"I'm running for office, for Pete's sake!"

If Mitt wins the Republican nomination for president, be prepared to hear the caption repetedly(ha). In a rare display of his true feelings, that was his reply in a debate to the charge that he had hired illegals to work on one of his properties.
When the Boston Globe ran an article about his lawn care service which was employing illegals, he went to them and said they had to quit the practice. Not because it was wrong, not because it was illegal. Rather, because he was running for office, for Pete's sake.
I think it was Michael Kinsley that said a gaffe is when a politician accidentally says what he's thinking.

Who's your daddy?????

This is too funny, turns out the only contributor to the PAC to defeat Gov. Beshear is David William's father in law. He had previously tried to keep his identity secret, but a judge barred the commercials because the donor names weren't disclosed.

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The father-in-law of the Republican candidate for Kentucky governor is the only contributor to a political group currently facing a restraining order.Franklin County Judge Thomas Wingate issued the order restraining the group from running the ads because no individuals were listed, as is required under Kentucky law.Restoring America responded by submitting a new report to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.According to that report, GOP gubernatorial candidate David Williams' father-in-law, Terry Stephens, gave Restoring America $1,365,000 and is the only contributor.The group has spent all the money on ads criticizing Williams' opponent, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear.In a statement Stephens released Wednesday, he said, "My financial commitment to support the conservative values of Restoring America is in response to the devastation this country and state are experiencing under the leadership of liberals like Barack Obama."With Stephens' name now disclosed as Restoring America's sole contributor, the group has filed an emergency motion to dissolve the restraining order on its ads.Wingate will hold a hearing on the restraining order at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

Read more: http://www.wlky.com/politics/29540316/detail.html#ixzz1bLHQBZju

Rand Paul: who's a kook now?

Thank God Kentucky elected this visionary! Rand Paul, our own conspiracy theorist senator, has uncovered a dark plot to use the UN to disarm us Americans!
Its all laid out in this Mother Jones article:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/10/united-nations-small-arms-treaty-rand-paul

9-21-11: overall, not so good.

By most measures, yesterday was not a good day.
First, Troy Davis was executed by the state of Georgia. Convicted of the murder of a sheriff, and no physical evidence other that eyewitness testimony which has since been largely recanted, the justice system failed him. I think it was Justice Scalia that opined that the innocent do not have a right not to be executed, only the right to a fair trial.
Second, and of lesser importance, REM announced it was breaking up after 30 years. My friend Tony Burunoff got me introduced to them about that time and I've enjoyed their music ever since.
The good to come of yesterday included getting my yellow '76 goldwing cured of her mystery ignition miss and timing reset. Once again, she purrs!

The New Yorker on Michele Bachmann

This is an interesting article on Michele Bachmann from a recent New Yorker Magazine issue:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_lizza

Ten long pages but makes a fascinating read.

Barack Obama-Cave Man

Well, he's done it again! Faced with opposition from a radical right tea party that acted like the insane rogue elephant that didn't care if the economy tanked or not, Mr. Obama threw in the towel and gave the republicans everything they wanted without getting anything in return. He caved.
Maybe its the next step in the game for the shrewdest political thinker ever, a chess grand-master playing 5 steps ahead of everyone else, but I don't think so.
make no mistake, this was not a compromise because, once again, he got nothing in return.
At least in December he got an extension in unemployment benefits, but the republicans learned then that he could be controlled by extortion. And apparently he can.
here's Paul Krugman's take:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=1&hp

more thoughts on budget negotiations...

I’m not proud of my senator, Mitch McConnell and his cadre of Senate republicans who are holding the nation hostage in order to ensure that the balancing of the budget is done on the backs of the poor and what’s left of the middle class.
For eight years he sat silently as the last republican president ran up deficit spending by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and fighting two wars on credit.
When Obama took office, he was left the biggest fiscal mess since the great depression. Now, in order to further what he sees as the most important republican cause, making Obama a one term president, Mitch is complicit in a scheme to take the nation to the brink of another financial ruin. The last time, it was to allow the bankers to escape the catastrophe they created in order to create obscene salaries for the already wealthy.
This time, its to ensure failure on the part of the President, even at the cost of our country’s financial recovery. In order to cut the deficit, a combination of revenue increases and cost reductions will certainly have to take place.
Good faith negotiations are not taking place when one side announces that one of the two components, revenue increases, will not be discussed, and therefore, the arbitrary goal must be reached only through cuts in spending.
The standard argument is that you can’t increase taxes during a recession, and that those with wealth will create more opportunity (jobs) when they are allowed to accumulate additional wealth. That theory, however, just doesn’t make sense. If it were true, then where were the jobs they’ve been creating since the Bush tax cuts of 2002 and 2004? We, as a nation, can’t keep throwing ever-increasing amounts of money at the wealthy and hope that we get some of it back. What again, is the definition of insanity?
For the last twenty years, the middle class of our nation has seen decreasing pay while the richest one percent now “earn” 20 percent of its wealth. And I think I've read that the top 20% earn 50% of the wealth. Not since the roaring ‘20s has income disparity been as great.
And the solution? According to Mitch the gap must be made up by further pain to the poor and middle class.
Twenty years ago, Republicans could control the majority by making believe that they were the bastions of christian values and beliefs. Since that method started failing, they have become champions of fiscal responsibility. They can create a virtual reality that is obviously false to anyone who pays attention, but, what the hell, if enough people fall for it, it might as well be true.
People like the Koch brothers throw money at groups who in turn fund tea party types who will provide the energy to get more ideologues elected, and the process repeats itself. People don't want to be smart. They want to be told what they want to hear, to be reinforced in their beliefs, no matter how crazy those beliefs are.
If Sarah Palin wants to believe that Paul Revere rode to warn the British that we were not about to give up our arms, and that he used bells and whistles to do it, well, she's entitled to her own set of facts. The rest of us should just get used to it.
I just wonder what's going to happen when the middle class is gone and there is no one left to buy the products of the wealthy and the corporations. But I'm sure the republicans have already got that figured out.