The Chimes at Midnight

Congressional Quarterly Sez...

2012-01-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

That Scott Brown is the second mostest "Bipartisan Senator", running behind Olympia Snowe of Maine.
Good Lord this'll have certain columnists at the Boston Globe in paroxym's of joy I can assure you.
Of course what does "bipartisanship" mean these days? Damn near nothing I'm afraid.
Mostly its a negotiation between persons routed in reality and those who wanna end all this "two party system" rubbish.
Look at Newt Gingrich, all through out New Hampshire he tried to sell himself as a bipartisan figure, but it is clear from his rhetoric that he thinks "bipartisanship" is merely the polite manners the GOP will assume once liberalism is destroyed utterly and completely.
What good can come of those negotiations?

No much.
Anyway, its ironic to note that the lack of bipartisanship in DC directly altered the Senate Race in Massachusetts to Brown's disadvantage, the Senate GOP filibustered Citizen Warren's nomination to the Consumer Investment sinecure...Did Scott speak up then?
Oh no.
Couldn't be bothered, book tour doncha know.
As long as the bipartisanship swims in a sea of bad ideas and or impotent notions, it will no one the slightest bid of good.
In that context, Scott being the "second most bipartisan Senator" is akin to being named "The second least Profane"...

I wonder if Jan Brewer's dust up with the President isn't

2012-01-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

the first shot in a "Jan Brewer for Vice President" boomlet?

I mean, Romney has a pronounced taste for female toadies, and Nikki Haley blew herself out of contention when she could not deliver South Carolina.
So why not Jan?
Arizona is a swing state, the Democrats have been trending well in that part of the country.
Of course, likely given the flame out that was Sarah Palin in 2008, another female vice presidential nominee isn't in the GOP cards...but yuh never know.
They say Florida Senator Marc Rubio is everyone's VP dream boat....who is a sort of Gulf Coast Scott Brown from what I'm told.

Newt Gingrich wants to build a moonbase by 2020...

2012-01-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

In the absence of "man-rated" launch vehicles, how are we to get the crew there?
A nice long rope ladder?
Mind you, I'm all for a lavishly funded manned space program, the world seems full of scientists easily diverted into unpleasant "doomsday machine" projects, space exploration tends toward peaceful applications and all like that.
But as usual, Newt's Lavish Promise comes with no revenue plan to back it up, so likely this notion will whither in due course, assuming it is ever honestly debated in congress.
Being a former congressman and unusually attuned to the political power of earmarks, Gingrich normally has a good ear for potentiallocal Federal projects that can attract voters on primary day. In New Hampshire he talked about reopening the Veteran's Hospital in Manchester, an entirely sensible idea.
But when he got to Cape Canaveral, his already discussed tendency towards "magical thinking" got the better of him, promising a moonbase that neither NASA nor the private sector can deliver on as currently configured and funded.
He may as well have promised to make Pellucidar the 51st State.
The best Gingrich had to offer by way of funding was to solicit the private sector for ideas has to how to pay for it all.
Well, I'd start with Mortgage Backed Securities and maybe a sweetheart book deal or two, that'll get things started.

House Speaker John Boehner derided

2012-01-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

the President's SOTU speech yesterday as "The Politics of Envy".

My question is, who the hell would ever envy a miserable impotent lackwit like John Boehner...a character held in Alex Throttlebottom-esque contempt by his own caucus?

For that fact who would ever envy a corrupt Jobber like Newt Gingrich?

And Mitt Romney? That cold unfeeling utterly phony man?

Even with all his money, Mitt Romney is a poor target for envy, sure he can live lavishly off his investments, but how many lathes does his fortune turn?
Damn few I'd say.

No...I give the President props for speaking plainly and putting tax inequality at the center of his re-election campaign, I hope he sticks to the theme, if Romney is the eventual GOP nominee Obama will reap the benefit of it.

This is my Senior Senator...

2012-01-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

He apparently loves pick up games of ice hockey...a lot.

Based on that battered & bruised mug of his, you'd never know John Kerry has had hip replacement surgery.

Jesus John...you can lay off goin' fer the hat trick, I mean age has some privileges!

Since Romney got beaten like a red headed stepchild in South Carolina...

2012-01-23T20:34:00.000-07:00

then I guess that means Governor Nikki Haley is officially off the Vice Presidential shortlist eh?

She must be wondering why she took to the stump for him in New Hampshire, it's not like an condescending shitkicker Governor has any political pull in the Granite State, but then again neither could she deliver South Carolina to the Former Viceroy.
The very picture of lose lose situation.
Well Nikki what can I say? The next time try to tone down the smarmy sarcastic middle school queen bee act, cuz it didn't even work in your own home state bitch.

