God damn Dennis Prager annoys. You hate Limbaugh, they hate Levin, I hate Prager. He’s more than ever perfectly assured in his intellect which amazes given he’s offered obtusery on everything from torture to footwear. But that’s only the beginning. He’s superior to that — he is better than any intellect. He is that rare thing: A man far beyond being merely ‘good.’ Which puts him in the unique moral position to say whatever he likes and dispense with your argument. You may withdraw from the abortion contretemps as Dennis has spoken. You were wrong. Better luck next time. Try to get your licks in before He shows up and the give-and-take is rendered moot.

This is the bedrock truth wherever Dennis the Meta-Being is concerned, most prominently on his radio show. Callers lavish the host with quaking worship and cosmological regard.

All of this would be remarkable regardless of Dennis’ true nature. But it’s especially impressive because he’s an incorrigible liar. Morality being his obsession, you’d think more people would notice.

Environmentalism and Human Sacrifice
Dennis Prager | Townhall.com

So who would oppose something that could save millions of children’s lives . . ? The answer is people who are more devoted to nature than to human life.

And who might such people be? They are called environmentalists.

Texas and Oklahoma are being rounded into FEMA camps, too. But we can start with the anti-chemical apocalypse if you like.

These are the people who coerced nations worldwide into banning DDT. It is generally estimated this ban has led to the deaths of about 50 million human beings, overwhelmingly African children, from malaria.

General estimates of Ronald Reagan’s I.Q. were around 50 million, but these came in from the people whose job it was to wipe the oatmeal from his mouth.

The equivalent of 1/6th of America died in Africa, suuure, because liberals preferred the bald eagle to children. That’s the lesson of DDT. But before anyone buys into Dennis’ allegations of science genocide, there are some things you should know. DDT decimates raptor species through the thinning of egg shells. That’s why our national symbol would likely have vanished before the year 2000 without some intervention. It’s also extremely stable and accumulates in fat.

People living in areas where DDT is used for IRS [indoor residual spraying] have high levels of the chemical and its breakdown products in their bodies. Compared to contemporaries living where DDT is not used, South Africans living in sprayed homes have levels that are several orders of magnitude greater. Breast milk in regions where DDT is used against malaria greatly exceeds the allowable standards for breast-feeding infants. These levels are associated with neurological abnormalities in babies.

. . In the United States, these chemicals were detected in almost all human blood samples tested by the Centers for Disease Control in 2005, though their levels have sharply declined since most uses were banned in the US.

Though it was banned back in 1972, it’s currently in your blood. Nice, eh?

Wide-spread use of DDT, as for agriculture, also causes mosquito populations to become resistant. So a Prager-whoopee universal spraying campaign would be an absolute disaster. Let’s also remember: Malaria has been such a deadly world concern that DDT has always been employed to battle it [Headline: SIERRA CLUB STILL NOT MASTER OF EARTH]. The World Health Organization condones its judicious use, and our monies are used overseas for IRS programs.

You’d think a person of Dennis’ lofty character would want to know something (anything!) about the downsides of DDT before making demands about its use. But no. And those troubling issues are hardly the only concerns that disappear before his very ethical interests . .

The environmentalist movement’s responsibility for the deaths of tens of millions of poor children in the Third World is the most egregious example. But there are less egregious examples of the movement’s lack of concern for people.

. . The [Keystone XL] pipeline will be able to transport about 830,000 barrels of oil per day to Gulf Coast and Midwest refineries, reducing American dependence on oil from Venezuela — Iran’s base in the Western Hemisphere — and the Middle East by up to 40 percent. It will also provide Americans with many thousands of well-paying jobs.

Approving this pipeline is a moral and economic necessity.

There’s Dennis old pal, ‘moral’, again. But what sort of virtuous man lies to people? The real purpose of the pipeline is to get oil to the gulf, where Canada can sell it on the international market.

The fact that Canada has excess pipeline capacity is well known. In a Department of Energy report evaluating Keystone XL’s impacts on U.S. energy supply over the next twenty years, the agency found that it will take decades for Canada to produce enough oil to fill existing pipelines. On page 90, the report concludes that the United States will import the same amount of crude from Canada through 2030 whether or not Keystone XL is built.

From Canada’s perspective, the problem with existing pipelines is they all end in the U.S. Midwest and only allow one buyer – the United States. As Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently said, “we export 97 percent of our energy to the U.S. and we would like to diversify that.”

