FBI Mistakes Apartment 2R For 2F, Terrorizes Tenant With Chainsaw

In Fitchburg, MA.

Story here.

Instead of 10,267 US Representatives We Had 12,592 Lobbyists in 2011

If we followed the US Constitution our House of Representatives would have 10,267 elected representatives today.

Republicans and Democrats put the kibosh on that in 1929 to concentrate power in themselves, which is why today we have only 435 elected to the House. They don't much give a damn what we think about anything, and the approval rating of Congress is now so low it's almost within the margin of polling error.

Instead of the founders' idea of adequate representation we had 12,592 active lobbyists in 2011, spending over $3 billion to influence the 435 petty tyrants. Isn't it odd how closely the natural lobbying market today approximates what the authors of the constitution deemed to be a suitable level of representation?

Does anyone really think Occupy Wall Street, The Tea Party, The Heritage Foundation, The National Association of Realtors, The American Bankers' Association or any of the other myriad interest groups would exist in their current form if Congress were more representative of the individual American? Congressmen must sit in their offices and laugh at all the wasted, disorganized and therefore impotent effort spent influencing their votes.

When a representative's constituency is only 30,000 strong instead of 700,000, however, the prospects of his reelection are more sensitive to a narrower range of interests: Yours. Blow it with a few thousand of us and out he would go.

No wonder they got rid of the idea when they could.

Isn't it time to right this wrong?

Romney Will Be Competing For The Same Voters Who Already Prefer Obama

The metros:

Romney beat Gingrich in the urban centers of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach County, in the cities of Southwest Florida, across a swath of Central Florida from Tampa to Orlando and Daytona Beach, and in northeast Jacksonville. Gingrich defeated Romney in 35 less populated counties -- painting a contrast between Romney’s urban and suburban support and Gingrich’s appeal to rural Republicans.

More here.

Florida Liberals Help Republicans Select Mitt Romney, A Candidate They Can Beat

Fully 59 percent of Romney voters in FL said campaign ads swayed them.

And no wonder. Romney spent more on ads in Florida's primary alone than John McCain spent in the entire country in the 2008 primaries:

It's estimated that the Romney campaign and its associated bodies spent $15.3 m[illi]on on TV spots in Florida in the past month alone. To put that into context John McCain spent just $11 million on ads during his entire 2008 primary campaign.

There have been a number of academic studies that suggest that while negative campaigning can motivate the base of support it can also alienate other voters, thus reducing voter turnout.

The negative ads motivated Romney's base alright, the liberal base:

females (52 percent of his vote);

people who believe abortion should be legal in all cases (57 percent);

think of themselves as moderate/liberal (59 percent);

are opposed to The Tea Party (57 percent);

favor illegals as temporary workers (51 percent);

make $200,000 or more (60 percent).

And yes, this alienated other voters, namely the conservatives who even in Florida outnumber such liberals nearly two-to-one: just 11 percent of Romney's Florida voters think Romney is a true conservative. Hence the immediate appearance of Ann Romney last night protesting how conservative is her husband.

The fact is 41 percent of Romney voters in Florida self-identified as Independents, not Republicans.

Just 48 percent of Romney voters called themselves Republican in the exit polls.

Considering that Republican turnout was down 16 percent from 2008, it is hard not to conclude that Democrats this year especially queered the vote in the Florida Republican primary. With over 360,000 non-Republicans trying to select the Republican candidate, conservatives arguably had two not entirely satisfactory candidates and lots of negative ads dividing and subduing their turnout. Divide and conquer, and personally destroy, both the strategies of Democrats. In 2008 when Republican turnout was much higher, the number of non-Republicans interfering was only slightly higher at 390,000. Romney's victory in 2012 thus owed much more to them than it would have in 2008.

Florida liberals have just helped select the Republican they know they can beat in the general: Mitt Romney.

Unfortunately Republicans nationally may not realize that the well was tainted before it's too late.

