Dick Armey: We're Gonna Have A Brokered Convention
— Ace

Alternately, he says, we could have a late entrant, but we have a party of small-testicled men.

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The Daily DOOM
— Monty

His Majesty the King always seeks accord and fraternity among his ministers and servants. However, occasionally the dictates of the Royal schedule mandate that His MajestyÂ’s pronouncements be delivered later than his subjects might wish.

The economic argument for having more kids. Blithe reliance on technology to solve our future problems (demographic and otherwise) seems like a really bad idea. What if Kurzweil is wrong? A growing population is, generally speaking, a creative and dynamic one. When people stop having kids, it doesn't bode well for civilization.

This cool blog I read sometimes found a pretty damning story about Obama’s boondoggle of a “stimulus” program, and how it was pretty much political bacon for his leftist base. You should check it out.

I've been talking for awhile about Japan's decline, and this story is just more evidence of that: Japan records first trade deficit since 1980. Some of this is due to the tsunami and costs of rebuilding in the wake of that disaster, but that merely hastened rather than caused the decline.
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Posted by: Monty at 04:37 AM | Comments (102)
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Video: Romney Vs. Gingrich on "Influence Peddling"
— Ace

As Romney terms it. I don't see how you could not say he was a lobbyist, save for the political need to say it wasn't lobbying.

Gingrich makes a couple of points here: Again, a general defense of GSEs ("they've done a lot of good things"); a distinction between what he calls "public advocacy" as a "citizen" and "lobbying;" and, "I'll say this in Florida,

The argument he makes -- it's crazy that we pay for surgery but not pills -- won at the time. I remember the Brit Hume panel discussing it, and Democratic-leaning analyst Mort Kondrache said the same thing.

At the time, I opposed this thing, but I found that argument somewhat persuasive. Except for the part that wasn't mentioned -- that we were now on the hook for billions more in socialized health care for a group which, as a group, is wealthier than the rest of the country.

Another point of contention is how much Gingrich was paid by Freddie Mac. Gingrich previously claimed $300,000. It turns out it's $1.7 million. Gingrich's argument is that $1.7 million is what was paid to his company, and the $300,000 figure is therefore true, as that was the amount he received, personally. That's why he keeps bringing up Bain; he means that Romney didn't personally receive every dollar flowing to Bain.

Although I don't know how many people he had on staff, it seems unlikely to me that the only truly big political figure at this firm (it was Gingrich's firm) got such a small share of the payments.

In fact, since one contract was specifically for $300,000 for one year's work, it appears that Gingrich's $300,000 figure was just for one year. Not sure why he doesn't just say that.

Someone asked, "Do you really think Obama can bring up Freddie Mac in an attack?" I said yes, but I see there may be some problems there. I think they'll do it anyway.

That said, in a campaign in which "most vigorous spokesman for small-government conservatism" is very important, I'm not sure why it should only matter if Obama can effectively make an issue about it.

If we're supporting Gingrich because he's ostensibly conservative, shouldn't this stuff bother us, whether it can be used in a political ad or not?
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Posted by: Ace at 04:30 AM | Comments (227)
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Top Headline Comments 1-24-12
— Gabriel Malor

From Speaker Boehner's office:

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (188)
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Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

Still sick. Still retardated. And hating politics at the moment. I'm beginning to see where Heston was coming from here.

How Elvis Met Nixon

Yep this actually happened:

On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley paid a visit to President Richard M. Nixon at the White House. The meeting was initiated by Presley, who wrote Nixon a six-page letter requesting a visit and suggesting that he be made a “Federal Agent-at-Large” in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

And the real-life story of what happened before this scene is as bizarre as the picture itself. In fact in 1997 HBO made a hilarious pseudo-documentary about the events that led up to Elvis heading off by himself to meet President Nixon - minus an appointment. Unfortunately it's never been released on DVD so the only way to see it these days is via illegal copies on the internet or used VHS tapes off of ebay. Way to go media companies. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:20 PM | Comments (502)
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Liveblogging the NBC Tampa Debate
— andy

9pm Eastern on NBC. The GOP thought we still had Monday Night Football going on, but they're so inept that even the attempt at boneheaded counter-programming failed.

Here's an exclusive preview of the frontrunners' opening statements:

Douche and Turd
Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Standard reminder: Your comments do not automatically display. So don't ask "Why aren't my comments displaying?" They don't display.

They're not posted comments a la chat room. Instead they go to queue, which the producers (cobloggers) read, and we post them, by hand, if we think they make a good point.

Liveblog thingy below the fold. more...