One Puny week of pressure from the right...

2012-01-23T10:43:00.000-07:00

And Mitt Romney caves in with respect to his tax returns.
And it is pressure from Newt Gingrich no less an unstable egomaniac trying to rise to the threat level of Frank Hague.
The Former Viceroy has no one to blame but himself for this predicament, he could've tossed it all out there months ago with no ill effects, but with all his inept waffling it all looks like he is concealing something.
And he is concealing something, something though he can't properly hide, and that is that Mitt Romney is a preposterously rich and entitled man with little in common with the GOP base in any manner shape or form. Somehow witholding his tax returns was supposed to obscure all that...heaven knows how.
As for the returns themselves, I doubt there is anything illegal on them, merely documentary proof that Mitt Romney takes full advantage of all the advantages offered by a thorough reading of the tax code.
Which is all the more reason to get them out early and get your spin on them well spun...but no this is Mitt Romney and as I've said before, the man could screw up a two car funeral.

Former State Senator Scott Brown

2012-01-22T13:16:00.000-07:00

has come out against higher taxes on the "Above $250,000.00" bracket on grounds that it would unduly burden "policemen, nurses and firefighters".
Yeah some of that cohort have made it into the quarter of a million cohort, but on the other hand it means at the very least that Michael McLaughlin (the boodling head of the Chelsea Housing Authority) and the gang down at the Probation Department, would at least be compelled to pay their fair share.

Well what can I say? These are the thoughts a Junior Senator has when all he has to work with is a smooth round fragment of New England Granite to serve for brains.

If...

2012-01-21T08:20:00.001-07:00

Newt Gingrich does win the South Carolina Primary today, it will be for two reasons:

1.) He threw the right tantrum at the right time in the right debate when John King tried to ask him about his second ex-wife's allegations that he wanted to have an "open marriage".
You'd think a loathsome thing like would damage Newt's candidacy, but no, the whole "I'm being victimized by the liberal media"meme is apparently much more powerful.

2.) Mitt Romney really can screw up a two car funeral, a week ago he was on the brink of wrapping up the GOP nomination, but a bungled debate performance and complete melt down on his tax returns coupled with the revelation of his mysterious Grand Cayman Island Bank accounts and voila the former Viceroy is once again on the ropes.
Clearly the taint of wealth supercedes the taint of personal debauchery in the current political environment.

Still and all that, I don't give long odds to Newt Gingrich his backstory is thoroughly weird and he has many many financial shenanigans in his baggage to explain...but unlike Romney he has credibility with the Southern Base of the GOP and the rhetorical gifts to back that up.
Ah but it's funny, this might be Newt Gingrich's last stand. I mean he has three wives and two exes on his rapsheet to date. If spouse #3, Callista cannot boot strap his ass into the White House then Newt cannot easily follow his instincts and change up wives again, he is a convert to Catholicism and the RCC does not permit divorce.
So its "conquer or die in 2012" for Newt so to speak.

Newt Gingrich's second wife versus Mitt Romney's offshore doomsday accounts?

2012-01-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

Certainly Newt's tacky personal vices hasn't crowded Romney's tawdry financial chicanery off the front pages.
So which species of bad news will triumph in the South Carolina Primary?
For once I'm not gonna guess, save to note that once again it would just be funny if Romney & Gingrich damaged each other sufficiently for Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum to sneak through to a plurality.
But even then, advantage Romney, Santorum lacks the resources to deny Mitt the nomination...unless of course the Former Viceroy gets panicky as he did in 2008 and starts sweating and promising the eschaton to anyone still awake...

Perry bails

2012-01-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

and thus sets a minimum intelligence standard for GOP presidential aspirants.
You cannot be dumber than Rick Perry and still hope to prevail...
Governor Perry is endorsing Gingrich of all people, which might do the former speaker some benefit in the South Carolina Primary if Newt's second ex-wife wasn't about to sing like a canary to Nightline tonight.

Honestly, it doesn't not get better than this.

So Romney has Eight million large stashed in the Grand Cayman Islands?

2012-01-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

Is that all??

I mean the man is worth a quarter-of-a-billion, where this the rest of it, Zurich, Qatar, Barsoom?
Anyone else think this is Mitt's "Doomsday Money", designed to used only in the event of an asteroid collision or a mass rising of flesh eating zombies?
I wonder where his Bunker is?
Provo Utah undoubtedly, just down from the Osmond Family's disaster redoubt.
***
Still if nothing else this whole situation neatly illustrates the vast gulf between the Mitt Romney's of this world, and the everyday individual. The average person wracked as they are by recession and worry looks to a democratic government for some impetus to prosperity and jobs.
Mitt Romney simply expects the Government to continue to enable his own entitlement at the expense of damn near everyone.
I mean the nerve of this guy barnstorming from town to town in South Carolina braying about patriotism and meanwhile the Former Viceroy is hiding money abroad like he was Ernst Stavro Blofeld or some damn thing.