Those wishes and Keystone connect nicely here:

. . Earlier this month, Representative Edward Markey asked TransCanada’s President Alex Pourbaix to support a condition that would require the oil on Keystone XL to be used in the United States. Mr. Pourbaix refused, saying that a requirement to keep oil on Keystone XL in the United States would cause refineries to back out of their contracts.

When America wants the oil for itself, the pipeline project collapses. This is universally known. You get the sense that Dennis likes to forward these ‘moral’ arguments because he’s, you know, only bullshitting.

After the girlfriend of Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o died, he became the focus of immense amounts of national sports sympathy and attention this season. As the football team fought its way into the NCAA championship game, the tragedy surrounding and inspiring their best player was dramatically retold over and again. Today we find out that Manti never met the girlfriend, and she never existed.

– . . Manti realized [girlfriend] Lennay Kekua wasn’t dead when he got a phone call from her cell phone at an ESPN award show in December … months after her supposed death.
– Manti claims the woman who called from “Lennay’s” phone was the same person who he had spoken with during his relationship with Lennay.
– Manti says the woman informed him that Lennay was not dead … because she was not real.
– [A.D. Jack] Swarbrick says Manti met with a media team, who had planned to release the story to the media next week … but they were scooped by Deadspin.
– Manti told ND officials he had gone to Hawaii to meet Lennay in person on several occasions, but she never showed up.
– ND believes the [sic] Manti was targeted because he’s too nice of a guy … and the perps took pleasure in humiliating him.

After reading several sources, I’m actually considering that Manti may have been so sheltered a young man that he honestly thought Lennay existed. That won’t deflect people from becoming furious about the dramatic deception, or fans from accusing Manti and Notre Dame of being callous and calculating. Whatever Manti says to the press tomorrow, this story is set to blow up into an epic sports fiasco.

But first, or second, consider this:

Reagan Mauia, an Arizona Cardinals fullback, said he believes Kekua existed because he met her in person when he and other Polynesian teammates and Pittsburgh Steelers star Troy Polamalu went to do charity work in American Samoa in June 2011.

“This was before her and Manti,” Mauia said Wednesday evening. “I don’t think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. We would talk off and on, just checking up on each other kind of thing. I am close to her family. When she was going through the loss of her father, I was — I offered a comforting shoulder and just someone to bounce her emotions off. That was just from meeting her in Samoa.”

Mauia said Tuiasosopo — whom Mauia believes is Kekua’s cousin — introduced the two. After the initial meeting, Mauia said he met her at an “after-party” for all of the athletes involved in the camp.

“She was tall,” he said. “Volleyball-type of physique. She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model … ”

He said it is his understanding that Kekua’s mother is operating her Twitter account. He said he’d never met her mother. When told by a reporter that she apparently might not have existed, Mauia said “No, she is real.”

If someone (Ronaiah Tuiasosopo) pulled a long-running scam on the Samoan football community and it punked a gullible nation, it’s historic. If Manti used the faux girlfriend to snare extra attention and Heisman Trophy press during a momentous championship campaign, it’s historic. If Notre Dame covered up the hoax to protect the highly mythologized football program (Penn State? Hullo?), it’s an NCAA epidemic. Whatever the case, sports fans will have their figurative hands full for the next couple weeks. Plenty of slime to go around.

Mitt Romney is a deceptive man. And he’s running an election campaign on bullshit. For his latest serving of horse’s toes, the local auto workers were surely appreciative:

DEFIANCE, Ohio — Mitt Romney attacked his opponent, President Obama, in this rural and manufacturing city, on education and trade, passing along a report that Chrysler might move all of its Jeep manufacturing to China, which the company has denied.

“I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China. I will fight for every good job in America, I’m going to fight to make sure trade is fair,” Mr. Romney said.

One thing you can count on. Rank lying, okay, two things. Chrysler employees didn’t mind it being “owned by the Italians.” If it weren’t for the swarthies, their jobs wouldn’t exist. As for Romney telling Jeep workers they’d be canned tomorrow, or the day after, Chrysler didn’t thank the Governor.

There are times when the reading of a newswire report generates storms originated by a biased or predisposed approach . .

Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China . . A careful and unbiased reading of the Bloomberg take would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.

Accusing a Mormon elder of extravagance would normally be a proper shaming. But Mitt’s naked ambition far outweighs his conscience. Now there’s this:

“Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. And sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job. I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.”

