Jesus.

Still the party of personal responsibility.

Shorter Mitch Daniels: we in the Bush administration did a heckuva job managing the economy. Also, the surplus we inherited was thanks to Ronald Reagan.

Convincing

Riehl on...well, I'll let him tell you:

Herman Cain wins Tea Party straw poll in Phoenix. He certainly is an impressive candidate.

If your first question is who in the flying shitballs is Herman Cain, boy are you in for a treat.

Well, I'm sold.

In the history of journalism, has a headline ever been paired with a less persuasive image?


As soon as I see these two faces next to one another, scientists have to start working overtime to calculate the number of fucks I do not give about whatever they have to say.

Alex Jones, Charlie Sheen's fanboy.

As if there weren't enough reasons to hate Alex Jones -- he clearly desperately wants to be seen as Charlie Sheen's BFF.

I didn't count how many times he said, "When I was hanging out at your house last week," but it's a lot.

What a loser.

The inverse relationship between conservatism and prosperity.

Sorry for the sporadic posts -- been crazy.

This new Gallup poll got me thinking: why are the most conservative states also the poorest? And why isn't that an indictment of conservative economic policies?

Please, please be real. Please

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/116737394.html

Confirmed. Holy shit.

Scott Walker is very worried about deficits!

Bullshit.

A man of deliberation and discretion

Daniel Foster on Libya:

With reports that the Gaddafi regime — or what’s left of it — has effected the indiscriminate massacre of Libyan civilians, up to and including air strikes in Tripoli and the planned carpet-bombing of Benghazi, the suggestion that President Obama establish a “no-fly zone” above Libya has begun popping up on social media. I don’t say this lightly, but I think POTUS must so act.

The "I don't say this lightly" is a nice touch from a man so trigger happy that his proposed response to the Gulf oil spill was to "nuke it."

Seriously.

Remember, she was nearly Vice President of the United States.

Oh my.

Sarah Palin asked her daughter Bristol to search the internet for information on the American economy the night before a rare public speech, it has been reported.

Mrs Palin let slip that her daughter Bristol was part of her 'entourage' and that she had asked her to 'Google the economy' before the event in Long Island last Thursday.

Obviously, the Quitter doesn't realize that Google is a Soros-funded left-wing purveyor of socialist propaganda.

Private sector jobs blow, so government ones should too!

Note the curious argument here: that the private sector is superior to the public sector at the fine arts of limiting compensation (excluding the top 10%, of course) and not offering benefits, so the gubmint needs to...get with the program, I guess?

When a Hallmark card won't suffice

Scott Walker needed to give a big "thank you" to the Koch brothers and I guess the whole flowers / card / box-o'-candy route just didn't seem like enough. So he wrapped up a great big present for them in his budget "repair" bill.

Thanks so much for your support, guys. Love, Scotty.

The socialist nightmare that is the Age of Obama.

(h/t Balloon Juice)

Another Two Minutes of Hate Coming.

This should be fun.

A leaked manuscript by one of Sarah Palin's closest aides from her time as governor charges that Palin broke state election law in her 2006 gubernatorial campaign and was consumed by petty grievances up until she resigned.

The unpublished book by Frank Bailey was leaked to the media and widely circulated on Friday.

The manuscript opens with an account of Palin sending Bailey a message saying "I hate this damn job" shortly before she resigned as Alaska's governor in July 2009, less than three years into her four-year term. The manuscript goes on for nearly 500 pages, a mixture of analysis, gossip and allegation.

Silly, Ezra. Of course it's all the unions' fault.

Klein:

Let's be clear: Whatever fiscal problems Wisconsin is -- or is not -- facing at the moment, they're not caused by labor unions. That's also true for New Jersey, for Ohio and for the other states. There was no sharp rise in collective bargaining in 2006 and 2007, no major reforms of the country's labor laws, no dramatic change in how unions organize. And yet, state budgets collapsed. Revenues plummeted. Taxes had to go up, and spending had to go down, all across the country.

Blame the banks. Blame global capital flows. Blame lax regulation of Wall Street. Blame home buyers, or home sellers. But don't blame the unions. Not for this recession.

Here in Texas, a Right to Work state with low taxes, we face a budget shortfall in the range of $25B.

But it's all labor's fault!

