Without Comment

from another liberal shill - Jesse Ventura's official facebook page.

With support like this ...

... Romney picks up a key endorsement:

"That’s one of the things that I like about him — because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind,” - Christine O’Donnell, on her endorsement of Mitt Romney.

Oh, the hell with it. Go ahead and vote Ron Paul.

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Run for President!! Samad Pashean!!

Didn't like that last modest proposal? Here's another one: repeal the amendment preventing the foreign born from becoming president so this guy, the official court jester of an Afghani warlord, can run for the Republican presidential nomination next time:

Atta boasted proudly of Pashean’s many talents, telling me that in addition to his prowess as an entertainer, he was also a professional blackmailer, a master thief, and a prolific murderer, with an estimated fifty victims killed by his own hand. As Atta related this last statistic in delighted exclamation, the other men and boys in the room laughed and stared reverentially at Pashean, who grinned and nodded his head in acknowledgment.

Yeah!!

Read the whole article - some of it has medieval historical content!

what? That's not a come-on for you?

They're different from you and me....

.... they drink better wine.

UPDATE: I really hate to do this, but apparently Ryan didn't know what his rich, well heeled friends were ordering. He only had one glass and being very careful insisted on paying for one bottle of the stuff.

So there. See how honest I am. (but the general point still stands).



at $350 a bottle.

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David Brooks wakes up and ....

... discovers there is GAMBLING going on in this establishment!


And has the nerve to write about it. Here.

A bit of his observations from the den of inequity:

the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.
. . .
The members of this movement do not accept the legitimacy of scholars and intellectual authorities. A thousand impartial experts may tell them that a default on the debt would have calamitous effects, far worse than raising tax revenues a bit. But the members of this movement refuse to believe it.

The members of this movement have no sense of moral decency.
. . .
The struggles of the next few weeks are about what sort of party the G.O.P. is — a normal conservative party or an odd protest movement that has separated itself from normal governance, the normal rules of evidence and the ancient habits of our nation.

Well, better late than never.

like him, I am shocked, shocked!

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Watch it buster

News from that state to our south ...

... you know the one.

It has managed to separate itself from the pack of 50 this year in at least one category! And here it is folks, against awesome competition, the Most Unpopular Governor in America ...

... Nosferatu.

No, no. Lex Luthor.


Ok, Ok. It's actually this fellow:

In the poll, 57% of registered voters said they're unhappy with how Scott has handled his job as governor, a record high. At the same time, only 29% of voters said they approved of Scott's job performance, making Scott the most unpopular of 10 governors Quinnipiac has surveyed this year.

You get what you vote for. Or in the case of those too inane to vote, you get who wins.

for personal reason I prefer to think of him as Gov. Luthor.

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More news of the weird

That would be politics in Florida.

Apparently the recently elected criminal in chief, aka The Governor, has managed to destroy the reputation of the Republican Party in a mere 100 days. Here is an brief article about it focusing on the upset victory of a Democrat in Jacksonville:

Reflecting on the upset in the Jacksonville mayor's race, St. Petersburg Political Editor Adam Smith said, "Jacksonville is a Republican stronghold, but even with that relatively conservative electorate polls show Barack Obama more popular than Rick Scott. That election in Florida's largest city was not about Obama or Scott, but there's no question that Scott's talk about draconian cuts to school budgets and other services helped elect a Democrat arguing that cuts need to be targeted and strategic. One of the best days for Democrat Alvin Brown came when Rick Scott came to Jacksonville to campaign for the Republican mayoral nominee at a Tea Party rally."

Do you have any idea what it takes to make a Democrat popular in Jacksonville? Whatever it is, let's see more of it.

after all, it only took Napoleon 100 days to blow it at Waterloo.

Update: I didn't realize this when I wrote it, but Newt "Loose Lips" Gingrich is actually campaigning in Waterloo, Iowa. Coincidence?

Not intended as a factual statement?

Apparently. Here is the latest from Newt Gingrich.

So let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.

So, let me say on the record ... this man seriously wants to run for president? And the Republicans let him?

the 90s are beginning to come back to me now.

Republicans in Alaska

Amid growing signs that the Tea Party is fading in energy, losing focus, being coopted in Congress, and in general revealing that it was about nothing, Frum Forum mounts some statistics from Alaska.