You can remind him he wrote the famous op-ed “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”, but his campaign now depends upon Ohio. So he’s got to be the opposite of his actual self. Therefore, he’s worried about the auto industry. He’s been sitting at home, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. Someone has to fight for your jobs, dammit. Somebody has got to care. I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this mythology.

It’s shocking to see a grown man operating blithely as a living breathing lie. The only satisfaction you can take from this farce is the instant karma delivered Mittens via the unconscionable celebrity of Meat Loaf. The humble candidate got yearrgghhed by Mr. Loaf like he’d been possessed by demon honesty. And this season’s best campaign highlight was born:

This is how you play politics, but on a grand scale. This is how you put a bug in someone’s ear when the ear is 1% of the country.

Rush Limbaugh yesterday came up with another theory about how we managed to kill Osama Bin Laden. Instead of our intelligence apparatus, spy drones and satellite systems providing analysts with data enough to construct a scenario — we think Bin Laden is living in a compound in Abottabad, Pakistan — some vital information came by way of an unlikely source. The CIA were tipped off by Al Qaeda:

What if Ayman al-Zawahiri and other Al-Qaeda leaders gave up Osama Bin Laden for the express purpose of making Obama look good, giving Obama stature and political capital? “Obama got Osama!” I mean, really. Do you think Al-Qaeda depends on Osama Bin Laden anymore, or did? . .

He was near death anyway from diabetes or something. He needed dialysis. So they give him up; they give up his location. We go in and SEAL Team 6 gets him. Obama puffs up. “I killed Osama! I did it! I killed him!” He gets instant credibility and gives himself some political capital.

Keeping him in power, that furthers the cause. Who gave us the Arab Spring? Who…? (sigh) Who structured things so that the Muslim Brotherhood pretty much had a clear path to power in Egypt?

The theory is absurd. George W. Bush pushed Al Qaeda around a bit. But President Obama has been kicking their sorry asses. Look at the list of senior leaders in the terrorist network that have been killed by this administration. Al Qaeda wants another four years of this president like they want pork colonics.

Rush Limbaugh, if only begrudgingly, you have to admire. You simply marvel at the way he can re-engineer reality in only a few seconds. Osama Bin Laden was sick and lame. Who cares if the old man gets killed? Obama’s team didn’t accomplish much of anything. If it weren’t for Al Qaeda, none of this would have happened. Obama got played by the terrorist network. Look at the arrogant buffoon puff himself up. Now we’re stuck with the Arab Spring (sigh). How could things possibly get any worse?

There’s something to be learned from ol’ Rush. From our perspective, his assertions are too stupid to bother refuting. They have nothing to do with reality. Why waste your time? But there’s another view: this guy is capable of manipulating huge numbers of people. By the time he’s done talking, as many as 3 million Americans will agree with him. And gullible people have the same rights to vote that you do. So who has the upper hand, in reality? Who’s got the power? The people with truth, or the people with numbers?

He’s way way past being a little odd. Or occasionally mistaken. Paul Ryan is just dishonest. An enemy of the truth. A liar.

RYAN: We can get into this nomenclature. I voted for the Budget Control Act. But the Obama administration proposed $478 billion in defense cuts. We don’t agree with that. Our budget rejected that. And then on top of that is another $500 billion in defense cuts in the sequester.

In the sequester. From the Budget Control Act.

O’DONNELL: Right. A trillion dollars in defense spending, and you voted for it!

RYAN: No, Norah. I voted for the Budget Control Act.

O’DONNELL: That included defense spending!

RYAN: Norah, you’re mistaken.

No, she’s not. The Budget Control Act called for around $500 billion in cuts to defense spending over a decade. Everybody knows this. Who’s he trying to kid?

Do you remember when the Associated Press was a media institution? When it was a primary source for news? When an AP byline meant journalism you knew to be honest, accurate and trustworthy?

Those days are gone. Those days might as well never have existed. The Associated Press has become a disgrace. We all appreciate snappy truth-telling, but we’re not interested in a hack piece written by a right-wing fool. That’s what this big AP story is, some pundit-clown’s “fact-check” entitled “Fact check finds former president’s claims of compromise a stretch.” Here:

. . when former President Bill Clinton took the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, he portrayed President Barack Obama as a pragmatic compromiser who has been stymied at every turn by Republicans. There was no mention of the role that the president and the Democrats have played in grinding compromise to a halt on some of the most important issues facing the country.