Here's to Jackie Speier.

Wow.

Wingnuts suddenly opposed to Hitler references at protests.

This post looks like it was written in 2007.

I mean, seriously? The entire Teabagger movement is based on Obama-Hitler comparisons.

























































































There are thousands of these.

And that's just random assholes at Teabaggings -- that excludes elected Republican officials.

Morrissey's kidding, right?

I remember when birthers had balls

What happened to ballsy birthers like Orly Taitz, perfectly willing to repeat their own brand of paranoid nonsense on cue? Despite ample goading, Michelle Bachmann wouldn't even call Obama a Muslim on Good Morning America. Our next president needs to be able to answer the tough questions on camera, not sidestep them.

Haley Barbour doesn't want to say mean things about racists.

This will not help Haley "Jim Crow Mississippi Wasn't So Bad" broaden his appeal beyond white neo-Confederates.

Majority of Republicans are Birthers.

Dwight D. Eisenhower weeps.

Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don't think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure.

Serious question: do a majority of Democrats believe anything this nutty?

Why do the Green Bay Packers hate America?

Predictably, the wingnut governor of Wisconsin isn't a fan of unions.

Reasonable people, Serious debate

The 25 best quotes from CPAC, proving beyond any shadow of doubt that the right is led by decent, reasonable, and highly serious people. Some highlights:

25. "If [the shooting of Gabby Giffords in] Tucson tells us anything at all, it tells us this: Government has failed." - Wayne LaPierre, CEO off the National Rifle Association.

21. "[Obama's reelection] would subject the country to what might be a fatal last dose of statism." - Mitch Daniels.

19. "Anybody that brings up amnesty in this Congress, we need to just take the scarlet 'A' for amnesty and pin it on them." - Rep. Steve King.

17. "Our liberties, which have made us great, are now destroying us." - Rev. Michel Faulkner, at the CPAC "Traditional Marriage and Society" panel.

16. "We should end the Environmental Protection Agency’s war against American oil and gas." - Newt Gingrich.

15. "A lawsuit a day helps keep the liberals at bay." - Dr. Mike Adams at the CPAC "Defending Free Speech on Campus" panel.

14. "Maybe conservatives need to start thinking about forming other institutions, and new types of universities that will be able to create our own Harvards and our own Yales and our own Princetons." - Dr. Richard Brake, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, at the same panel.

11. "I have fairly but intelligently earned many billions of dollars which, in a sense, was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities." - Three-time bankrupt Donald Trump.

10. "When they talk about raising your taxes, I think raise the taxes on some of these countries that are taking advantage of the United States." - Donald Trump, again.

7. "Leftist, socialist, former and current communist czars." - Pat Boone, on the Obama administration.

6. "The objective of the liberals is to destroy this country." - Herman Cain.

4. "What do you mean, 'knowing that there are more jailed journalists'? I think there should be more jailed journalists!" - Ann Coulter.

2. "It's just like a liberal, they import slaves, they hold slaves, they fight for slavery, they go to war in a civil war to defend slavery. They then install legal discrimination against blacks for a hundred years…" - Ann Coulter.

0. "Sit down and shut up." - Dick Cheney as he was heckled by protesters.

If these people didn't exist we would need to make them up to entertain ourselves.

Roger Simon finds handle, flies off it

Roger Simon, still wearing that ridiculous fucking hat, getting just a little bit carried away on PJM:

The party staged by Andrew Breitbart for GOProud — the gay Republican and conservative group — was as close to a game changer as things get and the most interesting event at CPAC by far, at least to this point — and that’s meant as no insult to CPAC. With sexy Sophie B. Hawkins singing to a boisterous, supportive crowd, the party almost obliterated in one night the conception that Republicans are anti-gay and gave the impression that young libertarians — and some not so young — are taking over the GOP. Pretty soon it may be cool to be a Republican and square to be a Democrat.

I agree, some gay conservatives had a party. Therefore Republicans are not anti-gay (excepting the PJM commenters, apparently). Makes sense to me!

Also, note how Putzy quotes the block of text above while carefully omitting the next sentence:

Well, maybe that’s what I wanted to see and wanted to feel, but the atmosphere was certainly there Thursday night at DC’s Eighteenth Street Lounge.