A new Dittman Research poll in Alaska shows Sarah Palin’s favorable rating is upside down at 36% to 61%.

For comparison, the U.S. Senate candidate Palin backed, Joe Miller (R), is even worse off at 18% to 73%. And her arch nemesis, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), is at a sky high approval of 71% to 27%.

The part about Palin doesn't interest me since Big Al in Alaska told me months ago that her star had set as far as Alaska was concerned. But Joe Miller has tanked and Murkowski rides high.

Now that's interesting. Miller was Tea Party all the way and managed in the rage of the moment to unseat the establishment Murkowski who then went on to show that there are Republicans, and there are Conservatives, and there are Tea Partiers. In other words, at least in Alaska, the struggle between Tea Party insanity and something at least approaching sanity has been fought.

And won.

for the time being.

Words from Carmen

Politics have been pretty depressing lately, so when Carmen pointed to a TPM headline and said "That was so damn funny!" I had to take a look.

You should too.

Essentially the Demos almost tricked the Repubs into actually passing one of their own lunatic budget ammendments. The Repubs had to scramble to get enough of their saner members to vote against their own bill.

it's even funnier if you watch the video.

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O Florida!

The great state to our south. Its recent gubernatorial election has pretty much trashed its reputation, even among Floridians. Here is a quote from Washington Monthly.

There's just something remarkable about the scope of Maine Gov. Paul LePage's (R) buffoonery. Part of it has to do with expectations -- Florida's Rick Scott (R) is every bit as ridiculous, but it's Florida, so expectations are lower. Maine, however, as states go, appears to be quite sane.

Always remember: in a two party system not to vote is voting for the guys that win. You wanted them, you got them.

you should hear my 91 year old mother on the subject of her state's new governor. She always did make more sense than the rest of the family.

Without Comment

An economic factlet

Just in case the last election in general didn't make you depressed enough, one way or another, consider this little factlet from Frum Forum:

The personal wealth of members of Congress collectively increased 16 percent between 2008 and 2009, even as the broader economic downturn eliminated thousands of jobs for ordinary Americans, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics released Wednesday.

In the House, the study found, median wealth grew to $765,010, up from $645,503 in 2008. In the Senate, median wealth grew from $2.27 million in 2008 to $2.38 million in 2009.

Well. It's hard work. Or something.

And what was your personal wealth doing over the last two years?

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Priorities

Sometimes the juxtaposition of headlines in The Washington Post blog takes on an unintended salience. Here are two from today:

Price tag of midterm campaign likely to hit $4 billion (By Dan Eggen)

Most Americans worry about ability to pay mortgage or rent, poll finds (By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jon Cohen)

So our political and economic elite have $4 billion to spend on campaigning at a time when the rest of us are worried about a home to live in. As I said, I suspect this is one reason the Tea Partiers are so angry.

Hope you all vote on Tuesday.

Churchill's sense of proportion

Wandering through the Frum Forum, the last overtly right wing blog I can read with profit (and some minor entertainment in between gritting my teeth) I came across this:

Winston Churchill once entered a men’s room where his Labour Party rival Clement Attlee was standing at a urinal. As Churchill moved to the far end of the room, Attlee asked: “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?”

Churchill’s reply went down in history: “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”

The rest of the article is worth pondering too. It explains my first paragraph here.

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Maybe I have underestimated them.

"Them" would be The National Review and The Weekly Standard, one of which I read rarely anymore and the other even less. But according to Mark Levin, conservative radio nut (as reported on Sullivan):

And on his radio show Tuesday he disparaged National Review and The Weekly Standard, complaining that they're elites who condescend to the Tea Party.

Maybe I have underestimated them.

..... uh...... nope.

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Ace police investigation

Someone sent a threatening e-mail to the head of the Delaware Republican Party saying he deserved a bullet in the head for supporting Castle (the GOP backed candidate) over O'Donnell (the Tea Party backed candidate) in the Senate primary.

I found this paragraph from the story too funny not to pass on:

The identity of the emailer was not immediately known, though the official said that the person "wrote his name and address" on the note -- providing obvious information for authorities to use.

Thank God he got his mother's brains

... and his father's looks.

and he made both the media and his opponents look like ... twits.

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