They’re hitting it hard. The headline, the sub-head, the first two paragraphs, they all repeat the fact-checker’s rebuttal: Nobody compromises. Well, let’s see.

CLINTON: “When times are tough, constant conflict may be good politics but in the real world, cooperation works better. …Unfortunately, the faction that now dominates the Republican Party doesn’t see it that way. They think government is the enemy and compromise is weakness. One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation.”

OOPS. Again: “One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation.” What does that say about Democrats? Nothing. Clinton only called Obama a compromiser. He said nothing of congress. But the AP’s debunk:

THE FACTS: From Clinton’s speech, voters would have no idea that the inflexibility of both parties is to blame for much of the gridlock. Right from the beginning Obama brought in as his first chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a man known for his getting his way, not for getting along.

When did Rahm Emanuel become Barack Obama? Never. At least not yet. Or does Obama do whatever Emanuel tells him to do? Emanuel is now the mayor of Chicago, so no. If this isn’t jarring stupidity or incompetence, what is it? I don’t know. More:

One of the more high-profile examples of a deal that fell apart was the outline of a proposed “grand bargain” budget agreement between Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011.

The deal would have required compromise from both sides. It slashed domestic spending more than most Democrats wanted and would have raised some taxes, which most Republicans oppose.

Boehner couldn’t sell the plan to tea party factions in the House or to other conservative activists. And Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote.

Can you believe it? Bill Clinton said Obama “. . is still committed to cooperation.” And the AP fact-checks the hell out of that with: “. . Obama found himself accused of going too far by some Democratic leaders. The deal died before it ever even came up for a vote.”

Obama went “too far” to appease the opposition. This is how the AP embarrasses Clinton, with strong evidence for Clinton’s claim. Who runs this circus? More:

CLINTON: “I know many Americans are still angry and frustrated with the economy. … I experienced the same thing in 1994 and early 1995. Our policies were working but most people didn’t feel it yet. By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history.”

From that, here would be your fact-checker targets: 1.) policies were working 2.) by 1996 3.) the economy was roaring 4.) the longest peacetime expansion in American history. Check this debunk:

THE FACTS: But Clinton leaves out the abrupt downward turn the economy took near the end of his own second term and the role his policies played in the setting the stage for the historic financial meltdown of 2008.

Get that? This claim could have been true — “By 1996, the economy was roaring, halfway through the longest peacetime expansion in American history” — if only Bill had qualified it with this: “Incidentally the NASDAQ dropped in 2000, and I signed the Glass-Steagall Act.” The idiocy. And this:

CLINTON: “Their campaign pollster said, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Now that is true. I couldn’t have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.”

Did the pollster say that? Is the quote right? Let’s ask the AP:

THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told television viewers.

So he couldn’t possibly be honest now whatever he says. After all nothing’s so sincere it can survive Doing Sex Things With Lewinsky. No that’s no mind-numbing opinion that’s just a fact, pal. For now that’s it from the Associated Press, that misty hilltop from whence honesty tumbles itself headlong down a one-way street . .

Paul Ryan is some sort of clown.

Republican running mate Paul Ryan criticized Democrats Wednesday for having “purged” the word “God” from their official platform, calling the move “peculiar” as Democrats downplayed the omission.

“I think it’s rather peculiar. It’s not in keeping with our founding documents, our founding vision, but I guess you’d have to ask the Obama administration why they purged all this language from their platform,” Ryan said in an interview with Fox News.

Among America’s “founding documents” the Constitution is first among equals. And God gets zero mentions in it. Who is Ryan trying to bullshit? Or is he very very dumb?

You look at Memeorandum, and Paul Ryan’s Wednesday night address to the GOP convention/Tampa transvestite teach-in leads the internet parade. Everybody’s got a take on his speech. This is what you would expect. He’s the young ideologue VP candidate, he’s full of energy and plans and ideas. Everybody would like to talk about him.

What they’re saying of him is he’s full of shit. Here’s a list of the posts that call him a prime-time television liar:

–The Most Dishonest Convention Speech … Ever?
–Paul Ryan’s brazen lies
–Top 5 Fibs In Paul Ryan’s Convention Speech
–Mr. Ryan’s misleading speech
–FACT CHECK: Ryan Takes Factual Shortcuts in Speech
–Paul Ryan Address: Convention Speech Built On Demonstrably Misleading Assertions
–Paul Ryan Is the Newest New Nixon, a Moocher Belied

Those are takes from the major media and politics outlets. Politifact weighed in:

–Did Barack Obama break a promise to keep GM plant open?