Methinks you wanted to see and feel quite a bit, Roger.

Andrew Sullivan is shrill.

Wow, is this Andrew Sullivan or some Firebagger?

To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.

I must say I find this amusing after the many caves/sellouts on the War on Terror(TM), civil liberties, and teh geys -- all of which Sullivan supposedly cares about. But they were all politely excused.

But refuse to cut Social Security and bam! -- the lovefest is over.

DFHs of course were pissed about all those things, plus the corporatist health care bill, the tax cuts for billionaires, offshore drilling, and absurd little panders like the "spending freeze." But for an Obama-worshipper like Sullivan to go this far off the rails is something.

How long before Sullivan starts writing posts titled, "Why Mitch Daniels Matters"?

Two professional homophobes walk into a bar.

When K-Lo interviews Maggie Gallagher, the results are predictably horrifying.

Stalinist purges on the right.

Big tent party!

A prominent conservative activist group has given Ron Paul the boot.

The Young Americans for Freedom has voted the Texas congressman off its national advisory board in the aftermath of his straw poll win at CPAC over his positions on national security issues.

"It's a sad day in American history when a one-time conservative/libertarian stalwart has fallen more out of touch with America's needs for national security then our current socialist presidential regime," said the group's national director Jordan Marks.

Uh ..."presidential regime"? Also, what do national security policies have to do with economic policies?

I'm guessing Jordan Marks went to school on the short bus.

Well, maybe a little apology.

I see that Willard scrubbed his CPAC speech and book -- ironically titled, "No Apology" -- of RomneyCare references.

You can run, but you can't hide, Willard.

K-Lo: Editor

Guh.

"And more — this perhaps could be seen as more for a primary- than a general-election audience, but it’s true all the same"

She must give one hell of a reacharound for the NR to keep her on as an editor.

"War criminal!"

Cranking up the PR skills

Orrin Hatch sure knows how to woo public opinion:



"I know President Mubarak personally, he’s been a friend of America. I feel sad that he’s going through this."

Nice.

Red America honors its heritage

Classy. Even for Mississippi, this is classy.

Our priorities will be the people's priorities.

If trolling for chicks on Craigslist is one of the "people's priorities" -- then Boehner was spot-on.

Let The Two Minutes of Hate Against Rick Santorum Begin.

Smart. The Frothy Mixture wants the fundie vote all to himself.

I think he's running for Romney's VP slot, myself.

Patriot Act so totally not patriotic anymore.

Of course, liberals were against the Patriot Act before it was cool.

Expert counsel

Tucker's Folly has a wonderful little piece about how "the left" has hijacked the term "Judicial Activism", which properly belongs to conservatives who understand that the Constitution is a matter of divining "the will of the people" and not the judge's own will (which is, apparently, somehow not a form of subjective interpretation).

The tagline:

Joseph Petros is a third-year law student at Notre Dame Law School and is Executive Editor of the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.

Well then the age-old question of how best to interpret the Constitution is settled.

Hehindeedy!

(h/t PW)

Palin quotes Glenn Reynolds in Reagan 100 speech.

Remember, she cribbed "blood libel" from him after the Gabby Giffords assassination attempt -- now she's lifting "an army of Davids."

Proving, of course, that The Quitter is not at all partisan and very libertarian.

Mike Stark pwns El Rushbo.

This is how it's done, ladies and gents.

STARK: Hi, Rush. I, um… I’m calling because… Well, first of all, I’m a liberal, and I seriously don’t understand this, uh, Reagan idolatry on behalf of conservatives. I’ll get… I’ll give you my reasons. Instead of privatizing Social Security, he raised taxes. We’re all paying higher taxes today out of our paychecks every single week because he decided to save Social Security. He –

RUSH: Wait, wait. Hold it. I need to go…

RUSH: Wait. Jeez.

STARK: The Greenspan Commission. He signed it into law, and it raised taxes on Social Security.

RUSH: What…? Wait, you’re talking about Reagan or Clinton?

STARK: I’m talking about Reagan. Reagan did that. He raised taxes on Social Security. He negotiated with terrorists, sending — over and over again — arms to Iran in exchange for hostages perform by contrast Jimmy Carter didn’t give an inch to the Iranians.

RUSH: What in the world…?

