The fraction of people calling themselves Democratic is now at an all-time low of 32.5%.

Republicans, 35.9%.

So of course you can understand why media polls give Democrats a +8-+10% advantage.

Posted by: Ace at 12:35 PM | Comments (85)
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Now available for download.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (66)
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I don't know about you all but I'm tired of fighting over Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. That's like a duel to the death over the ugliest, dumbest and cruelest chick in school.

Let's focus on something we can all agree on...Ron Paul is a kook.

You know who the biggest contributor (to the tune of $900,000) to Paul's Super PAC is? One Peter Theil.

Thiel is also a member of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group, the elite, invitation-only conference that's the frequent subject of conspiracy theories.

"They probably get together and talk about how they're going to control the banking systems of the world and natural resources," Paul said in 2008.

Thiel shares, though, Paul's anti-government, and anti-Establishment, impulses. He has funded a prize to encourage talented students to drop out of college, and is a major supporter of the cause of "Seasteading," creating independent, water-borne cities free of national law.

They really are all powerful. If they can get to Crazy Uncle Ron Paul, they can get to anyone.

Posted by: DrewM at 11:43 AM | Comments (108)
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No, seriously. Scare quotes and all.

But you'll have to confirm that on your own because I'm not linking them for partisan trash.

I'll go with the neutral USAT headline.

The Senate voted 28-22 Wednesday to pass the labor union bill as thousands of protesters packed Statehouse hallways shouting their disapproval. Thousands more lined up outside waiting to get in.

...

The bill now goes to Gov. Mitch Daniels, who has said he will sign it, possibly later Wednesday. His signature will make Indiana the 23rd state in the nation with the law, and the first in the Rust Belt states of the industrial Midwest and Northeast.

More at Big Government: Forced labor dues coming to an end in Indiana.

Via @calebhowe and Hoosier Access.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (112)
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And negtritude, I guess.

Which by the way is a real word and not a slur. It came up in Balderdash. (Not the real game -- you don't need the game to play Balderdash, you just need a dictionary. Anyone can page through a dictionary and pick an interesting word.)

So "negritude" is a real word.

Anyway, let Jim "Shaft" Moran tell you suckas that all this jazz from jive-turkey Allen West is nothin' but the White Man's Lies.

Video at the link. Here's Rapmaster Jim Moran layin' it out for y'allz.

"People like Mr. [Allen] West, and Governor Brewer and so on, particularly Mr. West, is not only not representative of the African-American community or of the Republican Party, let alone of the American public. So what he says really is of little or no consequence, but it's unfortunate," Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) said about Rep. Allen West telling liberal leaders to "get the hell" out of the country.

"He just seems clueless not that he has climbed abroad ship. He's climbed this latter of opportunity that was constructed by so many of his ancestors' sweat, sacrifice, blood, you know they did everything they could for his generation to be successful. But now that he's climbed abroad ship, instead of reaching down and steadying the latter, he wants to push it off. 'I'm up here. If you're not with me, too bad.' And President Obama, fortunately, is the kind of guy that says 'I was very fortunate to get where I am and I'm going to spend my life trying to steady that latter of opportunity by reducing college tuition and training our workers, trying to get a decent job for everybody. Making sure that while I'm African-American, it really doesn't matter. What matters is my commitment to public service, my love for this country and I'm going to leave a constructive legacy,'" he said.

Moran says that Obama "doesn't engage in this nonsense" and calls him our "Lion King" while comparing his Republican detractors to "hyenas."

"Lion King." Gee, that's not too on-the-nose, is it?

Now this other cat is black, but he's still jivin' and shuckin'.

He castigates a black woman who's running for Congress. How dare she.

Then he launched into a 16-minute argument filled with curse words and accusations that added up to her being too close to whites and not really having the interest of the black community in mind. Eventually, Bergmann bowed out of the conversation, and that’s when Matthews really let her have it — not only did he accuse her of being a “token negro” for whites, but he also slipped in references about Martin Luther King and even refused to shake her hand because he was afraid her “whiteness” would rub off on him.

By the way: This is the weirdest thing. He's the radio host, supposedly, but his mic is awful and you can barely hear him. He just sounds like a jivey robot buzz. On the other hand, the mic on the woman is mostly clear.

Nice work, guys. You're very good at your jobs. Or maybe you sound like shit because The White Man would never allow you to have a clear signal.

Thanks to BenK, who's at @benk84 on Twitter.

I used to like Jim Moran, back when he was producing phat grooves like this.
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Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (119)
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Ah, birtherism.

I knew you'd be back.

This isn't really new, but Farah spreading the word, threatening a 10% defection in the conservative vote if Rubio is VP.

