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 3/10/11
Wisconsin GOP Headquarters
-Headline of the day-
“Poll: Majorities support recall of two Wisconsin GOP senators.”
You might have heard there was a little kerfuffle at the Wisconsin capitol last night. Seems a bunch of GOP state senators wanted to commit political suicide and no one could talk them off the ledge. Tragic, really. The method of self-execution was a vote — of questionable legality — to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. In case you haven’t been paying attention, this was a mind-bogglingly unpopular move.
And so the efforts begin to recall senators involved in the vote. And (extremely) early polling shows some groundswell — at least two Republican senators are easy pickings. The poll shows that 54% of his constituents would vote to recall Sen. Randy Hopper and 57% would do the same for Sen. Dan Kapanke.
Of course, things have changed since the poll was taken — the GOP senators actually held the vote. That’s right, those are pre-vote-to-throw-your-career-away numbers, so the odds are pretty damned good that things are just going to go from bad to worse for them. How do I know? Liberal groups raised $200,000 in one night following the vote and AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka named Gov. Scott Walker “Mobilizer of the Year,” so lefties are pretty fired up here.
How many GOPers have to fall for Democrats to take control of the senate? Three. Eeeeee, I’m so excited!
It was a wild ride, Wisconsin senate Republicans. Hope you enjoyed it, because it’s almost over. (Plum Line)
-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids! Uncle Mark is sick or on vacation or dead or something, so today’s cartoon is by some Xeth Feinberg guy filling in for him. It’s just as good!
So today, we’re going to learn how to be one of those talking head guys on teevee! Yay!
Click for animation
No really! People make money doing this stuff… Scout’s honor! (MarkFiore.com)
-Bonus HotD-
“Rand Paul Blames Energy Department for Faulty Toilets, Among Other Things.”
They’re just so complicated — he can’t even figure out how you plug one in! (New York Times)