Romney's Biggest Demographic in FL Was Women

As reported here and here.

52 percent of women overall, and 51 percent of married women.

Also notable about Romney voters:

Self-described moderates, 62 percent;
$200K+ in income, 60 percent;
Self-described moderate/liberal, 59 percent;
Oppose Tea Party, 57 percent;
Religion Catholic, 56 percent;
Abortion legal in all cases, 57 percent;
Doing well financially, 52 percent;
Foreclosures not a problem where I live, 54 percent;
Mitt about right on the issues, 82 percent;
Decided more than a month ago, 55 percent;
Campaign ads were important to decision, 59 percent;
Self-described Republican, 48 percent;
Self-described Independent, 41 percent.

"Sure, I'm a Republican."

Romney Trots Out Wife Ann To Defend His Conservatism

Oh yeah, that'll convince 'em, getting your wife to defend you against the attacks.

What a sissy.

Here:

“I know where his values are on a personal level. He is a conservative guy. I know how he has governed from a conservative point of view, and I know how he will govern, which is from a conservative place to rein in the spending, and help the country."

Repeat after me, "Mittens is a Reagan Robot, just like Newt."

FL Exit Polls Show Women Go Big For Romney at 51 Percent, Gingrich Second with 29

As reported here:

Among women, Texas Rep. Ron Paul won six percent, Gingrich won 29 percent, Romney won 51 percent and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum 13 percent.

Why aren't Santorum's and Paul's negatives with women indicative of their (non-existent) infidelities?

Erick Erickson predicted here that Cain and Gingrich would do poorly with women and not progress to the nomination because of their alleged infidelities.

Republican women in Florida must be pro-choice big time.

The So-Called Conservatives Invented ObamaCare

So says James Taranto in so many words, quoted here in Forbes last October:

“Whatever the particular differences, the Heritage mandate [dating back as far as 1989] was indistinguishable in principle from the ObamaCare one. In both cases, the federal government would force individuals to purchase a product from a private company—something that Congress has never done before. ...  [I]t seems to us that the [subsequent Heritage Foundation] brief [against ObamaCare] overstates the extent to which the proposed Heritage mandate was ‘limited' [i.e. to catastrophic coverage]. But it is clear that Heritage has repudiated the idea of an individual mandate… All these years later, it pleases us that our erstwhile employer has come around. ... [I]t worries us that Mitt Romney, who may well be the next president, lacked the instinct to be offended by the idea when it crossed his desk in Boston. ... [T]he next time a think tank or a blue-ribbon commission comes up with an idea this bad, can we trust President Romney to reject it?"

The Heritage Foundation has ingloriously flipped on the issue of the healthcare mandate. It should have more vigorously vetted its origins instead of grasping at straws against HillaryCare.

Lick finger, check wind, go with The Tea Party.

To some, this is enough. But not for the true born sons of liberty.

Laughs at Fed Meetings Peaked With Housing Bubble in 2006

So says The Daily Stag Hunt here, where the data show that laughs suddenly surged in 2006.

Compared with the average of 20 laughs per meeting in the previous six years, laughs in 2006 bubbled up to an average of nearly 44, an increase of 115 percent.

Call it "irrational exuberance."

The meeting with the fewest laughs? October 1, 2001, with just 7 recorded laughs during the Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

It's Romney Who Disavowed Reagan, Not Gingrich

From The Washington Times, here:

Meanwhile, Mr. Romney’s allies who are pushing this false narrative that Mr. Gingrich is insufficiently Reaganesque couldn’t care less that it is their candidate who disavowed Reaganism. “I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush,” boasted Mr. Romney. “I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.” Of course he’s not. Why is that? Mitt’s answer: “I’m someone who is moderate and my views are progressive.”

Who's The Opportunist? Newt Gingrich or Pat Buchanan?

