Romney: Americans dying in wars makes us stronger.

Regardless, apparently, of the merits of said wars.

Fox News, the new Stalinism

Chilling.

At the Fox News holiday party the year the network overtook archrival CNN in the cable ratings, tipsy employees were herded down to the basement of a Midtown bar in New York. As they gathered around a television mounted high on the wall, an image flashed to life, glowing bright in the darkened tavern: the MSNBC logo. A chorus of boos erupted among the Fox faithful. The CNN logo followed, and the catcalls multiplied. Then a third slide appeared, with a telling twist. In place of the logo for Fox News was a beneficent visage: the face of the network’s founder. The man known to his fiercest loyalists simply as "the Chairman" – Roger Ailes.

“It was as though we were looking at Mao,” recalls Charlie Reina, a former Fox News producer. The Foxistas went wild. They let the dogs out. Woof! Woof! Woof! Even those who disliked the way Ailes runs his network joined in the display of fealty, given the culture of intimidation at Fox News. “It’s like the Soviet Union or China: People are always looking over their shoulders,” says a former executive with the network’s parent, News Corp. “There are people who turn people in.”

Dr. Helen: I see lots of "Help Wanted" signs, so unemployment can't be that bad.

Dr. Mrs. Putz, still a total moron.

Why are there "Now Hiring" signs in front of so many businesses these days when so many people are complaining about not finding a job? Everywhere I go in Knoxville, there are generic "Now Hiring" signs from the hotels to the car dealerships to the stores at the mall.

Why are the Israelis complaining about terrorism? I haven't seen a single suicide bomber in Austin.

Why are people complaining about these tornadoes? I haven't seen a single tornado in Austin.

Why do people insist that poverty is such a problem in this country? Not a single kid on my block is on food stamps.

Add your own.

Rudy!

Another day, another Republican front runner. How long before the wingers remember Rudy sucks?

I'm getting the feeling their might be some dissatisfaction among Republicans with their candidates.

Oh please oh please oh please oh please.

The wingnut-on-wingnut fighting would be so awesome.

“All indications are that she will be in — her supporters have an intuition about it,” said Jeff Jorgensen, chairman of the Republican Party of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, where Ms. Palin came in second in a straw poll last week. “People are looking for somebody, a Ronald Reagan reincarnate, who does not seem to be out there yet.”

This is excellent news for Rudy Giuliani.

Let the Two Minutes of Hate Against Rebecca Mansour Begin.

Hehindeedy:

A series of messages forwarded to The Daily Caller show a top aide to former Alaska Gov. and possible presidential candidate Sarah Palin mocking top political figures and even her boss’s own daughter, Bristol Palin.

Red State Editor-in-Chief and CNN contributor Erick Erickson is “a total douchebag,” wrote Palin speechwriter and domestic policy adviser Rebecca Mansour in a May 22, 2010, message. “Greasy dumb ass with a talent for self-promotion. He threw himself in at the Gov’s SC rally. Self-promotion.” (Erickson said South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley invited him to the rally).

The Brits hate David Brooks, too.

Such a satisfying smackdown.

Britain faced an enormous task: To move from an aristocratic political economy to a democratic, industrial one. This transition was made gradually, without convulsion, with both parties playing a role.

Gradually? Without convulsion? I don’t know if you’re aware of this David, but most British historians believe that the First World War was pretty convulsive. And definitely not very gradual. He seems to think that Britain cast off her aristocratic rulers by a process of “constructive competition.” In fact, what happened was that we went to war, conscripted millions of young men and sent them to France to be machine-gunned. Simultaneously, our government was taken over by a clique, led by Lloyd George, which ruled autocratically from a garden shed in No 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, a whole part of the country – Ireland – descended into civil war. Somehow, I don’t see that as a “gradual” transformation.

Awesome.

The world didn't end? Bummer.

What a nutjob.

"It has been a really tough weekend," said Harold Camping, the 89-year-old fundamentalist radio preacher who convinced hundreds of his followers that the rapture would occur on Saturday at 6 p.m.

Let the Two Minutes of Hate Against Roger Ailes Begin.

Suck on this, Putz.

“He thinks things are going in a bad direction,” another Republican close to Ailes told me. “Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.”

No one wants the Republican nomination.

Guess Republicans are going to have to settle for Herman Cain as their "savior" candidate.

Israel, right or wrong.

Deep thought: siding with a foreign government over America's is the new patriotism.

