Stories to Watch: 5/29/12

I’ll be skipping the roundup this week. Between recall work and other projects, it’ll have to go to the back burner. Also, tomorrow I’m heading up to help my mom at Tornado Central, so probably not much of anything for the day. Thursday, I’m heading out to canvass in the afternoon, so probably not much then, either. Now here’s the news…


David Brooks wrote something stupid again.


Mitt tries to mitigate the damage a Washington scandal can do to his campaign. After a Republican member of the National Labor Relations Board resigned after leaking info to anti-labor folks, Romney scrubs all mention of adviser Peter Schaumber from his website. Why? Because Pete was one of those anti-labor folks being leaked to. It’s not like he should fire the crook or anything, right?


Also in Mittens news; pretty much nothing he says is actually true.


The John Doe investigation of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Blagojevich… I mean Rod Walker… I mean Rodscott Blagojewalker turns to possible bid-rigging. Walker clams up about the whole thing, saying, “I can’t talk about the particulars because I’m following those rules” — meaning the “rules” of a John Doe investigation.


About those rules; ex-prosecutors say Blagojewalker’s shoveling bullshit when he claims he can’t talk about the investigation. “You certainly have a right to go out and defend your own reputation…” says one, “it’s unlikely to me that the district attorney is advising Scott Walker not to say anything.”


Finally, the rightwing blogosphere spent the day working themselves up into a lather over something everyone knows is baloney. Just like every day.

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In the Wisconsin Recall, It’s the GOP Who Are Acting Worried Embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knows something that the pundits don’t. While everyone else is looking at Walker’s single-digit lead in the polls (within the margin of error for most and closing, by the way) and declaring Walker the winner of a contest still a week away, King Scotty is hidden away in his castle. The rabble are much closer to storming the gates than the court seers are willing to admit. His grip on power is as fragile as an egg and must be handled very, very gently.Politico: With a slim lead in the polls and just a week to go until the June 5 recall election, Scott Walker isn’t taking any chances. The Wisconsin governor is running under the radar in an attempt to freeze the race where it stands and limit the chances of a momentum-shifting mistake. His engagements in public venues have tailed off. Retail events have given way to rallies with supporters at campaign offices. Walker’s passive debate performance Friday, where he seemed more comfortable withstanding rhetorical blows from Democrat Tom Barrett than landing many of his own, offered more signs of his play-it-safe homestretch approach. The governor even passed on asking Barrett a direct question — usually a ripe opportunity to place an opponent on defense for a perceived weakness. Reading that does not bring to mind the word “confidence.” This is a man who’s spending about 170% of what his opponent is spending on advertising. That’s not figuring in millions in super PAC advertising, which is not a direct contribution to Walker’s campaign. And the best he can do is barely hold his head above water — if he’s even managing to do that. This is a man who has the Koch brothers busing in adoring crowds from out of state to create the illusion of widespread support. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. And that polling that shows Walker clinging on to his slim lead? Well, that may not actually be worth all that much.Chris Cillizza, Washington Post: Democrats caution, rightly, not to put too much stock in any of the polling due to the uniqueness of the circumstances; Wisconsin has never had a gubernatorial recall election before and therefore predicting turnout in a poll is even more difficult than it is is a more traditional contest. Democrats also believe that if they can keep Walker’s margin to low single-digits heading into the vote next Tuesday they can win it on the ground thanks to their superior organizational efforts — much of which is being spearheaded by labor unions. As evidence of their organizational edge, Democrats note that early voting is running higher than expected — a good sign for them, they believe. While Democrats continue to insist that the race remains a toss-up, Republicans are privately growing more and more confident — insisting that they have shown the incumbent with a solid single-digit lead in internal polling for some time. Keep in mind that when Republicans tell a journalist something “privately,” it means the opposite — they know it’s going to wind up in print. While Democrats and recall supporters have been happy to release their internal polling, Republicans are less inclined to prove their claims. And by “less inclined,” I mean “not at all inclined.” They’ll tell someone like Cillizza that things look good — and you’ll just have to take their word for that. And that “organizational edge” has the right terrified. Over at Zombie Breitbart, Mike Flynn tells wingnuts the shocking, horrifying, outrageous truth: early voting is easy, recall supporters are helping early voters cast ballots, canvassers are going door to door, and unions have vans to drive people to the polls. The propaganda arm of the GOP doesn’t have a lot to work with here, but they’re trying to cook up some sort of recall dirty-tricks to be freaked out about. They aren’t very sanguine about this and they don’t want their voters to be either. If Barrett’s the winner after all the smoke clears, the punditry will declare it a “stunning upset” — which is what they always do when their laziness doesn’t pay off. But recall supporters won’t be surprised at all. And, considering all the evidence, neither will Walker or the Republicans. -Wisco
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In the Wisconsin Recall, It’s the GOP Who Are Acting Worried

Embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker knows something that the pundits don’t. While everyone else is looking at Walker’s single-digit lead in the polls (within the margin of error for most and closing, by the way) and declaring Walker the winner of a contest still a week away, King Scotty is hidden away in his castle. The rabble are much closer to storming the gates than the court seers are willing to admit. His grip on power is as fragile as an egg and must be handled very, very gently.

Politico:

With a slim lead in the polls and just a week to go until the June 5 recall election, Scott Walker isn’t taking any chances.

The Wisconsin governor is running under the radar in an attempt to freeze the race where it stands and limit the chances of a momentum-shifting mistake.

His engagements in public venues have tailed off. Retail events have given way to rallies with supporters at campaign offices. Walker’s passive debate performance Friday, where he seemed more comfortable withstanding rhetorical blows from Democrat Tom Barrett than landing many of his own, offered more signs of his play-it-safe homestretch approach. The governor even passed on asking Barrett a direct question — usually a ripe opportunity to place an opponent on defense for a perceived weakness.

Reading that does not bring to mind the word “confidence.”

This is a man who’s spending about 170% of what his opponent is spending on advertising. That’s not figuring in millions in super PAC advertising, which is not a direct contribution to Walker’s campaign. And the best he can do is barely hold his head above water — if he’s even managing to do that. This is a man who has the Koch brothers busing in adoring crowds from out of state to create the illusion of widespread support. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

And that polling that shows Walker clinging on to his slim lead? Well, that may not actually be worth all that much.

Chris Cillizza, Washington Post:

Democrats caution, rightly, not to put too much stock in any of the polling due to the uniqueness of the circumstances; Wisconsin has never had a gubernatorial recall election before and therefore predicting turnout in a poll is even more difficult than it is is a more traditional contest.

Democrats also believe that if they can keep Walker’s margin to low single-digits heading into the vote next Tuesday they can win it on the ground thanks to their superior organizational efforts — much of which is being spearheaded by labor unions. As evidence of their organizational edge, Democrats note that early voting is running higher than expected — a good sign for them, they believe.

While Democrats continue to insist that the race remains a toss-up, Republicans are privately growing more and more confident — insisting that they have shown the incumbent with a solid single-digit lead in internal polling for some time.

Keep in mind that when Republicans tell a journalist something “privately,” it means the opposite — they know it’s going to wind up in print. While Democrats and recall supporters have been happy to release their internal polling, Republicans are less inclined to prove their claims. And by “less inclined,” I mean “not at all inclined.” They’ll tell someone like Cillizza that things look good — and you’ll just have to take their word for that.

And that “organizational edge” has the right terrified. Over at Zombie Breitbart, Mike Flynn tells wingnuts the shocking, horrifying, outrageous truth: early voting is easy, recall supporters are helping early voters cast ballots, canvassers are going door to door, and unions have vans to drive people to the polls. The propaganda arm of the GOP doesn’t have a lot to work with here, but they’re trying to cook up some sort of recall dirty-tricks to be freaked out about. They aren’t very sanguine about this and they don’t want their voters to be either.

If Barrett’s the winner after all the smoke clears, the punditry will declare it a “stunning upset” — which is what they always do when their laziness doesn’t pay off. But recall supporters won’t be surprised at all.