Pat Buchanan has asserted (video and discussion here) that the Reagan White House viewed Newt Gingrich as something of a political opportunist and Rockefeller Republican:

“[I]n the Reagan White House, Newt Gingrich was considered quite frankly by a lot of folks to be something of a political opportunist and who was not trusted and who had played no role whatsoever. He was a Rockefeller Republican in the great Goldwater-Rockefeller battle, where conservatism came of age.”

Michael Reagan on The Laura Ingraham Show this morning found that amusing, coming from a guy who left the Republican Party to run for The Presidency on a third party ticket when he felt he could no longer get any traction in the GOP. Michael Reagan also pointed out that his father the president had once been a liberal Democrat before switching to the Republican Party in 1962.

Pat doesn't name names. Maybe "a lot of folks" is just code for "Pat Buchanan." Quite frankly.

Punish Gingrich's Character Assassins At The Ballot Box

So says Thomas Sowell, here.

'Wasteful Spending Will Always Rise To The Level Of Revenues'

So says Arthur Laffer in support of Newt Gingrich in The Wall Street Journal, here:

Mr. Gingrich's flat tax proposals—along with his proposed balanced budget amendment—would put a quick stop to overspending and return America to fiscal soundness. No other candidate comes close to doing this.

Here is a corollary I learned from a Harvard-trained philosopher, PJWM:

'Work expands to fill the time allotted.'

Rush Limbaugh Gets 'Hermaphrodite' Spectacularly Wrong

This is almost charmingly naive when you think about it:

Wait 'til you hear what was said about them and what these guys were saying about each other back in 1800. Only on their deathbeds when they both died within seconds of each other, according to legend -- only on their deathbeds -- did they put it all back together. Well, prior to that Adams had sent Jefferson a letter. "Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character..." He accused him of being a hermaphrodite, which of course means that you have neither the aspects of a man or a woman. You're like a moderate. "You hermaphrodite!" It's like calling somebody a moderate with no sex organs to boot. You know, no nothing.

Radio Talker Mark Levin Doesn't Know What He's Talking About On Speaker Gingrich

“I like Newt Gingrich a lot. But he had nothing to do with the development of supply-side economics. …It pre-dated his election to the House by several years. So he didn’t help Ronald Reagan develop supply-side economics. He wasn’t even on Ronald Reagan’s radar at the time. I’m not trying to be controversial or rude, but I want you to know the facts.”
























(source)

Conservatism Has Never Meant So Little, Especially to the Likes of Pete Wehner

Or, to put it another way, today's neo-conservative idea of fundamental change means a return only to the spending trend line assumed by Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, established in the 1970s.

As if such a reaction against the nearly vertical spending trend, first of George W. Bush in the 2000s and then the even worse one of Barack Obama after him, would represent an achievement.

(See the discussion illustrating the differences, here.)

I refer, of course, to Peter Wehner's post at Commentary, here:

The single most important [!] idea, when it comes to fundamentally changing Washington, is the budget plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan last April. When most massive-scale-of-change [!] conservatives were defending Ryan’s plan against scorching criticisms from the left, Gingrich described the plan as an example of “right-wing social engineering.” It was Gingrich, not the rest of us, who was counseling caution, timidity, and an unwillingness to shape (rather than follow) public opinion. (The Medicare reform plan Gingrich eventually put out wasn’t nearly as bold and far-reaching as the one put out by Governor Romney.)

So much for Mr. Fundamental Change.

This is the problem with a conservatism which has no imagination, although its implicit repudiation of the dramatic spending under George W. Bush is rather refreshing considering where it comes from.

Be that as it may, after a leftist Obama lurches the country dramatically toward oblivion, any pull-back from that instantly becomes fundamental change, when all it is, once achieved, is really just a pale reflection of what real conservatism might actually have looked like.

Newt's formulation has been interpreted with the emphasis all on the "right-wing" idea of the formulation, when it's the "social" which I think was his real target.

