Stories to Watch: 8/14/11
Michele Bachmann wins the Iowa Straw Poll, but Tim Pawlenty gets all the headlines today by dropping out of the race. Ron Paul came in second, so expect Paulistas to become especially insufferable. Keep in mind that neither Mitt Romney nor Rick Perry competed in this contest — their vote totals are from write-ins — so it really means a whole lot of nothing.
The White House weighs political realities and concludes that next to nothing can be done about the economy. The thing is, if there’s one person in the position to change political realities, it’s the President of the United States. It’s called “leadership.”
What will be Rick Perry’s biggest liability on the campaign trail? If the press is on the ball, it’ll be the fact that he’s crooked.
Rep. Jim Clyburn sees the deficit reduction “super-committee” as an opportunity to restore the middle class. Needless to say, this is the worst thing ever.
Shittiest headline of the weekend: “CNN/ORC Poll: Dem support for Obama’s re-election fades,” from CNN. The poll results show that 70% of Democrats want Obama to be the party’s nominee. Golly, but he sure is screwed, huh? Taegan Goddard takes the same story and fixes the headline, “Democratic Base Solidly Behind Obama.”
Bachmann can write off the unemployed as potential voters, because they’d have to be fools to vote for her.
Finally, Ron Paul speaks out against abortion — because using the power of government to force women to give birth against their will is a triumph of fucking liberty.
Who Do You Think Should Win The Ames Straw Poll?
Stories to Watch: 8/13/11
Rained all night and it is humid. I went out last night for a bit during a break in the rain and you could actually see the steam in the air. I walked into an air-conditioned store and my glasses fogged up. No foolin’. Now here’s the news…
Michele Bachmann is definitely not winning friends in the media. At an event in Iowa, CNN’s Don Lemon gets pushed around, which brings to mind Bachmann campaign staffers manhandling ABC’s Brian Ross about a month ago. This is beginning to look like a habit — and not a good one.
Of course, Bachmann was in Iowa for the Ames Straw Poll today. The cable networks are giving the poll wall-to-wall coverage, making it the most important near-meaningless event of the week. It’s a poll of self-selected respondents, like an online poll. The words “not scientific” should be plastered all over the coverage. It may weed out a candidate or two who never should’ve run in the first place, but that’s about it.
Norman Podhoretz is a jackass. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he whines about the right being “attacked” by liberals — then he calls the president an “anti-American leftist.” When he gets “attacked” (i.e., criticized) for that, he’ll probably whine some more. It’s becoming a running theme on this blog because it’s true; modern conservatives reflexively play the victim card. Look at Sarah Palin. Her entire argument seems to be that she deserves to be a presidential candidate because the press is so mean to her. It’s always about skinned knees and personal grievance.
David Axelrod “attacks” Rick Perry on national teevee! Oh, the horror…
And the brutality keeps coming as Joe Scarborough “attacks” Michele Bachmann.
Rick Perry makes it official.
Sarah Palin unveils her plan to give herself a heart attack.
Finally, this is great. After Standard & Poor’s said that Republican default-denialism contributed to it’s downgrade of America’s credit rating, GOPers now say they never said that default wouldn’t happen or that it wouldn’t be so bad. Call it default-denialism-denialism. But Brian Beutler has a list of names and details and… Well, the GOP is slinging bullshit here.
News Roundup for 8/10/11
Ron Paul supporters arrive in Iowa
-Headline of the Day-
“Ron Paul busing 30 family members in to Iowa.”
One of the more entertaining aspects of watching Paulistas is their habit of creating realities that they later celebrate. You’ll check in on a messageboard or a comment thread on Reddit and you’ll see a link to an online poll or something about who’s gonna win what race in what state sometime maybe. All the Paulistas will rush off to totally skew the poll in their direction, then they’ll later point to the poll as proof that RON PAUL IS DEFINITELY GONNA WIN!! They have as good a grasp on the concepts of logic, evidence, and cause and effect as their creationist, global-warming-denier hero. Seriously, when you look at it objectively [ED: get it?], it’s freakin’ hilarious.
