Whiskey Fire

Rmoney Blows South Carolina As Gingrich Surges From Behind

While Santorum Spurt Comes Up Short.

And that's your man-on-dog race.

I recommend Charles Pierce, re: Rmoney's non-stop lying.

As someone who watched him first against Ted Kennedy, and then, later, during his run for governor, I am really rather stunned at what a singularly appalling liar Mitt Romney has become. It is bone-deep with him now. His campaigns in 2008 and 2012 have made lies out of both campaigns he ran in Massachusetts and out of his entire tenure there as governor.

I wonder if Thers will add "the schaden freudes itself" category?

UPDATE: NOM NOM NOM

Former Speaker of the House has signed NOM's Marriage Pledge

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today congratulated GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich on his victory in the South Carolina primary.

(Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©)

~

Hurrah for the God-damned Idiots

Comical Rich Lowry is comical.

Speaking of discontent with the Republican field, I talked the other day to a pretty prominent conservative officeholder who’s constantly been discussing with people around the country the possibility of a new entrant or a push to draft someone....

Bobby Jindal, who is extremely knowledge [sic]....

It’s hard to argue, though, with the bottom line of this conservative: In an election with enormous consequences for the future of our country, “we don’t have our A team on the field.”

Hahahaha.

The fact that the GOP presidential field is only capable of coughing up a gang of clownish shysters and a laughably phony hack indicates that the GOP is not a political party, but Fox News by other means.

Bobby Jindal?

Hee hee.

I have a lot of respect for number-crunching political science predictions about elections. But I'm pretty sure about this: we can throw out all statistical models about prior elections because the modern GOP has gone off the charts nuts.

Romney will probably win the nomination, but he is anyhow an astonshingly bad candidate.

He's godawful! Why isn't he dominating the GOP field...? Pay attention to him.

Throwing Bones to the Drug-Sniffing Dogs

Right.

The House’s version of the one-year extension included reforms that Republicans plan to stick to. On unemployment, the GOP wanted to cut the maximum duration from 99 weeks to 59 weeks and add in some new requirements. Beneficiaries who didn’t have GEDs would have to try to get them. States implementing unemployment insurance could require drug tests.

Odd. In 2008 the government showered Wall Street Job Creators with gold as a kind of prize for fucking up the economy and screwing over anyone who needs a job.

And nobody at Goldman Sachs had to take a drug test!

Which baffles. I mean, Industry Rule four thousand and eighty is that financial firms people are shady. So, kid, watch your back, because I think they smoke crack. I don't doubt it -- look at how they ack.

Isn't this Industry Rule in all the standard economic texts?

 

Yesterday's Asshole... Today!

Rudy!

A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national poll shows the former New York City mayor atop the slow-forming Republican primary field.

The survey shows Giuliani getting 16 percent of independents and Republicans, with nominal frontrunner Mitt Romney a point behind at 15 percent.

Sarah Palin gets 13 percent.

I guess when you're forced to bob for turds without a blindfold, you go for the one that's oldest, as it's least likely to wetly disintegrate, and you can get a good dental grip.

The Sheep and the Goats

Jim DeMint and Jim Jordan would like to inform you that they have enormous testicles.

America's debt problem wasn't created overnight, and implementing a complete solution will take both time and perseverance. With a healthy dose of courage from elected leaders, however, we can get America moving on the right track again.

They don't care who they fuck with! But to be more specific:

Every component of our plan will undoubtedly raise the ire of one group or another, whether it is labor unions who want more benefits or Angora goat herders who want more subsidies.

Wow. That's some sack you're swinging there, fellas, calling out the mighty Angora goat herders lobby in public like that. You're some real baaaaadasses.

Oh, and labor unions. Who were your fans anyway.

But that's not fair, they are willing to take some political risks!

The largest step toward spending reduction begins with the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1. On that day, the bill further cuts non-defense discretionary spending to 2006 levels and implements a hard freeze through 2021.

Oh, wait, no, they aren't.

What they want to do in the short term is end any stimulative spending so the country slides back into recession, figuring that will help them in 2010. Then they want to continue massive entitlement programs for Wall Street, perhaps by outsourcing Social Security to Goldman Sachs, which isn't even a joke I'm making.

Thank goodness the revitalized Democratic party will stop them and stick up for the regular Joe, which is a joke I'm making. Ha ha ha ho ho ho bleah.

At least those Angora goat herders are going to get the stomping they so richly deserve, though, those commie bastards. Real Americans don't wear that domestically produced metrosexual Angora crap, you know. Real Americans wear cheap shit made in Third World hellholes by eight year olds.