Note to the Laity

2012-01-17T10:48:00.001-07:00

in solidarity with the current on-line Anti SOPA protests, the Chimes at Midnight will not be updated tomorrow.

BTW how the hell did Humble Elias get 212 hit yesterday? Was my Huntsman riff that good? Normally I'm good for about a quarter of that number on a Sunday.

I don't care what

2012-01-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

what the Brian McGrory's of this world are saying, in the weary wicked end, this is the very same Mitt Romney who ran in 2008 with all his flaws, delusions and chiseling nature intact.
He is the first to run negative adverts, the first to decry negative adverts and when faced with pressure on the right, he toadies and truckles.
Same campaign tactics except this year the field is so weird and weak they are working....

Which is an object lesson to the Obama campaign, Mitt will go negative from the git-go and then cloud the air with smarmy insincere denials. Always remember, Romney makes all this smarm & passive aggression work for him.

Huntsman bails...

2012-01-16T17:44:00.000-07:00

and gives a surly endorsement to the man he was calling a disengaged son-of-a-bitch not three days ago.

I wonder what Eric Fehnstrom had to promise Huntsman to get that endorsement? A cush ambassadorship, the Department of Transportation, a gig on Fox News as the In-House Moderate Straw MAn?
I doubt Huntsman has the stature to get Foggy Bottom and anyway Fehnstrom's promises are exactly like Romney's promises, worthless.

MLK Blogging...

2012-01-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

On the late Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, I always try to cede this space to him however briefly. This quote seemed quite apropos of the year gone by all things considered:

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

"Letter from Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963

I'm no shocked that Haley Barbour

2012-01-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

(Governor of Mississippi) has pardoned 208 convicted murderers and thieves and thugs on grounds that as prison Trusteee they did a bang up job of shining his shoes and mixed up his salad at the Magnolia State's Governor's Mansion.
Nope I'm appalled though that Mississippi has a Governor's Mansion, t'is intolerable extravagance & frippery!
What do these shitkickers think the public's money grows on trees??!!
Crude Toryism that is what it is!
Next up they'll be swearin' allegiance to the British Crown.
Say what you like about Massachusetts (and New Hampshire for that fact) but we are still strong in our republican simplicity....i.e. no "Executive Mansions" staffed by servants recruited out of the state's dungeons!

USA Today's idea

2012-01-13T04:21:00.000-07:00

of a front page below the fold soft news story is "2011, Deaths by Lightning Strike Decline".

Which I guess is an oblique way of reporting that we are all surviving lightning strikes with alacrity.

That or there is an epidemic of "Captain Marvels"out there.

Joan Vennochi...

2012-01-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

tracks Scott Brown's course back to the center in her Globe Column today. I'd link back to it, but it is protected by a pay wall as high as the Ramparts of Lost Troy.
But the gist is, "Scott is tracking back to the center, is he a real moderate or just faking it til election day? This is bad news for Elizabeth Warren!" yadda yadda yadda.
Nowhere in said column is the name Karl Rove mentioned who has parachuted bigtime into the Massachusetts Senatorial Election armed with money and campaign adverts and hell bent on re-elected Former State Senator Brown.
Now...to me, a mere amateur pundit, "a sarcastic rant driven chatterer" the real story is that so far, Karl's efforts have done nothing to dent Citizen Warren's numbers.
***
Now, I put up with a lot in Massachusetts, corrupt politicians, the malevolent lure of casino gambling, the lack of a policy to address deindustrialization/population drain, the Mass Turnpike and the awful roads in Belmont.
But I'll be good god damned if I'm gonna put up with some shitkicker punk like Karl Rove dictating to the descendents of John Adams and Charles Sumner and John F. Kennedy who will be our US Senator.
If Karl wants in on this Senate Race, let him move up here, register to vote and play the game Like A Man instead of all this maddening passive aggression from a distance.
***
Alas and alack, I am still hoping for a full and complete debate on the issues, if we don't get it from the democratic senatorial primary, then the matter must be addressed in the general election.
We don't get that if Karl Rove is muddying the waters...
Ah but that is the earnest liberal in me, ever hoping after patent impossibilities like free & fair debate.

The Empty Suit in the Clown Car...