Anyway, the latest adventure in manipulating reality so that RON PAUL IS DEFINITELY GONNA WIN comes from the Great Man Himself, Ron Paul. In order to make sure that he comes out near the top in the Iowa straw poll, Ron’s packing up 30 “sons, daughters, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and more” to the Hawkeye State to wander around “wearing their Ron Paul T-shirts” and “their Ron Paul dresses” and probably hats and pants and buttons and tattoos on their foreheads. Then all the Iowans are going to look around and say, “Wow, this Ron Paul guy is just super-popular — I’m gonna hop on that bandwagon! All these people who coincidentally look like Ron Paul can’t be wrong!”
And then Paul wins the Iowa straw poll, which automatically makes him the President of the United States. After that, we all live in a Libertarian paradise — like Somalia.
You ever hear that phrase, “That’s so crazy it just might work?”
Yeah, that’s always bullshit. (Politico)
-Speaking of logic and evidence-
Some miracles just cannot be explained. 
Click to embiggen
Clearly, this young man is a prophet. (SMBC)
-Bonus HotD-
“Wis. Dems: The Recalls Were A Win For Us!”
Wisconsin dem chairman Mike Tate: “[How can Walker] claim this is a real victory for him and his agenda, when his party lost two senators on his watch to recall elections? How can that be a win for Scott Walker when he lost two seats?”
Math always seems to hate Republicans as much as Republicans hate math. (Talking Points Memo)
News Roundup for 7/19/11
Still squirellier than a walnut grove
-Headline of the Day-
“Did team Pawlenty drop the Bachmann is unstable and on meds story?”
By now, you’ve probably figured out that Michele Bachmann is a lunatic. Well, it also turns out that she suffers “stress-triggered migraines” that sound an awful lot like bouts of even deeper goofiness. Like maybe these aren’t migraines at all, but episodes where she’s overcome by her own goofiness.
Needless to say, this may have some effect on the Iowa straw poll next month. Sure, Shelly’s popular with all the other nuts right now, but what happens when she out-crazies them? Maybe not good things.
All of which has people who aren’t fans of Bachmann at all wondering, “What is the deal here?” And the more they look into what is the deal, the more the deal looks like rival crazy Tim Pawlenty. According to Kombiz at AMERICAblog, “The story had two sources who were obviously high level staff members or connected to high level staff members who worked for Michele Bachmann. A third person verified that Michele Bachmann does indeed get migraines. I had a suspicion that the Pawlenty campaign was behind the hit, since they have one of Bachmann’s former Chief of Staff, Ron Carey, supporting the campaign. The campaign has used Carey to attack Bachmann in the past. And the fact that Pawlenty’s path requires that he beat Bachmann in the Ames straw poll next month.”
Worse, “a Republican who is also suspicious that Pawlenty dropped the bogus story emailed me a link to another two high level staffers who would know about Bachmann’s health problems and who are also supporting the Pawlenty campaign.”
So, final score: Shelly’s probably still a nut and Pawlenty’s probably a dick. Once the smoke clears, neither is going to seem like much of a revelation. (AMERICAblog)
-Seems to be working, though-
Pawlenty’s dickery seems to have Team Bachmann pretty rattled. As you can imagine, the press thinks this is the best thing ever and they’ve been trying to get a microphone in Shelly’s face. ABC’s lead investigative reporter Brian Ross attempted to do just that — and nearly got his ass kicked by Bachmann goons.
Ross tried to get a comment in person from Bachmann at a rally. He followed her to a parking ramp, where things got ugly. “When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force,” the report tells us. “In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she ignored him again.”
“We were videotaping Brian asking questions,” says ABC News senior VP Jeffrey That’ll probably work out great for the Bachmann ‘12 team.
Asked if he’d ever been handled so roughly while attempting to ask a question, Ross answered, “A few times. Mostly by mafia people.” (Plum Line)
-Bonus HotD-
“Allen West: Obama Supporters Are ‘A Threat To The Gene Pool.’”
Yeah, whatever Adolph. Have fun with your Tea Party master race. (ThinkProgress)
