George Will election day fun facts

1. In June, Will predicted that if Mitt Romney’s support among Latinos fell below 31%, “He’s going to lose.”
2. Latino support for Romney is now at 24%.
3. So George crunches the numbers and concludes that Romney’s headed for a landslide.
4. Despite having a reputation for being a serious conservative wonk, George Will is just another rightwing hack who pulls his “analysis” straight out of his butt.

News Roundup for 6/18/12

When this guy say you're being too much of a wingnut, you really ought to listen-

-Headline of the Day-
"GOP strategist: Republicans were `caught with their pants down’ on immigration."

Fox talking head and longtime GOP strategist Ed Rollins says the Republican Party is sinking fast and they need to get their act together. After Obama's immigration bombshell, the party's in deep trouble with a large and growing segment of the population. You're probably thinking Ed's one of the fake Republicans liberals run to when they want someone to say things they want to hear, but no. Rollins is a 100%, dyed-in-the-wool, rightwing lunatic. How do I know? Well, he was Shelly Bachmann's campaign manager -- and Huckabee's and Reagan's -- so there's your conservative nutjob bona fides right there. You just don't get any wingnuttier than that.

Anyway, Greg Sargent reports Ed told him, "Republicans need to be very careful about how they respond to Obama’s new immigration announcement, because Americans view the issue as one about fundamental fairness. If the GOP loses the Latino vote in the same way it has lost blacks, it won’t be able to win future presidential elections."

And by losing the Latino vote the way they've lost black voters, he means approximately all of them -- give or take the occasional Herman Cain. If that happens, it's game over for GOP presidents.

Meanwhile, George Will argued that if Mittens gets below 31% of the Latino vote come November, "he’s going to lose."

Couldn't happen to a nicer anti-immigration extremist. (Plum Line)


-Let's play a game-



Answer here. (Cagle Post)


-Bonus HotD-
"Russell Pearce, Ousted Arizona Immigration Law Architect, Denied Fundraiser At Mexican Restaurants."

Wait, you come as close as anyone in American history has to making it illegal to be Latino -- and now you want some burritos?

This hombre's got some huevos, amigos. (Huffington Post)

Stories to Watch: 3/3/12

No tornadoes up here, just piles of heavy wet snow. I suppose I should be grateful for it, considering. Now here's the news...


Like all the rest of the top Not-Romney's, Rick Santorum's campaign structure is mostly either theoretical or imaginary. In fact, it's now looking like he may lose as many as 18 Ohio delegates before anyone has even voted -- and it's his own damned fault.


Latest polling shows that Gingrich still owns Georgia.


Blowhard Bill O'Reilly joins the rest of the morons pushing the false talking point that, under the contraception coverage rule, government will be paying for birth control. I guess because that's been working so well for Rush Limbaugh.


George Will declares the White House a lost cause for Republicans this go-round. He advises the party concentrate on congress as the way to make sure that Obama has "a substantially reduced capacity to do harm."


If you're in the mood for a surprise, watch for the Washington state Republican caucuses results tonight. Romney's polling ahead, but particulars of the caucuses mean it's hard to predict who's going to win. Even Ron Paul has a credible shot.


Looks like TV stations are the big winners in the Citizens United ruling.


More reason for spring fever: the Wisconsin recalls will probably take place in June.


Finally, you do know that Neil deGrasse Tyson is awesome, right?

Related articles

• Washington State caucuses could foreshadow Super Tuesday (csmonitor.com)
• PPP, Survey USA point to Romney win in today's WA caucuses (hotair.com)
• Santorum: Limbaugh's "Slut" Comments About Fluke "Absurd" (themoderatevoice.com)
• GOP Hopefuls Shift Focus, Ignore Washington On Primary Day (huffingtonpost.com)

Stories to Watch: 11/6/11

Made tuna melts on homemade sourdough last night. Envy me. Now here's the news...


Wingnut outrage of the day: OccupyDC protests a Koch event in Washington, where the rampaging commies attack a 78 year-old woman and brutally throw her down a flight of stairs. To prove it, John Hinderaker posts video -- which, unfortunately for him, doesn't show that at all.


John Boehner says members of his party aren't servants to the rich (while rushing to the defense of the 1%) and are all about cutting spending -- an argument Steve Benen knocks down effortlessly.


At a Koch event, Mitt Romney promises to take as much away from you as he can get away with, in order to continue tax cuts for the rich.


While the subject of his sexual harassment problems were off-limits at a Gingrich-Cain debate, that didn't stop Herman from totally screwing the pooch. A question about Medicare induced a "deer in the headlights" moment for Cain -- and he finally passed the question to Gingrich, like a contestant on a game show. Newt may be completely bonkers, but he's way smarter than Herman. Why Cain agreed to participate in what would so clearly become a fiasco for him is something I may never understand. This was just so utterly predictable.


5.6 earthquake in Oklahoma.


