant. Taken at a campaign stop last night, before all this horrible news broke this morning.

Romney sits down with the Batchelor family, autographs sign. "If I'm elected, it's worth saving." [Original photo]

"The nearer your destination, the more you're slip, sliding away."

Rick Perry quits before he loses

2012-01-19T13:09:00.000-05:00

Well, the candidate who only a few months ago was hailed as the GOP's savior, today officially acknowledged his fall from grace. Rick Perry is dropping out of the race, which technically preserves his record of never having lost an election since quitting is not quite the same as losing. He's throwing his tens of supporters to Newt.

The only real effect this is likely to have on the race is to destroy my creds as a prognosticator. I didn't count Huntsman in when I predicted nobody would drop out before the SC vote but I thought Perry would hang on to the end. He had plenty of money. Of course, I also thought they would show a swaggering, evangelical Texan a bit more love there. And I forgot to factor in the interminable debates. Dropping out today spares him from another humiliating stint on the stage.

So Gov. Goodhair returns to Texas and will get back to praying for rain I guess.

And Austin weeps.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Castles made of sand slip into the sea, eventually

2012-01-18T19:05:00.000-05:00

Can't think of a more fitting tribute to the GOP 2012 field. And is it just the lighting in here, or is that a crescent moon instead of an "O" in GOP? Quick somebody alert the Islamoalarmists keyboard brigade.

[photo credit via Misha44]

On a completely different note, this is sure to become a collector's item. Buy now before it's too late.

I might mention I love sweater vests. Hoping to snag one of little Ricky's branded ones at a clearance price when he drops out. [via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Great SOPA Blackout

2012-01-18T15:12:00.005-05:00

Everybody is talking about the internet protest today. At least 7000 websites have blacked out their content or at least part of it. The most noticed has been Wikipedia's blackout since midnight, but the creativity award goes to The Oatmeal. (Fair warning, it's possibly NSFW.) And every geek's favorite cartoon site, xkcd has a good protest page. More here.

Meanwhile, the concerned citizens of the intertoobz have been bombarding Congress with phone calls, emails and tweets. It appears to be working. Congressional sponsors and proponents are dropping out at the speed of light. Interestingly, the GOPers are leading the retreat while I'm still seeing reports that some Dems are holding firm. Actually, maybe someone could explain to me why we have ostensibly progressive Dems like Al Franken and Pat Leahy sponsoring this crappy bill in the first place.

If you need a refresher on what the bill is about, this Barry Eisler interview, this informational page What is SOPA and Clay Shirky at the TED talks should get you up to speed.

In any event, while it appears the internets are winning right now, I feel relatively certain the bill is just withdrawn, it's not dead. I'd suggest you sign the Google petition anyway. Good to let the Congresscreatures know we're watching and we're pissed off. [image via]

Addendum: I'd note my own Dem Congresswoman, Kay Hagan is a sponsor of SOPA and apparently supports another bill that cheats tech workers out of overtime pay. I'd futher note, that I didn't vote for her in the primary and only reluctantly voted for her in the general election. I knew she was going to be trouble from the start. Be happy to see an actual liberal Dem challenge her when her term is up.

Addendum two: More photos.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Boo

2012-01-18T09:52:00.000-05:00

By Capt Fogg

"With regards to immigration policy, that those that come here illegally should not be given favoritism or a special route to becoming residents or citizens that's not given to those people that stayed in line legally,"

-Willard Mitt Romney-

One would think, if one had the fortitude to spend more than a moment watching what passes for television news, that for the last half decade or so there were nothing of more than momentary interest happening than the American political circus and perpetual campaign. Geological and meteorological calamities do get reported, but the vast bulk of air time is given over to "the candidates" and the unchallenged lies they perpetrate. There are no pauses between campaigns, no half time shows and no seventh inning stretches.

I say circus although circuses are intended to be family entertainment these days and freak shows have gone the way of Times Square peep shows, cock fights and lynchings -- and sadly, the traces of any sense of shame, decency and honesty that ever had the audacity to interrupt or question the ragemongering has disappeared.

At the South Carolina Fox News debate Monday last (and I call it debate with all awareness of the inherent dishonesty of the appellation) Mitt Romney was booed, not because of what discernible policies he may be espousing at the moment, but because his father was born in Mexico. I don't recall any booing in response to John McCain's having been born in Panama, but of course anything done or said more than ten minutes ago is irrelevant in today's Republican world and that hobgoblin called consistency is always foolish.

George Romney, Mitt's father, entered the US illegally from Mexico, which might have given a better, more decent, less ambnitious Mitt pause before making such harsh statements about not tolerating any mercy for illegal Mexican immigrants, but of course it's a racial and ethnic issue, not an immigration one despite assurances to the contrary. The name is Romney after all, not Ramirez -- and this was South Carolina, Glossolalia, Holy Ghost Power and Rebel Flags, just he way God likes it.

But the mood of the South Carolinian Republican Rabble was ugly and when moderator Juan Williams asked if it wasn't a bit insulting to minorities when Newt Gingrich spewed that nonsense about black people needing to demand jobs instead of food stamps, as though the unemployment problem were caused by laziness and a president that encourages it, the ~~ugly mob~~ conservative citizens booed the black moderator just as Republican snake pits at previous "debates" have booed Child Labor laws, booed a serving US soldier and cheered the killing of prisoners in large numbers.

Is it any worse that they insist on being called 'conservatives' and not snarling beasts and that our only sources of news collaborate in that farce? Is it surprising that the state of South Carolina, still unrepentant for having been the first to take up arms against the United States, would once again boo at Ron Paul's suggestion that the 'Golden Rule' so often quoted as a core Christian value be applied in US foreign policy?

" Quit warmongering, stop going to war, and treat other nations like we want to be treated. "

Hell, no! Boo the bastard! Ask not what Jesus would do, ask what Attila the Hun would do, what a tribe of savage head hunters and cannibals would do, what a pack of giggling, stinking hyenas would do while ripping and tearing at the corpse of America.

It's been suggested to me, that I should approach such people with a more polite demeanor -- that the people who have made most of human history a horror story need to be given a chance to discuss things, to debate things and that monsters and the people who promote monsters can be persuaded by kind words and reason to change.

Boooooooo!

For what it's worth

2012-01-17T19:06:00.003-05:00

In honor of the Wisconsin activists, the Occupy movement, some of whom are right now occupying Congress, and all the 99%ers who fight in their own ways for equal opportunity for everyone to succeed, this stunning mashup of one my old time favorite songs is for you.

I seriously got goosebumps watching this. Thanks to Watergate Summer for the link.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Million Voter March - Updated

2012-01-17T17:25:00.001-05:00

I am so proud of the Wisconsin Democrats. In some ways, you could say the seeds of the Occupy movement were planted there almost a year ago with the mass demonstrations at the Statehouse. Those beautiful cheeseheads kept up the momentum all this time, with or without media attention, and today they trucked in 1.5 tons of recall petitions.

Democrats and organizers filed petitions Tuesday afternoon with more than a million signatures as they sought to force a recall election against Gov. Scott Walker - a massive number that seems to cement a historic recall election against him for later this year. [...]

The sheer number of signatures being filed against Walker - nearly as many as the total votes cast for the governor in November 2010 and almost twice as many as those needed to trigger a recall election - ensure the election will be held, said officials with the state Democratic Party and United Wisconsin, the group that launched the Walker recall.

"It is beyond legal challenge," said Ryan Lawler, vice chairman of United Wisconsin.

They also handed in many more signatures than required to recall the Lt. Governor and four GOP state senators. Can almost believe that democracy isn't quite dead yet. The system can work. Greg has a video statement from Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Mike Tate.

Update: Since Wisconsin is his adopted state and he's brilliant in general, you should certainly read Charlie Pierce's entire post. But I do want to quote just one line, because the same thought occurred to me when I was reading the story. "The most critical requirement right now is that the Democratic party in Wisconsin avoid a primary at all costs."

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The rock bottom of the 99%

2012-01-17T16:55:00.000-05:00

Finding this image just haunting. This is a reality for so many people and more are joining them every day. Could happen to anybody.

[Via Cape Cod Gurl, original photo here]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Bad journalism, Good journalism - Updated

2012-01-16T17:26:00.002-05:00

Major journalistic fail for Kevin Liptak at CNN. It's not that he doesn't get the stenography down correctly. This is true:

Americans for Prosperity said they spent $6 million to run the minute-long spot in the battleground states of Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia and Iowa. The ad began airing Monday.

And Kevin dutifully reports what the ad says. However, the fail is that he doesn't mention the ad is misleading, gets its "facts" wrong and distorts quotes from President Obama.

Contrast that to the journalistic excellence shown by Jake Tapper on the same ad. And we might mention Jake had this story covered days ago. Jake also takes the time to ask the Koch stooges at AFP some questions and reports the provable facts:

While it may be that White House officials wanted the announcement to be made after the November 2010 elections – the only proof of that is that one e-mail, and the White House denies the charge — the layoffs that were announced were not as AFP describes. What is true: the day after the 2010 elections, on November 3, Solyndra announced it would lay end its contracts with more than 100 contractors, lay off 40 employees, and close one of its factories.

It wasn’t until nine months later, in August 2011 that Solyndra filed for bankruptcy protection, laying off 1,100 full-time and part-time workers. [...]