2012-01-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

Congrats to the former viceroy, he finally won one in New Hampshire. And for once, Humble Elias' predictions were broadly accurate although my "Huntsman scenario" did not quite come together at the last minute.
As for Mitt Romney having a crackpot like Ron Paul as his main rival going into South Carolina can't be a bad thing. Willard has a rhetorical talent for slaying straw men that matches pretty much the real straw men he has the good fortune to be running against this year.
Ghod to hear Romney tell it, he triumphed over a pack of ravenous velociraptors armed with nothing more than a broken broomstick. A lavish sense of self congratulation is a key Romney component, get used to it for now.

Nonetheless, I expect South Carolina to get pretty ugly pretty quickly, Newt Gingrich isn't going to expire quietly although he is waaa-ay out of position to be a serious candidate going forward. The Sun has Set on Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum would-be American Dictator even if he makes one last bid to solidify the evangelicals behind his candidacy. If he bailed now though, he could bid up his endorsement to a cabinet post I suspect, ah but Secretaries of Commerce never seize power do they?
Perry? That guy is so punch drunk he has no idea he is stretched out on the canvas with the Ref standing over him at number five. I'm not even sure his endorsement is worth anything at this point given the man's reputation for plain stupidity.
I don't know why Jon Huntsman is even down in South Carolina, if I was him I'd take my "sensible committed conservative" act to Maine and try to strike sparks there.

I doubt he will do any business whatsoever in South Carolina. That leaves Ron Paul who is just berserk enough to fight this thing thru to the convention...relentlessly and fruitlessly.

I must say, as burlesque's go, this year's NH Primary was tops, I enjoyed almost as much as I enjoyed the 1984 democratic primary up there. This time around it was nothing but wall to wall gaffes and rhetorical excess from the git-go, a madder tea partei cannot be imagined.
So...sigh it is Romney's race to lose at least for the moment, on the other hand never rule out the Former Viceroy's ability to bungle things completely at the last minute.

On the other hand...

2012-01-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

maybe there is something to this "Huntsman Surge" palaver after all.
I have a reliable source who lives right off the Tannhauser Gate just a gunshot away from Big Willy Pond, and she says that all of Carroll County is sick unto death of Ron Paul's incessant robo-phone calls and daily mailings.
I am also told by the same source that those mailings are morning starters for the woodstove all over the Granite State.
So absent Ron Paul and with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich being fitted for designer straitjackets that leaves Huntsman in the runner up position.
If that happens, and I'm not sayin' it will, then there is something quinessentially New Hampshire about Jon Huntsman crowding into second place at the last minute.
Look New Hampshire's "first in the nation" primary status is increasingly being diluted by caucuses and primaries held in states where hyper conservative religious voting patterns heavily colonize the ballot box.
So it would be a very pious New Hampshire style jest indeed to send two Mormons out of the state as the nominal front runners for the GOP Presidential nomination.
And the Granite State will be striking a blow for religious tolerance in a Epsom-Circle-Rotary-Club kind of a way...
But mostly its just a funny idea, and you know how funny ideas can take ahold of the primary electorate up there.
Just sayin'...

William Jennings Bryan...

2012-01-10T10:58:00.000-07:00

Went to Dayton Tennessee to argue against evolution in the Scopes Trial instead he literally died of a torrent of bombast attempting to convince an astonished courtroom that "man was not a mammal".
So to does that Conservative Hero Newt Gingrich go to New Hampshire trying to become President, and instead he ends up writhing in fury attempting to convince the flinty Yeoman of the Granite State that Mitt Romney is a greedy reactionary kulak and a class enemy of the working man.
What drives us to supreme screaming fury speaks everything about our character...

***
Meanwhile a recap:
I still say it's Mitt Romney tonight, it'll be a clear win, but the game is to drag him beneath forty percent. Even then it's a question of whether or not said second place finisher is properly positioned and funded to make their case in South Carolina an electorate so conservative and religiously weird as to make New Hampshire look like a Symbionese Liberation Army enclave.
I'm guessing it'll be Ron Paul as the chief runner up, if he has a good night he might do twenty one percent of the vote. However he himself might be too weird even for South Carolina, so possibly advantage Romney there.
There is talk of a late surge by Huntsman I suspect this might just be enough to get him into a close third place past Santorum. Thus he can claim "Mister Congeniality" honors and bail or else start re-reading all those op-ed columns urging him to run as an independent.
Santorum is finished, you could tell just looking at him on Saturday, he was livid with the strain of pretending to be a nice hale-fellow-well-met. He clearly longed to preach homophobic hellfire and damnation to that crowd at the NH Institute of Politics. Moreover he had no discernable entourage, his campaign hardly even took tim to fill up the aud with supporters or line the streets with signs. The wind is clearly out of his sails.
And Gingrich well, I think he has reached his Waterloo...could be wrong though.

