Boehner is a moderate now!

This is getting entirely too predictable and despite that, deeply depressing.

In somewhat of a surprise, John Boehner resigned today. Suddenly, he is now a moderate. Why? Because he apparently sacrificed his career for the good of the House. Or his party. Heck, even Obama, his arch-rival said

"John Boehner is a good man. It took me by surprise, we have obviously had a lot of disagreements and politically we are at different ends of the spectrum, but he has always conducted himself with the courtesy and civility with me." 

He proceeded to call him a "patriot."

Factoid # 1299

The county with the highest percentage of people on food stamps is(?) Owsley County, Kentucky.

It's 98.5% white and 95% Republican and has the third lowest median income in the entire country.  More than half the income is through government benefits. 

Republican paradise!

Tick tock...

OK, so what's the latest date by which Bush, son of Bush, brother of Bush, does an about face, and claim that his words were twisted by the liberal media?

"Moderate" declares end of race

Remember Bobby Jindal? Sorry, didn't mean to, I'll keep this short. Someone ghost-wrote his thoughts on Politico wherein he expresses great sadness that there is racism race.

In 2003, I decided to run for governor of Louisiana, a state where David Duke got 44 percent of the statewide vote in 1990. The pundits said I was insane to even try. Friends worried about my mental stability and begged me not to run. I narrowly lost that first race, but I’ve won every race since then. I wish I had a nickel for every time East Coast political journalists have asked me about discrimination, and I wish I had a dime for every Louisiana voter who has broken those journalists’ ugly stereotypes.
Here’s what I’ve found in Louisiana: The voters want to know what you believe, what you stand for, and what you plan to do, not what shade your skin is.

So David Duke got 44 percent of the vote because those Louisiana voters didn't care that he was a self-avowed racist? How does that work?

The Rehabilitation of Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio is a smart man. Articulate, soft-spoken, opportunistic and reasonably photogenic to appear on national TV where he could spew his conservative positions without fear of appearing to be an ideologue. In many ways, he reminds one of a Barack Obama on the national stage soon after he spoke at the DNC in 2004.

Polished. And if he were a Democrat, he'd be in the reckoning for a future White House run. No, not like the one he is fooled into believing is his destiny within the GOP. Or at least was, after his much heralded meteoric rise to the Senate with a win over the grizzled veteran Crist, and his positioning as the GOP minority answer to Obama.

Following the 11-6 disaster for Romney, Rubio wasted no time in lining up his ducks. He refused to play the errand boy for Jim DeMint his supposed mentor, who wanted him to lead some sort of a Tea Bagger caucus in the Senate, and instead started exploring his Presidential run.

So far, so good.

Statistics and manipulation of the ignoramuses (contd.)

[Previously in the series]

The polling madness has stopped, several pollsters, some reputed (Gallup, Rasmussen), others crackpots (unskewedpolls.com) got their collective behinds handed to them, so the Silveritis has died down, a tad.

No more Jimmy Kimmel capturing selected street people/actors and producing a video that gets laughs.

No more Dick Morris explaining how Obama squeaked by with 332 electoral votes when he really expected Romney to win in a landslide with 321.

It's all about that dreaded "fiscal cliff" which seems lower than a worn out speed bump in an abandoned Target parking lot.

But I must press on with this theme of manipulation of ignoramuses. This time, there is nothing wrong really with the statistics, but it still coughs up ignoramuses.

Yes, I am talking about the PPP poll.

The highlights are:

• 49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. 
• 39% of Americans [have] an opinion about Bowles/Simpson [which is] only slightly higher than the 25% with one about Panetta/Burns.

A couple of problems. 

1. ACORN does not exist, and has not existed for about a couple of years.
2. There is no Panetta/Burns plan for deficit reduction.

OK, so the butt hurt for Republicans is more painful than I had imagined, considering that 25% of them also want to secede based on this poll.

While PPP is a Democratic leaning firm, its polling in the 2012 elections actually had a Republican bias. So we can sort of trust them with their statistical methodology being fair.

But the choices to present people is Jimmy Kimmelesque. While it truly reflects the ignorance of the bigoted ignoramuses in the Republican pool, and some in the general pool, the questions are more akin to push-polling--an underhanded tactic innovated by Karl Rove's inspiration, Lee Atwater. It may be karma, but all it shows is that ignoramuses can be manipulated rather easily.

Statistics is just a tool.

[Next in the series]

Bad Cop...Good Cop

The "47 percent remark" cost Mitt Romney heavily. I do not think it was the single reason why he lost it, but it weighed heavily in his defeat. A disdain so viciously articulated in front of a friendly private audience when you are expected to speak truthfully does not augur well when those who are never supposed to hear it, do get to hear it.

So ask yourself why would Mitt do it again? On a telephone conference call, where he knew reporters from the media would be listening, and surely one or more of them would be recording it.



"Because Mitt is an idiot!"

Nope, wrong, try again.

Bullshit! [UPDATED]

The corporate media, whose pundits were handed their collective behinds on the 'twas-a-toss-up-till-Sandy election predictions are now showering praise on Boehner.  

Some headlines:

• Boehner Strikes Conciliatory Tone in Talk of Fiscal Cliff
• John Boehner Welcomes Big Deficit Deal, Pledges to Work with President Obama
• Partisan tones soften after Obama victory
• Republicans, Democrats see election mandate for bipartisanship
• Boehner: 'We're willing to accept new revenue'
• Top Republicans ready to talk tax compromise with President Obama after reelection

So it'd seem that Boehner is willing to raise the marginal tax rate on the top bracket, and let the Bush-Obama tax cuts expire, right?

South Dakota, Eat Your Heart Out!

Another Chick-fil-A freedom of speech day coming up?

As expected, the heart or soul or some orifice of the GOTP has finally spoken up for Akin. Despite calls from Republican "leaders" including Romney asking him to step down, Akin stayed on.

Which should have been our first clue. You see, Akin is an elected congressman from Missouri, but none of these leaders really asked him to step down from his congressional seat. They just wanted him to get out of the 2012 Senate race. If that is not the ultimate in hypocritical deception, it is only because we have a totally inept corporate media who won't probe that blatant disjointedness in principles.

But fear not, the GOTP is so far gone that social conservatives now no longer fear or care about such overtly incoherent positions. Predictably a gaggle of them have doubled down, including Fuckabee and FRC honcho Tony Perkins. Yeah, that KKK supporting Christian supremacist is throwing his weight behind Akin.

It's a miracle that Alaska Palin and Minnesota Palin have not thrown their gravitas behind it. Yet.