STARK: Not an inch. Instead Reagan (crosstalk)

RUSH: Testing the true depth of my politeness here on this call, folks.

STARK: Say that again?

RUSH: Let me ask you a question. What do you think, given all this that you believe, when you hear Obama and the Democrats cite Reagan as they have been doing since about a week before the State of the Union?

STARK: It’s funny you ask that. Because as a liberal I think Obama owes his presidency to Reagan. They’re both kinda stuffed suits that say one thing and then do another. Obama hasn’t been anywhere near liberal enough for me. He said he’d close Guantamano (sic), he hasn’t done that.

RUSH: Yeah.

STARK: He said he’d help people out with foreclosures, he hasn’t done that.

RUSH: I feel for you on that.

STARK: But Reagan, I mean, amnesty to people who are breaking the law and living in the country illegally. He said, “Forget about it. Stay here forever.” He cut and ran from Lebanon. How many hundreds of Marines were killed –

RUSH: Yeah.

STARK: — and he just decided, “Well, you know, instead of the fighting the bad guys I’m gonna run away”?

RUSH: Yeah.

STARK: Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?

RUSH: “Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?” I don’t think you… Given what you’ve said, and I’m not trying to avoid the question, I don’t think you’d ever understand it.

STARK: Well, he’s a tax raiser, an amnesty giver, a cut-and-runner, and he negotiated with terrorists. Why is he a hero to conservatives? I don’t think you understand it.

RUSH: No, I do. Most assuredly I do. I just don’t think that you would understand it. Where did you get this silly notion that Reagan raised taxes on Social Security? What websites do you read? Where did you pick that up?

STARK: Look up the Greenspan Commission. It’s not too hard to find. I mean, it’s a matter of history.

RUSH: Where did you get it? I mean, you’re asking me questions. I’m just reversing one on you here.

STARK: I’m sorry. It’s just general knowledge. It’s something I’ve known for a long time. I can’t remember where I got it from.

RUSH: You can’t remember? You’ve never heard of a website called Media Matters which highlighted it yesterday?

STARK: (static) Oh, no. I know Media Matters very well but that’s not where I got it.

RUSH: Oh, not where you got it. It’s an amazing coincidence.

STARK: (static) I mean, I’m a liberal. Of course I know Media Matters.

RUSH: Amazing coincidence out there.

STARK: They’re a fantastic website. But why are you dodging the question? I want to know why a tax-raising, amnesty-giving, cut-and-running, negotiating-with-terrorists guy is a hero to the conservative movement.

RUSH: Well, because you understand Reagan in a way that is flawed. You –

Your call is actually kinda interesting because you represent the impossibility of “bridging the gap.” Somebody like you just has to be defeated. There’s no crossing the aisle and finding common ground with you. You’re free to be who you are, don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to insulting. I’m just saying, you are unreachable. You don’t want to be reached. T his picture of Reagan, you’ve just described somebody you should love, and you hate him! You just described somebody you should absolutely love, all these things. He’s an anti-conservative, as you say, but you don’t love him. You’re having trouble understanding why he’s viewed as heroic to a lot of people.

I could talk to you about anti-communism. I could. You want to talk about amnesty? Yeah, that was Simpson-Mazzoli, and that was one-and-a-half, two million illegals; and he was told, “Okay, if we’re gonna do this, this is it, then. We’re gonna secure the borders and that’s it.” It’s the same thing with every tax increase he signed. It was also accompanied by promises to cut spending, and it never happened. Reagan’s not perfect. Nobody is. But I think the proof of Reagan is the fact that when your guys get in trouble, who do they seek to associate themselves with? Remember, Obama and these people are all about getting votes.

The fact that he’s trying to surround himself with Reagan, the fact that he’s trying to position himself with Reagan is the best indication anybody could have of what this country really thinks of Ronaldus Magnus. I think if you want to focus in on hypocrisy, you’ve got far more of it on your side of the aisle to explain and dig through than we do. Reagan was forced to raise payroll taxes by a crisis in Social Security in 1983. He endorsed that rescue plan that was written by Alan Greenspan. It was reluctant. He was not a big supporter of that. Remember, Reagan did not have a congressional majority with him.