And, considering all the evidence, neither will Walker or the Republicans.

-Wisco
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Stories to Watch: 5/25/12

Had to clean up the yard after a minor storm last night. No biggie, just a mess of branches. So that’s why no roundup today. But here’s the news…


A Democratic Governors Association poll has Scott Walker leading Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall 49%-46%. That’s within the poll’s margin of error and the trend has Barrett closing the gap by more than half since a week ago. Let’s hope the trend continues. The pollster’s report concludes, “In short, with eleven days to go, this election is very much up for grabs.” Knock on doors, make calls, twist arms, put up yard signs — this is entirely doable. In any case, we may be headed for a recount, so brace yourselves for that.


The bad news: CO2 emissions continue to rise, reaching a record 3.2% increase in 2011. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.


The good news: most of the rise is attributed to China, offsetting reductions in the US and elsewhere. As a result, China will spend $27 billion “to promote energy-saving products, solar and wind power and accelerate the development of renewable energy and hybrid cars.” My question to the “climate change is a hoax” crowd; there’s obviously a market for dealing with CO2 — real threat or otherwise — does it make sense to sit this market out and let China dominate it, just to satisfy your religious belief that liberals are always wrong?


How to smoke weed like a teenage Barack Obama. Hey, it’s 4:20 somewhere.


Former GOP Rep. Connie Morella isn’t a fan of today’s Republican Party or its War on Women. As to the base’s RINO-hunting, she says that moderate Republicans have become “an extinct species.”


Speaking of RINO’s, at least 27 GOP congressional candidates have refused to sign Grover Norquist’s straitjacket of an anti-tax pledge. Someone call the Tea Party.


In New Mexico, making sense is forbidden speech.


Are the folks in the conservative gay organization GOProud just completely insane?


Bill Clinton still has an eye for the (wrong) ladies.


Finally, it’s eminently clear that rightwing billionaires are trying to by the presidency for Mitt Romney. That makes it a fair question to ask; what do they expect to get out of that investment?

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Walker Sitting on Job Numbers That Almost Certainly Prove He’s Lying Gov. Scott Walker has a secret. And he’s not sharing it with you. At least, not immediately. He’ll have to sometime, but there’s this whole big recall thing going on here in Wisconsin and now would be a bad time. After the election he’ll break the bad news. See, Walker was getting a lot of flack for sucking at job creation. His numbers were the worst in the nation. Then, he dug up different numbers — mostly meaningless and almost certainly inaccurate numbers no one else uses — and everything was great. Wisconsin had added 23,000 jobs since he took office, Walker declared, despite the fact that the number was an estimate based on a very slim handful of data. Needless to say, a lot of people were unconvinced. For example, PolitiFact rated Walker’s claim mostly false. Here they explain the problem:The 2011 numbers are based on the jobs census, which covers about 95% of employers. They are deemed more accurate than the monthly numbers, which are based on a survey sample of about 3.5% of employers, then extrapolated to get a state number… The BLS itself recognizes the census method as more accurate. Indeed, it uses those numbers to update the monthly numbers. Think of it as a picture that over time comes into sharper focus. If only there were some solid numbers Walker could use to back up his claim. Oh wait, here they are!The Capital Times: Each quarter, more than 150,000 employers across the state are required to report on how many workers they have. This information is then gathered by the Department of Workforce Development to calculate UI taxes owed. For example, [business blogger John] Torinus says, his company, Serigraph Corp., reported to DWD it had 418 employees on its payroll last quarter. “In short, the UI numbers are hard core numbers,” says Torinus, who is chairman of Serigraph. “It’s bedrock data.” Great, so let’s see them. Oops! Looks like the Walker administration is sitting on those numbers. It’s the big secret I referred to earlier. “Of course, the timing for the Q4 numbers was political,” Torinus writes. “But it is also good policy to have the the freshest, cleanest numbers to work with. So, again, why haven’t the Q1 2012 numbers been made public? DWD has had them for two weeks. Someone should get fired if they aren’t released in the next week or so.” I agree. And that someone should be Scott Walker. Walker has “bedrock data” that can prove or disprove claims he’s currently making in political ads and he’s not releasing them. If those numbers show that Wisconsin is still losing jobs — as most honest observers suspect — then those political ads Walker is running have just become a deliberate lie. And if those numbers back him up? Obviously, they don’t. If they did, they’d be splattered all over the front page of every newspaper in Wisconsin, next to the governor’s grinning face. I’m not inclined to give Scott Walker the benefit of the doubt in the best of circumstances, but in this case it’s nearly impossible. There is no doubt for Walker to benefit from. He’s sitting on solid job numbers because they contradict what he’s saying. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation. Walker is clearly running a campaign of lies and he’ll do whatever he can to suppress information that contradicts those lies. -Wisco [image credit: nwbtcw, via Flickr]
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Walker Sitting on Job Numbers That Almost Certainly Prove He’s Lying

