The beginning of the end of the Tea Party:

Serious damage has been done to the Republican party. The Tea Party contingent got brushed aside by the elites and it looks as if they will be faced with with the prospect of voting for a Massachusetts Mormon moderate in the general election. Just think about this:

Nothing that Romney did while holding office was conservative.

And now they going to vote for the guy?

They've been bitching for years that the Republicans didn't put up a "real" conservative. And after all the sound and fury - and electoral success in 2010 (!) - they are being left in the lurch. As a result, many of them will disengage from the Republican party.


posted by Quiddity at 1/27/2012 10:30:00 AM

Obama's SOTU speech:

Early on, he said:

Let's remember how we got here. Long before the recession, jobs and manufacturing began leaving our shores.

So why did he sign three free-trade agreements (Panama, Columbia, South Korea) last year?

But there's good news:

We can't bring back every job that's left our shores. But right now, it's getting more expensive to do business in places like China. Meanwhile, America is more productive. A few weeks ago, the CEO of Master Lock told me that it now makes business sense for him to bring jobs back home. Today, for the first time in fifteen years, Master Lock's unionized plant in Milwaukee is running at full capacity.

Apparently, workers here are now being paid less than those in China. Time to celebrate!

And this is pathetic:

So we have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.

In other words, no government policy, like tariffs, to be enacted. Just hope and pray that somehow, business will stay here.


posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2012 08:23:00 PM

One of the worst debate questions ever:

By Brian Williams at the Florida debate:

Governor Romney, a question you know is coming because of what you have set in motion for tomorrow when you release one year`s tax returns and your estimates for 2011. We know it`s not a matter of producing them. You said during the McCain vetting process you turned over 23 years which you had at the ready because, to quote you, you`re something of a packrat.

So, prior to tomorrow, can you tell us tonight what`s in there that`s going to get people talking? What`s in there that`s going to be controversial? What`s in there that you may find yourself defending?

1) Maybe NBC News can look at the tax returns and find something.

2) Asking a candidate to mention a defect is like asking a potential employee what their shortcoming is. The typical answer is:

Well, my biggest problem is that I work too hard and always put the company's interest ahead of mine!

posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2012 01:16:00 PM

Michael Lind in Salon:

Two good essays recently.

1) How conservatives lie about government
excerpt:

... members of the right-wing counterculture are brainwashed — that is the only appropriate term — by the apocalyptic propaganda ground out constantly by the conservative media establishment.

2) Race, liberty and Ron Paul [this is more about libertarianism than Paul]
excerpt:

Some libertarians concede the legitimacy of government coercion in protecting property rights. But in doing so, these libertarians, like Ron Paul, give up any principled objection to government coercion. They simply want government coercion to be used for some purposes—protecting property rights—and not others—enforcing civil rights.

posted by Quiddity at 1/24/2012 06:34:00 AM

Here is how an effective propaganda outfit does it:

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team.

Newt Gingrich's three marriages mean he might make a strong president -- really

By Dr. Keith Ablow

Published January 20, 2012

I will tell you what Mr. Gingrich’s personal history actually means for those of us who want to right the economy, see our neighbors and friends go back to work, promote freedom here and abroad and defeat the growing threat posed by Iran and other evil regimes.

First, one note on what Mr. Gingrich’s married life, including his history of infidelity does not mean: It does not mean that Mr. Gingrich would be unfaithful to the United States of America or the Constitution of the United States.

You can take any moral position you like about men and women who cheat while married, but there simply is no correlation, whatsoever—from a psychological perspective—between whether they can remain true to their wedding vows and whether they can remain true to the Oath of Office.

I want to be coldly analytical, not moralize, here. I want to tell you what Mr. Gingrich’s behavior could mean for the country, not for the future of his current marriage. So, here’s what one interested in making America stronger can reasonably conclude—psychologically—from Mr. Gingrich’s behavior during his three marriages:

1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.

2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.

3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.

Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.

4) Two women—Mr. Gingrich’s first two wives—have sat down with him while he delivered to them incredibly painful truths: that he no longer loved them as he did before, that he had fallen in love with other women and that he needed to follow his heart, despite the great price he would pay financially and the risk he would be taking with his reputation.

Conclusion: I can only hope Mr. Gingrich will be as direct and unsparing with the Congress, the American people and our allies. If this nation must now move with conviction in the direction of its heart, Newt Gingrich is obviously no stranger to that journey.

posted by Quiddity at 1/20/2012 08:44:00 PM

Gingrichideas Twitter account:

here

Variable, but some good ones like

Free CIA-provided Wi-Fi.

posted by Quiddity at 1/06/2012 01:56:00 PM

After the Iowa Caucus:

Eric Ericson of Red State, who badly wanted Perry to re-emerge as a viable candidate, remarks:

Bachmann must drop out. Frankly, it makes sense for Perry to do so as well except for one issue.

If Rick Perry drops out of the race it will be the ultimate failure of the tea party movement to see the race come down to two or three big government conservatives.

... the tea party has failed because it has surrendered itself into the hands of Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich ...

Considering all the attention given to the Tea Party - especially on right wing radio and the Murdoch presss - it's surprising that it may end up having very little impact in 2012. They don't have a candidate. Santorum is a G. W. Bush-era Republican, Gingrich is pre-Bush. Neither are bona fide Tea Party types.

Real Tea Party politicians are mostly in the House (Ryan, Cantor, and first-termers that were elected in 2010) or holding state-wide office (Walker, Snyder, LePage ). None of national stature. Maybe their time will come, or maybe their time is passing. Hard to say which.


posted by Quiddity at 1/04/2012 03:01:00 AM

Only 100 years ago:

Just want to get this post in before the year runs out.

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford proposed a model for the atom - of electrons in the outer region and a small positive nucleus - that still holds today. There have been several refinements since then, with the Bohr, electron cloud, wave, and energy state models that were more accurate, but Rutherford was the first to point in the right direction. Prior to that atoms were thought to be either hard objects with no structure or a diffuse mixture of positive and negative charges.

Of course, since 1911, a lot more was learned - especially in the subsequent 30 years of nuclear physics. Still, it's easy to forget how not too long ago, our understanding of nature was extremely lacking.


posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2011 04:41:00 AM

John Walsh of America's Most Wanted speaks out about cuts and taxes:

The man is getting radical. Crooks & Liars reports:

Wow. America's Most Wanted host John Walsh has an earful about cutting the government to spark economic growth this week. He notes letting police and firefighters go is bad for our communities. Flint, MI which laid off two-thirds of its police force, according to Walsh has become a "small city murder capital of the U.S."

But then, Walsh goes full Occupy.

"Who's going to pay for the economic meltdown - the huge debt?" He says, "How about companies? Companies that have made more money than in the whole history of the world and they've done it with less people. Some of the Fortune 500 companies pay no state taxes at all. We all know about GE not paying federal taxes."

And he continues to rail on this conservative cure-all for our economic woes: "It's a quick fix but it's not a good fix. We got to make the corporations pay more money and we can't let these people [police] go. You got to speak up."

posted by Quiddity at 12/26/2011 09:44:00 PM

Did you buy a ton of stuff on Mega Monday?

Once again, CBS Evening News has - as their leadoff story - a report about how consumers are expected to spend lots of money purchasing things this Monday. No, there are no hard figures, just projections.

"As many as 100 million shoppers could hit the stores this week."

That is not news.


posted by Quiddity at 12/26/2011 06:37:00 PM