The Party of Personal Responsibility

Apparently, being asked what you think of the Ryan plan is a "gotcha" question.

"There's got to be the preparation on all the candidates' parts for those gotchas. That's what the lamestream media is known for nowadays is the gotcha trip-up questions," she told Sean Hannity on his Fox News Channel show Wednesday.

Of course, to The Quitter, everything is a trip-up question.

Israel uber alles.

These people are nuts.

"President Obama has thrown Israel under the bus. He has disrespected Israel and undermined its ability to negotiate peace," Romney said in a statement.

"He has also violated a first principle of American foreign policy, which is to stand firm by our friends," added the former Massachusetts governor.

So, if your friend was blowing all his money on hookers and cocaine, and gambled his house away and was beating his kids to a pulp -- the right thing to do is "stand by" him because that's what friends do?

File under "Cute"

Look, conservatives care about the War Powers Resolution suddenly.

How many fake candidates will run for the Republican nomination?

Brutal.

As he was getting ready to leave a speaking engagement Dubuque resident Russell Fuhrman approached him in the lobby of the Holiday Inn:

“Get out now before you make a bigger fool of yourself,” Fuhrman said directly to Gingrich.

Gingrich, visibly stunned, quickly moved forward to talk with other guests…

“I’m a strong Republican but he’s an embarrassment to our party,” Fuhrman said.

Blogger issues, Huckabee.

Blogger was down for a while. It's back.

And, I admit: I thought Huckabee had a real shot to win the nomination.

Does The Quitter jump in now?

Shorter Michelle Malkin

"The Amnesty Bandwagon Rides Again"

Translation:

ZOMG MEXICANS!!111!

Glenn Reynolds' amazingly consistent punditry.

Any idiot could see this coming.

Donald Trump has had one of the quickest rises and falls in the history of Presidential politics. Last month we found him leading the Republican field with 26%. In the space of just four weeks he's dropped all the way down to 8%, putting him in a tie for fifth place with Ron Paul.

But Putz is no ordinary idiot.

Trump's embiggered! Obama got suckered! Trump's keeping the pressure on! This is terrible politics by Obama!

A tale of two headlines

From the front page of Drudge this morning, note the two headlines about 1" apart:


Story 1: "AZ Seeks Online Donations to Build Border Fence"
Story 2: "Mexican Drug Smugglers Tunnel 250 Feet through Solid Rock Beneath U.S. Border"

*rimshot*

My snark meter has shorted out.

Sorry, no blogging today. I am simply helpless in the face of trying to keep up with the Putz fill-ins: Driscoll, McArdle, Althouse, Totten. Too much crazy in one place.

I still, however, find it amazing that Mitch Daniels is considered a serious presidential candidate.

Discuss.

Breaking: Glenn Reynolds' guest bloggers just as wingnutty as Glenn Reynolds.

Michael "We're Winning In Iraq" Totten, at Putz's:

How about we just kill Qaddafi and wrap it up instead of declaring him untouchable and dragging this out? That’s easier said than done, of course, but it looks like we’re not even trying.

Yeah, what's taking Obama so long?

After a full-scale invasion, which had been planned for over a year, Bush took 6 months to capture Saddam. And he never got bin Laden after an invasion of Afghanistan and 7 years of trying.

It's been almost a month and a half now that the US has been engaged on a limited basis in Libya.

What's taking Obama so long? He's not even trying!

Boy, that Donald Trump really took it to Obama.

Putz, still wrong about everything.

TRUMP 1, OBAMA 0: So I was at the gym when they finally caved and released the birth certificate – and on both the Fox and the CNN monitors I saw Donald Trump, who quickly started talking about . . . gasoline prices. See, he knows how to keep the pressure on.

And,

SUCKER: Obama takes bait, embiggens Donald Trump. You don’t punish Donald Trump by giving him attention. A more experienced politician would know that. Nor is building Trump up good for Obama — Trump has actually hurt him more than all the others combined. Because, you know, Trump has actually been willing to criticize him without being afraid of the Big Media retribution. The various traditional GOP candidates still have the old cringe-reflex where Big Media criticism is concerned.

Meanwhile, on planet Earth...