This Will Never Get Old

Erick Son of Erick:

I’ve been in a funk these past couple of weeks. RedState is in my full time job and sometimes the behind the scenes goings on keep me from writing. Inevitably, as well, I also get something akin to writer’s block, though it is more like writer’s cramp — stretching out my fingers on the keyboard generally gets the cramp gone. But it also takes some time, made more crazy by a hectic travel schedule, a wife, kids, side obligations, etc.

There’s something more though.

I am a bit overwhelmed. I suspect many of you are too. The information is coming fast and furious, the GOP has yet to get back in the game with a full swing, socialism is creeping upon us, and many of my friends around me have decided the best course of action is to put their heads in the sand and hope for the best. The default is to shift into the doldrums in the middle of the fight.

Aw. Poor baby. Though you'd think friends of Erick having their heads in the sand would be step up from where they usually keep them. But Erick firmly wiggles his skull even deeper into that particular cavity, all the while shaking his war-rattle and swearing to continue the tantrum. Er, "fight. Hark to his savage waaah.

We can’t. Freedom depends on our sweat equity.

Let’s be clear: we are being run into the ground by a group of leftists, half of whom are incompetent and the other half hate America. Between the incompetence and the hatred toward our way of life, it’s a lot to take in. Take it in we must. Digest it we will.

The fight goes on. The GOP seems to be getting its act together. I maintain that Obama is giving us a lot of material to work with. The idea that, as Abe Lincoln said, “every man can make himself” in this country resonates with people. It really does. It is why so many people seek out this country. Obama’s policies, unless we work like mad to make sure he fails, will destroy the ability of every man to make himself.

The GOP can and should be the part of choice and opportunity for every man to make himself. The message of limited government and liberty resonates with a people intent on making their own way in life. Any person who has ever tried to start up a small business knows the pain and frustration of dealing with the red taped hand of government. The GOP — and we — must stand with those people.

We need to get out of the doldrums, stay on task, and fight. And throughout it all, we must be happy warriors until the end. 

Now,. who’s with me?

Once more into the breeches, as it were. Unfortunately Americans know all to well what that smells like. Poor little Red Breechers! I recomend this as a way to ease their pain, or at least chafing.

"Derangement Syndrome": they invented it.

Minute Sixteen Was a Week Ago

Sarah Palin makes me tired and headachy and sad, and I've likewise had my fill of poll-watching, but what the hell. Here's what America has to say about the Queen of the Igloos:

Just 45% of Americans would like to see Sarah Palin become a major national political figure for many years to come, while a slight majority of 52% say they would not. These sentiments are sharply divided along partisan political lines.

The devil you say!

Over three-quarters of Republicans would like to see the former vice-presidential nominee and current governor of Alaska become a major national political figure in the years ahead, in sharp contrast to the 43% of independents and 20% of Democrats who share that attitude.

Hands up who is surprised (though I'm curious as to who exactly is in Democratic 20% -- I'd say 10% idiots and 10% smartasses who just like making fun of her). But via Brad, let's put this together with what one of the GOP's own describes as the party's major malfunction:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- passed over by Sen. John McCain for the No. 2 spot on the presidential ticket and one of nine GOP governors who preside over states won by Barack Obama -- offered a summary of his party's predicament at the governors' opening lunch.

"We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes states, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the mid-Atlantic states, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western states," Pawlenty said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation."

As if that weren't enough, he ticked off a few more challenges.

"Similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances. Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."

It's not especially clear how you compete in these areas and with these groups if you have a candidate like Palin, who is beloved by the Base but disliked -- intensely, and for good reason -- by the people who live in those areas and are members of those groups. At the same time, it's not clear how the GOP runs a candidate who cannot depend upon the enthusiasm of the base: all the GOTV stuff is in the hands of the nuttiest of the religious nut-nuts, for instance.

And the list of problems weighing down the Republican Party doesn't end there. The leading "intellectual" lights of the GOP have a strong expressive interest in continuing to spout as much crazy shit as they can spew, because there is no market for "moderate conservatism," whatever the hell that is.