Well thats my line up, likely I'm completely wrong...but then at least I'll own up to it when the time comes. Enjoy the show kids, it comes but infrequently.

Last notes on Mitt Romney...

2012-01-10T04:27:00.000-07:00

Y'know, for a famous political misogynist, Mitt Romney sure does like to have plenty of female avatars and toady's around him at all times.
Take this rally on Saturday morning, he was introduced by New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte and then Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley.
You'd think these two women had died and gone to the Throne of Glory they way they fairly groveled at the mere mention of Mitt Romney's holy name.
Otherwise the two of them are pretty much of a mind that bluntly asserts the World Will Come To An End If The GOP Doesn't Win in 2012.
Not sure that thesis will wear well as the campaign grinds on.
Otherwise Kelly Ayotte seems personable enough, she might have a future in Presidential Politics if she could stop that irritating quaver in her voice that makes her sound like she was about to burst into tears. Once Mitt ankles the joint maybe Kelly can compose herself and do something useful like getting the Manchester VA Hospital reopened or something.
As for Nikki Haley, I'm not sure it's a good campaign tactic for Romney to be introduced by such a gliib, unpleasant, condescending southern politician. It only underscores his transitory commitment to the Granite State.
Haley as well might have a future in GOP presidential politics if she could just get over herself and wipe that shit eating grin off her face.
Otherwise these two women were window dressing conservatives that Romney could stand next to in order to somehow pass himself off as a conservative to New Hampshire, nothing more.

2012-01-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

Ah the press. Standing a lonely watch over the ramparts of liberty. Sentinels of the First Amendment, with the American News Media on the job I sleep better at night.

My predictions for tomorrow's New Hampshire Primary:

2012-01-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

(shit everyone else gets to do it, and gets paid to do it, why should I decline to indulge??)

For all the dreadful sameness of Mitt Romney's early morning rally on Saturday, I'm still calling New Hampshire for him come tomorrow night. I suspect he will do about forty percent of the vote. It is a resigned vote, from voters with a lot of problems that ought to be heard and addressed in DC but all they can concentrate on now is moving Mitt along to South Carolina in an orderly fashion.
The race is pretty much to come in a strong second and export some uncertainty danger and excitement to South Carolina. Keeping Romney under forty percent would be seen as a major upset under the present circumstances.
I think Santorum has peaked, likely he will do about ten percent tomorrow, he just does not have the horses to nail this thing down.
Huntsman is allegedly enjoying a late surge, but then a lot of fringe characters start polling better the day before the primary, it does them little good in the end. Huntsman is coming in for some day-before luv because he spent so much time in New Hampshire kissing ass, and who doesn't like getting their ass kissed by US Ambassador.
No...the second spot fight is between Gingrich and Paul, my guess is, Paul will come in second, he might do twenty percent if he has a good day, where he goes with that given his ideological baggage I cannot say.
Gingrich, might do fifteen percent, just enough for him to make a last stand with nuclear weapons in South Carolina.
The field collects the rest of the spread.
Of course about all of this I could be wrong, I was wrong bigtime in 2008....
Of course all this

"Walking with the KIng" or the Magical Thinking of Newt Gingrich

2012-01-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Derry New Hampshire:

Program note: the most well know GOP personality who could be found to introduce Newt Gingrich at this event was batty old Bud McFarlane, who spent a few minutes sharing his apocalyptic vision of despair ($200 a barrel for crude oil, cyber attacks, flying monkeys) before introducing a William Taft corpulent Newt Gingrich to a packed hall of some 300 locals.