. . with a “FALSE.” But there was also Fox News. This was their take:

–Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words

They said word number one was “Dazzling.” And word number two was . . “Deceiving.” No joshes. Even Fox News couldn’t avoid it:

Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.

Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn’t what the president said. Period.

Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

I’ll be. You might expect someone to properly vet a speech so thoroughly wrong but that would demand Mittens be a completely different candidate. Or man.

I am so sick of reading this revisionist crap.

Drop the Racial Rhetoric
Obama should blow his own dog whistle and tell his partisans to desist.
By Deroy Murdock | National Review

Congressman-for-Life Charles Rangel blah blah . .

Oh I’m sure the President has got a dog whistle of his own he can blow. Ugh. And everyone will know it’s time to stop the bigoted anti-racial farce or something. Anyway, here comes the lying again.

Biden’s comments were just a bizarre and crude effort to scare black people into voting Democrat, again. . .

While one may disagree with Romney, his running mate Paul Ryan, and every Republican on Capitol Hill, the notion that the GOP is itching to re-enslave blacks is an outrageous, disgusting lie that utterly mutilates American history. As most students learn in junior high school, abolitionists launched the Republican party to end slavery. Republicans defeated the Confederacy and then spent Reconstruction trying to incorporate blacks into American society. Democrats fought them at every turn.

After the War of Northern Aggression, after the waves of cursed reconstructionists and carpetbaggers receded, the Republican Party was unwelcome in the South. All politics was conducted through the Democratic Party. It was both conservative and liberal, left and right (but mostly waaay right). During the debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 21 of the 22 senators that represented the South were Democrats. 87 of 94 Southern members of the House were Dems.

Saying your party wasn’t guilty of Southern racism while your party was exiled from the possibility is no argument at all. Murdock plays games with words like “Democrat.” The Southern Republican may have barely existed but the familiar reactionary conservatism was certainly there. To this point, look at the differences between voting patterns North and South regarding that historic act:

On the Senate version, the Northern Democrats voted 45 -1 for it and the Southern Democrats voted 20 -1 against it. It didn’t particularly matter what party you said you belonged to, once you got below the Mason-Dixon line you were a right winger. And do you remember the powerful voting bloc the Southern politicians composed at the time?

In the United States, the conservative coalition was an unofficial Congressional coalition bringing together the conservative majority of the Republican Party and the conservative, mostly Southern, wing of the Democratic Party. It was dominant in Congress from 1937 to 1963 and remained a political force until the mid 1980s, eventually dying out in the 1990s.

These were America’s most conservative politicians: Southern Democrats. To say they were or are linked to liberal or progressive politics in any way is to lie. These were the racist white supremacists, like Strom Thurmond, that the GOP received with open arms after the successes of the civil rights movement.

And the “Southern Manifesto,” remember that?

The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, in the United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places. The manifesto was signed by 99 politicians (97 Democrats) from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. The Congressmen drafted the document to counter the landmark Supreme Court 1954 ruling Brown v. Board of Education, which determined that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.

How’s that for Originalist States’ Rights Tea Party activism?

The Southern Manifesto accused the Supreme Court of “clear abuse of judicial power.” It promised to use “all lawful means to bring about a reversal of this decision which is contrary to the Constitution and to prevent the use of force in its implementation.” The Manifesto suggested that the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution should limit the reach of the Supreme Court on such issues.

Tenthers. You get my point. Back to hooray! Deroy:

President Ronald Reagan named General Colin Powell to be America’s first black national security adviser and authorized the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

My butt. Presidents authorize no such thing. They either sign or veto the legislation, and Reagan wanted to veto it.

Reagan staunchly opposed the King Holiday bill. And he did not oppose it as later historical revisionists claim solely for cost reasons, that is that the federal government couldn’t afford to give federal employees another day off. This is the politically palatable cover.

At a press conference October 19 two weeks before he grudgingly signed the bill he quipped that he’d sign it only “since Congress seemed bent on making it a national holiday.” It took every ounce of the congressional bent that Reagan ridiculed to get him to put his signature on the bill. Congress passed the bill with an overwhelming veto-proof majority (338 to 90 in the House of Representatives and 78 to 22 in the Senate).

