More deep tweets

Slowly emerging from my hiatus, I see Obama was in Texas today. Governor Good Hair doesn't look like he's enjoying the meeting. But hey, photo op. This shot is going to make a great image for his presidential campaign.

No, War and Peace is not a book about a guy named Warren Peas. Oh, man, this guy. pic.twitter.com/zPXDfT9vIs
— netw3rk (@netw3rk) July 10, 2014

Former ally burns his bridges with Christie

I've said all along that Christie would survive the bridge closing unless and until proof positive emerged tying him directly to Fort Lee's traffic problem. Well, today David Wildstein delivered the smoking gun. Thus does Wildstein exact his revenge after Christie threw him to the wolves in order to save his own prodigious ass.

Now that Port Authority has refused to pay Wildstein's legal bills, it's every man for himself. Wildstein's lawyers released this bombshell statement today.



One might think Gov. Blowhard was expecting this turn of events. Christie responded shortly thereafter:

The governor's office issued a statement today saying that he had not "prior knowledge" of the lane closures, and that he "denies Mr. Wildstein's lawyer's other assertions.”

The statement in full reads: "Mr. Wildstein's lawyer confirms what the Governor has said all along - he had absolutely no prior knowledge of the lane closures before they happened and whatever Mr. Wildstein's motivations were for closing them to begin with. As the Governor said in a December 13th press conference, he only first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press and as he said in his January 9th press conference, had no indication that this was anything other than a traffic study until he read otherwise the morning of January 8th. The Governor denies Mr. Wildstein's lawyer's other assertions.”

Christie's allies are clearly smelling blood in the water. He's already lost Ron Fournier and Rudy Giuliani in the last couple of days. NYT is all over this story and today Drudge turned on him with the banner headline. It will be very interesting to see how Morning Joe and Mika play it on their next show.

One thing is clear, if Wildstein gets immunity, it's all over but for the tearful goodbyes.

GOP seeks weak Tea

Old guard GOPers looking to avoid the bloodbath of 2012 primary season have a plan to shut down Tea Party conservatives.

A Republican National Committee meeting to compress the 2016 primary schedule grew heated Thursday, as supporters of rule changes beat back repeated attempts by a handful of conservative activists to torpedo them.

The push to shorten the presidential nominating process and have an early summer convention is an effort to give the eventual nominee time to raise money, unite the GOP, and hopefully avoid excessive infighting in the party. Many Republicans believe the lengthy nominating process in 2012 hurt Mitt Romney's chances.

Virginia Committeeman Morton Blackwell and a half-dozen RNC members from state parties where the party's libertarian wing has wrested control fought hard against a series of changes to stretch the primary process out. Their fear is that a shorter primary season stymies the possibility a lightly funded movement conservative could win the nomination and unfairly benefits cash-flush, establishment candidates.

Well of course it will shut down Tea Party challenges to the establishment picks. That's obviously the point. Now the crackpot cons will find out just how little value they retain for the Republican Party. Good for the GOP, not so good for the Democrats. Our best hope on the left is that the Tea Party crackpots will be so pissed off at being shut out that they splinter off and start their own damn party. Not holding my breath. It's most likely their hatred of libruls will trump their pride and they'll fall in line when it's time to vote.

Update: Just in. The RNC passed the rule change in a landslide vote.

Raging libido

Well you can't spell Huckster without the Huck and here comes Mike Huckabee peddling his own special brand of social populism. Huck is here to tell us the GOP is not waging a war on wimmin, it's waging a war for the little ladies. The real enemy is those evil oppressive Democrats.

Huckabee said Democrats rely on women believing they are weaker than men and in need of government handouts, including the contraception mandate in Obamacare.

"If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it," Huckabee said. "Let's take that discussion all across America."

Leaving the silly sexytime stuff aside, Uncle Sugar? Interesting choice of words. But yes, there will be discussion now. So there's that...

[image via]

Christie's crony corruption throws up another roadblock to 2016

Still not writing Gov. Blowhard off as a 2016 candidate, but I'm pretty sure Christie has lost Hoboken.

Two senior members of Gov. Chris Christie’s administration warned a New Jersey mayor earlier this year that her town would be starved of hurricane relief money unless she approved a lucrative redevelopment plan favored by the governor, according to the mayor and emails and personal notes she shared with msnbc.

Longer at the link. Shorter version: Port Authority hired "a reputable firm" to do a study on redeveloping some prime real estate in lovely Hoboken. It took time to conduct the study.

Finally, in January 2013, the firm – which was tasked with evaluating a 19-block area – concluded that only the three blocks in which the Rockefeller Group had an ownership stake were fit for redevelopment.