Newt Gingrich has the mentality of a rock star, he starts his rallies casually late, he has more ex-wives than Ozzie Osborne and knows the crowd pleasing value of rambling thru his greatest hits.
The truth is though, Elvis once wanted to be Dean Martin and so Newt Gingrich wants to be Ronald Reagan and explicitly sells himself to New Hampshire auds as The Gipper's tanned rested & ready Illegitimate Son.
It is true though, that Newt Gingrich is a visionary, it is just that the things he sees rarely make a lick of sense in any manner shape or form.
And like all visionaries, Newt is an egomaniac, a good ten minutes of his campaign speech is given over to a long history of U.S. conservatism in the post Viet Nam Era, the only other GOP politicians he mentions in this ramble is Jack Kemp (once) and Ronald Reagan (who could accomplish but little without the help of Newt Gingrich).
Otherwise it was all "How I invented conservatism".
Newt talks a lot about "transcending partisanship"which on elaboration apparently consists of lying about the President's record, putting the "vital middle" under the whips and chains of the conservative right and rewriting all history to demonstrate the universal efficacy of wingnut dialectics.
And then Newt got to his central ideological thesis, the "magical things" that happen when supply side economics is read into Federal Policy. That those "magical things" usually end in crippling budget deficits like the ones we have now is never ever mentioned.
But this is Newt Gingrich we are talking about, he is a politician of hope after all, otherwise why would he keep coming back to the bizarre metaphor of supply side "magic"?
My Ghod then the cannonade od specifics began...twelve separate proposals and variations on lower taxes, deregulation, the "Reform of the EPA, the Federal Reserve and the FDA", fire Ben Bernanke, abolish the inheritance tax, introduce a voluntary flat tax (If I heard him right), drop the capital gains tax to "zero" and drill our way to energy independence.
(BTW it is a truism of GOP "magical thinking" that the USA could be an oil exporter but for Federal bureaucrats and endless regulation.)
Oh and he wants to abolish ObamaCare before he is inaugurated if at all possible by a notional all-republican congress.
Big surprise there.
Oh and while he is a firm advocate of this continental oil and gas pipeline from Canada which the Obama admin is mulling over, any power lines strung from Quebec hydroelectric to "Boston" ought to be buried underground so as not to spoil the tourist vistas and landscape of Northern New Hampshire.
Well, Newt Gingrich wouldn't be a rock star if he wasn't casually contradictory.
In a full half hour of this nonsense, the only worthwhile measure that Gingrich espoused was reopening the Manchester VA hospital as a full service facility.
I heartily endorse this measure it is unconscionable that Granite State veterans must take the Greyhound Bus all the way to Boston to get health care out of the VA Hospital in Jamaica.
Why Senator Kelly Ayotte hasn't been heard on this matter I cannot imagine, clearly she is too busy toadying up to Mitt Romney all over the state to give it all much thought.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich wants to challenge Barack Obama to seven Lincoln-Douglas style debates, with timekeepers and no moderation. The Former House Speaker clearly thinks that he would win in such a debate format hands down given his own particular rhetorical gifts (most of which revolve around lying loudly with as many false historic analogies as can be crammed him).
Me I dunno, I'm not sure Gingrich's style would "wear well" over seven debates, there is a bloated arrogant touch of Steven Douglas to the man.
That having been said, this eructation went over big time with the crowd, unlike Romney's sleepy aud early Saturday Morning, this bunch was primed to be fired up by the One and Only Gingrich.
Over and above all that, Gingrich if nominated, will try and turn 2012 into a play by play re-run of 1980, which is a mistake in my humble opinion as elections & football games never ever repeat themselves in the USA, each one has it's own unique dynamic.
But the crowd ate it up since hating on Jimmy Carter is practically GOP theology these days and everyone loves to relive a past triumph.
Other than that, Newt Gingrich offers exactly nothing at variance with Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney they are firmly for low taxes, deregulation, a strong dollar, a stronger military and couldn't care less who pays for it all.
But unlike Romney (an outright android of a politician) or Santorum (A religious fanatic posing as technocrat), Newt Gingrich thinks himself a Rock Star a man in simultaneous communion with the audience and the very muses above. His stomach is huge, his ego is preposterously huge and in two weeks he will likely be back collecting "Conservative Welfare" down in DC.
On that I could be wrong, but I can't see Gingrich, ego and all taking this fight all the way to the GOP convention let alone the general election in the fall, sooner or later rock stars have to get off tour, rest up, dry out and rewrite their act.

The Last Temptation of Rick Santorum

2012-01-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Goffstown New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