And don’t forget:

Reagan revealed even more of his true thinking about King in a letter to ultra-conservative former New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thompson. He unapologetically told Thompson that the public’s view of King was “based on image, not reality.” Reagan was roundly criticized for besmirching King, and he subsequently publicly apologized to King’s widow, Coretta Scott King. In assailing King, Reagan simply followed the well-worn ultra-conservative and racist script that King was a radical, racial agitator, and a closet communist.

Got it, Deroy? Reagan had to apologize to Mrs. King for being a stupid ass. For being your typical commie-baiter of the conservative Republican sort that is still found flogging his race jitters today. All of a dozen days ago Rep. Todd Akin said he was open to repealing both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So enough of your garbage, Murdock.

ADD . . This is good:

Mr. Reagan’s letter replied to one he received from former New Hampshire Gov. Meldrim Thomson, who asked the President to veto the bill. In the letter, Mr. Thomson called Dr. King “a man of immoral character whose frequent association with leading agents of communism is well established.”

Mr. Reagan replied, “I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on image, not reality.”

Mr. Reagan telephoned Mrs. King before leaving for a weekend of golf at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, which has no black members.

Yes, your precious Ronnie really cared about the likes of you Deroy.

Poor measly politician. Paltry little candidate. Pitiable Paul Ryan. He’s got the attention, he’s got the VP slot. He’s got the big intentions. He’s got the idealism to make Walter Mitty swoon. But he’s also got the kibosh. He is, in the end, not much more than a name. Paul Ryan. This is the truth. And this is everything that 13 years of his political swashbuckling have gotten us:

Ryan, who Mitt Romney has tapped as his running mate, passed a bill into law in July 2000 that renames a post office in his district. Thanks to Ryan, the post office on 1818 Milton Ave. in Janesville, Wis., is now known as “Les Aspin Post Office Building.”

The other time Ryan saw one of his bills become law was in December 2008, with legislation to change the way arrows (as in bows and arrows) are hit with an excise tax.

Two lousy bills. For cheaper arrows. And a ‘Les Aspin’ post office. What a laughable bonanza. Normally a politician would have to be deceased to be this good. In his four years in the Capitol, I’d say no-good useless amateur Senator Obama did a little better:

Obama cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act. He introduced two initiatives that bore his name: Lugar–Obama, which expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons; and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending. On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.

Oh my. Hard to believe Republicans want this Ryan do-nothing ‘a heartbeat away,’ as they say, from running the country. He’s a silly man. I suppose some politicians are ideologues, and some are dreamers. Some folks never do any better than talking big about big things they don’t take seriously.

Congressman Paul Ryan can grandstand about the debt all he wants, but at the end of the day, Ryan is a root cause of many of the financial issues our country faces today… From supporting two unfunded wars, to dumping millions of senior citizens into the Medicare Part D “donut hole” while tying the hands of the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, and from fighting for subsidies for Big Oil that his family personally benefits from, to supporting the unfunded Bush tax cuts for his wealthiest campaign contributors, Paul Ryan’s hypocrisy is astounding… Congressman Ryan had 10 years in Congress – almost all with a House Republican majority – to reduce the deficit, prior to President Obama’s election. He did nothing.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a congressman who’s spent more of your money than Paul Ryan. You’ll find nobody who’s as nasty to the poor and the elderly while being so kind to the rich. Hypocrisy is barely the word to describe Mr. Budget Hawk. Remember Ryan’s two-faced dealing with Obama’s stimulus? No one but nobody was more opposed to it:

–”That stimulus didn’t put more private-sector people to work.”
–”The point I’m trying to make is, the stimulus was a failure.”
–“I opposed the stimulus because it doesn’t work, it didn’t work. It brought us deeper into debt. It was about $1.1 trillion when you add the borrowing cost, it put us deeper in debt and further out of work.”

No, he’d never want any part of such an evil thing:

Two years ago, during an interview on WBZ’s NewsRadio he was asked by a caller if he “accepted any money” into his district. Ryan said he did not.

“I’m not one [of those] people who votes for something then writes to the government to ask them to send us money. I did not request any stimulus money,” the congressman answered.

