Romney victory celebration

This evening, GOP primary election day, in South Carolina.

gee ... I guess religion really is important down here.

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Truer words...

... written in a funny article about how all the big shot conservative pundits had no use for Rick Santorum. Until, of course, he nearly beat Mitt Romney in Iowa. But one of them actually saw it coming:

The American Spectator’s Quin Hillyer, for one, was into Santorum before being into Santorum was cool. In early November, when Santorum was still pulling single digits in national polls, Hillyer wrote that Santorum could be “the sharpest, most accomplished, most campaign-savvy “It’s a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid,”, and most full-spectrum conservative in a quarter-century of presidential contests . . . working harder than anybody, making at least as much intellectual sense as anybody, never blowing a debate, and never failing to stand on principle.”

Even earlier in July 2010 the same guy wrote these words that should be remembered every time you listen to a political pundit:

“It’s a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid.”

So there.

coming soon: the empire strikes back ... and Santorum tanks. Or not.

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Shocking News about Canada!!!

It is now part of the US. At least according to the man who would be president:

Rick Perry in Iowa: "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."

But I believe this is yet another Republican statement that is "not intended as a true statement." So the one Canadian who reads this blog (if he is still out there) can relax.

... but about Mexico.

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.

But .... but ... it's not about race!!

At least, so they keep saying.

And in the real world a Tea Party web site has this:

Patriot Freedom Alliance, a tea party group in Hutchinson, Kansas, made a statement on its website recently, depicting Obama as a skunk. “It is half black, half white, and almost everything it does, stinks,” the site reads, according to a screen grab posted by The Hutchinson News.

To the Patriot Freedom Alliance, this is simply political satire and no worse than what Palin was subjected to.

well, then that certainly makes it ok.

A Republican speaks

Well, self-defined Republican. He, like a few others, have been read out of the Republican Party as surely as Buckley got rid of the Birchers (premature Tea Partiers).

Of course, I am talking about David Frum. Here is a squib from his latest.

America desperately needs a responsible and compassionate alternative to the Obama administration’s path of bigger government at higher cost. And yet: This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.

You should read the rest of it, but I warn you: the photo in bright red tones that will open on your screen is not fit for children or small animals.

well, he should know.

Where do they find these idiots?

I am not just talking about Republicans, but this time it is one: this idiot. I'll put his original comments aside. They are not a question of stupidity but of his apparently sincere religious beliefs. The issue of stupidity is when he insults everyone who is a Hindu and THEN DOES NOT UNDERSTAND WHY THEY COULD BE OFFENDED.

The director of the Hindu American Foundation talked to him and sent him this reply:

“It is difficult to understand how an individual of your education, experience and position would think that calling ‘gods’ of another religion ‘false’ and its practices ‘idolatry, and stating that your hope was that ‘Hindus open their eyes and receive Jesus as their Savior’ would not be taken as offensive…. While you say that you did not intend to offend Hindus, it is apparent that you did. Still, I appreciate the time you personally took to clarify your perspective.”

After reading about this impenetrably smug doofus I can only imagine someone like, say, Christ, walking out of the thoroughly disrupted money changers' section of the Temple and wondering "Was it something I said?"

When you think your religious views are so mainstream that calling anyone else on their religion is simple common sense you have wondered far from the Gospels. What sacrifice, what burden, what cross have you picked up if you are that smug and self-satisfied.

Is there something we have been feeding politicians lately? Is it the water?

money changers. that would be ancient bankers. another remarkably smug lot.

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Truth or Consequences, political edition

The Washington Post fact checks Republican candidates.

Of course, one Republican pol is on record as admitting that one of his statements was "not intended as a factual statement." Maybe they meant the same.

And for what it's worth, to be a politician is to be dishonest. It's a Darwinian process.

By that measure Romney turns out to be the most-nearly- getting warm- might-one-day- be -honest of the candidates. The Post gives him a Pinocchio almost reflexively for "some shading of the facts."

but there are no consequences anymore. Welcome to the post-modern world where what you want to believe is exactly the same as what you have to believe.

But I exaggerate, I believe.

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OMG! They'er fighting ....

.... well, like cats and dogs.


except cats and dogs are smarter, more honest and a lot cuter.

The Newt

I know some smart people.

Smart people are friends of mine.

You sir, are no smart person.

So why do so many "smart" commentators think this over fried clown is the idea man of the Republican party.

oh. you mean in comparison.

It's not about race

The new South Carolina voter ID laws.

Tea Party Jobs Plan

Let there be none.

Proposed oath for small businesses from Tea Party Nation:

I, an American small business owner, part of the class that produces the vast majority of real, wealth producing jobs in this country, hereby resolve that I will not hire a single person until this war against business and my country is stopped.

I hereby declare that my job creation potential is now ceased.

"I'm on strike!"

It's about nothing sane. And when you find a small business owner who intends not to hire to make a political statement, as opposed to making a living, please get in touch.

they've been drinking the John Galt tea nonsense again.

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Without Comment

From Andrew Sullivan.

Without comment

Republican Truthiness

Also known as counting chickens before they hatch. Michelle Bachman's crack press team released a press release (well, what else do they do?) 30 minutes before her big speech saying she spoke before a standing room only crowd. Attached is a picture of the crowd as Bachman started her pitch.

but if you look carefully, most of those folks ARE standing!

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It's Working

From that big state to our south:

Pinellas County, Fla., will stop adding fluoride to its drinking water after complaints by anti-government activists. Dentists protested the decision, arguing that fluoridation has dramatically lowered tooth-decay rates across the U.S., but Tea Party activists said it was part of a plot by the "world government to keep people stupid."

Tea Party activists may have complained, but it took elected officials to listen to them. They sure can elect 'em down in that benighted swamp hole to our south.

from The Week

don't get me started on the governor.

Another Republican speaks

I like reading David Frum, thought sometimes he comes across as a (slightly) more mature and much smarter version of that guy in high school that though Ayn Rand was a brilliant writer. He is a Republican having served in the Bush administration and a true conservative. Here he is unloading on the economic idiocy of the current crop of Republicans and faux conservative:

On the most urgent economic issue of the day – recovery from the Great Recession – the Republican consensus is seriously wrong.

It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.

It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.

It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”

It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.

It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.

It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.

It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.

It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.

It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.

It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.

It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.

It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.

It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment.

Did he leave anything out?

of course, his conclusion is that Mitt Romney is the best thing they've got.

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?

A very conservative jury

And the verdict on Michelle Bachman is in (via the Washington Monthly- a very liberal rag):

While this isn’t new to many of us, the vaccine story appears to be uniquely damaging, in part because she was perceived as faltering anyway, making the controversy a poorly-timed setback. Jim Dyke, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee unaffiliated with any candidate, said, “This is the nail in the coffin in her campaign.”

That may sound excessive, but just over the last few days, Bachmann’s anti-vaccine comments have come under fire from, among others, Rush Limbaugh, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, Bachmann’s former campaign manager, and the American Association of Pediatrics.

Well, bring out the forks. She's done.

Next week, exactly where is Ms Palin?

Without comment