It's all very well for David Brooks to bleat happily about how he is a "moderate," but then he has a cushy gig on the NYTimes opinion page, a place where he is well-insulated from not merely the need to make sense (hi there, MoDO!), but where his paycheck doesn't depend upon sucking up to the loony right. The loony online right, in particular: it was pretty entertaining to watch one of Brooks's "Reformists," Yuval Levin, invoking wingnut darling Bobby Jindal to make the case at The Corner that gosh darn it, the Conservative Movement needs "Traditionalists" and "Reformists"! Chocolate and peanut butter! Naked bigotry and a nice suit for the bigotry! Unlike Brooks, where the hell else is a second-tier hack like Levin with pretentions to being Taken Seriously as a Thinker going to go if the NRO readership starts pelting him with feces and rotten bananas? The Atlantic only has so many sweet blog gigs, and those are all full up at the moment.

No, the wingnut welfare pays too well, and that means feeding the beast. Hence the success of the Malkinoids, the fate of the party be damned, as it most surely is by having that crown on board the sinking scow. But what else is there to do? Red State knows what time it is -- I absolutely loved this Action Notice for what Conservatives Who Want to Get Involved ought to be doing. See if you can detect a pattern:

I've been inundated with emails from people across the country who say they want to get involved. They are asking how to become a part of army of activists that the right will need to reorganize and re-engage against the left....

Read RedState....

Start commenting on stuff at RedState....

A lot of Republicans cannot be online at RedState all day... Get on our action items list.

Network with your fellow RedStaters....

This is, in fact, a war we are in. And every war needs new volunteers. Like bringing people to church, it is not always easy, but the army must grow. Encourage your friends to get involved here. Get them plugged in with the candidates and groups you choose. There are others out there who haven't discovered RedState and are still asking "how can I get involved." Now you know how to get involved. Get your friends involved.

RedState: AmWay for resentful political dead-end malcontents.

These "conservatives" are going nowhere. Fortunately, that's not our problem. The country is moving in the opposite direction, and we just have to help it along. Which isn't easy, but it sure beats the alternative.

 

Your Conservative Movement

Verbatim K-Lo.

Playing Politics with the Weddings Page   [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

If you quickly scan the top section of the weddings front page of the New York Times site today, you get the impression most weddings today are gay weddings.

A little politics in time for Election Day?

Thank goodness for the Internets, who helpfully inform us that "Yakety Sax is often used on television as a soundtrack for outlandishly humorous situations." Otherwise you might be puzzled as to the precise name of the tune playing right now in the inwards interior regions of your misfortunate skull.

Footfalls of a Wasted Plan

Comedy. NewsBusters (obligatory "fuck fuck fuckity") this morning:

John McCain got involved in the bailout negotiations after Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Sen. Lindsey Graham yesterday that the bailout plan would fail unless McCain came in and brought balky Republicans aboard.

How's that genius plan working out?

A high-profile White House meeting on Treasury’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan ended on a sour, contentious note Thursday after animated exchanges among lawmakers laced with presidential politics just weeks before the November elections.

“I can’t invent votes,” House Republican Leader John Boehner warned the administration about the lack of support in his conference for the massive government intervention. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) angrily accused House Republicans — with the tacit support of Republican presidential candidate John McCain — of crafting an alternative to undercut Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Both McCain and his Democrat rival, Sen. Barack Obama, left without any joint endorsement. A beleaguered President Bush had to struggle to maintain order and reassert himself. And when Democrats left after the meeting to caucus in the Roosevelt Room, Paulson pursued them, begging that they not “blow up” the legislation.

The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

This is a comedy of clusterfucks, and who knows what the hell's going to happen, but I'm kinda doubting that McCain comes out of this looking "presidential."

On the merits I'm still annoying my congresscritters and telling them "hell no."

UPDATE. As the 2-Year-Old says, "Les Go Meps."

From the Well They Pull an Empty Pail

The delightful cherry on top of this sundae of bullshit that is the Obama-wounded troops pseudo-scandal is this bit from Ben Politico Smith:

The accurate story, which the Obama campaign never told particularly clearly because it isn't all that flattering, seems to be that they were afraid the trip would be criticized as political.

I suppose in media-land it is "unflattering" to not want a visit to injured servicemembers to be turned into a revolting political circus of gotcha clowning about "hating the troops." Elsewhere it's called "common sense."

The simple fact is that no matter what Obama does ("One thing is certain — he did cancel the trip. We don't need any evidence of that and it is damning in and of itself. Whatever the rationale"), McCain and the wingnuts are going to screech that he "hates the troops," because they have nothing else but slander and a vague hope that somehow Obama's popularity is "cultish."

The real story here is that when you're reduced to nonsensical smears that get debunked in real time, as well as yelling that the other guy is in trouble because people like him, you got nothing. Hell, even the NYTimes knows it, which means you know it, I know it, dogs know it.