D'ye know what the problem with Rick Santorum is?
He is a mean rigid authoritarian minded man with vocal hatreds, who is somehow trying to pass himself as a nice well mannered clean cut neighborly type of candidate.
In this he resembles nothing more than Leave It to Beaver's "Eddie Haskell" who we will recall was an obsequious toady to those above, insolent & insufferable to those below.
But a strong finish in the Iowa caucuses has temporarily raised Santorum's stakes to the level of "Potential President", a heady rise given the fact he was the last and most battered harlequin out of the GOP Clown Car not five weeks ago.
Here he was making a solo appearance at a forum sponsored by the Atlantic Monthy entitled "The Economy and the Electorate".
And I will give Rick some props, he is a fountain of specific proposals compared to the cataract of applause lines and sound bytes that gush forth from Mitt Romney's pie hole.
If I had to compare Santorum the candidate to anyone, his closest DNA match might be the late Paul Tsongas of all people. Both candidates were focused on reviving the USA's assembly line manufacturing economy almost to the exclusion of all else.
It is just that Tsongas' proposals might actually have sparked some sort of a renaissance in the manufacturing sector, Santorum's ideas are pretty much GOP boilerplate, tax cuts and deregulation and after that, The Utopia!
Oh and education, like ninety nine point nine percent of Washington DC, Rick thinks this is the sole and only way to redress income disparities.
Here too he betrays no great reserve of original thinking.
Oh and Hope, Rick is big on Hope, just like Bill & Hilary Clinton and Barack OBama and John Kerry, despair never gets equal time in the New Hampshire Primary lets face it.
On the other hand, maybe his handlers are telling him "talk about Job, Education & Hope because when you talk about gay marriage people cover their children's ears and leave the room".
For all that, Santorum is marginally more sincere than Mitt Romney which isn't saying much he tends to drone on though. Sometimes though, those beady weasel eyes of his narrow his brow darkens and you can just tell Rick Santorum is dreaming of mass arrests and sweet smell of burning witches.
But that is a "downer" in the patois of the spin doctors, so Santorum and the rest of the GOP field are running pretty much as cheerful dismantlers and smiling salvage experts. There is actually almost no substantive disagreement between any of them so far as I can see. They all favor slashing the federal budget, cutting taxes, wholesale deregulation, ending "Obamacare" by any means necessary. There is truly broad consensus on the right these days, its just all the GOP candidates hate each other personally.
Thus as of today, the race is to come in a strong second in New Hampshire on Tuesday and rebound into the shitkicker primaries as some sort of GOP Thunder God of Vengeance. Here I think Santorum falls short, it seems clear to me watching him at Saint Anselm College the he hasn't the time, money or volunteers to make his case in the Granite State. I suspect he may well come in third behind Ron Paul and I'm not even prepared to put money even on that.
The Man has Shot His Bolt in other words, he needed two or three weeks to catch Romney and he is not gonna get it under the pitiless primary schedule currently in place.

As I left the hall Santorum was starting to work his way towards the issue of abstinence education and the promotion of marriage, you could just feel the room get colder.
This is how it ends for a crazy Catholic version of Paul Tsongas and the very living avatar of Allen Drury's "Senator Fred Van Ackerman".

"Romney wasn't Built in a Day"

2012-01-07T18:14:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Derry New Hampshire
Pinkerton Academy, (Alma Mater of Astronaut Alan Shepherd)

Who the hell books a rally at 8:20am EST?

Mitt Romney does, blissfully assured that the helots of the Granite State will turn out in droves to hear him "preach it".
Ah but the former Viceroy is changeless, I haven't seen him in person in exactly four years and he is a veritable Dorian Gray, a perfectly coiffed hologram of a candidate, not a line on him.
And yet I have never seen anyone look so uncomfortable and agitated in an open necked shirt, it's as if he immediately dons a necktie, windsor knot and all as soon as the crowds disperse and heaves a heavy sigh of relief.
As for Mitt's allegedly much improved rhetoric, he simply isn't speaking as long or taking questions from the audience anymore. Mostly these days he yammers on about his family (preferably introducing as many as possible in order to eat up time), slags the President of the US for doing all the stuff Mitt Romney promised to do four years ago, nervously pimps himself as a conservative by saying the word conservative a lot, and meditates on various patriotic song lyrics.
He did not promise to balance the budget, merely to cut Federal Spending to the point where we will no longer need to borrow money from his former Business Partners the Chinese.
This is a patently vague pledge and pretty meaningless since he promises to maintain global military superiority at the same time without recourse to new taxes.
I love how Mitt Romney claims to have "cut taxes" in Massachusetts, he has been pushing this bullshit for six years now. Yet no one ever takes time to list all the fees he jacked up to quietly balance the budget via executive fiat.
Mitt Romney talks a lot about a "merit society" (all men born to wealth and privilege love this sort of rhetoric) and "The soul of America" (a thing Romney claims that Barack Obama does not understand) so aside from projecting a sense of chilly entitlement and obnoxious smarminess, Mitt is very very good at slaughtering straw men.
His weirdest trope?
Mitt Romney wants to make America "Attractive Again", I guess by sending it out to a fat camp, maybe buying it a face lift and some new bling or something.
To hear Mitt Romney tell it, the Founding Fathers all happily worked part time at Walmart until they could get the Declaration of Independence debugged and uploaded.
In all a mere eighteen minutes of useless rubbish, which is good for the audience as Romney tends to speed up his delivery as his speeches go on, as he wound up he was getting mighty close to the machine gun delivery that characterized his 2008 performance in the New Hampshire Primary.
Mostly, though, Romney whined on about Barack Obama, tellingly he never mentioned once any of his GOP rivals in the entire eighteen minute eructation. Clearly in his own mind, he has already been nominated and wants to start the general election immediately, thus his current game plan from now til Tuesday night is to "run out the clock" and hope his polls hold up.
And they just might, a mere twenty six years ago, the New Hampshire Primary lasted for months, ginned up around Halloween and ran flat out til Primary Day in late January with six minutes minimum on all the nightly news broadcasts.
Now thanks to the Iowa Caucus and early primary crowding, the damn thing really lasts about ten days tops, scant time for a anxious batty Falangist like Rick Santorum or a nasty Golem like Newt Gingrich to overtake "Brand Romney".
Now,the last time the Former Viceroy did the New Hampshire Primary they went with the dippy Game Show Theme "Ask Mitt Romney Anything", this time it is "Mitt Romney will Say Anything...To Win".
Still and all that, it was a typical listless Romney crowd, the gym at Pinkerton Academy was hardly filled to capacity and the attendees were evenly divided between actual New Hampshire Voters, Out of Staters (likely campaign volunteers) and of course The Press all crammed in close to look good for the video feed.
They were hardly stomping their feet and pumping their fists in the air for Mitt, he got a few desultory laughs with his jabs at Obama...But the crowd only seemed to come alive when they were shouting down an expeditionary force from the local Ninety Nine Percenters. The police hustled off the protesters pretty quietly and Romney went back to blathering on sans worry woe or an unseemly excess of applause.