Gov. Scott Walker has a secret. And he’s not sharing it with you. At least, not immediately. He’ll have to sometime, but there’s this whole big recall thing going on here in Wisconsin and now would be a bad time. After the election he’ll break the bad news.

See, Walker was getting a lot of flack for sucking at job creation. His numbers were the worst in the nation. Then, he dug up different numbers — mostly meaningless and almost certainly inaccurate numbers no one else uses — and everything was great. Wisconsin had added 23,000 jobs since he took office, Walker declared, despite the fact that the number was an estimate based on a very slim handful of data. Needless to say, a lot of people were unconvinced.

For example, PolitiFact rated Walker’s claim mostly false. Here they explain the problem:

The 2011 numbers are based on the jobs census, which covers about 95% of employers. They are deemed more accurate than the monthly numbers, which are based on a survey sample of about 3.5% of employers, then extrapolated to get a state number…

The BLS itself recognizes the census method as more accurate. Indeed, it uses those numbers to update the monthly numbers. Think of it as a picture that over time comes into sharper focus.

If only there were some solid numbers Walker could use to back up his claim. Oh wait, here they are!

The Capital Times:

Each quarter, more than 150,000 employers across the state are required to report on how many workers they have. This information is then gathered by the Department of Workforce Development to calculate UI taxes owed.

For example, [business blogger John] Torinus says, his company, Serigraph Corp., reported to DWD it had 418 employees on its payroll last quarter.

“In short, the UI numbers are hard core numbers,” says Torinus, who is chairman of Serigraph. “It’s bedrock data.”

Great, so let’s see them.

Oops! Looks like the Walker administration is sitting on those numbers. It’s the big secret I referred to earlier. “Of course, the timing for the Q4 numbers was political,” Torinus writes. “But it is also good policy to have the the freshest, cleanest numbers to work with. So, again, why haven’t the Q1 2012 numbers been made public? DWD has had them for two weeks. Someone should get fired if they aren’t released in the next week or so.”

I agree. And that someone should be Scott Walker. Walker has “bedrock data” that can prove or disprove claims he’s currently making in political ads and he’s not releasing them. If those numbers show that Wisconsin is still losing jobs — as most honest observers suspect — then those political ads Walker is running have just become a deliberate lie.

And if those numbers back him up? Obviously, they don’t. If they did, they’d be splattered all over the front page of every newspaper in Wisconsin, next to the governor’s grinning face. I’m not inclined to give Scott Walker the benefit of the doubt in the best of circumstances, but in this case it’s nearly impossible. There is no doubt for Walker to benefit from. He’s sitting on solid job numbers because they contradict what he’s saying. I can’t think of any other reasonable explanation.

Walker is clearly running a campaign of lies and he’ll do whatever he can to suppress information that contradicts those lies.

-Wisco

[image credit: nwbtcw, via Flickr]
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Stories to Watch: 5/24/12

A NYC public school will teach kids Arabic. It goes without saying that this is the worst thing ever!


Rightwing “historian” David Barton takes a break from getting history all fucked up, allowing him to get the present all fucked up.


The Democratic Governors Association moves another $1 million into the Wisconsin recall race.