The ad features George Stephanopoulos asking President Obama in an October 2011 ABC News/Yahoo interview if he regretted holding up Solyndra as a model for jobs and clean energy.

In the ad, the president replies, “No I don’t…overall it’s doing well.”

The full quote is: “No, I don’t, because if you look at the overall portfolio of loan guarantees that have been provided– overall, it’s doing well.”

Context informs. It makes all the difference. Read Jake's whole post. He did a great job on this one.

Update: Add Justin Sink at The Hill to the fail list. While he does at least mention it's a Koch funded smear, the rest is pure stenography.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Huntsman drops out - Updated 2X

2012-01-15T21:44:00.003-05:00

The twitter tells me Jon Huntsman dropped out. Will throw his votes to Willard. Which means -- pretty much nothing. Well, except one less lectern at the next debate. [via Political Wire]

Update: Jon Karl disagrees. Jon says it does matter. I think he's wrong. I doubt Huntsman would have received much more than 3% of the vote. Last I heard, Stephen Colbert was outpolling him and Colbert is not even really running. And Huntsman's attack ads on Romney may have been stellar, but nobody saw them and likely nobody would have. In support of that theory, I'd point to my friend who identifies himself as an "independent conservative." When I told him Huntsman would be a better choice than Newt, he replied, "Jon who?"

In any event, unless someone had the foresight to download and save them, Huntsman purged his youtube page of all those clever ads. For the moment you can still see one at the link, but who knows for how long? Too bad. That monkey sure was cute.

Update two: Thanks to ahuntre for digging up this youtube account that appears to have captured more of the deleted Jon Huntsman's ads. Watch them before they're taken down.

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Not The Onion - Updated

2012-01-15T18:08:00.002-05:00

Apparently the actual cover of the next issue of Newsweek.

Update: It's the real cover for sure. Here's the article, Obama's long game. Getting good reviews in some quarters. In others, not so much. Andrew answers his critics here.

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Theocrats anoint Santorum

2012-01-14T20:03:00.001-05:00

The 150 "Christian right" powerbrokers at the evangelical confab in Houston, no doubt after much public prayer, decided to bestow their blessing on little Ricky Santorum. It took three rounds of votes to get there. Apparently the first round was offered up in symbolic support for the other Rick, Gov Goodhair. I guess the second vote was to make it look like a hard choice. And they are very careful to inform us that the word Mormon never even came up in conversation.

Of course, Gov Goodhair would have been the natural choice. He's one of them. A true evangelical patriot. He speaks their language. He has money. He's never lost an election. Can't you just imagine the convos in the quiet rooms. Something along the lines of, "We gotta stop that Yankee heathen from walking off with this thing. We loves us some Rick but sweet Jesus, the man is stumblin like a street drunk on a Saturday night."

So little Ricky Santorum it is. Because he's the most reliable. Meaning he hasn't done anything wildly embarrasing yet. In light of this development, my pal Joe Gandelman puts his money on Romney. That's the safe bet for sure. Nobody is going to drop out before the vote. They all have decent money left and they're going to spend it on media buys. Willard's numbers are relatively solid. Looks like the vote only splits under him.

Me, I like long shots. I'm taking the under. If Willard doesn't win by at least ten points, it's still an open race. And no, I'm not impressed by the polling in Florida. The numbers change daily. All it would take is a Rovian style whisper campaign to change everything. [graphic credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Comrade Obama?

2012-01-14T10:44:00.001-05:00

By Capt. Fogg

I must disagree with Bill Maher that Rick Santorum thinks of gay sex more than a dildo salesman but only because Rick Santorum doesn't actually think, unless one defines that word very loosely. He doesn't remember things too well either and I say that in all generosity since one might interpret the things he says he remembers as outright lies. They aren't even up to date lies or original lies or good lies, yet there are always enough misinformed, low intelligence dung flingers in fatuously faith based America to believe them and make this country seem like the primate house at the world's largest zoo.

Take Santorum's tired repetition of John McCain's 2001 attempt to sell the embarrassingly ridiculous notion that President Obama wants to redistribute the nation's wealth in some Socialistic way, a bit like Jed Clampett arriving at the Royal Wedding in his beat up old truck . Coming from a Republican, whose party has engineered what might be one of the largest upward redistribution of wealth, that's already laughable but Mr. Rick seems to be the last man standing who is still driving that rusty jalopy -- the idea that Our president, beset by critics calling him a corporate whore and a sell-out to Wall Street is a radical socialist and perhaps a communist to boot. What Santorum claims to remember is that Obama supported a constitutional amendment to give your money to the poor ( read black people) when what the president really said in a 2001 interview was that the

"Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution. . .”

Essential constraints -- it sounds very little like a man who is deploring those constraints. Indeed when Obama said the court had limited itself to insuring that he could eat at a lunch counter as long as he could afford to pay for his lunch, only a stupid man who thinks other people are even more stupid would interpret, or should I say twist, this as a quote from the Communist Manifesto.

"In the interview, Obama went into extensive detail to explain why the courts should not get into that business of ‘redistributing’ wealth. Obama’s point — and what he called a tragedy — was that legal victories in the civil rights led too many people to rely on the courts to change society for the better. That view is shared by conservative judges and legal scholars across the country."

said Obama spokesman Bill Burton during the 2008 campaign. Certainly no development since then has given credibility to McCain's sad attempt or justification for Santorum's calumnies.

I'm finding it difficult, even without the waves of nausea and loathing, to accept that any candidate could have got as far as Santorum has without being laughed out of town as a cheap, incompetent liar and unscrupulous scoundrel. I can only blame the media ringmasters who continue to provide this charlatan with his own ring in this sad and tawdry circus we call a campaign. Have we forgotten that the purpose of news reporting is to sort truth from rumor, slander and lies? Perhaps we have and it's certainly been a long time since the news was anything but a way for big news corporations and their sponsors to make money. Perhaps we should stop making them richer by occupying Wall Street and start occupying CNN and Fox and the rest instead.

Make this happen

2012-01-13T21:19:00.001-05:00

I wish somebody would invent a machine that could upload a video straight from my brain. Like these two young guys that just walked by in the dark. One was describing the sandwich he just made in intimate detail. Bread could hardly contain its glorious goodness.

Burn Notice

2012-01-13T19:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Anne Laurie for finding Dr. Krugman's new promo poster. Simply perfect.

Click over to see what the good Doctor has to say about big bad Willlard. [Graphic: D.B. Echo at Another Monkey]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

What's wrong with major media in two tweets

2012-01-13T19:09:00.000-05:00

The intertoobz have made great progress in cracking the establishment media's stranglehold on the news cycle. The ranks of the informed grow daily. But we're still a minority and these guys still steer the narrative that drives the underinformed. These are not just isolated tweets. They're representative.

PoliticoRoger: Hey, everybody, I think SC is going to be a game changer and our editors should send is there to eat great meals in Charleston. Pass it on.

EdHenryTV: Boys & girls on bus RT @steveholland1 Romney press bus pulling out of Manchester 4 Mass airport for flite to SC. demolished the hoagies

Sure, there's a bit of drudgery involved, but the perks are great and nobody wants to get kicked off the bus. [graphic: Colours of a dream]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Just the facts. man

2012-01-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm late to the game, so by now you know that NYT's Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane asked a question yesterday that generated a virtual shitstorm of criticism and mockery. I'm not going to add to that. Think I'll just answer the question.

The answer is yes, it's the newpaper's job to challenge lies. One thing I haven't seen mentioned, by definition a fact is a proveable statement. Based on demonstrable reality. Sure, in feeding the insatiable maw of the 24/7 news cycle deadline pressure makes it difficult to immediately fact check every utterance made and editors have become a timid lot in standing up to their critics, but for the love of Perry White, if a prominent person is repeatedly making the same untrue statement, it's not out of bounds to ask for proof.

I mean, using Brisbane's own example of Romney's accusation that Obama has widely apologized for America. Print that he says it. It's news. But at least ask him to provide some concrete examples of said apologies. And if he can't, print that too. In the same article. Around here, we call that context. It's an important part of the story.

Fact checking has become as skewed and partisan as those they purport to check. Truth would be better served if journalists didn't accept every statement on face value and ask for proof of the claims at the time they're made.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Laffer's Ponzi scheme victims are not amused

2012-01-13T11:58:00.000-05:00

In a sane world, this would be the end of Arthur Laffer's influence as an economic pundit. He would be laughed out of town.

HOUSTON (CN) - Fifty-two investors claim fund managers associated with supply-side economist Arthur Laffer took $3.1 million to prop up a Ponzi scheme, then said nothing as their money was "wasted with no reasonable expectation of recovery."

Lead plaintiffs Ronald and Lavonne Ellisor sued David Wallace, Costa Bajjali, and their entities Wallace Bajjali Development Partners LP, Wallace Bajjali Investment Fund II LP, the Laffer Frishberg Wallace Economic Opportunity Fund LP, and Arthur Laffer in Harris County Court.

Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve, an economic theory that says reducing taxes will increase government revenue. He was a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board during the 1980s.

Sadly, we don't live in a sane world anymore, so I suppose nothing bad will happen to him. His spokespeople say he's no longer affiliated with the defendant firm. I expect he ran "laffing" to the bank with his endorsement fees and didn't lose a penny of his own money on the scam.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Predatory capitalism on trial

2012-01-12T18:51:00.000-05:00

Charlie Pierce is right of course, this argument is bigger than Bain. It's about how money has corrupted the system almost beyond repair. And there aren't a lot of ways to fix it.

