Rick The Snake Santorum Wants MI Democrats To Pick The Republicans' Candidate

So reports The Detroit News today here, claiming Santorum is making robocalls to Michigan Democrats to get them to turn out and vote for him:

"Michigan Democrats can vote in the Republican primary on Tuesday," said an unidentified man on the call, which Talking Points Memo said was left on someone's answering machine in Trenton. "Why is it so important? Romney supported the bailout for his Wall Street billionaire buddies, but opposed the auto bailouts. That was a slap in the face to every Michigan worker, and we're not going to let Romney get away with it. On Tuesday, join Democrats who are going to send a loud message to Massachusetts' Mitt Romney by voting for Rick Santorum for president.

"This call is supported by hard-working Democratic men and women and paid for by Rick Santorum for president."


Isn't Santorum's opposition to auto bailouts a slap in the face to Michigan workers?

Roy Brewer Archives Show Some of Hollywood Ten Really Were Commies

From The LA Times Magazine:

The archives shed light on another mythologized piece of Hollywood history: the hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I grew up hearing about the Hollywood Ten—filmmakers railroaded by congressional witch-hunters in 1947, ostensibly because they were liberals.

According to that familiar narrative, they rebuked the committee when subpoenaed. If there’s a “profiles in courage” touchstone in Hollywood, this is it. Those who did testify, such as Brewer and Reagan, are regarded as Judases.

However, a letter from John Huston found in the files says this story is a well-constructed myth. And if anyone would know key facts about those days, it would be Huston, a non-Communist liberal Democrat who opposed the hearings because he believed it was unconstitutional to require a citizen to state his political beliefs.

Writing on the filmmakers who refused to answer questions from congressmen, Huston recounted, “Some of them had already testified in California, and their testimony had been false. They’d said they were not Communists, when in truth they were. To have admitted it now would have been to lay themselves open to charges of perjury.”

Huston said that at the time of the hearings, they convinced him they were standing up for principle—the “freedom of the individual,” as he put it. However, as he later learned (and wrote in the letter), “they were really looking after their own skins. Had I so much as suspected such a thing, I would have washed my hands of them on the spot.”

Don't miss the rest of this riveting account about Ronald Reagan's anti-communism by John Meroney, here.

A book is forthcoming.

Rules of the Road in Michigan

Come to an intersection and stop.

Wait a long time until you see someone coming from your left.

Then turn right, in front of said someone, and drive 10 mph slower than the speed limit, 15 if the someone tailgaits.

Union state. No sense of urgency. No sense of courtesy.

Game to Obama.

Make No Mistake About It: The Federal Reserve Is The Enemy Of The People

From another insightful meditation by Jeffrey Snider, this time on the consequences of trying to make the artificial financial economy and the real economy one:

The Federal Reserve has gone far beyond TARP into ZIRP (zero interest rate policy). ZIRP is a direct tax on savers, figuratively taking money out of the pockets of those who have acted responsibly in the real economy, transferring it to the banking system (especially the largest investment banks, the very banks responsible for most of the credit creation and monetary imbalance of the past asset bubbles) that was negligent, reckless and complicit in this disaster. Monetary policymakers, the gatekeepers to the realm of the monetary or financial economy, now intentionally and directly penalize real economy actors in favor of financial economy actors. They do so with this narrative that as the financial economy goes, the real economy will follow. Very few people seem to challenge this as backwards, certainly not anyone in a policymaking role.

Oil is Now Fairly Priced

Crude is almost $110, and gold is almost $1,774, so about 16 barrels buys an ounce of gold, just one barrel pricier than the ratio of 15:1 thought to be indicative of the historic relative fair value.

Yelling "Stop" is No Longer Good Enough

Because "Stop" preserves the damage done and doesn't roll it back.

Marxism Won In America: The New Deal and Great Society Stem From Socialism

So says R. Christopher Whalen here:

[D]espite America’s pretensions to being a free market, democratic society, the Marxian world view won the battle for ideas in the 20th Century. The New Deal and Great Society efforts to increase the scope of government in America all stem from the socialist ideas of FDR and his political heirs in both parties.

A genuine conservatism and a truly conservative Republican Party must stand for dismantling both.