Conservative Joseph Farah on Tuesday evening predicted that “10 percent of the Republican vote” would fail to get behind Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as the hypothetical vice presidential nominee because they will believe the circumstances of his birth make him ineligible.

...

RubioÂ’s parents became naturalized citizens in 1975, but were permanent legal residents of the United States when Rubio was born, according to RubioÂ’s office. RubioÂ’s official biography has already been scrutinized, due to questions over the date his parents arrived in the United States as Cuban exiles.

...

“You want to open that can of worms again?” Farah warned.

Yes I do.

Conspiracy theories never die; they just continuously mutate. Memes are like living creatures, always mutating and adapting to new conditions.

They're a bit like viruses. Or pestilences.

We still have multiple iterations of the Freemason Dollar Symbolism conspiracy theories running around, various JFK (and RFK! And MLK Jr.!) whitewash-the-assassination theories, moon landing conspiracy theories, USS Liberty conspiracy theories (prominently pushed by Truthers and Ron Paul supporters, and, by the way, those groups strongly overlapped), etc., etc., etc.

Who killed JFK? Well, the Cuban government, the anti-Cuban government agitators, the CIA, the Mob (specifically I think the Trafficant crime family in New Orleans, but memory is fuzzy), the military-industrial complex pushing for war in Vietnam, the KGB (Oswald did attempt to defect to Russia!), the White Russian community, rich rightwing extremists in Texas, and LBJ.

The better question is really who didn't kill Kennedy. Shorter list. As the Devil says in the Stones song, "After all, it was you and me." Well I know I didn't do it, but you, I'm not certain about.

RFK has his own conspiracy theory even though his assassin was caught on camera and immediately tackled by Rosie Greer (memory is fuzzy-- right?).

And you can't have a rational discussion about a conspiracy theory, because its proponents are so emotionally invested in it, and if you call the theories crazy and irrational, well, you're calling them crazy and irrational.

And they really just don't see why the rules of rationality forbid them from linking whatever two dots they like and assuming a grand central plot behind them, without any evidence. They consider that rule "arbitrary" and imposed by dolts who have Bought Into the Official Story.

And so it will be until the end of days.

Thanks to R.

Posted by: Ace at 10:25 AM | Comments (204)
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If you only give him the states where Obama's net-positive in approval (even where he's still below 50%)...

I mean, that relies on the idea "if current trends continue..." which is the one thing you can reliably predict that trends won't do, continue.

Still.

There's a lot of antagonism and frustration in the party right now.

Let me just note something sort of positive. Now, I'm making a prediction here. And I don't want to be presumptuous in making this prediction.

So let me not make a prediction, so much as a guess.

Right now it seems just awful. You don't like Romney. No one likes Romney. And yet he's likely to be our nominee.

Let me postulate that if something like the above map occurs, you're going to feel rather good. At least for four or five blessed months.

And at least for that time, all this stuff about "What are we even fighting for?" will seem like a half-remembered dream.

I don't know what kind of President he'd make (or that any of them would make).

But there is something to be said just for driving President The Constitution Acted Stupidly out of office, and giving the People's House back to the people. The real people, not Obama's coalitions of red diaper babies, crytposocialists, black-bandannaed anarchists, academic parasites, union goons, and welfare state clients.

Posted by: Ace at 09:42 AM | Comments (344)
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Nate Silver lays out five possible scenarios, and notes evidence for them and evidence against them, including historic precedent.

Its good.

The bullet point scenarios are all stuff you could think of on your own -- Romney cruises, Newt rallies, Santorum surges, etc. -- but he provides some rigor in analysis.

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Comments (69)
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How the flighty have fallen.

Superstar 250-pounds-of-rompin'-stompin-sex charisma-machine Cenk Uygur, and unpopular former misgovernor Jennifer Granholm.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (60)
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I postulated that Soledad seemed to have asked Romney specifically about the very poor. I was wrong; she asks him about poll findings that Romney "doesn't understand the concerns of the average voter" as well as Obama does (it's something like 54% to 39%).

The term "average voter" seemed to suggest to Romney he should make a pitch directly to the "average voter," the middle class, as he defines it, the "very heart of America." Which just happens to be 90-95% of the population, in his estimation.

That's a bit clumsy, isn't it? Input: "Average voters." Output: "I only care about average voters." Beep beep beep, spit out computer punch-card.

It is what it is.

When I was supporting Perry, I said Romney just was not very good at politics. I'm not retracting that. It was right then, it remains right now.

The exchange, including the question, begins at 2:49.

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Posted by: Ace at 08:27 AM | Comments (163)
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