A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Out Of Des Moines

It turns out Mitt Romney may not have won in Iowa after all.

Mitt Romney received 20 fewer votes than are reported from a Moulton precinct in numbers posted by the Republican Party of Iowa, the Appanoose County GOP chairman said today.

The final vote between Iowa caucuses winner Mitt Romney was eight ahead of Rick Santorum.

“We stand by the figures that were presented by the Moulton precinct caucus,” said Lyle Brinegar, chairman of the Appanoose County GOP.

Matt Strawn, chairman of the Republican Party of Iowa, continued to express confidence Friday that the order of finish will not change. He said the party would make no further comment until its two-week vote certification process is complete.

Moulton resident Edward True has signed an affidavit saying that he helped count the vote at the Garrett Memorial Library in Moulton and that the precinct had two votes for Romney, not 22, as reported online by the state GOP.

But here’s the kicker: the article goes on to say that even if Santorum did win that it doesn’t really change anything, we’re told.  Rick’s Slick is still going to lose in every other state.

Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford said the results – even if the certification reveals a different answer – will change little other than bragging rights.

Santorum, who for months remained in the single digits in polls, wildly beat expectations, and that is the real story, Goldford said. The caucuses don’t result in an actual election, so there’s no additional harm done in terms of having to eject a candidate from a position, Goldford noted.

Now that’s odd.  Republicans keep screaming how the voting process is inherently corrupt if it ever produces a Democrat as the winner because they always steal elections, therefore we must have strict voting laws in every state for every election that makes it as difficult as possible for people to vote in order to protect the integrity of the election system.  We have to pass laws to immediately protect the sacred process from the evils of those people who may try to vote 4812 times.  It’s the only way one of them could end up President you know, and if you don’t agree you’re evil vote-stealing scum anyway.

But that election system apparently doesn’t matter when it comes to the coronation of Mitt Romney as nominee as fast as possible.  Strange how that works.  Democrats aren’t even American as far as most Republicans are concerned, but it’s all good if Republicans fiddle with the election system.  It’s just a caucus, right?  Besides, ACORN ACORN ACORN BLAH BLOOGITY BLAH CHICAGO WAY.

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The Cost Of The Payroll Tax Cut

Steve Benen is most likely correct when he notes the GOP “negotiators” in the Senate side of the payroll tax cut fight starting next month have no intention of extending the cut at all.  Senators Crapo, Barrasso and especially Jon Kyl being involved means the Republicans are signaling that they are okay with destroying any deal in an election year.

[T]he likelihood of there even being an agreement now borders on fanciful. Republican participants won’t be willing to compromise, and most of them don’t fear failure since they oppose tax breaks for the middle class on principle.

What about the risk of being blamed? Remember, as far as GOP leaders are concerned, the process itself offers cover. Instead of last week, when House Republicans became the clear villains, when the conference committee struggles to come up with a bipartisan solution, the party will find it easier to spread the blame around.

“It’s not our fault,” GOP leaders will say. “We tried to work with Democrats on a deal, but one didn’t come together. Oh well.”

For Republicans, it’s the best of all possible worlds: middle-class taxes would go up, the economy would take a hit, public disgust for Washington would be renewed, and the media would feel obligated to say “both sides” failed to reach an agreement.

Now Benen’s scenario depends entirely on the “Earth is flat, view differ” Village “journalism” that is so pervasive in the press, and with the election season officially beginning on Tuesday in Iowa, we’re already seeing the GOP also-rans work the refs.  The larger problem is that the GOP is basically trumpeting the fact they want to screw over the middle class, and the Village is more than happy to go along with the idea of “shared sacrifice.”

You have to be pretty cynical to think that the GOP will win this fight.  Sadly, such a level of cynicism is not only recommended, it’s absolutely necessary.

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Sometimes you have to admit defeat

I tried to write a proper analysis of Peggy Noonan’s latest emission. I labored through her evocation of a red and white and purple-prosed America that I suspect only ever existed in Peggy’s wildest gin-dreams:

...The things that divide us are not new, yet there’s a sense now that the glue that held us together for more than two centuries has thinned and cracked with age. That it was allowed to thin and crack, that the modern era wore it out.