Also in recall news: the John Doe investigation into the Walker administration has conservatives terrified.


The military-industrial complex’s War on Journalism.


The rightwing blogosphere’s Bullshit Freakout of the Day.


Hey, remember how Lehman Brothers melted down after a boneheaded gambling scheme sunk the US economy? Yeah, the SEC is totally cool with that.


Grover Norquist’s idea of a walk-back could use a lot of work.


Confirmation of things you already know: it’s going to be a close election, with Obama likely to win.


Finally, when fifteen minutes of fame results in fifteen minutes worth of money.

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News Roundup for 5/24/12

Wingnut
From a world all its own


-Headline of the Day-
“Poll: Elizabeth Warren unscathed by Cherokee flap.”

One thing that’s fun to watch in the wingnut blogosphere is the sight of bloggers buying into their own spin. It’s kind of easy for them to do, since they only seem to read each other and stuff they find on Fox News, so they really have no idea what the hell’s going on outside their little echo chamber.

And so it was with a trumped up “scandal” about Elizabeth Warren claiming Cherokee ancestry. Seems that the wingnut blogosphere measures ethnicity differently than the Cherokees do (Liz is as Cherokee as the leader of the nation) and they’d worked themselves up into a tizzy over it. Warren was doomed, they said, DOOMED!

Turns out that, as earth-shattering a revelation as the nutjobs thought this was, no one else cares. A new Suffolk University poll finds that 69% don’t think the half-baked “scandal’s” even a story and only 28% believe Warren lied about being a native American.

Meanwhile, Warren’s surging ahead in the poll, closing a nine-point gap in February to a statistical tie today.

Yeah, wingnut blogosphere, that sure was a damaging little scandal you cooked up. Maybe — if you try real hard — you can convince yourself it’s working. (Politico)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, did you know that war is (kinda-sorta-not-really) a thing of the past? It’s true, thanks to…


Click for animation


You know, maybe making war easier wasn’t the best idea… (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
“New U.S. unemployment claims down this week.”

As always, good news for America is bad news for the GOP. (Raw Story)

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Why Republicans Suck at Outreach.

I try not to make political predictions. There are just too many variables most of the time to be able to see all that far ahead. When you’re this far out from an election, it’s a little soon to start thinking you’re seeing anything with any amount of clarity. When you’re even farther out, it’s an exercise in futility, as Ed Kilgore points out today:

A year ago, one of the most commonly discussed scenarios for an Obama defeat in 2012 was his potential weakness among Hispanic voters, an important part of his 2008 coalition (and crucial in several battleground states) that had suffered disproportionately from bad economic times and whose leaders were tangibly unhappy with the president for failing to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.

Today an oversample of Hispanic voters in a NBC-Wall Street Journal survey supplies the latest evidence that Obama may be on track to match his 2008 performance among Hispanic voters: he currently leads Romney by a 61-27 margin, within range of his 67-31 margin over McCain in 2008. Romney’s famously hard-line position on immigration, which he used to great effect in the primaries to validate himself among conservatives (and to dispatch Rick Perry), is presumably a factor in his poor standing among Hispanics (outside the Cuban-American and Puerto Rican communities where there is relatively little concern about immigration policy).

Ironically, the punditry failure on this prediction was utterly predictable. Seriously, was there any chance in hell that today’s Republican Party would nominate a candidate who was more progressive on immigration than Obama? The ad above — run by PAC+, a lefty Super PAC — could’ve been made no matter who won the primaries. But it fits Romney especially well, since — as Kilgore noted — he engaged in anti-immigrant demagoguery during the primary campaign.

Of course, when you’ve alienated such a large demographic group, you have to at least try to get them back. And Mittens tried. Well, not really “tried” so much as “lazily acknowledged their existence.”

Mitt addressed an event hosted by the Latino Coalition yesterday and, instead of trying to rebuild bridges, pretended he hadn’t burn any at all. In fact, to abuse the metaphor, he pretended fire doesn’t even exist. According to Talking Points Memo’s Benjy Sarlin, “Immigration was not mentioned once, either in the address or in a pre-screened Q&A session.”