Posted by: andy at 04:50 PM | Comments (472)
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The Coulter Thing
— LauraW

Ann Coulter has been a Romney supporter for a long time, and she's a brawler; it's no surprise that she would come away from the SC primary swinging.

What's unexpected is who she's targeting. Instead of diligently investigating why Newt won, she has turned her acerbic tongue loose on the electorate instead. The very next morning after the primary, she suggested that republicans have become 'the mob' on Fox News, and has implied there and elsewhere that voters are stupid for backing Gingrich just because he can deliver an insult to the MBM. Along with a host of other sarcastic and bitchy slights.

Ann Coulter, November 17, 2004, crowing in victory:

As we wait for CBS to concede the election, Democrats are claiming Kerry lost because Americans are stupid and if there's one thing voters respond to, it's crude insults.

Hm. You don't say. Well, nobody's perfect.

Look; seeing Newt sock the MBM is always fun, but that's not really what resonated the most with me, and I have to assume that at least some of the SC electorate think the way I do, since they are members of my very common demographic (female, white, 40+ y/o, some college, hunchbacked, three large teeth that don't meet anywhere, likes pudding. Understandably. It's frickin' delicious! Also there's the tooth situation).

For me, it was the part where he stood up for work. Where he discussed the essential virtues of work. Nobody does that anymore. It was refreshing. It was important to me to hear someone say it. To hear that someone has a f*cking clue what's going on down here in Realityland. We are out of work and we want it.

This administration seems to think that Americans should view work as a vampire perceives holy water, and nearly every policy out of DC reflects that.

Well, we don't think that way. We're Americans. We want to work. Dammit, we're ready to get back to it. Give us the reins to our own lives, stick your food stamps back in your ass where they came from, and get out of the way. You're killing us.

This message resonates. That's why Gingrich won. Not just the slap at 'the elites,' but the content of the slap. The part where all work is good work and no one should consider themselves demeaned by what is *good.* Yeah, that may have been pre-formulated, and Juan Williams walked right into it. So? It needed to be said. Most of us thoroughly enjoyed hearing it clearly and unambiguously elucidated.

Currently, several of my friends and family are out of work, or underemployed. I've never seen things this bad in my life. Many of my clients who are technically self-employed simply have had nothing to do for the past three years. They are depleting their savings and selling family heirlooms at auction, while they make pocket cash at a department store to get by.

Meanwhile, the OWS crowd is complaining that no one has coronated them with cushy positions and free stuff the minute they got out of college, and resent the implication that they might have to work some menial jobs for a while until they get their stuff together, the way most everybody else in this country has had to for generations.

This is bad. This is real bad. There's an ideological rot in this country, eating away at our vitality and encouraging parasitism and sloth. The only reason Obama has gotten away with implementing his job-killing agenda is because a lot of damn people need to get their heads right. Newt Gingrich put his finger on a raw nerve, and was rewarded for it.

But no, no, Ms. Coulter. That most South Carolinians who voted in the republican primary are absolute chowderheads to not vote for Romney is a much more realistic assumption. You're smarter than all those people. You understand what makes them tick better than they do.

Go with that.

UPDATE: From Reno Dave in comments:

139 I also like Newt's comments about work, and it really disappoints me that Romney hasn't made an equally strong case for investing throughout life so that one can retire at a 15% tax rate on income from qualified dividends and long-term capital gains. I'm serious about this.

CNBC's Jim Cramer on his "Mad Money" program basis a lot of his investing advice on buying and holding stocks, like Caterpillar, that pay good dividends. If people save and invest wisely, they too can gain a good deal of their retirement income from dividends and (hopefully) price appreciation of the underlying stock, which when held over a year when sold, will have the long-term gain taxed at 15%. Even the tax code on dividends favors holding stocks a long time, as dividends on stocks held a short time are taxed at normal income rates, but dividends of stocks held longer "qualify" for a lower rate of 5% - 15%, depending on other income.

And what about people with Roth IRAs, where contributions are made with income already taxed, but withdrawals are tax-free. If I were to save my money in a Roth IRA then retire at 60, start taking money from it and run for office at 62, would I see attack ads saying that I paid ZERO TAXES on that income? That's one of the things that's bugging me about Romney. He's not making a case for there to be MORE people like him.

Emphasis mine. See? There are things Romney can do, that he isn't doing. He needs to find a way to resonate, to discuss why success is good, instead of seemingly being afraid to talk positively about wealth creation- not just his time at Bain, but wealth creation in itself as a GOOD THING, and to inspire people.

Not the voters' fault if he doesn't rise to the occasion.