What was the glue? A love of country based on a shared knowledge of how and why it began; a broad feeling among our citizens that there was something providential in our beginnings; a gratitude that left us with a sense that we should comport ourselves in a way unlike the other nations of the world, that more was expected of us, and not unjustly—”To whom much is given much is expected”; a general understanding that we were something new in history, a nation founded on ideals and aspirations—liberty, equality—and not mere grunting tribal wants. We were from Europe but would not be European: No formal class structure here, no limits, from the time you touched ground all roads would lead forward. You would be treated not as your father was but as you deserved.

I chuckled at the bit where she called Obama a negative, self-obsessed, divisive hater of the rich:

Where is the president in all this? He doesn’t seem to be as worried about his country’s continuance as his own. He’s out campaigning and talking of our problems, but he seems oddly oblivious to or detached from America’s deeper fears. And so he feels free to exploit divisions. It’s all the rich versus the rest, and there are a lot more of the latter.

then was entirely discombobulated when Peggy became seemed briefly coherent*:

Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie’s Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich. It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.

The story is a scandal, and the book should be the bible of Occupy Wall Street. But they seem as incapable of seeing government as part of the problem as Republicans seem of seeing business as part of the problem.

but then realized it was all an excuse to insert her tongue slowly into Paul Ryan, and then wiggle it around a bit, tickling the little hairs with the tip the way he likes:

Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don’t think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them. Conservatives naturally like him—they agree with him—but liberals and journalists inclined to disagree with him take him seriously and treat him with respect.

My brain didn’t really start to hurt until the end, where I discovered that Paul Ryan thinks the rich and politicians are evil too:

“Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?” Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? “Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?”

Rather than raise taxes on individuals, we should “lower the amount of government spending the wealthy now receive.” The “true sources of inequity in this country,” he continued, are “corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless.” The real class warfare that threatens us is “a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society.”

although apparently it’s not negative, divisive or rich-hatey when he says it.

I tried to read the whole thing again, and pick it apart in detail for your delectation. And frankly, I just gave up. I’m neither sober enough, nor drunk enough, to care.

So, in lieu of that, I bring you my new favorite biscuits (cookies, for those of you not of Blighty born):

Who doesn’t like a nice fruity cock or two with their morning tea?

Feel free to treat this as your open thread, although if someone could take the time to make fun of both Peggy and Ryan for me, I’d be ever so grateful.

Now where did I leave those biscuits?

* ETA: Yes, I admit that Peggy is only coherent here for a particular value of coherent, namely “not very”. As commenter geg6 noted “To blame everything on Freddie and Fannie, as she does in the paragraph you highlight, is not coherent. It is the babbling of every Teabagging, conspiracy nut, Grover Norquist knob gobbling asshole on the right.” At least Peggy got all the words in the right order. That must count for something. ▲

You Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated

Oh Pat Buchanan, how are you possibly still employed at MSNBC?

During a radio appearance promoting his book, MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan argued that blacks and whites were more unified during the 1950s than they are today. Buchanan argued that “what we had then, which was a sense of cultural and social one-ness, we were a people, that I think that is what’s being lost.” Buchanan added that while blacks considered themselves Americans first and foremost during the era of segregation, today they’re using “hyphenated terms” like “African-American” to describe themselves.

Buchanan’s remark came yesterday on the radio program of Mark Davis. Davis asked Buchanan to expand on his theory that, in Davis’ words, “black Americans of 1960 were more woven into the fabric of the America of that time than many of today’s black Americans are woven into the America of this time.”

Buchanan replied that during the 1950s, blacks and whites “all had a common religion, we all worshiped the same God, we all went to schools where American literature was taught, the English language was our language, we all rooted for the same teams, we read the same newspapers, we listened to the same music. We were a people then. We were all Americans. Now I’m not saying segregation was good. But what I was saying, that did not prevent us from being one people.”

Because really, any argument that goes “back when they knew their place” and “they think they’re black first and American second” couldn’t possibly be complete and utter bullshit designed to ruin the “social one-ness” that Buchanan purports to advocate, right?

It’s one thing to have an analyst or pundit say something controversial once in a while, but it’s another thing entirely to have this grandiose pile of fecal matter write a book about the end of White America (actually, isn’t this like his third or fourth book on that subject?) and say “You know, there were some definite benefits to racial segregation, find out in my new book!”