This is less surprising than it would at first appear. It’s part of a pattern; not only within Team Romney, but the wider GOP as well. When dealing with a group of alienated voters, Republicans approach the problem the same way they approach economics — bass-ackward. They don’t try to connect with those voters and address their concerns. Instead, they try to get those voters to connect with them and get those voters to worry about Republican concerns. They don’t try to represent them, they try to indoctrinate and convert them.

This has been working about as well as you’d think.

For example, check out this outreach effort by House Republicans to reconnect with women voters. They get a bunch of female GOPers to get on camera and talk about taxes and how awful Obama is. What they don’t talk about is this whole War on Women thing that alienated all the women voters in the first place. I haven’t quoted myself in a while, so I figure I’m due. Here was my take at the time:

It’s like someone walked up to them and said, “What’s all this crazy stuff about trans-vaginal ultrasounds?” and they answer, “Yes, I too am concerned about the economy.”

And Mitt’s doing the exact same thing with Latinos. They’re asking, “What’s with all this crazy anti-immigration stuff?” and he says, “I agree that unemployment is a big problem.” He may be in the same room with them physically, but he is nowhere near them when it comes to addressing their concerns — or even listening to them. The GOP is a top-down organization. They don’t listen to you, you listen to them.

And if you don’t agree with them on an issue, they literally have nothing to say to you.

-Wisco
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News Roundup for 5/22/12


Prospective buyer


-Headline of the Day-
“Presidential foundation threatens legal action over Reagan blood vial auction.”

When you raise someone to sainthood, people are going to want relics. That’s what conservatives are learning today as a go-getter capitalist says he’ll sell a vial of Ronald Reagan’s blood online.

Apparently, the blood was drawn after the attempted assassination of Reagan and somehow wound up in the hands of a private collector. Is it really Ron’s? Who knows? That’s the beauty of unregulated capitalism — you never know when you’re getting screwed.

“If indeed this story is true, it’s a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase,” said Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation executive director John Heubusch, who’s clearly a commie who hates the free market.

“Any individual, including a president of the United States, should feel confident that once they enter into the care of a medical system their privacy and rights are held inviolable,” he added — assuming, of course, they don’t enter that system as a lady looking for an abortion.

So far, the sale — which is being held by an “auction house based on Guernsey, in the British Channel Islands” — is going ahead as planned and things are looking bright for our entrepreneurial hero. According to the report, “As of late Tuesday, the highest bid for the vial was 7,587 pounds.”

Seems cheap to me. With the right technology, you could clone the guy. Imagine what that would go for. (Agence France-Presse)


-Selective GOP outrage-



For the record, we’re currently in “so what?” mode. (Political Cartoons)


-Bonus HotD-
“Bill O’Reilly Unsure Why People With Less Money Don’t Give As Much to Charity.”

This has been the latest episode of “conservatives sucking at math.” (Weigel)