George Will applauds increased unemployment.


Finally, it's clear that constant questions about his harassment scandal are starting to get under Herman Cain's skin.

Related articles

• Herman Cain: "I've Had A Great Week" (alan.com)
• Herman Cain Blasts Media For Sexual Harassment Questions After Debate With Gingrich (mediaite.com)
• Cain Support Drops Amid Harassment Scandal (businessinsider.com)
• Cain-Gingrich in 2012? (politicalwire.com)

Stories to Watch: 10/28/11

What a day. Just crisis after crisis. Everything seems to be squared away now and I'm about to put my loaf of sourdough in the oven. Hoping for a quiet night. This one's going to be pretty short. Now here's the news...


You know that guy who's smoking in that weird Herman Cain ad? Yeah, that's Cain's campaign manager Mark Block and he's one unsavory guy. According to AP, "Block has been accused of voter suppression and was banned from running Wisconsin political campaigns for three years to settle accusations he coordinated a judge's re-election campaign with a special interest group." He's also a tax dodger and a drunk driver.


Mittens Romney flips again on global warming; "we don’t know what’s causing climate change." Sorry Mitt, but we do.


George Will is a lot less than impressed with Mittens -- while all but verifying he's the best thing they've got.


In a sign of how far the debate has shifted, Rep. Paul Ryan writes that the GOP is worried about the "safety net for the poor" -- in a fundraising email to the base. Forget the blatant hypocrisy here and consider what that means; the GOP base is the 99% and the GOP knows it.


Scott Olsen, the vet who was the victim of the Oakland police riot, has suffered brain damage and can't speak, but is expected to eventually make a full recovery.


Finally, Egyptians march in support of Occupy Oakland.

Related articles

• An Unlikely Campaign Manager: The Story of Herman Cain's Cigarette-Puffing Political Guru (swampland.time.com)
• Scott Olsen 'cannot talk' after injury at Occupy Oakland protest (guardian.co.uk)
• Scott Olsen Attacked for Using First Amendment Rights, Says His Uncle (sfist.com)
• Injured Iraq veteran is face of Occupy movement (cnn.com)

Stories to Watch: 5/15/11

I'm still missing posts on my blogspot blogs. As I wrote yesterday, if they aren't up by tonight, I'm giving up and doing it myself. This means my javascript buttons project will probably be pushed back yet again. Mostly, I'm afraid that I'll restore the posts, then blogger engineers will come along and re-restore them, leaving me with duplicates. Not the biggest problem in the world -- they're easy enough to delete -- just one I'd rather avoid facing due to my own impatience. Besides, I'm hoping that blogger will restore them to their original URLS, which would mean any links anyone made to the pages would start working again. Keeping my fingers crossed. Now here's the news...


The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is accused in the the sexual assault (read "rape") of a New York hotel maid. While this throws a huge monkeywrench into French politics, it has global implications as well.


Mike Huckabee won't run in 2012. Frankly, I'm a lot less surprised about that then I'm supposed to be, it seems. The big tip-off for me was that he made the announcement on his Fox show, which might've made things troublesome election/media laws-wise if his announcement had been anything other than "no." Still, I'll bet his ratings killed. After all, that's what all the "Huckabee emails suggest a run!" stories were all about.


We hit the debt limit tomorrow. Expect a lot of stupid statements from Republicans, but remember that we've got enough to keep the lights on until about August -- then catastrophe as the US defaults on loans and bonds. Until the week or two before we run out of money, it'll all be bluster. It's a game of chicken and, frankly, Republicans suck at it.


Rep. Paul Ryan, well-known author of fantasy-economics porn, will decide whether he wants to run for retiring Sen. Herb Kohl's seat this week. I don't like to make predictions, but I'm guessing no. Ryan is a "rising star" in the House GOP and, if he switches to the Senate, he'll practically have to start over as a freshmen nobody. Still you never know -- in terms of temperament, the calm, non-bomb-tossing Ryan seems more Senate. I'm not pinned down either way, but I think it's more likely he'll rule it out.


Newt Gingrich really is a jackass. Now he's suggesting an illegal "poll test" -- i.e., requiring someone to pass some sort of knowledge test before being allowed to vote. These were typically used in the racist south to keep poor blacks from voting. I'm sure the 'baggers love the idea, but the irony is that this would disenfranchise a lot of teabagging morans -- literacy was often a requirement.


Finally, conservative pundit George Will shocks America by actually being right for once.

Related articles

• Mike Huckabee Bows Out Of 2012 Race: "The Factors Say Go, But My Heart Says No." (outsidethebeltway.com)
• Time Travel With Mike Huckabee (joemygod.blogspot.com)
• Huckabee Is Not Runnizzzzzzzzzz (tammybruce.com)
• HuffPost TV: WATCH: HuffPost's Alex Wagner Talks About Mike Huckabee's Upcoming Announcement (huffingtonpost.com)