"If I decide to do it, by definition it’s good policy. I thought you got that."

"I have abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."

The Whopper of the Day is from Mike Shedlock, AKA 'Mish'

He says the middle class STARTS at $100,000 (here):

I am against a VAT completely. And I certainly do not like exempting the first $100,000 [from any taxes whatsover] because the tax burden would then fall only on the middle class.

How crazy is that?

Of just over 150 million wage earners in 2010, 141 million make less than $100,000 a year. How many of them do you think would agree that the remaining 9 million who make in excess of that are in any way, shape or form "middle class"?

SocialSecurity.gov (here) shows on examination that federal taxable earned income divides pretty neatly into a lower, middle and upper class, with each class accounting for about $2 trillion of the total of almost $6 trillion in net compensation in 2010.

Americans in the lower class make up to $45,000 per year and haul in $1.9 trillion. The next tranche up, the middle class, makes up to $100,000 and hauls in $2 trillion. The upper class makes everything in excess of that, in total another $1.9 trillion.

It is a common conceit of the rich that they are middle class. The rich aspire down to it as much as the lower class aspires up to it.

Romney's Arizona Debate Statements on Plan B Drugs Fail Scrutiny

Evidence presented here indicates that Gov. Romney lied twice during the debate:

When Romney was asked in the debate if he had required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and had infringed on Catholics’ rights, he responded, “No, absolutely not. Of course not.” That was untrue.

When Romney said “for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims…was entirely voluntary on their part”, that was also untrue.

The evidence indicates Romney came under pressure from legal counsel, under which he flip-flopped, but also that he personally embraced the idea of forcing Catholics to act contrary to conscience as the right thing to do.

How this makes him any different from Barack Obama who routinely acts in a capricious, authoritarian manner is beyond reconciliation.

A vote for Romney is a vote for Jello, every night.

US Exports 600,000 Barrels of Gasoline Per Day To Higher Priced Markets

So says this story in The Christian Science Monitor, which provides useful links to the data:

“I think it is simply disingenuous to think exports of gasoline are not a factor in the prices,” says Ben Brockwell, director of data marketing and information services at the Oil Price Information Service, which provides petroleum pricing and information to the oil industry. ...

Brockwell says gasoline exports, on a four week average, are now running 600,000 barrels a day compared to 200,000 barrels per day a year ago. ...

“Instinctively, I understand the API [American Petroleum Institute] not wanting the American public to know so much is exported and tied to high prices,” he says.

The export level of 0.6 million barrels per day represents more than 7 percent of current domestic consumption, according to Bloomberg here, which says gasoline usage is up to 8.28 million barrels per day from an historic low not matched since 2004:

U.S. gasoline demand rose 3.4 percent last week to 8.28 million barrels a day from a record low, MasterCard Inc. (MA) said.

The gain was the first in three weeks, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse report. The previous week’s consumption was 8.01 million, the lowest level in MasterCard data that began in July 2004.

Demand was 6.4 percent below the same week in 2011. It was the fifth week in a row that consumption dropped more than 5 percent from the year-earlier level.

Consumption is down because millions have no jobs to which to drive, nor income with which to buy the gasoline or the cars which need it. Total vehicle miles driven are again in decline back to 2009 depression levels.

Total vehicles in operation, though up in 2011, continue below the all time high reached in 2008 by about 1.5 million, according to RL Polk and Company here:

Jeb Bush is a Weasel: Says "I Used To Be A Conservative" in Speech, Says Still Is Later

Not only is he a weasel, he's a coward. Get in the race or shut up, you fake.

Fox had the story here, WaPo here.

Michigan Democrat Calls Truly Closed Republican Primary "Phony"

The Detroit News has the story, here:

Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, described the process as "unnecessary" and costing taxpayers $10 million. The candidate selection, she argued, should have been handled via a party caucus, which is how the Democrats will choose their delegates in May.

"Since you chose to play games with Michigan's elections, don't be surprised if voters choose to play games with your phony primary as well," she warned Republicans.

Democrats Trying To Queer Michigan Republican Primary Will Have To Lie On Ballot

Hallelujah, brother! And it's about time, too.