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Hey Mitt, Why’s Your AZ Co-Chair Trying to Kick Obama Off the Ballot? State level Republicans are crazier than outhouse rats. That’s not even a matter of opinion, that’s pretty much provable fact. Take, for instance, today’s news from the Iowa GOP.Radio Iowa: The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party’s platform committee says the group is intentionally questioning President Obama’s citizenship with the wording in one section of the document. It calls for presidential candidates to “show proof of being a ‘natural born citizen’ of the United States.” Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa GOP’s 2012 platform committee, spoke with Radio Iowa by phone this afternoon. “There are many Republicans who feel that Barack Obama is not a ‘natural born citizen’ because his father was not an American when he was born and, therefore, feel that according to the Constitution he’s not qualified to be president, should not have been allowed to be elected by the Electoral College or even nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008, so this is an election year. It’s a shot at him,” Racheter said. You don’t get much crazier than birtherism — although I suppose you’d have to call this neo-birtherism. Of course, neo-birtherism is probably worse, since it means you accept that the original birther argument was horsecrap, but you’re sticking with the broader premise anyway. It’s practically an admission of playing politics with paranoia. But the Iowa GOP’s nuttiness doesn’t end with this neo-birtherism. Oh no, there’s plenty more crazy in there, as Ed Kilgore points out:[I]f you take a look at the document as a whole, the birth certificate requirement is far from the crankiest of provisions. It calls for the abolition of the federal Departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Commerce. It demands a phase-out of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and immediate provisions to make Social Security voluntary. Though it’s a bit confusing on this point, it seems to call for the abolition of public education, or, as it often refers to them, “government schools.” It calls for U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations and the repeal of all hate crimes and non-discrimination legislation. It endorses a Fetal Personhood Amendment. It demands permanent restriction of total federal spending to 10% of GDP (the draconian right-wing Cut, Cap and Balance Act would limit it to 19.9% of GDP), and reversal of the Supreme Court precedents that made possible the New Deal and civil rights laws. Outside the GOP base, none of this stuff would be popular. It’s a big steaming pile of John Birch Society nonsense and the craziest of Ron Paul “libertarian” ideas. If Republicans ran on this nationally, it would be a slaughter. Which makes me think of another thing Kilgore writes. “[Y]ou better believe if any group of two or more Democrats wrote up anything remotely this extreme, alarms would go up from coast to coast,” he says. “I wish at a minimum Republican candidates for major offices in Iowa had to comment on this document one way or another. Walking those planks would do them a world of good in coming to grips with what’s happened to their party.” It doesn’t seem to me to be all that difficult a task to get national Republicans to take a stand on these issues — just ask them if they agree with their biggest supporters. For example, Steve Benen looks at Arizona’s birther Secretary of State Ken Bennett, currently in a clownish battle with the state of Hawaii to obtain a certain species of birth certificate that just plain doesn’t exist. Bennett demands his nonexistent documents be magically made to exist or he threatens to keep President Obama off the ballot in his state. And here’s where things start looking pretty goddam corrupt. “Did I mention that Bennett is the co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in Arizona?” Benen asks. “Well, he is — Romney’s top ally in a battleground state is also the man responsible for overseeing the state’s elections, and the official threatening to keep Romney’s opponent’s name off the Arizona ballot.” Hey, Mr. Romney, do you agree or disagree with your squirrelly Arizona co-chair that the president ought to be kept off the ballot because he doesn’t have a kind of birth certificate that doesn’t actually exist? Do you think that the fact that the president and yourself are tied in that state has anything to do with this (because that sure looks dirty, dirty, dirty)? And will you be asking Mr. Bennett to step down from your election committee? There. Was that so hard? And this is going to be true for every one of these “wingnuts gone wild” stories. Some clown involved is going to be a Romney co-chair. It’s practically guaranteed. And every time, Team Obama should find out who that co-chair is and start beating Mittens over the head with them. Why are all your supporters either lunatics or dirty tricksters, Mitt? What’s that say about you? -Wisco [Image credit: Jeremy Vandel, via Flickr]
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Hey Mitt, Why’s Your AZ Co-Chair Trying to Kick Obama Off the Ballot?

State level Republicans are crazier than outhouse rats. That’s not even a matter of opinion, that’s pretty much provable fact. Take, for instance, today’s news from the Iowa GOP.

Radio Iowa:

The chairman of the Iowa Republican Party’s platform committee says the group is intentionally questioning President Obama’s citizenship with the wording in one section of the document. It calls for presidential candidates to “show proof of being a ‘natural born citizen’ of the United States.”

Don Racheter, chairman of the Iowa GOP’s 2012 platform committee, spoke with Radio Iowa by phone this afternoon.

“There are many Republicans who feel that Barack Obama is not a ‘natural born citizen’ because his father was not an American when he was born and, therefore, feel that according to the Constitution he’s not qualified to be president, should not have been allowed to be elected by the Electoral College or even nominated by the Democratic Party in 2008, so this is an election year. It’s a shot at him,” Racheter said.