What's left is 2012. If we wind up with a Republican congress and a Democratic president, that is going to be pretty bad. If we end up with a Republican sweep, that's going to be worse. The mild Dodd-Frank regulations will be swept away. Any attempt to reverse Citizens United through the amendment process will die a'borning. Even if, by some miracle, the Democrats were to wind up with the House, the Senate, and the White House, the chance that the money power will be broken by that development is fairly slim, but it is the only chance that's out there. I've spent a month in the middle of an ongoing hostile corporate takeover of a self-governing republic, an attempt to hijack a country by the same people who nearly wrecked it, and who are hijacking it so that they will never be held accountable for what they did, and so they'll have the opportunity to do it again. This election isn't about the presidency. It's about the power of money in our democracy, and it's about the poison of money in our souls. That's the debate we should be having. That's the debate we should demand

.Yeah, you don't want to hear it's the most important election ever, but really, this time it is. Look at what happened since 2010. This very likely is our last chance.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Right to be worked to death

2012-01-12T13:36:00.001-05:00

Once considered a potential savior for the 2012 GOP hopes, Mitch Daniels gave his final State of the State address. Wondering if he regrets dropping out. Running for president would probably have been easier. The address didn't go that well. Statehouse Dems boycotted the event and the Statehouse was filled with protesters.

The cause: The state's controversial "right to work" legislation. The proposal has bitterly divided Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly. It has galvanized labor union members who see it as a threat, while businesses consider it an economic-development tool.

This was the scene inside the Statehouse.

There's no doubt that "right to work" laws are "business friendly." But now having lived in a right to work state for a few years, I can definitely say it's not worker friendly. Workers have no real recourse to employer abuses and the average wage doesn't begin to support even a meager existence. I've never seen so many working poor that qualify for, and really need, public assistance such as food stamps, just to barely survive.

Addendum: Thanks to Mule Breath for passing on this link from LGM to eyewitness account of "right to work" exploitation in 1958.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Cain

2012-01-12T12:41:00.000-05:00

So, Herman Cain isn't endorsing anyone in the 2012 primary. Am I the only one who thinks that's because they all begged him not to endorse them?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Newt apologizes for speaking truth to the powerless

2012-01-11T17:07:00.000-05:00

Newt apologizes for talking like a Democrat in going after Willard. But that didn't stop the Gingrich campaign from releasing this delicious Web ad today.

They could have taken the script for that straight off TPM's Guide to Mitt-isms. Funny, I was just thinking the night before that it was time to bring back, "Who let the dogs out?"

But the real blockbuster release of the day from Team Newt is the half hour documentary, King of Bain. I was blown away by how well produced it was. Lot of speculation that this kind of oppo is coming out too soon and will lose its effect by November, but I wouldn't be so sure about that. Powerful piece. I think it has staying power.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Williard M. Romney, heir apparent

2012-01-11T13:53:00.002-05:00

To no one's surprise Willard won in New Hampshire last night. Majority consensus among the punderati is he's got the nomination locked up now. Certainly that's what the polls are saying but I'm still holding out hope that the cons can get their act together and disprove the assumptions. Not entirely a pipe dream I think.

While the exit data suggests he got significant support from Northern Tea Party types, Romney hasn't won the hearts of southern cons. If they can agree on a consensus candidate to consolidate the Not-Romney vote, everything could change. Certainly, that's what SC GOP Chair Chad Connelly is saying:

“Our voters are fiercely independent and pretty fickle,” Connelly told me over coffee at a downtown shop brilliantly named Immaculate Consumption. “They watch what happens in Iowa, they watch what happens in New Hampshire. They may take that under advisement kind of thing, but they’re going to make their own decisions.”

Not completely impossible the Palmetto State could surprise us. I mean, they do keep electing that nutcake Senator DeMint. One can dream there's some way to avoid the mind numbing boredom of eight months of Willard as King of the GOP Swill.

Meanwhile, if you want the lowdown on last night's festivities in the Granite State, I didn't pay much attention, so go read Charlie Pierce's account. In fact go read everything on his blog and his hilarious tweets at his new twitter account.

[Graphic by Donkey Hotey]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Happy Blogiversary John Cole

2012-01-11T11:57:00.000-05:00

Balloon Juice turned 10 years old a few days ago. In blog years, that's like a century or two. Believe I've been reading it for about nine of those years and enjoyed every minute, even when the owner was a raving Bush/war supporter. Even when I disagreed with him, I found him to be thoughtful and honest, a rare trait in right wing bloggers. Nobody on the internets quite like John Cole. Really glad he's on our side now.

Happy Blogiversary John. Here's to the next ten years...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

That Vatican Rag

2012-01-11T11:17:00.001-05:00

By Capt. Fogg

People have argued that Science is just another kind of faith, or at least another but equally valid way of telling truth from fiction; establishing fact from a confusing universe. I suppose that Pope Benedict would be suggesting such a 'fair and balanced' approach by suggesting that same sex marriage would be a "threat to the future of humanity itself."

I would argue that science is the best method we have of keeping our beliefs honest by constant examination of the data -- and that data as concerns the cohabitation of couples, or triples for that matter does not in any way suggest that the Holy Father's predictions are based on what happens in this world when such things are not prohibited by law or even custom.

“This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself,”

he said to some 180 diplomats at the Vatican yesterday. The education of children needs proper “settings” and “pride of place goes to the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman.” I'm not quite sure that personal pride in being traditional and obedient to dogma constitutes justification for regulating private life in a free society, but then a free society is the definition of a heretical society and it wasn't long ago that Catholics were threatened with excommunication for voting for political leaders. I'm sure the rationalization for that was much the same farrago of gold embroidered, incense scented rubbish as was the persecution of Galileo and the scientists of the Renaissance -- to cite the less egregious examples.

The fact is, that children raised by gay couples can't be shown to have turned out as Benedict predicts and since gay people have been around since the dawn of humanity and a bit before -- and long before the shaman, that oldest of professions, told them they were evil -- we can assume that human dignity hasn't been much affected. The indignities of the Crusades and Inquisitions and centuries of war and tyranny might have done some harm, but I won't go into that here.

As I said, science rejects propositions, predictions and proclamations that do not produce the results claimed. I might suggest Mein Herr, that there's a bit of egg on your face and blood on your robes from trying to stifle that heresy with force of arms, torture and murder, but so far, nothing you or your predecessors have predicted has ever been demonstrated to be the truth. So how long caro padre, will you go on predicting that if we do A, then B will happen, because we've been doing A for a hell of a long time and there's no sign of you being right so far.

Iranian nuclear scientists an endangered species

2012-01-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

Reads like the plot of a crime show. An Iranian nuclear scientist was murdered when a couple of guys drove by and attached magnetic bombs to his car.

Iran blames Israel and the United States. As Atrios said, I have no idea who did it and would also suggest it's not a nice thing to do. But I also have to admit my first thought was, anybody know where Glenn Reynolds was at the time?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Let me call you sweetheart

2012-01-10T11:54:00.000-05:00

Unlike most of the commentators on the intertoobz today, I don't think Chris Christie was making a sexual reference when he told a female protester, “You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart.” Those of us of certain age remember when the term "going down" meant mere failure or abject defeat. Or an airplane crash, but that's only common usage among us old aerophiles.

In any case, whether he meant it sexually or not isn't the important point. Everybody knows Christie is a self-absorbed, foul mouthed gasbag. Indeed that's a big part of his appeal to his fans. My concern is how much the crowd loved it.

Look at those people. The fans adore him. They're cheering with approval and admiration. They find it hilarious and validating. Their favorite pompous gas bag showed those dirty fking hippie chicks who their daddy is. He's giving voice to what they they think but are afraid to say out loud themselves. I fear the protesters are doing Christie a favor by providing him a foil for his bullshit bombast.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Tweeting Rupert Murdoch

2012-01-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

The twitter tells me rupertmurdoch is a verified account. Not sure I believe it. I'm relatively convinced it's a parody. If it's real I don't think it's really Rupert. Maybe it's his son who had to resign because of the eavesdropping scandal. Or some paid Tweeter he hired to make himself look cool.

I don't know. Could be some kid in Topeka, Kansas who figured out how to scam Twitter. Guess I don't care. It's amusing. But just in case it's real, every once in a while, I tweet back.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Romney likes firing people

2012-01-09T18:35:00.002-05:00

Much hilarity on the internets today, along with the mandatory disclaimers about context, over Willard's latest foot in mouth striving for populist appeal. I'd argue the context doesn't matter. Willard "Mittens" Romney does like firing people. He said the words. That happened. Doesn't matter if he's talking about corporate persons or real people. He likes to fire them. Just another Freudian slip on the GOP fail trail.

"I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep you healthy. It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you could fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone isn’t giving the good service, I want to say, I’m going to go get someone else to provide this service to me."

Lots of speculation about how it will play with the voters and what the other campaigns might do with it. If it had happened in September I'd say it could be exactly the kind of weird litle slip that might sink his election. This early in the silly season, I expect it will be overshadowed soon enough by the next tone deaf utterance he spits out.