The mayor of Hoboken, a Democrat and otherwise a Christie supporter, wasn't willing to simplyn hand over her town to Christie's cronies. And then this happened with the sandy relief funds.

Christie’s people came back with less than 1% of what Hoboken had sought. With $250 million to disburse statewide, just $142,000 went to Hoboken – enough to help defray the cost of one backup generator to power a flood pump. Out of another pool of money for recovery grants – $1.8 billion in all – Hoboken received $200,000.

Meanwhile the Jersey legislature is issuing subpoenas and Christie lawyered up. If another couple mayors come forward, this story isn't going to die any time soon. Nonetheless, Christie is on the road raising money. He's clearly not ready to quit yet. [photo via]

Many rivers to cross for Christie

While I continue to think Christie's bridge scandal will ultimately lead nowhere, the story has a lot longer legs than I first anticipated. The hundreds of pages of documents will keep the media busy for at least a couple of weeks and if it turns out the lane closures were illegal somebody could get indicted. It could become a enduring scandal of his administration. But hell, we're talking about Jersey. Politicians and their operatives are always getting caught in scandals. It's part of the fabric of life in The Garden State.

Everybody who's not a gullible, hardcore conservative knows Christie was lying his face off in that two hour pity party of a presser. Nonetheless, absent irrefutable evidence Gov. Blowhard knew about the plan to bring a little traffic trouble to Fort Lee, the story won't last into February. That's almost two years from 2016. As long as no one can prove he lied, he can brazen his way through this and come out ahead on name recognition. He's complicated the journey, but I'm not writing him off the campaign trail just yet.

Christie's bridge scandal leads nowhere

Josh joined the chorus singing a dirge for Chris Christie in the wake of emails released today showing Gov. Blowhard's top aides were involved in creating that massive traffic jam in New Jersey simply for petty political payback. Lot of internet pundits seem to think this is the death knell for Christie's 2016 hopes. I'm not seeing it.

This kind of juvenile ratfuckery is exactly the sort of thing that thrills the crackpot con base. He pissed off a librul Democratic mayor and most of the base considers New Jersey just another outpost of east coast elites. If anything, it's going to raise his ratings with that crowd. If they're even following the story. Unless you use the George Washington Bridge, chances are you don't care if there's another traffic jam in Joisey. Nothing ties our Gov. Blowhard to it directly. A few more people will resign and no one will even remember it in a few weeks.

Steve M thinks what is really going to kill Christie's candidacy is his embrace of a DREAM act that was recently passed in his state. Granted, this will give the crackpots some pause because they hates those illegals but the GOP's biggest problem right now is the loss of the Hispanic vote. Crackpots alone are not enough and for all the noise they make, they're still going to vote for the Republican over the Dimmocrat. Doesn't matter who it is. It's possible Christie will be able to win over enough Hispanic voters to make a difference by supporting immigration reform.

I would love to see something quash Christie's chance to run. I'm just not seeing it yet. Unlike many, I don't want him to run just because it will make such an entertaining contest. The man is dangerous. He could actually win. He would make the worst President ever.

Addendum: Case in point.

@CNN @jaketapper acting like lane closures is a big deal. Who cares? Don't u have anything better 2 talk about? No one cares if it's true.

— J Knight (@J_KnightNY) January 8, 2014

And so it begins

Unlikely to end well.

RT @nravitz: Backstage at the @WSJ CEO Council with @rupertmurdoch and @GovChristie pic.twitter.com/Gfl4aZnON8
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) November 18, 2013

Word salad, dummy, dummy

Breaking my personal embargo on 2016 speculation and any mention whatsoever of Klondike Blarbie because this is too delicious not to share.  It's clear our Griftzilla of the Frozen North is testing the waters for her next big grift. She's in Iowa. She's at the fundie confabs. She's dishing up her special brand of bizarre word salad on the Today Show. When asked to explain her alternative proposal for Obamacare, she spewed this out:

"The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health-care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there's more competition, there's less tort reform threat, there's less trajectory of the cost increases, and those plans have been proposed over and over again," Palin said.

"And what thwarts those plans? It's the far left," she said "It's President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care."

And now I have this song in my head:

Opening bell rings for 2016

Amusing story of the day. Peter King first to announce for 2016.

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Rep. Peter King won’t be the best known Republican presidential candidate in 2016, but he is the first.

King, making his second of four scheduled visits to the state in the summer and fall, told a New Hampshire radio station Friday that he’s there “because right now I'm running for President.”

To which I can only say:

Rand Paul fires the first shot at 2016

I want to shoot myself for even saying the words Election 2016, but it's clear the battle flags are being planted already. In the race to be first out on the field, Rand Paul issues a call to arms to rally round the paranoid gun hoarders.