But Paul’s a liar. He’s exactly one of those people. At least four times he lobbied administration officials to get his hands on that poisonous government cash:

“Dear Secretary Solis: I am writing to express my support for the Energy Center of Wisconsin’s grant application for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Energy Training Partnership Grants . . ”

“Dear Secretary Chu: I am writing to express my support for the Energy Center of Wisconsin and its partners’ grant application for the Recovery Act — Building America Energy Efficient Housing Partnerships . . “

On and on. Remarkable. So there you have the guy, Paul Ryan. The dreamer. The hypocrite. The do-nothing. He’s close to being the ultimate politician, is he not? A big fat combination of useless and bullshit.

For those of you who take Mitt Romney’s lies seriously, you who would believe Obama just made welfare a sit-on-your-ass-and-get-rich scam, I would remind you of the former governor’s unemployment outreach program. Welcome to “Welfare Wheels”:

Under Romney’s Car Ownership Program, the state paid out one year’s insurance, inspection, excise tax, title, registration, repairs and a AAA membership for cars that were donated to welfare recipients. Under the plan, those who lost their jobs and ended up back on welfare were allowed to keep their free wheels.

Free car. Free tax. Free title. Free registration. Free insurance. Free repairs. How’s that sound to ya, wingnuts? How many upscale Sunday schoolers were impregnated by poor Messicans in the ample back seats of the governor’s Ford Tauruses?

1. This Romney–the guy who invented what the Herald called “Welfare Wheels”–is the same guy who launched on Rick Perry during the primaries for offering college scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. In fact, he’s still against–maybe, I guess, but we can’t be too sure, because, well, he’s refusing to answer the question–the federal Dream Act, which would grant citizenship to such children who graduated college or served into the military. But cars for welfare recipients was, somehow, just fine. (By the way, I applaud Romney’s program and congratulate him on the 80% success rate.)

2. How incompetent is the Romney campaign? They keep coming up with these stupid gambits–the last was the lie that Obama opposed early voting for members of the military in Ohio–that are shot down instantaneously (everywhere but in Fox-Rush land). And worse, the Democrats–who seem to have a superior oppo team–can often produce counter-stories, like the Herald item, that make things even worse for Romney.

We are watching a campaign disintegrate. It’s fun, isn’t it?

This is absurd. Mitt Romney’s dancing. That’s sure to literally be true, but to call the Obamacare mandate a ‘tax,’ then a ‘penalty,’ then a ‘tax’ again? When his own Romneycare mandate does the identical thing to your tax return?

Romney’s original position was that the individual mandate he imposed through his state-based reform law was a “tax penalty,” which he strongly favored. This week, however, the Republican’s campaign switched gears, saying the policy is a “penalty,” but not a “tax.”

Then yesterday. On Obamacare:

“The Supreme Court is the highest court in the nation, and it said that it’s a tax, so it’s a tax,” Mr. Romney told CBS News. “They have spoken. There’s no way around that.”

Then Romneycare:

“The chief justice in his opinion made it very clear that at the state level, states have the power to put in place mandates,” he said. “And as a result, Massachusetts’s mandate was a mandate, was a penalty, was described that way by the legislature and by me, and so it stays as it was.”

What a silly man. Deeply confused. Thoroughly disingenuous, really, the lying-est candidate since Richard Nixon. Here’s the wiki on Romneycare, under ‘Individual Taxes’:

If a resident does not have coverage and does not have a waiver, the Department of Revenue will enforce the insurance requirement by imposing a penalty. In 2007, the penalty was the loss of the personal exemption. Beginning in 2008, the penalty is half the cost of the lowest available yearly premium which will be enforced as an assessed addition to the individual’s income tax.

And here was Romney touting his ‘mandate’:

In 2008, when Romney was running for president for the first time, ABC News host Charlie Gibson asked him during a New Hampshire debate, “Governor … you imposed tax penalties in Massachusetts?” Romney replied, “Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don’t be free riders.”

Again:

In a 2009 op-ed in USA Today, Romney laid out some suggestions for President Obama to follow on health care. “First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others,” Romney wrote.

This is pathetic. Just say it: ‘They’re identical.’ Except for . .

. . the penalties under Romneycare are bigger than under Obamacare. According to a study from the Center for Health Law and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, forwarded to Salon by the Obama campaign, the differences are huge. An adult over the age of 27 who makes more than 300 percent of the poverty line (about $37,000 a year) and chooses not to purchase health insurance would pay at least $695 in penalties under Obamcare. Under Romneycare, that same person would pay at least $1,530 in penalties.

Obamacare is less punitive. Got that Mitt?