Of more importance to me is how absurd the entire statement is, in context. It's not so easy to fire a health insurance company. If you get your insurance through work, you don't really have a choice. If you're a single payer, and also have a pre-existing conditon, you don't have a choice either. Not if the GOPers realize their dream of abolishing the protections in the so-called ObamaCare. And even if you did have a choice, it's not like there's some great abundance of benevolent health care insurers just waiting for you to choose them so they can fulfill their lifelong dream of taking really good care of you. They're all in the same business. That being to turn a profit by denying you treatment when you need it the most.

Bi-partisan support for Obama

2012-01-09T11:10:00.001-05:00

Under the Willard Romney rules for using out of context quotes in campaign ads, by rights, Team Obama should air this on a continuous loop. They won't, and it's clearly marked as a fake ad, but nonetheless it deserves to be widely disseminated if only for the great production values.

You'll recall this a play off McCain's Freudian slip the other night. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long to be produced. Internets are usually quicker on the draw. [Via Anne Laurie]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Thanks for the oppo Newt

2012-01-09T10:45:00.001-05:00

This video will be making the rounds, and is well worth archiving everywhere. Newt Gingrich may be down in the polls, but he's got a bucket of money left and by Gawd, he's going to use it to mess Romney up. This trailer from a longer documentary purchased by Newt's SuperPAC could have produced by a Democratic oppo shop.

Some debate at the link over whether Josh rightly characterizes it as SwiftBoatian since technically, swift boating is based on lies and this video pretty much tells the truth. Leaving the semantics aside, I love it. Makes me hope Newt stays in the race for a very long time.

Addendum: Steve M. thinks this will help Willard more than it hurts him. Point well taken that the hard core base inexplicably and fiercely supports the capitalist vultures who are robbing them but not so sure this won't play well with the swing voters. Noticing even among the staunch conservatives that cross my radar, there are grumblings about too much money in politics and politicians who are bought off by the big money boys. It could work to Newt's benefit. And besides, what has he got to lose by trying?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Inner Santorum

2012-01-08T14:35:00.000-05:00

If I knew how to use photoshop I would spend my time thinking up stuff like this brilliant mashup. It's amazing how perfectly Rick Santorum quotes match up with classic New Yorker cartoons. This was one of my favorites.

Lots more here. Read them all.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Bye Bye Buchanan

2012-01-08T11:47:00.001-05:00

Heard the news last night and still smiling about it this morning. Don't think anything made me this happy since the moment I watched George W. Bush board that helicopter and leave the White House for the last time. Just hope this isn't some kind of cruel fakeout and MSNBC is really firing Pat Buchanan as a political bloviator. This quote does give me some hope:

"When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn't think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC," said MSNBC President Phil Griffin.

Of course, Unka Pat says nothing new in his new book, "Suicide of a Superpower." It's the same racist, anti-Semitic crap he's been spewing on the air for years. So I guess that's probably not the real reason MSNBC is cutting him loose. Certainly it's not really to please liberals and progressives who have been howling Pat should be fired for just about forever. And they're still giving Morning Joke his three hours every day, though intriguingly it appears Joe Scar was investigating jumping ship on his own.

Meanwhile, "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski acknowledged at a news conference Saturday that they considered offers from other networks in recent months, including CBS, which is launching a new morning show on Monday. Former "Morning Joe" producer Chris Licht is producing the new CBS show.

Sadly, that is not to be:

Scarborough said they concluded that they couldn't duplicate their show on broadcast television, specifically the lengthy interviews.

I suspect the real reason is they gave him and Mika a big pot of money to stay on. While the morning jokester is as bad as Buchanan in many ways, liberals still love to hate him and keep masochistically watching his show. Never going to get rid of him unless and until his ratings go down.

But hey, I'm not greedy. Willing to settle for seeing Unka Pat sent into exile at last. Even this slight dredging of the celebrity media cesspool is a reason to celebrate. [graphic: Crooks & Liars]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Debate prep

2012-01-07T20:49:00.000-05:00

Lot of people very excited about tonight's GOP debate. Not sure I'll make it through the whole thing, not unless it lives up to the hype. In any event, this tweet of day sums up the anticipation:

In honor of tonight's GOP debate in New Hampshire, the state has changed it's motto to "Live Free or Die Laughing." ~ FrankTheDoorman

Personally I think tomorrow's debate at 9:00 a.m. is more likely to be the one that's really fun. Figure they'll be tired, cranky and cranked up by then for sure. [Via Misha44]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Al Gore is fat and rides in a jet

2012-01-07T13:11:00.000-05:00

In case you've been sleeping in a cave in the Catskills for the last 20 years, the title of this post refers to the customary response of climate change denialists when confronted with the realities of climate disruption and global warming. Easy enough to maintain denial for the wilfully blind I guess, but for those who leave at sea level, it has come to this. Government of the Maldives has a resettlement plan for its entire population. Put up enough money to resettle all 350,000 of its residents.

In related news, weirdly warm all across the US.

Fueled by billions of tons of greenhouse pollution, a surge of record warmth has flooded the United States, shattering records from southern California to North Dakota. “Temperatures have reached up to 40 degrees above early January averages in North Dakota,” the Weather Channel reports. Cities are seeing late-April temperatures at the start of January — Minot, ND hit 61 degrees, Aberdeen, SD hit 63 degrees, and Williston, ND hit 58 degrees, all-time record highs for the month of January. [...]

Although this heat is welcome to schoolchildren, this breakdown of normal seasons threatens serious economic disruption. The total lack of snowcover in the Dakotas means that wildland fires are much more likely. The seasonally cold air following this surge of heat will severely damage the winter crops that are usually protected by at least 3 inches of snow at this time of year.

But Al Gore is fat, so, no worries, right? [graphic credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Behind every great man...

2012-01-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

Everybody is buzzing about Jodi Kantor's new book about the Obamas. Not unexpected. I mean, who doesn't love insider gossip about famous people? Interesting range of reactions to the excerpts about Michelle Obama in the NYT. Lot of people seem to be taking it as a slam on the FLOTUS, or on POTUS, or on both. Or on Democratic presidents and their wives.

I'm with John Cole on this one. I thought Michelle came off looking impressive. Shorter version: FLOTUS is a very smart, very strong woman with a clear-eyed perspective and good political instincts who fiercely supports and protects her husband's legacy while establishing her own separate identity. Also, nobody gets along with, or particularly likes, Rahm. But we all knew that already.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

GOP Debate preview: Number Too Many To Bear

2012-01-06T19:01:00.000-05:00

I hesitate to link to this because I want Frothy Santorum to win. I can't think of an opponent I'd want more for the general. But since it's already out there, and I think he's right, here's Charles P. Pierce's predictions for the next episode of GOP Gladiators. I'm afraid he's right. There will be blood. We're heading into the apocalyptic phase on the story board.

But the other thing Charlie's post reminded me of was how damn lucrative the wingnut welfare system is. And so easy. 1: Memorize script. 2: Repeat script 3: Profit. Handsomely.

Reminds me of the time back in the dark ages of blogging when someone, maybe it was Jesse at Pandagon, organized a "blog like a right winger day." We spent the entire day just linking to each other on the same catch phrase. Nobody actually said anything of substance. I dare say not much has changed in the Wingtopians M.O. since then.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

McCain's Freudian slip

2012-01-06T17:28:00.000-05:00

I usually ignore these momentary mental lapses because hell, they can happen to anybody. I might confess to having a few myself. But this one is very funny. McCain, on the stump for Romney this week, forgets which candidate he's supporting.

Admit, it crossed my mind that McCain may secretly be hoping Romney tanks. In fact, I've been wondering why McCain is on the stump for Willard at all. Quite a bit of bad blood between them from the last time around. Figure he must be hoping for a Cabinet appointment. Maybe Secretary of Defense? [Via TPM]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Not just that river in Egypt - Updated

2012-01-06T14:35:00.001-05:00

Always love when this happens. Actual journalism committed by the AP guy following Willard Romney who calls him out on a lie. Willard calls a technical foul, insisting, "Lobbyists don't run my campaign." Which the now disgraced Politifact would no doubt call true, since the lobbyists who run with Willard aren't actually called the campaign managers. They're just advisors insists the chameleon candidate. No way they're influencing his platform in favor of any darn special interests.

Love Willard's strategy here. Same one I used when my mother's friend called her up and ratted me out for smoking cigarettes when I was 14 years old. Repeated vehement denial worked rather well that time, well, along with the suggestion that her friend was just jealous that mom had such an accomplished daughter.

Also have to love how well Willard does with the retail politicking at the end. Notice how he practically knocks down his supporter in his rush to confront AP Glenn? But the biggest take away is Willie's handler berating Glenn for arguing with the candidate. So unprofessional for a reporter to ask rude questions and worse, to expect honest answers. Sadly, the handler is correct. That is not the way the game is played if you expect to keep your seat on the bus, or in Willard's case, on the luxury jet.

[Via jurassicpork who is on a run of bad luck and could use a couple of bucks if you can spare it.]

Update: Posted this vid at Detroit News also where a commenter informed me it was from the 2008 election. Wasn't clear from the new upload, though not much had changed since then. Romney still relies on pure mendacity to fool the rubes and his advisory team is still full of insiders and worse, like the old guard PNAC neo-cons. Bit depressing that this wasn't harking a new mindset for journalists. I see Glenn has now moved over to the Boston Globe.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Everything changes

2012-01-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

Nothing to do with politics. I watched this yesterday and it's still haunting me so I'm sharing it across my various social platforms. Guy has a art project. Takes one self protrait photo a day. He keeps it going for years. By the end, the change is profound, a little sad, but somehow inspiring. Watch it to the end.