Posted by: LauraW at 03:08 PM | Comments (467)
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Top-Secret Larry Summers Economics Memo To Obama Reveals Stimulus Was About Advancing Political Agenda
— Ace

And lots of other good stuff.

Now, in the below, the boldfaced, number points are Pethokoukis' digests, not actual quotes from the memo. The plain text below each bold title are the quotes supporting it.

1. The stimulus was about implementing the Obama agenda.

The short-run economic imperative was to identify as many campaign promises or high priority items that would spend out quickly and be inherently temporary. Â… The stimulus package is a key tool for advancing clean energy goals and fulfilling a number of campaign commitments.

2. Team Obama knows these deficits are dangerous (although it has offered no long-term plan to deal with them).

Closing the gap between what the campaign proposed and the estimates of the campaign offsets would require scaling back proposals by about $100 billion annually or adding new offsets totaling the same. Even this, however, would leave an average deficit over the next decade that would be worse than any post-World War II decade. This would be entirely unsustainable and could cause serious economic problems in the both the short run and the long run.

3. Obamanomics was pricier than advertised.

Your campaign proposals add about $100 billion per year to the deficit largely because rescoring indicates that some of your revenue raisers do not raise as much as the campaign assumed and some of your proposals cost more than the campaign assumed. Â… Treasury estimates that repealing the tax cuts above $250,000 would raise about $40 billion less than the campaign assumed. Â… The health plan is about $10 billion more costly than the campaign estimated and the health savings are about $25 billion lower than the campaign estimated.

via @jonahnro

More: Thanks to spongeworthy, quoting from The Atlantic, Obama was also told that "shovel-ready" chiefly applied to horse-shit in neat steaming piles.

But it is important to recognize that we can only generate about $225 billion of actual spending on priority investments over next two years. and this is after making what some might argue are optimistic assumptions about the scale of investments in areas like Health IT that are feasible over this period.

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And Now, The Recriminations: Perry Staffers Tell Tale of Turmoil, Infighting, and A Back-Surgery That Came At A Very Bad Time
— Ace

He should have delayed a month, or a month and a half.

Was it the decision to schedule back surgery on July 1, putting PerryÂ’s physical recovery on a collision course with a grueling schedule of fundraisers and campaign events? Was it the failure to prepare better for debates that soon turned disastrous? Was it simply a matter of getting in the race too late?

PerryÂ’s own string of verbal goofs, probably some of the worst in modern American political history, were so crippling that it is questionable whether any paid professionals could have pulled him out of the ditch. At one point staffers were so desperate to keep PerryÂ’s energy level high during debates that they discussed putting M&Ms in his coat pocket for use during commercial breaks.

More on that:

But the real problem, from Perry's perspective, was his schedule. Experimental back surgery in July had made it difficult for him to exercise, and exercise helps him sleep. Perry's brisk fundraising pace and lack of sleep left him and first lady Anita Perry — who was much more vocal in the presidential campaign than she had been in past campaigns — to conclude that his schedule should be better managed.

You can read the articles for the Johnson and Carney v. Joe Allbaugh stuff. Doesn't seem that interesting, as obviously fingers get pointed, and who knows.

So what was Perry doing in October? Apparently not all that much:

Politico reported, "In a blistering indictment, sources close to the operation describe a new team that was stunned to arrive in October and find a campaign that wasn't executing the most rudimentary elements of a modern presidential campaign: no polling or focus groups, no opposition research book on their own candidate to prepare for attacks, and debate prep sessions that were barely worth the name."

So now you know. Although the articles make a case for this guy or that guy failing Perry, of course failure begins at the top.

It might here have also begun at the back.

By the way, now that he's out of the race: Yes, that was a horrible, horrible campaign. And yes, he showed up for the debates half-asleep and unprepared.

Thanks to @bdomenench, who has a great daily news briefing called The Transom.

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Update on Senator Kirk: Large Section of Skull Removed; Will Face Permanent Physical Impairment
— Ace

But not necessarily any cerebral impairment.

Major Correction: I meant large section of his skull removed, not his brain. I'm sorry. Total glitch. And that, presumably, has been replaced.

Neurosurgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago said parts of Kirk's brain are permanently damaged. "The prospects for his full physical recovery, particularly on the left side of his body, are not great," said Dr. Richard Fessler, a neurosurgeon at Northwestern Memorial. The stroke may also result in "some facial paralysis," he said. Fessler said Kirk may recover use of his left leg but "I think the use of his left arm is going to be very difficult. Fessler said that that Kirk's "prospects for a full mental recovery are pretty good."

A four-by-eight inch section of skull was removed for the surgery.

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