Thank You David Simon

I promise if I ever spring for cable TV I will start watching your shows. In the meantime thank you for saying what was going through my mind, but saying it all so much better.

Mitt Romney paid taxes at a rate of at least 13 percent. And he’s proud to say so.

Can we stand back and pause a short minute to take in the spectacle of a man who wants to be President of The United States, who wants us to seriously regard him as a paragon of the American civic ideal, declaiming proudly and in public that he has paid his taxes at a third of the rate normally associated with gentlemen of his economic benefit.

Well this part I've been saying for years.

This republic is just about over, isn’t it?

And I'm afraid it is. Nice while it lasted.

Et Tu Stockman

It's one thing for Romney and Ryan to have Paul Krugman telling them they're full of shit.

 Ryan has a completely undeserved reputation in the media as a bluff, honest guy, in Ryan’s case supplemented by a reputation as a serious policy wonk. None of this has any basis in reality; Ryan’s much-touted plan, far from being a real solution, relies crucially on stuff that is just pulled out of thin air — huge revenue increases from closing unspecified loopholes, huge spending cuts achieved in ways not mentioned. See Matt Miller for more.

It seems like quite another to have David Stockman doing so.

Thirty years of Republican apostasy — a once grand party’s embrace of the welfare state, the warfare state and the Wall Street-coddling bailout state — have crippled the engines of capitalism and buried us in debt. Mr. Ryan’s sonorous campaign rhetoric about shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to “job creators” (read: the top 2 percent) will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.

Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.

And this from the Matt Miller link.

Ryan’s revised plan, passed by the House in 2011, wouldn’t reach balance until the 2030s while adding $14 trillion in debt. It adds $6 trillion in debt over the next decade alone — yet Republicans had the chutzpah to say they wouldn’t raise the debt limit!

 Over time, Ryan’s “vision” would decimate most federal activities beyond Social Security, Medicare and defense.

So, I Was Feeling All Sad and Blue

I had gone over to faux professor Donald's place and he was all happy about the Ryan pick. No links cause he hates the traffic especially from Nazi progressives. And I went and read Roy's Voice column about how it's the Second Coming of Saint Ronnie now that Willard and Paul have hooked up. BTW, go visit Roy, he loves the company. The Reagan loving is laid on very thick, though.

So I was feeling very down until I went and visited my second favorite wingnut. Bob Lonsberry is kind of a local boy made, well not much. He's on the radio out Rochester way and writes a web column. When I saw the title of his column,  RYAN WAS THE WRONG CHOICE, my spirits were immediately elevated.

He has decided to throw the race and he has decided not to be subtle about it. Here’s the bottom line: Paul Ryan doesn’t bring a vote to the ticket.

Now Bob's a fellow Mormon so he probably has the inside scoop from himself. And I'd been thinking for awhile that Romney was taking a dive. To have it confirmed is some really good news, though.

 In a race where the fight is for the flakes in the middle, Paul Ryan absolutely does not move the needle.

We see here that Bob himself is not much the politician or he doesn't think "the flakes in the middle" are going to read his web musings. And not that I would want Paul Ryan in charge of anything, but from the point of view of the opposition this makes sense.

Having Paul Ryan’s knowledge and intellect guide the restructuring of the federal budget in a Romney administration is a good idea. To do that, you make him Treasury secretary, or director of the budget, or create some czar position. Almost never has a vice president been selected on the basis of some specialized skill which he would use in the administration. That’s what cabinet secretaries are for.

Fortunately Bob and I agree that Ryan is not going to get to do that either.

And, incredibly, by his choice, Mitt Romney has ended the congressional career of the only guy with the brains and the guts to say what needs to be said about the budget.

Say it loud, proud and often you zombie eyed granny starver!

And Mitt Romney has played directly into it. The Democrats have invested a year in making Paul Ryan’s last name a cuss word in American politics, and Mitt Romney has made sure that that Democrat investment doesn’t go to waste. We have agreed to argue their issue, and that is almost never a smart move.

Thanks Bob.

UPDATE: My hopes are confirmed after coming back from viewing the stock markets' nearly half a percent nosedive on the first open since the Ryan pick. I know how the Right likes to put so much weight on every little movement up or down. Obviously this is a slam dunk.

Death of a Gun-Loving Meme

Know it's not going to happen but I'd like for this to end the bullshit "if only someone had been packing heat.

The madman who gunned down Sikh worshippers blew his own brains out after he was blasted in the gut by a crack-shot Wisconsin cop, the FBI said yesterday. “I’ve seen the video — it was an amazing shot. And thank goodness,” FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson said.

Brian Murphy was the name of the officer and he himself sustained injury from 9 shots.

Or Maybe Ron Paul

The White House is offering to help expand Willard's Veep choices.

Pick Paul Ryan! Bobby Jindal! Rob Portman! Tim Pawlenty! When it comes to advising Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on choosing a running mate, it seems as though everyone inside the Beltway is getting in on the act—including, now, the Obama campaign.


"Newt Gingrich or Michele Bachmann would be an excellent choice for Mitt Romney to choose," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One.

I understand Dr. Paul is not on the scheduled speaker's list yet so maybe he is on their RADAR.

ROMNEY/PAUL 2012 - Rich and Crazy!

UPDATE: Looks like it's Paul Ryan.

Romney/Ryan 2012 - Rich and Zombie Eyed Granny Starver

When is Enough Enough?

I realize that I don't post much here, but to have two posts in a row about the actions of murderous psychopaths is a disgusting trend I'd like to stop. In order not to focus on the individual responsible for the latest mayhem, I'll post on what little "good" news there is.

Satwant Singh Kaleka, president of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, would do anything for his beloved, tight-knit community, relatives say.On Sunday, he died standing up to the horror of a gunman's attack on his house of worship in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek. Kaleka, 65, managed to find a simple butter knife in the temple and tried to stab the shooter before being shot twice near the hip or upper leg, his son said Monday.

Mr. Kaleka showed more bravery and adherence to his religion than I'm sure 99% of the gun-toting, God-fearing right wing nutjobs currently running amuck in this country. You know, I was getting sick of the idiocy of the Romney campaign but now I'd really like to get back to that.

Waiting Period for Blogging

It's good to take a cooling off period after a tragedy such as occurred on Friday. Otherwise, who knows. You could falsely accuse an innocent Tea Party member of being the shooter or you could falsely identify the shooter as a Democrat. And we all know that Dems are the real gun nuts in this country. That's why gun "aficionadas" are so apt to vote for the Democratic Party. Anyway, best thing I've read on it is from Jason Alexander who is not just a pretty face. You should be proud Reppy to have been linked to him by Donald. I'll just link it. It's worth reading the whole thing.