Which party you chose will be made public, according this excerpt from a story by Julie Mack here:

Within 71 days after the election, the Secretary of State will have available an electronic list of voters who cast a ballot and which party they choose. That list will be available to the public for 22 months.

The change was recommended in August by the Michigan Republican Party, to reduce the number of Democrats participating in the Republican primary. "We should have a process by which Republicans choose the Republican nominee for president," one official said.

Ann Coulter Claims RomneyCare Everywhere Would Have Solved The Health Insurance Problem

She's doubling-down on her support of Massachusetts-style state compulsion, here:

"Romney pushed the conservative alternative to national health care that, had it been adopted in the 49 other states, would have killed Obamacare in the crib by solving the health insurance problem at the state level."

She's come a long way since March 2010 when Ohio's mandate was in her crosshairs:

"President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn't afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she's got cancer. 

"Much as I admire Obama's use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio's state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things. 

"It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics -- you know, things like cancer."

Or from December 2009 when Oregon's was the object of her criticism:

"[N]ational health care – it will force states that didn’t adopt these idiotic universal health-care schemes to bail out the ones that did.

"Liberals cite medical horror stories from the very states they once cheered for enacting universal health care in order to argue for a national health-care plan that will wreck the entire nation’s medical care the same way liberal states already wrecked their own medical care.

"Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie-Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie-Madoff-style scam.

"Maybe when national universal health care fails, we’ll be able to go international. Then interplanetary – then interstellar! Why should I pay for my gall-bladder surgery when some Venusian could?"

And of course just a few months ago in October 2011 she was still speaking of "the failure of even statewide universal care" in reference to Massachusetts because under Romneycare very few new individuals ended up getting coverage while costs for everyone continue to escalate.

Obama is the Extremist, Says Gingrich, and the Media Give Him a Pass

In last night's debate (video here), quoted here:

“I just want to point out, you did not once in the 2008 campaign, not once did anybody in the elite media ask why Barack Obama voted in favor of legalizing infanticide. Okay? So let’s be clear here,” Gingrich said in response to a question about birth control. “If we’re going to have a debate about who the extremist is on these issues, it is President Obama who, as a state senator, voted to protect doctors who killed babies who survived the abortion. It is not the Republicans.”

Romney's Dog Problem Looks Set To Dog His Campaign If He's The Candidate

Like that's the only thing.

From Margaret Carlson for Bloomberg, here:

Romney insists Seamus loved his crate and appreciated fresh air, even at 60 miles per hour. That hasn’t appeased Dogs Against Romney, a group whose human founder, Scott Crider, is trying to get word out to the country’s 43 million dog owners, who represent all political breeds. Dogs Against Romney, which had more than 1 million visitors to its website in its first 10 days, recently organized an anti-Romney protest at the Westminster dog show. It also awarded a congratulatory “woof” to Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, who wrote in The Hill newspaper that a man who would insist his dog enjoyed such abuse is unfit to be president.

Think of it: 43 million dog owners. That's more people than all the adult Catholic voters.

Can't Criticize Mormonism? Sen. Santorum Opens Door By Trashing Protestants

If Santorum is free to say the following about Protestants, Democrats will feel free not only to attack Santorum over his religion if he's the candidate, but also Romney over his:

"[L]ook at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it."

There is nothing qualitatively different about that statement from Christian Evangelicals' charge that Mormonism is a cult, not Christian, or some leftists' view that Mormonism is too weird to abide. At least Obama ditched Rev. Wright. But Romney is proud of his heritage, and so is Santorum pledged to defend all his beliefs in the public square.

Santorum has just played into the hands of the left and handed them a huge opening.

Thanks a lot, pal.

American Idle Presidency: Doing Everything Except His Job

(source)

We Already Got The Change From Obama, And It Sucks

Obama can't run on change, or on economic achievements. So says a Vanderbilt political scientist in this report from The Associated Press:

"He can't run on change because he's the incumbent, and he can't paint too rosy a scenario because things aren't that rosy," said John Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. "He's got to come up with a theme that appeals to voters, especially middle-class voters, alleviates their fears and gives them reason to believe the future will be better."

In other words, we already got the change, and it sucks.