Buchanan really seems to think an era where folks who looked like me were terrified of promoting their own culture or history in order to fit in was a win-win for everyone involved.  On the other hand, the modern GOP seems to like that particular idea in general, so it’s really not just Buchanan’s problem either.  This particular culture battle is a war story as old as society, the lyrics may change but the tune stays the same.

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This Mess We’re In

This asinine, silly, childish snit and clusterfuck over scheduling of Obama’s speech on jobs shows that John Boehner is a utter dick, or that the Obama administration is hopelessly naive and John Boehner is an utter dick. I guess I’m pretty sure about the dick part, the rest is kind of grey.

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Very Good Question

Greg Sargent asks a very good question.

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The Party of Personal Responsibility

Let’s get this guy in SuperCongress stat:

While U.S. Rep. Tom Graves was calling for fiscal responsibility in Washington his attorney was arguing in a lawsuit that a North Georgia bank is at fault for issuing Graves a $2.2 million loan the bank knew he could not repay.

Graves was fighting a lawsuit along with business partner Chip Rogers, the state Senate majority leader. The two Republicans, through a limited-liability company, used the loan to purchase and renovate a Calhoun motel that quickly went under.

The bank sued, alleging the two defaulted on the loan. The politicians filed counterclaims against the bank, accusing it of improperly declaring the loan in default after reneging on a promise to refinance it at more favorable terms. Both parties dismissed their claims Wednesday, a day before they were scheduled to attend a hearing on the case in Calhoun. Graves said through a spokesman that the case has been “fully resolved in an equitable and fair manner.” An attorney for the bank declined to comment.

This is the well known Burkean small-government principle of “It’s your fault- you knew I couldn’t pay you back!”

(Via the Benenator 2000)

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Drunken wrestling is probably fine, even encouraged, but the kids in the car will do him in

This is sort of small change, but the national situation is so dispiriting and disconnected from reality I think we need a distraction.

Plus. I love this headline:

State rep found drunk was on House speaker’s car

On the car. An important detail.

State Rep. Jerrod Martin was passed out drunk on then-GOP Minority Leader’s William G. Batchelder’s Chevy Suburban when Martin was discovered by Riffe Center security last year.

Newspapers are working backward from the OVI/child endangerment charge which came last week:

The Dispatch reported today that Martin, charged with DUI and child endangerment a week ago, was found intoxicated and unresponsive in the House parking garage early the morning of March 24, 2010. The Beavercreek Republican was treated by a medic at the scene and released shortly after 4 a.m. to Dittoe, then with the GOP House campaign team and now communications director for House Republicans. Dittoe had been sent by Rep. Ron Amstutz, a Wooster Republican and veteran lawmaker who was back in his district.

And there’s more:

On May 16, 2010, the night manager at the Residence Inn in Beavercreek called police about guests yelling and fighting on the fifth floor at 4:30 a.m. Officers found Martin and six other men “highly intoxicated” at a bachelor party. The men said they weren’t fighting; just having a “friendly wrestling match in their hotel room,” a Beavercreek police report said. Martin’s parents were called to pick up the men and their belongings, according to the police report. Police noted that the room was tidied up and not damaged.

An OVI is taken seriously, and a child endangerment charge in Ohio will trigger a concurrent investigation into whether the children in the vehicle with the impaired driver are abused, neglected or dependent.

It looks like he finally staggered over the line. Calling his mom or a GOP hack won’t get him out of the latest charge.

Republicans in Ohio dropped the push for a photo ID requirement at the polls in 2012. I’m starting to think it’s because their leaders won’t have a valid driver’s license.

h/t Plunderbund

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In Wake of Wisconsin Voter Suppression Laws, Walker Planning to Close DMVs in Democratic Areas

Because of course he is.

Wisconsin’s new Voter ID laws require voters to present a state-issued photo ID card at the polling booth.  It’s a pain in the ass, but doable, right?  Just head to your local DMV, wait in line for eleventy-three days, and presto!  You have an ID card!

Not so fast.