You had to see this coming. Enduring two weeks of excruciating humiliation has put a major dent in Donald Trump's "presidential campaign" (probably also his in ego). First, his base of support--birthers--has been cut in half following the release of Obama's birth certificate, per a new Washington Post/ABC poll. Last April, 20 percent of Americans thought Obama was born abroad; now the people who believe that--call them "after-birthers"--are down to 10 percent. A couple weeks ago, Trump had stormed to the top of the GOP field. This morning, a Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire voters has him drawing a measly 8 percent. He's so toxic that the Indianapolis 500 has decided not to let him drive the pace car this year. But there has to be a silver lining. As several people have noted, Obama cut into Sunday night's episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" to announce that Osama bin Laden had been killed. That drew the biggest TV audience ever for an Obama speech. So surely Trump, whose ratings have plummeted since during his campaign, got a nice little ratings spike as a result, right? Wrong. I checked with the Nielsen folks. His ratings were flat.

Trump wins! He's embiggered! Obama's an amateur!

Idiot.

Taxed Enough Already!!!!!!!!!!ONE

Nope.

The post-World War II historic average is that federal revenues equal about 18 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of annual economic production. In the year 2000, after the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, federal revenues equaled almost 21 percent of the economy. As a result, Washington cut taxes in 2001 and 2003.

Revenues plunged to around 15 percent of the economy in 2009 and 2010 amid the deep financial crisis, and dipped even further this year, to 14.4 percent, the lowest level since 1950.

The Republican debate on Faux.

The audience seems to really like torture. "Will you waterboard brown people" poll -- answered in the affirmative by the majority -- got big applause.

Serious question: have there been a bigger collection of losers masquerading as "presidential candidates" in the history of presidential debates?

And the rubes get rolled again.

No one could've predicted...

Health Care Repeal Is 'Dead,' Says Top Republican, Sights Turned To Repealing Individual Mandate

Suckers.

George W. Bush, WATB.

God, what a child.

George W. Bush won't be at Ground Zero with President Obama Thursday in part because he feels his team is getting short shrift in the decade-long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden.

"[Bush] viewed this as an Obama victory lap," a highly-placed source told the Daily News Wednesday.

Bush's visit to the rubble after the 9/11 attacks was the emotional high point of his presidency, but associates say the invitation to return with his successor was a non-starter.

"He doesn't feel personally snubbed and appreciates the invitation, but Obama's claiming all the credit and a lot of other people deserve some of it," the source added.

"Obama gave no credit whatsoever to the intelligence infrastructure the Bush administration set up that is being hailed from the left and right as setting in motion the operation that got Bin Laden. It rubbed Bush the wrong way."

A proud Medieval American.

I think The Quitter would be much more comfortable in the Middle Ages, before all that Enlightenment stuff screwed everything up.

The problem with this country is that too many freeloaders are sponging off the rich.

The Head Glibertarian strikes again.

TAXPROF: 51% of Households Pay No Income Tax; Share of Taxes Paid by Rich Growing Faster Than Income. We need to broaden the tax base to include all voters.

Naturally, this is right-wing spin, because income tax is only one of the many taxes we pay.

But let's not let facts get in the way of the idea that we really do need to take the pressure off our poor Galtian Overlords. They are clearly struggling.

UPDATE

Even Taxprof's conservative readers aren't buying this post.

I hate these headlines and studies for the simple reasons that most don't include FICA payroll taxes.

Contrary to their formal name -- "contributions" -- these are very real income taxes, and hit the poor hardest. For most people, they are the only income taxes they pay.

I'm not saying this to be siding with the Dems -- my online work speaks to my Conservative beliefs -- but what I am saying is that we need to be honest with these things.

Nah. Better to keep up the glibertarian illusion that the "producers" are the slaves of the "moochers."

Glenn Reynolds, meet Paul Krugman.

Sunday, Putz wrote:

Carter had big government, but Obama has brought us monstrous government, running up bigger deficits in the first half of his first term than Bush did in eight years and increasing the national debt by more than 50 percent.

And Krugman, helpfully provided this, Monday.

Even on this crude calculation, it’s obvious that the slump is responsible for the great bulk of the rise in the deficit. Anyone who says otherwise is either remarkably ill-informed or trying to deceive you.

The ongoing Sullivan-Reynolds feud.

Good for a laugh.

Instapundit Looks For The Bright Side

"CLAIM: Obama Is Losing His Mojo. Gonna be hard to sell today. Check back in a week or two and see if this lasts," - Glenn Reynolds. Keep hope alive, Glenn.

Can I get a "heh-indeedy"?

Ah, the Palin Facebook comments are always so funny.

So much awesome (no link, because it might be gone soon).