Direct link to video.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

A good day for liberals

2012-01-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday got away from me. I was so enjoying living the rare moment of lefty comity that I didn't get around to writing anything about it. Nothing like a feisty recess appointment or two by our POTUS to cheer liberals up, at least for a day. At the moment, still feeling pretty foggy with this cursed cold so while I work at clearing my head, TPM's The Day in 100 Seconds illustrates up why I stopped watching cable news and sums up the more fun moments of yesterday.

I understand TPM is going to be resurrecting this as a regular feature. Glad to see it back.

Iowa Caucus - a Defense of Mediocrity

2012-01-04T10:14:00.001-05:00

By Capt. Fogg

"Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"

-Roman Hruska-

_________________________

So the Iowa caucusoids can't really decide between Stepford Candidate Mitt who will say anything to ingratiate and hopes you have no memory, or Ricky Santorum, the subatomic particle with less mass than a neutrino. As of this morning there is only an 8 vote difference between the two and CNN.com is portraying Santorum's loss as a victory. If there's anything interesting at all, or any inference to be drawn from this contest, it's that relatively moderate Jon Huntsman might have been better off joining another party entirely. Rarely has any contestant gone so unnoticed, lost in the glare of idiocy, mendacity and derangement.

This race seems to have nothing to do with qualifications in terms of character, experience, education or cognitive function: it's more about seducing the stupid, the ignorant and the marginal people, enraged because they are marginal. As a non-Republican, my preference in what is essentially a tie would be Santorum -- and of course any other connoisseur of circus freak shows would look forward with gleeful anticipation to watching that raving idiot contend with his Democratic opponent's measured words.

Does the Iowa Caucus really mean anything? I think it does. It means, for one thing, that the word Conservative means no more than it did when Senator Hruska tried to sell mediocrity as a virtue to get G. Harrold Carswell appointed to the Supreme Court and get us to overlook his distaste for Women's rights and his support for segregation (and perhaps the aggressive homosexual proclivities that landed him in jail and the hospital on several occasions.)

No, Romney isn't that bad and Santorum may not be either but I have to suspect that somewhere, some wax museum is missing a dummy and some circus side show is missing a freak.

Attention sky watchers

2012-01-03T16:12:00.000-05:00

I don't believe I've heard of this one before, but they're promising The Quadrantid meteor shower is likely to produce up to 100 falling stars an hour, between 3 to 5 a.m. this morning. Still feeling kind of crummy but thinking I'll go to bed early and try to wake up to check it out and see if can see it from here. Supposed to be visible all over North America.

Don't give a flying leap

2012-01-03T14:17:00.000-05:00

I'm so bored with the GOP clown car. I honestly don't care anymore what happens in Iowa. But just for fun, I'll make an off the wall prediction on the results of the Iowa caucus. Frothy Santorum wins. Willard second with Ron Paul a close third. Perhaps even close enough to tie for second. And Perry will beat Newt. None of which the polling is predicting. So it will be fun if I'm right. Won't care if I'm not.

Addendum: Just after I posted this in the Balloon Juice comments this morning, Nate Silver tweeted that this is one time he would bet against his own model. Which predicts Romney winning. He likes Frothy's odds and something, something about the relation to the in-trade money. So there's that...

Fear and Loathing in 2012

2012-01-02T11:44:00.000-05:00

by Capt. Fogg

the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

-Plato-

At a New Year's Day Yacht Club brunch yesterday, I suggested to a newly thin friend worried about overeating at the bulging buffet, that we declare January 1st as a National Who Gives a Shit day. We need a break from all this fear and loathing and self flagellation.

For my part, I'm chronically worried about things far more dire than gaining a few pounds; things like a Napoleonic Republican in the White House again, the deliberate collapse of the world economy for the benefit of a few oligarchs, plutocrats and other assorted brigands -- and of course the coming Zombie Apocalypse, the Mayan Catastrophe and the end of an error prophesied on all those bumper stickers.

Of course there are many other things to be depressed about and most of them, unlike that Zombie thing, can't readily be dealt with by stockpiling ammunition. But we need a break from all the apocalyptic insanity, the hate commercials all over the TV with Mike Huckabee howling last night about how Romney's health care plan was "stuffed down our throats" ( by a large majority of voters) even though Obama was elected largely on the promise of health care reform. We need a break from having our basic fundamental liberties torn from us by small minded big mouth authoritarian radicals like Vaneta Becker, the Republican State Senator from Indiana who wants to make it illegal to sing our National Anthem "inappropriately," the constitution and all that freedom we're told isn't free, be damned -- at least in Indiana.

Oh say can you see, our boot on your face -- would that be inappropriate? Now which third world countries can we invade to protect her freedom to sanctify the trappings and rituals of Chauvinistic self worship while rebelling against any government power other than the power to crush the people?

No, I'm afraid National Who Gives a Shit Day barely made it past those chocolate truffles I couldn't resist last night and all those Happy New Year wishes have already turned to ashes with my first glimpse of today's news. It's the same old madness we had two days ago, the same inconsistent, persistent, self-negating rhetoric, the same greedy, angry, irrational revenge-seeking of the idiot mob. Who can worry about brain eating zombies or rampaging Jesus with a flame thrower or Kenyan Kommunists stuffing civilization down our throats when that great slithering thing we call the media are stuffing insanity into every orifice; howling like some Lovecraftian horror from every high place, importuning us from every telephone, billboard and car bumper that obedience is freedom and civilization is tyranny - that prosperity comes from doing what always leads to catastrophe.

For those of us not about to die, or at least not to die immediately, it's January 2nd and I give a shit. I'm fed up with being told that rational discord with marauding barbarians will lead to understanding and progress, that authoritarians will become tolerant of freedom if only we show them respect and exercise patient restraint and all the ancient evils mankind has perpetuated and treasured and nurtured will somehow wither away if we're polite and sincere.

If it is true that fighting monsters brings the risk of becoming one, it is also true that not fighting them, being quiet and polite and respectful toward mad moralizers and authoritarians and fear mongers and every snark-snarling witless witling posing as a philosopher carries the bigger risk. It's time to stop pretending we're on some fence between one reasonable place and another. We're not.

Last look back at 2011

2012-01-02T09:27:00.000-05:00

Sure, there's no way they could cover everything in that time frame, and think they should have done 111 seconds, but still a good review of 2011 via Anne Laurie

It's pretty funny, but when you consider this is our ruling class, a little depressing. On a happier note, Dan has the best music of 2011. A very eclectic list of lesser known artists. Get there quick. He takes it down after a week.

Don't care anymore

2012-01-01T14:28:00.000-05:00

Maybe it's just because I'm still so sick, but I'm burned out on the Iowa caucuses. I mean, does it really matter who wins there? Not feeling it. And while I'm bitching about politics, I'm tired of the endless internet spats on the left. Sick of the perpetual outrage and mean spirited sniping. I'll probably get over it once I feel better, but today:

Auld Lang Syne 2011

2011-12-31T23:40:00.001-05:00

It's been a long strange year. Goodbye to all that.

Here's to 2012. Hoping 2012 brings better times for everyone.

Time waits for no one

2011-12-31T19:37:00.000-05:00

Well it appears I'll be turning the year feeling miserably ill, so no deep year end thoughts for me. Neither am I likely to make it to midnight since I just broke out the brandy to ease my tortured throat. Which is helping by the way. But I still have lots of saved links, so here's some the best of the year end reviews I've seen.

You can tell a lot about a GOP candidate from where they choose to live. Houses of the Hopefuls.

A rare photo journey inside North Korea.

Loved Stanley Kubrick's photos of New York.

Pete Souza's official White House 2011 gallery.

The Occupy Movement in 50 pictures.

Salon's media hack list of 2011.

An awesome movie mash-up that uses scences from something like 253 movies.

And best of all. The year in Lego.

Happy New Year's Eve. Don't drink and drive.

To the moon Alice...

2011-12-31T18:00:00.000-05:00

Been a while since I revisited my Chris Christie conspiracy theory. Don't underestimate him. Even if he just ends up as the VP, he's a dangerous opponent. He's the Ralph Kramden of politics. Here he is stumping for Romney, Jersey style.

“If you don’t do what you’re supposed to do for Mitt Romney on Tuesday,” Christie said, defiant in only a suit jacket against the biting cold and wind-whipped rain, “I will be back, Jersey-style, people. I will be back.”

I understand it was clear he was joking. But joking or not, that bully schtick sells to the swing voters. Suspect there's a lot of Jersey Shore fans in that demo. And he really is Gleasonesque. Hell, he even looks a little like Jackie. That could win over the elderly vote who still remember, and maybe somewhat long for, the days of The Honeymooners.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Taking our country back

2011-12-30T19:28:00.000-05:00

If I wasn't so sick that I'm ready to fling myself off this mortal coil rather than live another minute feeling this horrible, I might have written something like this. Well, actually, that's not true. I'll never be one tenth the writer as Charles P. Pierce. But he speaks of the same sort of thoughts that keep me up at night in his year's end reflections. This is just the closer.