Now, Scott Walker’s Wisconsin criminal syndicate has devised a plan to make it reaaaaaally hard for Democrats to obtain the requisite ID cards. It’s quite stunning in its boldness, really: Wisconsin is planning to close DMVs in Democratic districts and use the money it will save by doing so to expand hours at DMVs located in Republican districts.

Uh-huh:

The Wisconsin legislature is finalizing a bill to close ten Department of Motor Vehicle centers located in Democratic districts within the state. The money saved will be used to extend operating hours at DMV centers in Republican districts. These cuts come on the heels of new voter ID laws that require voters to present a state-issued photo identification card at the poll booths.

The Wisconsin Republicans, led by Governor Scott Walker, have passed a myriad of unpopular bills that have alienated the public, specifically the public employees whose right to collectively bargain was stripped, their pensions cut and many of their jobs lost. Walker, who has strong ties to Koch Industries, Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has served as the poster child for conservative policy in the nation.

Honestly, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills:

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Circle Jerks

DougJ’ post about the laughable idiot James Pethokoukis (he’s the clown who spent October 2008 flogging the Goldberg theorem claiming the market was tanking not because of the economic crisis but because of an impending Obama electoral victory) and his “Reagan at Rekyavik” nonsense reminded me of the fawning media coverage Reagan got in 1985 when he met Gorbachev in November in Geneva and the press fellated him for months for not wearing a coat. Here’s a 2006 writeup to jog your memory from “The America That Reagan Built”:

Here is the nauseating write-up in the Washington Post by David Hoffman from 19 November:

Just as the wailing horns of the Soviet motorcade were heard in the distance, President Reagan stepped into the bracing cold winds off Lake Geneva without an overcoat and waited on the steps of the Swiss chateau for his first words with a leader of the Soviet Union.

When Mikhail Gorbachev climbed out of the black Zil limousine with a Soviet flag flying from the right fender and took off his charcoal-gray hat, the first conversation he had with Reagan was about the overcoat. Gorbachev gestured to his own coat and asked the president, in Russian, “Where is your coat?”

“It’s inside,” Reagan said, motioning toward the glass doors and warmth of the 120-year-old Swiss chateau, as they posed for photographers in a chill wind. The president steered his guest by the elbow inside, and so began an extraordinary personal encounter between the American president, who devoted a career to denigrating communism, and the Russian who may rule his Communist nation into the next century.

Here is the Courier-Mail:

Mr Reagan, host for the first day’s meeting, arrived at the mansion first, about 15 minutes early, wearing an overcoat and white scarf and carrying papers under his arm. From an inside window, he flashed a thumbs-up signal as he waited for Mr Gorbachev’s arrival. Mr Reagan stepped outside into the brisk Swiss air without his coat to greet Mr Gorbachev as he got out of his long Zil limousine, one minute behind schedule. Mr Gorbachev wore a heavy grey overcoat and held his hat in his left hand, and smiled as they greeted. They shook hands and posed on a veranda of the tan sandstone building.

Here’s a bit from the NY Times, showing the press pool yukking it up:

At a briefing by Larry Speakes, President Reagan’s spokesman, the questions were even more personal.

‘’Gorbachev made reference to the fact that the President was not wearing a topcoat,’’ came the question. ‘’Was the President wearing Kennedy-style long underwear?’’

‘’No, he wasn’t,’’ Mr. Speakes replied. ‘’I think the President was in his customary underwear.’’

The theme of attire was pursued at the evening briefing, albeit on a less intimate basis. Possibly to preclude more such questions, Mr. Speakes volunteered that during their stroll to a pool house by the lake, Mr. Reagan wore a coat and a scarf, and Mr. Gorbachev wore a coat and a hat.

Here’s another NY Times write-up:

Mr. Reagan, who was the host for the meetings today, as Mr. Gorbachev will be for Wednesday’s, greeted the Russian warmly in front of the Fleur d’Eau, a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva, at one minute after 10 o’clock this morning. Despite gray skies and a cutting wind, Mr. Reagan was coatless and hatless – a fact commented on by Mr. Gorbachev, who wore both coat and hat. The two men were smiling, cordial, seemingly relaxed.