Speaker Gingrich was mocking today's right wing for its lack of imagination, as if codifying social welfare spending at a somewhat reduced level represented an achievement. When his taunt was misunderstood and quickly became toxic to him, he realized he had no political recourse but to recant and change the subject. The truth had become the enemy of the political, which is why professors have so little impact. Believe me, it frustrates the hell out of them.

Regrettably, most of us on first blush assumed Speaker Gingrich meant his criticism from the left, and, horror of horrors, that he now supposedly lived there. No one wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and believe his was a criticism from the right.

I know I didn't.

On further reflection I suggest Speaker Gingrich meant to criticize Ryan's plan because it represented a conservative codification of big government (albeit on a smaller scale than Obama was implementing at the time). He meant thereby to criticize it as an (unacceptable) truce with the post-war consensus for Social Security, Medicare and their iterative expansions under Republican and Democrat administrations.

Consider that the trend line of spending of the status quo ante Obama was itself a radical departure from the post-war period, and even from that established in the 1960s. The new and truly radical trend began after the recession of 1974. Real conservatism, if it could exist at all, would seek to recapture the post-war trend lines of spending before 1974, but Paul Ryan's plan is nothing more than a return to that untenable trend.

A Newt Gingrich presidency might make such episodes of misunderstanding a more frequent occurrence, but from the look of things Americans appear instead to be hoping for the bell to ring so they can get to the next class, which will be, thankfully, lunch, study hall, or possibly human health and hygiene.

I, for one, hope Newt sticks around to keep entertaining the thinkers in the class.

But we're most probably going to end up with a very boring president instead of him, not unlike the one we have now.

Probably the same one. 

Romney Has Changed His Position On Abortion At Least Three Times

So says David Catron for The American Spectator here:

Perhaps the most egregious of Romney's one-eighties have involved abortion. He has changed his position on that issue at least three times. During the 1994 Senate race against Kennedy he said, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country." In 2001, however, he published a letter in The Salt Lake Tribune in which he wrote, "I do not wish to be labeled prochoice." If the "evolution" had stopped there, many would accept what could well have been a genuine change of heart. But when he ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 he declared, "I will protect the right of a woman to choose under the law of the country and the laws of the Commonwealth." Now, for purposes of his current presidential campaign, he's again "pro-life." How he avoids vertigo while executing so many pirouettes is anyone's guess.

Rick Santorum on Mandates: Romney's For Them, 27 States Disagree and So Does Santorum

From his campaign website, here:

"The Romneycare individual mandate is essentially the same as the Obamacare individual mandate. Both reform laws rely on the government’s ability to tax and fine individuals to coerce them into purchasing “approved” health-insurance plans. Because of his support for an individual mandate, Mitt Romney finds himself at odds with the governors and attorneys general of 27 states, who are currently suing the federal government on the grounds that it is unconstitutional for the government to force people to purchase anything, even health insurance.

"Romney’s insistence that Romneycare is somehow different from Obamacare, simply because it was implemented at the state level rather than the federal level, is misleading. Romneycare, like Obamacare, is a massive intrusion of government into the private sphere. Neither of these government-run, top-down approaches to health care is the right prescription for America."

Treasury Dept. Has Boosted Auto Bailout Cost From $14 Billion to $23.77 Billion

As reported here by The Detroit News.

Rage Against the Machine: Palin's Half Endorsement of Newt is Merely Luddite

Even at this late date Palin cannot declare whose side she is on. She's pathetic and she's a coward.

As seen here:

"When both party machines and many in the media are trying to crucify Newt Gingrich for bucking the tide and bucking the establishment, that tells you something. And I say, you know, you have to rage against the machine at this point in order to defend our republic and save what is good and secure and prosperous about our nation," Sarah Palin said on FOX News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine" program.

"We need somebody who is engaged in sudden and relentless reform and isn't afraid to shake up that establishment. So, if for no other reason, rage against the machine, vote for Newt; annoy a liberal, vote Newt.

Yeah, we need somebody alright, but it ain't YOU.