It is a dead-level time for us as a people. There are now 146 million Americans who are ranked as "low-income" or "poor." Somebody really should do something about that. How we treat them in our politics is going to be the ultimate test of our moral credibility as a nation. Do we treat this situation as the national disgrace that it is, and commit ourselves as a nation to eliminating it? Or do we turn away from them, blame them for the malaise we feel in our lives, and drink deeply again from the supply-side, trickle-down snake oil? Do we look at the president — a Democratic president — and scream that this is no longer tolerable to us as a people? Or do we nod sagely and deplore the lack of civility and bipartisan cooperation in our government and hope that cooler heads will prevail, that the great national purpose of our age is to deprive ourselves further of what was supposed to be the promise of the country in the vague and futile hope that somehow, somewhere, things will get better down the line?

The moral act is to scream.

If you read nothing else this weekend. Read this in its entirety.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Living large on Wall Street

2011-12-30T11:37:00.001-05:00

Nothing the white collar criminal class does here is against the law. It should be but it won't ever change as long as our political elites protect the banksters' perks. Like this cozy little scam:

The stock market’s rebound from the financial crisis three years ago has created a potential windfall for hundreds of executives who were granted unusually large packages of stock options shortly after the market collapsed.

Now, the corporations that gave those generous awards are beginning to benefit, too, in the form of tax savings.

Thanks to a quirk in tax law, companies can claim a tax deduction in future years that is much bigger than the value of the stock options when they were granted to executives. This tax break will deprive the federal government of tens of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade. And it is one of the many obscure provisions buried in the tax code that together enable most American companies to pay far less than the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent — in some cases, virtually nothing even in very profitable years.

So in other words, when the market crashed, the execs got mega stock options at a low price. Market recovers, they get to buy the revalued stocks at a bargain basement rate and the companies get a huge tax write off for the enhanced compensation. Which robs the national treasury of their tax revenue. Little taxpayers are effectively subsidizing executive payoffs, which are already astronomically high.

Yet the answer our political elites come up with every time to "help" the little guy is to throw more free money into the insatiable maw of the banksters and pay for it by making "sadly necessary" sacrifices in social programs for the poor and middle class. But please don't complain about it. It hurts their feelings.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Cats and Fairies

2011-12-30T09:20:00.000-05:00

Denial is no longer possible. I do indeed have a miserable cold in my head. So while I want for my brain to defog, here's a few more links I've been saving.

Love this story. Meet Artful Dodger, a "ginger moggy" who lives in England and has a taste for bus travel.

Sort of related, the 20 most important cats of 2011. A collection of the most viral cats gone cute youtubes.

Giving the the entire animal kingdom its due, Incredible animal photos of 2011.

And not to forget man's best friend. This is old I think, but it still made me smile all over again. All dogs go to heaven.

And oh yeah, the fairies. A Flickr gallery of a really nice Fairytale mural.

Too high a price for dirty oil

2011-12-29T15:57:00.000-05:00

I'm late to the game on the Keystone XL pipeline, having only recently caught up on what's going on. Having now studied the details, it's clearly not a project I could support. Yet I see it does have majority support in the polling. I suppose it's because the proponents are inflating the number of jobs the pipeline might create and minimizing the horrific damage a pipeline break could cause. Wondering why anyone believes a 2,000 mile pipeline bisecting the entire U.S., partly routed over a critical watershed and an active seismic fault line is ever a good idea.

I have a longer post at Detroit News on this multi-billion dollar folly but I do want to repost the photo that brings it into focus. I've never seen an extraction site before.

Looks even worse than the deforestation of the Amazon. It's like taking three quarter of million acres of the Shire and turning it into Mordor. Disgraceful. Really hoping the GOPers ransom demand on the authorization forces Obama to cancel the whole damn thing.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Rove predicts through rose colored glasses

2011-12-29T11:34:00.001-05:00

People often tell me that Rove is over-rated as a political operative but my philosophy is don't ever take you eyes off a snake, even if it looks like it's sleeping. Granted, Karl's recent tweeting blitz of failed talking points smells of fear and desperation, as do his predictions in this op-ed in WSJ. He does make one valid and honest point though:

Groups like American Crossroads (which I helped found) will narrow the Democratic money advantage.

Otherwise, shorter op-ed: This is my wish list and I'm counting on my high priced, stealth smear ad campaign to make it come true.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Jon Swift: Gone but not forgotten

2011-12-28T16:21:00.001-05:00

There have been many times since his sudden death that I wished Al Weisel, a/k/a Jon Swift, was still with us to decipher the conservative narratives with his inimitable brand of gentle satire. In a world where gut-busting snark now rules the internets, I miss Al's subtle and oh so polite evisceration of Wingnuttia; so skillfully rendered that first time readers often thought he was a sovereign citizen of Wingnutistan himself.

But Al under his Swiftian persona was a real liberal and a true friend to the small bloggers of what was then known as Leftopia. His kind encouragement and generous linking policy inspired many B-Z listers to keep posting. Myself included.

Every year at this time he would undertake the Herculean task of publishing a huge "best post of the year list." He invited everyone to contribute. Sure you had to pick your own best post, but he assembled the list, embedded the links and promoted the post, sending much appreciated traffic spikes to those who rarely saw them.

But while Al Weisel is sadly lost to us, a million thanks to Batocchio, the Vagabond Scholar for keeping the spirit of our dear friend alive by continuing the tradition with the Jon Swift Memorial Round-up. I, for reasons too complicated to explain, unfortunately missed the deadline, but there's a wealth of fabulous posts at the link. Some names you'll recognize, and some you probably won't. But read them all. Jon would have wanted it that way.

Via the incomparable Lance Mannion who got inside my head this week. This virtual world, that was once called the blogosphere has changed so much since the days we started this crazy blogging thing. His thoughts on twitter fatigue mirror my own. Everything changes. [graphic credit]

They're all BoBos on this bus

2011-12-28T15:09:00.000-05:00

It's Charles P. Pierce's birthday today, which I discovered by chance in a rare perusal of the comments. But that's not why I'm giving him quote of the day. It's because he summed up in one sentence why I stopped reading David Brooks so many years ago:

I think David Brooks belongs in a cage.

I have nothing to add to that, however, our estimable blogging hero has much more to say on the subject of Mr. Brooks "to-the-manor-born sociopathy" along with his usual delicious roasting of Brooks' fellow sociopaths. So, you know what to do

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

GOP applause lines

2011-12-28T13:48:00.000-05:00

This isn't the only troublesome talking point audiences cheer as the GOP's Carnival of Clowns tour through Iowa but Rick Perry delivers the funniest applause line of the silly season, so far.

“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don’t have to buy from a foreign source,” Mr. Perry said in Clarinda, earning a loud round of enthusiastic applause.

OK, so maybe those furriners up north aren't so threatening because they're mostly white folks and mostly speak English, so it's not really like a foreign country. Not like those evil furriners on the south border who don't even understand our language and refuse to learn to speak Amurkin at all. But it wasn't that long ago this same crowd was all hyped up about the existential threat of the imaginary NAFTA Superhighway which was going to destroy our sovereignty and create a North American government allowing them there Mexicans free passage all over our great land. A grave concern that still hadn't completely died as late as last year.

Back in those days, current Iowa frontrunner, Ron Paul warned Rick Perry was a mastermind of this heinous plot as evidenced by Perry's unrelenting support for the southern end of this behemoth roadway to hell, namely the Trans-Texas Corridor. But now they cheer a transcontinental pipeline that was an integral part of the NAFTA Superhighway blueprint? Gotta love those kooky cons.

But maybe all is forgiven because Perry pledged to ignore Supreme Court decisions that conflict with the social conservative agenda. Just as any God-fearin "strict constitutionalist" would do.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Don't let the door hit you...

2011-12-27T20:04:00.001-05:00

Big news of the day, Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Turncoat), has decided to retire and spend more time making money. OK. That's not what he said but I give him a month or less after he leaves office before he takes a K Street address. Willing to wager he already has something lined up. And a SOB to the end, he waited until after the party sank a cool million into protecting his seat. DSCC got snookered.

I'm not shedding any tears over it. Yes, I get the concern about the risk to the Senate majority, but so what? I've long contended electing so-called centrist Dems who vote with Republicans does more harm than good to the Democratic brand. I'm not persuaded it's worth it just because Nelson voted Dem on the big final votes. He also voted with Republicans on crucial early votes, to water down those bills to near worthlessness. He may well still be to the left of the GOP, but only barely. He gave them a lot of "bi-partisan" cover. Might as well just cede the seat to a GOPer. Make the Republicans own their bogus policy prescriptions. [Graphic via expatyourself.com]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

It ain't over til it's over

2011-12-27T18:23:00.001-05:00

Lot of people buzzing about this Team Newt Holiday Video. Granted it is weird. But weirdest campaign video ever? Maybe weirdest of the day but in my book, this is still the all time winner:

And speaking of McCain, the twitter machine reminds me:

Nation Hahn: Things can change. RT: @debitking: On this day in 2007, John McCain was still in 4th place in the polls. #campaignfacts

Related thought: Newt moved to the top of the Ohio polls.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Congressional wealth rises as Americans founder

2011-12-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

In case anyone was still wondering why our political class can't seem to grasp the debilitating effects of poverty, it's no great mystery. It's wealth disparity, of course. But it is a bit surprising to see how wide the wealth gap between the pols and their constituents has grown.

Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity.

Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.

The comparisons exclude home equity because it is not included in congressional reporting, and 1984 was chosen because it is the earliest year for which consistent wealth statistics are available.

If they did include home equity, no doubt the gap would be much greater. But it's not just the wealth, it's the disparity between the life experience. Few of our current political overlords, who talk about making hard choices on austerity cuts, have faced the real tough choices of the poor. Whether to get their kid a badly needed new pair of shoes, or pay a utility bill. Between heat and a doctor's visit. Between food and medications. Wondering how long they can ignore that odd noise the car is making before the engine breaks down.

This is why I find it so infuriating to hear the privileged class rail about "entitlements" for the poor and near poor. They have no idea how hard it is to live within the uncertainty of poverty. Like everything in life, if you haven't experienced it yourself, you just can't really imagine what it's like. And for those few who may have actually grown up poor, once you leave poverty behind, it's not easy to retain experiential empathy. A fat wad of money in the pocket now has a way of dimming memories of past deprivations. [Photo credit: People wait in line to receive free milk in New York City.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Undecided in Iowa

2011-12-26T16:53:00.000-05:00

Having enjoyed the status of "America’s sober, decisive First Voters" for decades, Iowa Republicans are now riding a rollercoaster of indecision in trying to choose from a dismal slate of GOP 2012 hopefuls. They fall in and out of love with their candidates with the speed of a Kardashian. WaPo interviews a few confused Iowans and concludes they can't decide whether to go for ideological purity or electability. I think it's a little more complicated than that.

For one thing, almost half of them get their information from Fox "News". To the extent that they're internet savvy, they apparently rely on far fringe right wing websites and viral emails to form their opinions. And those Iowans who don't go on-line, are missing being personally wooed by the primary candidates.

As one local Iowa official laments:

"We just haven't had as much face time," Republican chairwoman Trudy Caviness in Wapello County said. "That's why we're so undecided."

Indeed, the GOP hopefuls "have barely visited the state." There's a number of reasons for this that I laid out in a longer post at the Detroit News.

The short version is retail politics have changed. The old maxim about all politics being local isn't true anymore. National campaigns are mostly embracing the 50 state strategy now. They can't tailor their messaging to specific audiences because there's a million "citizen journalists" with cell phones just waiting to create a viral video out of even the smallest discrepancy in their talking points. Big media will give them free exposure for any campaign generated messaging with national appeal. And thanks to Citizen United spending, outside interests can tailor the devious attack ads without candidate accountability, which changed their overall campaign tactics.

I suspect we're witnessing the waning days of Iowa's influence on presidential politics. Personally, I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. [graphic via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Christmas Links

2011-12-25T13:52:00.001-05:00

Don't feel like blogging politics today so have some Christmas themed links:

Only a really old Jewish guy from New York could find just the right Christmas music. Porky Pig does Blue Christmas and a very nice cover of We Three Kings by an obscure band.

They do Christmas better in Europe. Baby Jesus' Grog House.

On more traditional note, I've yet to actually make one of these, but I do love me some gingerbread houses.

A little late but I also love advent calendars. This one looks like a recycled version of a classic as I recall them. And for a modern twist the Hubble Space telescope calendar.

Indulging my love of the Big Apple. Stars out in NYC and an Empire state of Christmas.

No white Christmas here but if I win the mega-millions, I'd go see these giant snow sculptures in China.

And this one could come in handy for your New Year's parties. Love these black olive penguins.

Merry day my cherished friends and readers. My Christmas wish for you all is that joy fill your heart and peace of mind finds you today and every day thereafter.

Gracious. Almost forgot to include Avedon's annual Christmas post. My favorite. of course, is Christmas greetings from Middle Earth and this treasure trove of Christmas graphics may also amuse the history buffs.

[Big thanks to Hudsonette for many of the photo links.]

Blue Christmas

2011-12-25T12:04:00.000-05:00

I've seen many a White Christmas in my life and loved them all, but at this point I would be more than okay with waking up on December 25th and having a blue Christmas like this one.

Throw some Christmas lights on the palm tree and pass the umbrella drinks. Photo credit: National Geographic contest winner, In the Philippines.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T22:15:00.000-05:00

Hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas Eve. I've been at consecutive Christmas parties since noon. Just got home. So sorry, still no blogging tonight. Need to use my remaining energy for digestion.

Merry Christmas. I cherish you all.

A Christmas Story

2011-12-24T12:35:00.002-05:00

By Capt. Fogg

I'd describe her as a sweet little old lady except for the nearness of our vintages, but she's barely five feet tall and fragile. We'd been talking about the Kindle e-book reader and she had asked if I'd read Bill O'Reilly's book on Lincoln.

"Umm. . ." I said, stalling for time.

I remember not long ago having shocked her, and the entire dinner table for that matter by expressing distaste for Glenn Beck as a reliable source of information and I really try to be polite to nice people but I settled on:

"Well, I'm not a big fan of his."

" Really?"

" Yeah, I think he tends to make things up or tell us things he gets from rumor and web sites without verifying them, but I think that's true of Fox in general. I remember the first time I listened to him years ago, but maybe it was Hannity. I get them confused sometimes because I never watch Fox."

The look of astonishment still had not faded.

"But anyway, he was going on and on about how the PC Liberals had banned Christmas lights in -- I think it was Muskegon Michigan -- or wearing red and green clothing on Christmas -- and of course it was immediately checked by another network and it wasn't and of course it was a surprise to the mayor who had never heard of the whole thing -- and of course Fox never hinted that it had been caught in a lie."

Well here I go, I've lost another friend, I thought, but actually she was smiling.

"You know my son says the same thing about Fox: 'they make up stories mom, don't watch them.' "

"Well he must be a brilliant guy if he agrees with me," I said a bit relieved.

" He's got a PhD in Biochemistry."

"Well he sounds smart in spite of that"

" He is," said the proud mother, " but still, what I don't like is when they tell us we can't say Merry Christmas any more."

"but who ever told you that? That's what I mean. Nobody, and certainly not anyone in government has said that -- only Fox News! Merry Christmas! See, no black helicopters."

I try so hard to avoid such things. I'm much nicer in public than I am here, really and I don't want to make people feel bad, but you know the day is only half over and I have already read in several places how those PC Liberals won't let you say Merry Christmas and make you say Happy Holidays which means you have to allow people other options which means our Christianity is under attack and we're all victims of those PC Liberals who hate
Christmas. As I said, they're putting words in the mouths of their straw men and we're believing it and it may be that the only people defending the right to celebrate whatever we want in our own way and the right not to be forced to celebrate are those damned PC liberals and their damned Bill of Rights.

So maybe Lyin' Bill and Insanity Hannity and the Fox Fiends have done their work well, or maybe the people who pull their strings are pulling other strings, I don't know, but if you want to wish me Eid Mubarak or happy Adam and Eve day (which it in fact is) or Krishna's birthday (if he has one) I'll wish you one too and I'll celebrate our secular laws that allow it and curse the bastards who equate that right with the fall of American values.

Waiting for Gandhi

2011-12-23T11:20:00.000-05:00

by Capt. Fogg

Those CNN.com Polls are hardly scientific nor do they claim to be, but when I read that 76% of participants think the payroll tax cut extension should be approved, I have to wonder at the Republican pose that insists such 'socialist' things are being stuffed down our throats by tyrannical Democrats who don't represent us as well as billionaires and multinational corporations do. Other things like medicare and Social Security and health care reform have been stuffed down our throats even though three quarters of us support them. Yes, Americans can seem like geese sometimes, but it's mostly the people eating foi gras and hating Democracy who want to run the farm.

Even my most intransigently Republican friends are risking an eternity in hell by suggesting that the GOP is deliberately sabotaging the government and the economy and the well being of our citizens for political gain and Obama's approval rating is slowly climbing as the flock of candidates chortle about sin and repealing child labor laws. So perhaps the slow shift in mood has to do with the traveling freak show from whom Republicans will be forced to choose as well as the unavoidable recognition that our definition of "smaller government" smells so much of the 19th century British colonial attitude: do nothing, have nothing done and don't allow anyone to do anything. Gandhi was able to turn it back at them. It should be easier for us. We already have the vote.

Clock runs out: Boehner caves on payroll tax bill

2011-12-22T20:51:00.001-05:00

Didn't blog till now because I've been following this drama all day. The episode is now officially over. As rumored, Boehner caved and the Senate's compromise payroll tax bill will be passed, albeit with a few cosmetic changes to make it slightly less embarrassing for the Speaker.

Let me stipulate at the outset, I find it depressingly pathetic we're cheering this "victory." Dems already gave away the highly popular mini-tax hike on the super-rich, awarded the GOPers their Pipeline talking point and only received a two month extension in return. This is a victory of optics, not of policy. Without Boehner's bumbling on the vote, they would have nothing. The Dems got lucky this time. Still, an optical victory is something. The Democrats finally held a line. That's more than we usually get and perhaps the thrill of this victory will make them less risk averse in the next battle that ever looms just over the near horizon.

Still, it wasn't just a victory over the recalcitrance of the crackpot caucus. The legacy media lost this battle too. Despite their best efforts to spin this as an just another DC gridlock, both sides do it, impasse, the majority of voters didn't buy it. The gatekeepers were reminded their hold on the narrative is slipping. That is worth celebrating.