In a blast email Rand tells the true believers there's an “anti-American globalist plot against our Constitution," led by none other than President Barack Obama in league with the UN. They're coming to take yer guns and destroy Murika. But have no fear. Rand Paul is willing to lead the troops to glory. He has a battle plan ready to go.

Direct mail. Phones. E-mail. Blogs. Guest editorials. Press conferences. Hard-hitting internet, newspaper, radio and even TV ads if funding permits. The whole nine yards. Of course, a program of this scale is only possible if the National Association for Gun Rights can raise the money.

But that’s not easy, and we may not have much time.

In fact, if gun owners are going to defeat the UN’s schemes, pro-gun Americans like you and me have to get involved NOW!

So please put yourself on record AGAINST the UN Gun Ban by signing NAGR’s Firearms Sovereignty Survey.

But along with your survey, please agree to make a generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even just $35.

Freedom ain't free and yer gonna need those guns when Rand leads you into battle against the agents of tyranny. (And if that doesn't work out, Mr. Paul is all set up for nice sinecure with the gun lobby.) Is Murika a great country, or what? [photo via] and [graphic via], true patriots.

The GOP autopsy

That's not my term. It's what the media is calling the new 100 page report delivered by the RNC that resulted from months of study on the causes of their trouncing in 2012. I'm told this a good summary of the RNC's post-mortem. Didn't read it myself. I'm not that interested in Republican navel gazing.

Besides, I can tell the GOP what its problem is in a few sentences. They can't win without the crackpot con base vote but they can't win by supporting the crackpot agenda either. The wedge issues near and dear to the activist base are now causing internal rifts within the party and uniting the general electorate against them.

Scanning the commentary tells me the RNC's grand plan is to cut the crackpot candidates out of the process. Good luck with that. The fatal flaw in that plan is a whole industry of grifters has grown up around the crackpot movement. Some of them have become very wealthy. Don't think they're going to give up that gravy train without a fight. Meanwhile, the already wealthy who funded the "grass roots" movement became more powerful. And you know what they say about power.

[Original artwork: Angry Johnny]

CPAC poll: The untold story of the other

To no one's suprise, Rand Paul won the CPAC straw poll. It was Rand Paul's crowd. Inherited from his Dad. I hear his tshirt giveaway was very popular. People love free tshirts. But so what? CPAC has become a meaningless spectacle.

The twitter tells me Santorum's speech bombed. He came in fourth after Rand and Rubio. Meanwhile, Grifterella wowed the crowd with her Big Gulp and boob jokes, one of which actually about her boobs. She came in a distant last in the straw poll.

At this point you may be thinking, wait -- who was third? Well, that's the real story here and all the media, new and old, appear to be ignoring it. Look at this graph.



"Other" came in third, well above the rest of the field. So who is other? Apparently it was some combination of the rest of the field of 23 choices and some 44 write-in candidates. Somehow I think if CPAC was an event about the Democratic party, all the headlines would be reading: Democrats in Disarray.

No easy climb for Hillary in 2016

I want to shoot myself for even mentioning 2016 yet again, but there's been so much buzz about Hillary taking another crack at it that it's worth mentioning briefly. A lot of her former supporters who populate my social nets have been chirping enthusiastically about another Hillary run practically since election day ended. Nate Silver says Hillary has a shot at it and would be a good candidate in many ways. Meanwhile, the usual GOPers are allegedly quaking in fear at the mere prospect of her running.

Hard to believe anybody is buying the GOP line. As so often happens, I agree with Charlie on the GOP's faux terror:

I am sorry, but does Newtie know something I don't? Is every talk-radio host in America planning on joining the Carthusians between now and corn-shuckin' time in Iowa in 2016? Are all the foundations who fund the bilge that passes for intellectual energy on the American Right going into funding the arts all at once? Is the political salience of outright hysteria going to wane that precipitously over the next four years? I doubt all of that at once. What you're going to see when and if Clinton announces is Whitewater-plus-Benghazi, all run through the massive post-Citizens United pukefunnels, and what a lot of fun that's going to be.

Would love to believe Hill could just stroll into the White House and protect our hard won gains. But I remember the awful graphics in all the ugly viral emails being passed around by the wingers when it looked like she had the nom locked up. I remember how loudly the GOPers, led by Rushbo himself, were cheering Hill on in 2008 once she started losing. They were dying to run against her. You could practically hear the salvering behind closed doors. Their megaton of oppo was already pre-researched and fully written. Rather doubt they threw it away. More likely they've been adding to it regularly.

And what do we suppose our fair minded media would do with another crack at the Clintons? This happened in 2009.