Everything he got, the tax cuts, he had Democrats outnumbering him in the House and Senate everywhere. There were certain realities that he faced. But the biggest tax increase on Social Security was authored by none other than Bill Clinton. But did you understand the notion? Ronald Reagan fought for America. He loved America. He feared where the left, based on history, wanted to take the country. Ronald Reagan set the stage for the end of the Cold War. Ronald Reagan defeated Soviet communism without firing a shot. I don’t know… But none of that would matter. So you, sir, a nice individual, I’m sure you’re a fine guy (probably not too much fun at a ball game, unlike Bill Clinton), but still, you illustrate that people like you just have to be defeated, not met halfway and gotten along with. I mean politically.

The trainwreck that is Jane Galt.

It's really impressive how much wrongness she can cram into one post.

Run Newt Run!

Amazing.

Newt Gingrich outpaced his potential 2012 rivals in fundraising during the last three months of 2010 thanks to his influential 527 group "American Solutions for Winning the Future," which can solicit unlimited corporate and individual contributions.

Just a reminder...

RUSSERT: This is World War III?

GINGRICH: I believe if you take all the countries I just listed that you’ve been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you have to say to yourself: this is, in fact, World War III.

You can't build a progressive Tea Party.

Not unless there's a few billionaires out there willing to fund it, a handful of powerful liberal Democrats to front it, and a liberal news network to obsessively promote it.

Sorry, that's just the reality.

BREAKING: Glenn Beck is nucking futs.

Wait. When were we ever losing in Iraq?

Didn't Putz spend 2003-2009 telling us how awesome the war in Iraq was going?

"There were far too many hands on the steering wheel, which, in my view, was a formula for running the truck into a ditch," writes Rumsfeld in Known and Unknown, which is set to hit bookstores next week.

Oops! And who was to blame?

Ultimately, Rumsfeld blames former President Bush for not clearly resolving the disagreement and clearly charting a post-war plan before hostilities commenced, instead deferring to his point man on Iraq reconstruction, L. Paul Bremer.

Looking forward to Putz's swift denunciation of Rumsfeld's defeatism, troop-undermining, and BDS.

Does anyone have a mint?

I can't imagine how unpleasant it must taste to fellate a corpse. "Imagine" is one thing. Poor Ed Rollins actually did it.

Egypt: Obama's fault.

So predictable.

I do love the bit about "demolition teams" spreading "carnage", though, apparently written without the slightest bit of self-awareness.

An old favorite

It's good to see that Alberto Gonzales still does not recall much of anything while under oath. Oh how I miss that blank "oops I shit my pants" smirk Alberto wore in 95% of his public appearances.

Up or down votes are back in style!

Fresh off of the Senate GOP's magnificent success at luring the filibuster record behind an abandoned barn and sodomizing it, Marco Rubio and his ideological brethren are once again very big fans of the Up or Down Vote in the Senate.

Shocking.

Now it all makes sense

Very Serious Person (and possible owl-human hybrid) George Will on why the House Republican leadership is getting it right:

Will tells me that this new majority is quite different from the bumptious, Gingrich-led majority of 1994. After three decades in the wilderness, Gingrich’s House Republicans fell victim to triumphalism — but having regained the majority after a mere four years out of power, the Boehner-Cantor Republicans realize how fragile their victory is.

“The leadership has a little more sobriety in it this time,” Will observes. “There is just a degree of seriousness now, that there wasn’t then, about the larger issues confronting the country. What happened in ’94 arose from things like the House bank scandal, disaffection over the crime bill, all that stuff — nothing like [the bailout of] General Motors, the ‘stimulus,’ and quantitative easing.”

House Speaker John Boehner, Will adds, is smartly taking a low-key approach. “You don’t want a congressional leader pretending he is on a par with the president,” he says. “It was one thing for Clay, Webster, and Calhoun to be on a par with some of the mediocre presidents of the first half of the 19th century, when the ethic of presidential power was that you did not speak to the country. We live in an entirely new world. There is no point in a congressman from Cincinnati trying to peg up, because he has a different job, and a really important one.”

Serious, humble, and low-key: three terms we can all agree are descriptive of the current GOP leadership.

Drill baby drill.

As I was watching the events unfold in Egypt, I wondered how long it would take for some Republican to say that this just all proves we should be drilling in ANWR.

Answer: not long.