Stories to Watch: 9/8/11
Big jobs speech tonight. I’m stuffing taco fixin’s into a pita and watching with baited breath. Or onion breath. Now here’s the news…
A lot is being made of a photo from last night’s GOP debate. The image, taken during a commercial break, shows Rick Perry with his hand on Ron Paul’s wrist, apparently giving him the business. I’d remind everyone that photos can be misleading, especially if you want to read something into one. I’m not cutting Perry any slack here, but the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is complete bullshit. A series of photos might tell you something. A single photo is a moment in time without context. And that’s from someone who’s taken quite a few of them.
Tea Party founder/Wall Street fatcat Rick Santelli calls Thomas Friedman an idiot — to his face and on TV. Santelli’s correct, Friedman’s an idiot. But this time Friedman was right. Rick was trying to get Friedman to jump on Rick Perry’s “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme!” bandwagon and Tom refused.
An appeals court in Virginia rejects two challenges to the healthcare reform bill.
President Obama will bring guests to the big jobs speech tonight, including AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Needless to say, this is the worst thing ever!
The DCCC will dump half a million dollars to keep Anthony Weiner’s seat. Perhaps it would’ve been wiser just to let him keep it and hope everything would blow over.
This is freaky; Florida GOP chairman Dave Bitner has died. He’d just announced that he’d be retiring, due to ALS, effective September 23.
Finally, Mittens attacks Perry’s electability.
News Roundup for 8/29/11
Texas Governor Rick Perry
-Headline of the Day-
“Rick Perry: Social Security Is, In Fact, A Ponzi Scheme.”
“Sometimes campaign spin works to distance a candidate from his controversial past statements,” writes TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro. “And sometimes the candidate comes back and makes a hash of all the work his staff has done for him.”
Guess which one this story is about? That’s candidate extracts foot from mouth, only to immediately jam it back in there. See, Rick Perry continues to try to have his cake and eat it too, with alternating attacks and defenses of Social Security. First it was unconstitutional, then it wasn’t, now it’s a scam. Tomorrow, it probably won’t be. It all depends on who he’s talking to, I guess. And if he remembers which stance he’s supposed to be taking.
“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people,” he told an audience in Iowa, “The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie. It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”
Does that argument sound familiar? It should; every rightwing nut has been making that argument since SS began in 1935. For the record, exactly zero of them have been right. But hey, what’s a perfect historical record mean to a Republican?
Not a lot, that’s what. (Talking Points Memo)
-Hurricane Dimwit-
Can we start calling Republicans soft on national defense now? 
Click to embiggen
Because they are. (McClatchy)
-Bonus HotD-
“Is Rick Perry dumb?”
Yes. Next question, please. (Politico)