Think the turning point came when the Arkansas GOPer defected. He issued this public statement early this afternoon:

These past few days I have met with my constituents in Arkansas’s First District, they are angry and they don’t understand why Congress cannot sit down, hammer out our differences, and have a solution we can all support. My constituents are honest, hard-working people who deserve a Congress that will put partisan politics aside in favor of the greater good. Congress must come together and act to ensure that my constituents, and millions of Americans all across the country, are not hit with higher taxes on January 1st...

We are now in a position that requires all options to be on the table, that requires Republicans to not only demand a willingness to compromise, but to offer it as well.

I've been to Arkansas. I'm pretty sure the First District is not a hotbed of liberalism. When his constituents compel him to make a statement like that, it tells me the tide is turning.

All that being said, I also think Steve Benen is onto something here. This payroll tax revolt was never about the bill. Cantor, who's been lusting after that gavel forever, played Boehner for a fool. He knew full well what Boehner was doing. Probably encouraged him to take the Senate deal. And then turned around and led the crackpot revolt.

End result? As Ed Henry tweeted: Longtime Boehner friend says Speaker did right thing but adds:"He did the deal w/Reid then told his caucus. I fear he may be ousted in '12."

I'd guess that was Cantor's plan all along. However it does appear Boehner is wising up to Cantor's perfidy. Johnny is finally finding his mojo, now that he understands his gavel is under threat. He's giving the crackpots a take it or leave it deal. Either pass the bill with unanimous consent tomorrow, or he'll make them take an on the record, roll call vote next week.

Not sure yet whether it's a blessing or a curse, but, interesting times. [photo credit]

Nerdgasm

2011-12-22T11:52:00.000-05:00

If I was banished to a desert island and only allowed one author's collected works, it would be Tolkien. Sure, there's a lot of authors I love and collections of more intellectual heft but Tolkien defined my life in more ways than I could tell in a blog post. So I'm really excited The Hobbit movie released the first official trailer. Think that means the movie is almost ready to be released.

It appears they've added some dialogue. There are lines in this trailer I don't remember from the book. I was wondering how they would make it palatable for an older audience. The Hobbit, in comparison to Lord of the Rings, is just a kid's book. Giving it deeper context with added dialogue will only make it better I think. Can't wait to see the completed project.

Tweeting on the mock of the day, watching the time slip away

2011-12-20T21:16:00.000-05:00

I trust you may have noticed, I finally installed my twitter ticker on the sidebar.

I mostly use my twitter account as a newswire. It's the fastest newswire on the internets now. News breaks there at least 20 minutes before it hits the traditional vendors. Unfortunately, it's also the most unreliable. As someone put it today, it's the best newswire for the first five minutes, and the worst for the next thirty. I call the latter, the hysteria factor.

But it's also a great social platform for direct communication. And I do have my days when I feel like haranguing big name tweeps. Those would often be the days when I don't post much here. Like today. I challenged the few big media tweeps I follow, and taunted random GOPers I don't follow, about the payroll tax bill standoff for hours this afternoon. And I encouraged the Dem leadership to stand firm and not pay the ransom this time. All of which may or may not help, but I find cathartic.

So, to make a long story longer, whatever its charms and flaws, I do check the tweetie regularly and often post good links that I'm reading but rarely end up blogging. Which is a really long way of saying, if I'm not posting, check the twitter ticker. There's likely to be something amusing there.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Liar, liar, pants on fire

2011-12-20T20:19:00.000-05:00

Politifact won the news cycle today with their cockamamie choice for Politifact Lie of the Year. They seemed to enjoying the mass condemnation from all corners of the reality based community. I'm pretty sure they were slapping each other on the back at Politfact HQ, assuring each other they must be doing something right since so many people were pissed at them. And look at that traffic spike, would you?

Likewise, the twitter machine was humming with lie of the year analogies and snarky hashtags. I saw a whole lot of laments about the sad demise of Politfact's credibility. And I asked myself, "Where have these people been for the last 12 months?"

I've seen this happen, time and time again. Like so many well intentioned enterprises before them, Polifact started out as a kickass project that did good work. Their unvarnished honesty was refreshing. They built a following. A big following. Eventually they got so big, building the brand became bigger than the mission.

From where I sit, Politfact was co-opted a long time ago. Think they started losing their mojo shortly after they won that Pulitzer Prize. I mean, am I really the only one who noticed the increasingly tepid exposures of right wing perfidy and strained reaches to condemn "the other side" too? To borrow from Charles, it appears they have been infected with a terminal case of gutless pissantery. All too often the price of success in what passes for professional journalism today. Sad.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Dreams of a brokered convention dance in their heads

2011-12-20T13:02:00.000-05:00

More speculative buzz this morning about whether Jeb Bush might still run in 2012. Steve M. ponders the possibility that the so-called bi-partisan Big Money Americans Elect is behind the mysterious Jeb push. That seems to be the most plausible theory to me, assuming Jeb is stupid enough to go for it. But he's supposed to be the smart one.

Meanwhile my brokered convention theory gets a big boost with the launch of a Brokered Convention blog. Run by conservatives who are really wishing they can have one. And where I discovered Krazy Kristol is pulling for my favored dark horse, Chris Christie.

And speaking of New Jersey's gasbag governor, the twitter tells me he was spewing his trademark bombastic bullshit on Morning Joe today. Not sure if these remarks were made there or in some other interview, but Christie wistfully admits he wishes "Mitt Romney could be 'a little edgier and bolder.'

But he concedes, Mitt has gotta be Mitt, and there Christie, the ever so loyal Romney man, sits. A VP in waiting who's primed to jump in, if he should just happen to be drafted as the savior of the party this summer.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Jazz is the thing that folks. Dig. Best.

2011-12-19T19:48:00.001-05:00

Yes, I know it's traditional to post them, but forget White Christmas or Count Your Blessings or the rest of Bing's sappy holiday songs. This isn't festive in a seasonal way, but it's rocking around the Christmas tree.

A conspiracy of a different hue

2011-12-19T17:46:00.000-05:00

Speculation abounds. Jeb Bush popped up with an op-ed that looks suspiciously like a trial balloon for a possible platform if he should make a late entry into the GOP 2012 freak show. Steve M. dispatches the op-ed so read him instead of giving Murdock the traffic if you care what Jeb has to say. But the point is, Jeb is surfacing in strange places which is fueling its own conspiracy theories about Jeb's possible late entry into the 2012 race.

Of course, I still believe there's a fairly good possibility that someone will be drafted this summer to unite the ABO GOPers, but my money is still on Christie. While Jeb surely has the name recognition, I'm not so sure even the diehard 27%ers are ready to push another Bush into office. Besides, Jeb is kind of bland. Even sort of cerebral. If that was going to work with the rank and file, Huntsman would be the frontrunner.

If it happens, and granted it's still a rather big if, it has to be Christie. He's the only one who can really deliver the bombast that delights the diehards.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Bain of Romney's existence

2011-12-19T14:24:00.000-05:00

The super-rich are different from you and me. When they leave a job, they get platinum parachutes. Like, for instance, Willard. Though he left his vulture capitalist corporation some 13 years ago, thanks to a sweetheart exit agreement, Romney is still raking in millions from Bain Capital today. And though nobody is disclosing the details, it's a good bet Willard is paying the capital gains tax rate on that dough, not an ordinary income tax levy like us working class schmucks.

Those would be the special tax breaks Romney is willing to protect to the death while he exercises his plan to slash and burn social safety net programs under the aegis of "fiscal responsibility." The same sort of fiscal responsibility that sent KayBee Toys into bankruptcy after Bain collected their millions in fees for running it into the ground. All those thousands who lost their jobs there and other Bain "managed" companies just need to work a little harder. Sacrifice just a little more to keep those profits rolling in to the "producers" who sent them to the unemployment line.

I mean, Mitt needs that money. "He's running for office, for Pete's sake!"

[photo credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Let it be Paul

2011-12-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

by Capt. Fogg

Ron Paul seems at the moment to be the front runner in Iowa, which to me offers some hope that American Conservative dementia might not progress to the point where that miscreant Gingrich might be selected to run against Barack Obama.

And no, I haven't become a Republican, but I'd far rather see Dr. Paul, whose ideas I sometimes agree with and sometimes don't in a debate than be forced to listen to Newt advocate a nation of "believers" where no one can be trusted who doesn't follow a Gingrich approved God, or God forbid, live in a nation with a president who insists he would arrest a judge whose decisions don't fit the doctrines of Newtonian Theocracy and plutocracy. For someone who makes such a fuss about the constitution's limitations on government power, you'd think he could show us the part advocating for a priest-king or a definition of a separation of powers that is subject to suspension at the whim of the President.

Of course one has to wonder whether the inner Gingrich is connected in any way to the outer, all too visible Gingrich, with strings attached to all sorts of crepuscular but malignant entities. Perhaps his outrageous anti-Americanism is simply bait to attract the creepy-crawly political vermin squirming in the anti-American mud and perhaps he's not really an enemy of democracy, Liberty and the rule of law and the other things most of us wish were core values in civilized countries.

So I have to think that at best, he's a fraud who fully intends to betray anyone foolish enough to think he means what he says, but I have to fear, at worst, that he means it. So yes, I'll take the candidate who I think goes a bit overboard with limiting the power of the Government to the man who would be king.