Those are a few I dug up in a minute or two, but you see how it goes. I was only fifteen at the time, but the nonsense about the coat got such play that it was immediately part of the Reagan legend- so much so that even today, four decades later, I remember it. I guess my point is that when you are a Republican, the press is always little more than a mutual masturbation society.

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This Indictment is quite a read…

I live in Baltimore. Last year on Election Day, while I was out working to GOTV we received a robo-call at our house around 6pm telling us:

Hello I’m calling to let everybody know that Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful. Our goals have been met. The polls were correct, and we took it back. We’re okay. Relax. Everything’s fine. The only thing left is to watch it on TV tonight. Congratulations, and thank you.

It was yet another dirty trick from the Republican Party of Maryland and former Governor and douchebag Bob Ehrlich.

Well, today Ehrlich’s Communication Director and a well known scum for hire in Maryland politics were indicted on multiple counts of election fraud. TPM has details here and Steve Benen weighs in here.

The Indictment, posted at the Baltimore Sun, is pretty amazing in the way it pulls back the curtain on Republican efforts to suppress the vote by any means necessary.

This kind of voter suppression effort is a pillar of Republican Confederate Party electoral strategy. It is going on in every State in the Union and by any means that they can get away with using. In Maryland they were caught (this time) and prosecuted (this time). But in most places and in most cases there is no penalty.

Why?

You know why: IOKIYAR. That’s why.

And how about a fresh Open Thread.

Cheers

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Weiner Out

And the inevitable has now happened:

Representative Anthony D. Weiner has told House leaders that he plans to resign his seat after coming under growing pressure from his Democratic colleagues to leave the House, said a top Democratic official and two people told of Mr. Weiner’s plans.

His decision follows revelations of his lewd online exchanges with women.

The top Democratic official said Mr. Weiner called Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Representative Steve Israel of New York last night while they were at the White House picnic to inform them he had decided to resign on Thursday.

Mr. Weiner plans to resign in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, on Thursday afternoon, at a senior center where he announced his first campaign for City Council in 1992, according to two people told of his plans.

Question: Why is Weiner resigning for talking dirty to people and sending crotch shots while Ensign was allowed to serve as long as he wanted and Vitter is still in office?

Answer: Liberal media + IOKIYAR.

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A world of information in one sentence…

Every now and then there is a news report that conveys a world of rich detail in one simple sentence. This may have been missed by some, but on Monday morning Nina Totenberg spoke one of those sentences in an NPR report on the way that members of the Supreme Court approach the task of writing. I’ve highlighted that sentence in the excerpt below:

“The only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing,” says Chief Justice John Roberts.

That sentiment is echoed by Breyer, who points to Proust, Stendhal and Montesquieu as his inspirations. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Dickens and Trollope.

Justice Thomas says a good legal brief reminds him of the TV show 24. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says one of the great influences on her writing was her European literature professor at Cornell, Vladimir Nabokov — yes, the same Nabokov who later rocked the literary world with his widely acclaimed novel Lolita.

Somehow it is not a surprise to see that a man who thinks in talking points finds comfort in the predictable, repetitive and formulaic prose of bad TV. Perhaps this helps to explain how he became the most corrupt and actively partisan Supreme Court Justice in generations. And that leads to an interesting question: does rigidity of thought lead to corruption or does corruption lead to rigidity of thought?

And with that, how about a fresh open thread.

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Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Lays the Smackdown on Reince Priebus

Okay, okay, I get it.

You know what I like?  Politicians whose raison-d’etre I can understand.  I must admit to some annoyance at the Democrats jumping on the “Weiner’s gotta go” train.

I am so sick of this man’s penis, I get reflexively annoyed at anyone who mentions Weinergate.  I want to move the fuck on—like, two weeks ago.  But yesterday, DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz demonstrated why it is important to make sure that your glass house is stone-free.

If someone on your side commits ethically questionable acts, you call them out. Why?  So when someone on the other side commits ethically questionable acts, you can call them out with a straight face, something that Reince Priebus is obviously unable to do.

Reince, you see, has been up-in-arms about this Weiner business, arguing that Democrats failed to show leadership by not asking Weiner to resign earlier. The hypocrisy swimming around this asshat is is so thick, I’m surprised he hasn’t choked on it:

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IOKIYAR

It always is.

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