Don Surber, still the dumbest human being on the planet.

Brain dead.

7. From Rush Limbaugh: “President Obama has continued the Bush policies of keeping a military presence in the Middle East. He did not scrub the mission to get Bin Laden. In fact, it may be that President Obama single-handedly came up with the technique in order to pull this off. You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb as they always do. They wanted to drop missiles and drop bombs and a number of totally destructive techniques here. But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces. No one else thought of that. President Obama. Not a single intelligence adviser, not a single national security adviser, not a single military adviser came up with the idea of using SEAL Team 6 or any Special Forces.”

He was not being sarcastic.

GOOD.

Except, of course -- he was.

Wingnuts: why did Obama make it all about him?

Here we go.

It is therefore unfortunate that Mr. Obama seems to want more than that fair share the American people will naturally and rightly give him. His remarks last night were far too much laced with words like “I met repeatedly,” “at my direction,” and “I determined,” trying to take personal credit for the years of painstaking work by our intelligence community. Mr. Obama might have noted that this work began under President Bush, but as usual he did not. It was also a mistake for him to use this occasion to deliver unrelated comments about “the pursuit of prosperity for our people” and “the struggle for equality for all our citizens.” A shorter and more straightforward announcement would have been more appropriate for this occasion.

Yeah, it was a little over the top. Obama should've been a little more humble, and simply landed on an aircraft carrier.

Area Denial

Since the President must be denied anything that even resembles victory, what will the wingnut talking point be on this one?

a) It took too long to kill him. Why didn't Obama do it two years ago?
b) The whole thing was faked. Where's the body?
c) Everyone knows that bin Laden is irrelevant.
d) Some crazy shit that my sane mind can't even comprehend let alone predict.

Obama's ushering in Sharia Law!

Only a matter of time before Atlas Juggs and Frank Gaffney express outrage about this.

U.S. officials tell me the last thing they want is for his burial place to become a terrorist shrine.

To avoid that, an informed source tells me, the intention is the bury his body at sea -- leaving no definitive location for the final resting place of his body.

A senior administration official tells my colleague Jake Tapper this about the body: "We are ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It's something we take seriously and therefore it's being handled in an appropriate manner.‬"

Hehindeedy!

(h/t bmaz)

Tweet of the night.

Bin Laden dead?

I can't wait to read in the Weekly Standard how this is another example of Obama apologizing for America.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Reality Show Guy.

Nothing tastes better than a a bowl of pasta (with fresh basil from the garden) and a fine Republican whine.

Trump says jokes about him by Obama, Meyers were 'inappropriate'

Glenn Reynolds -- a big Trump fan.

Unhinged.

SUCKER: Obama takes bait, embiggens Donald Trump. You don’t punish Donald Trump by giving him attention. A more experienced politician would know that. Nor is building Trump up good for Obama — Trump has actually hurt him more than all the others combined. Because, you know, Trump has actually been willing to criticize him without being afraid of the Big Media retribution.

Yeah, Obama really sucks at politics.

But can anyone name a a single substantive criticism that Trump has leveled against Obama? One?

Because all I've seen him do is question his citizenship and how he get into Harvard. That's right out of the old Lee Atwater playbook, folks, and that's why he surged with Republicans.

Putz's bottomless hatred of Obama is really something to watch.

Glenn Reynolds: Obama's the black Jimmy Carter!

I love the way this piece begins:

People on the right have been comparing President Obama with Jimmy Carter for a while now: The rise from nowhere via inexplicable press adulation, the smarmy moralizing, the excessive faith in his own abilities, the tendency of everything he touches to turn to crap -- all seem eerily reminiscent of the Carter presidency.

People on the right have also compared Obama to Hitler, questioned his citizenship and accused him of trying to destroy America, so I think we can safely conclude that they're probably not the best folks to get an objective analysis from.

To Carter, higher energy prices were an insoluble problem; to Obama, they're a tool to encourage Americans to live more constrained lives -- and perhaps to buy a Chevy Volt from the bailed-out General Motors.

And what were the spiraling energy prices under Bush/Cheney for?

At the moment, Obama is involved in three wars, and in two of them he is losing. (The third, ironically, is the war he ran against, in Iraq, where things seem to be going comparatively well).

From 2001-2008, we were never losing any wars. Now we're losing two, despite Obama retaining Bush's SecDef, the bulk of his national security policies and increasing defense spending.

Amazing how that works.