You don’t get much crazier than birtherism — although I suppose you’d have to call this neo-birtherism. Of course, neo-birtherism is probably worse, since it means you accept that the original birther argument was horsecrap, but you’re sticking with the broader premise anyway. It’s practically an admission of playing politics with paranoia.

But the Iowa GOP’s nuttiness doesn’t end with this neo-birtherism. Oh no, there’s plenty more crazy in there, as Ed Kilgore points out:

[I]f you take a look at the document as a whole, the birth certificate requirement is far from the crankiest of provisions. It calls for the abolition of the federal Departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Commerce. It demands a phase-out of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and immediate provisions to make Social Security voluntary. Though it’s a bit confusing on this point, it seems to call for the abolition of public education, or, as it often refers to them, “government schools.” It calls for U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations and the repeal of all hate crimes and non-discrimination legislation. It endorses a Fetal Personhood Amendment. It demands permanent restriction of total federal spending to 10% of GDP (the draconian right-wing Cut, Cap and Balance Act would limit it to 19.9% of GDP), and reversal of the Supreme Court precedents that made possible the New Deal and civil rights laws.

Outside the GOP base, none of this stuff would be popular. It’s a big steaming pile of John Birch Society nonsense and the craziest of Ron Paul “libertarian” ideas. If Republicans ran on this nationally, it would be a slaughter. Which makes me think of another thing Kilgore writes.

“[Y]ou better believe if any group of two or more Democrats wrote up anything remotely this extreme, alarms would go up from coast to coast,” he says. “I wish at a minimum Republican candidates for major offices in Iowa had to comment on this document one way or another. Walking those planks would do them a world of good in coming to grips with what’s happened to their party.”

It doesn’t seem to me to be all that difficult a task to get national Republicans to take a stand on these issues — just ask them if they agree with their biggest supporters.

For example, Steve Benen looks at Arizona’s birther Secretary of State Ken Bennett, currently in a clownish battle with the state of Hawaii to obtain a certain species of birth certificate that just plain doesn’t exist. Bennett demands his nonexistent documents be magically made to exist or he threatens to keep President Obama off the ballot in his state. And here’s where things start looking pretty goddam corrupt.

“Did I mention that Bennett is the co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in Arizona?” Benen asks. “Well, he is — Romney’s top ally in a battleground state is also the man responsible for overseeing the state’s elections, and the official threatening to keep Romney’s opponent’s name off the Arizona ballot.”

Hey, Mr. Romney, do you agree or disagree with your squirrelly Arizona co-chair that the president ought to be kept off the ballot because he doesn’t have a kind of birth certificate that doesn’t actually exist? Do you think that the fact that the president and yourself are tied in that state has anything to do with this (because that sure looks dirty, dirty, dirty)? And will you be asking Mr. Bennett to step down from your election committee?

There. Was that so hard?

And this is going to be true for every one of these “wingnuts gone wild” stories. Some clown involved is going to be a Romney co-chair. It’s practically guaranteed. And every time, Team Obama should find out who that co-chair is and start beating Mittens over the head with them.

Why are all your supporters either lunatics or dirty tricksters, Mitt? What’s that say about you?

-Wisco

[Image credit: Jeremy Vandel, via Flickr]
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Stories to Watch: 5/21/12

The Cory Booker non-story, explained concisely.


Limbaugh’s ratings post-slut comment were not so hot.


State of Hawaii to Arizona’s birther Secretary of State: We are so tired of this bullshit. The email exchange behind all of this is well worth your time.


Facebook’s shares aren’t doing so well.


The conservative media start a race war. Luckily, it exists only in their imaginations. Bonus fun: Ed Kilgore on how incoherent and insane the whole thing is.


Obama says he’s not letting up on Romney’s Bain past.


Paul Ryan’s stopped trying to make any damned sense at all.


Me talk like conservatives now.


Are squirrels possessed by gay demons?


Just a reminder; rightwing “historian” David Barton sells the purest horseshit known to man.


Finally, if the current escalation in numbers is any indication, by the time November rolls around, Mittens will be claiming to have created about a trillion jobs — give or take a billion.

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