Much as I hate to say it, I think Romney is gonna win the New Hampshire Primary on Tuesday at which point a great howl will go up demanding the closure of ranks and "party unity".
And what the hell, he may get it.
New Hampshire voters seem resigned to Romney, his competition one and all are twitchy and weird. If there was anyone else of the caliber of a statesman to be had, Mitt would be dropped in an instant, but there is not and so there stands Romney a veritable colossus until you give that image some real thought and the giggles begin.
As for the general election campaign it seems clear to me that Romney is gonna harp on the deficit a lot by way of bitching at China and will likely attempt some political jujitsu with respect to social security and retirement.
Debt mongering doesn't win Presidential elections, ask Fritz Mondale if you don't believe Humble Elias but the emerging Romney line on Social Security must needs close observation.

That having been said, Mitt Romney has lost none of his smugness, condescension nor his campaign's capacity for the conceptual gaffe: In the lobby of the gym were two tables selling "Mitt Romney for President Buttons", one of them depicted the famously adaptable and supple candidate as "Mister Fantastic" Marvel Comics' elastic super hero.
Bad metaphor for a candidate who flips and flops and zigs and zags, I wish I had bought one.

JPK III...

2012-01-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

Former US Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy's namesake son wants to run for Congress in Barney Frank's fourth district.
I like the kid's spunk, but he faces long odds. The state legislature has redrawn that district into something that just possibly a republican can win.
Assuming of course they aren't a tea party weirdo.
Of course it's in the interests of the democrats and especially the upcoming senatorial contest to run a well financed competitive campaign in the fourth since that would compel Scott Brown to contest ground he won easily in 2010.
And what the hell, Joseph P. Kennedy is young, reasonably well spoken, untainted by the family's tendency to garish scandal and he can fundraise.
This is just about all his father brought to the table when the Spartans went marching in the streets for him back in 1986.
If I have any advice for JPK III he ought to take a page from his father's book, stay populist, take nothing for granted and run like an underdog that has caught on fire.
Good luck kid...

My gut is...

2012-01-05T10:38:00.001-07:00

that Santorum is yet another GOP flash in the pan whose timing was simply better than the competition in Iowa.
I have a feeling that come next Tuesday night, he will be back down with the cheap acts when the votes are counted in New Hampshire.
That having been said, it would just precious and lovely indeed if the certifiably paranoid & authoritarian Santorum put a nice deep dent in the shiny metal ass of the RomneyBot 2012.
But I doubt that will happen, not because the people of New Hampshire love Mitt and his ever shifting values so much, but because of his tedious & irksome ubiquity they've simply become resigned and numb to Romney.
The sooner they vote for him, the sooner they can be rid of him....

But if I was Rick Santorum I would not stop harping on Romney's sealed tax returns until the polls close Tuesday Night.

Grace Notes on the Top Four GOP finishers in the Iowa Caucuses...

2012-01-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney: A banker and cold selfish wealthy man as well. Ghod help the person who owes Mitt money not with the Former Governor's Swiss watch brain calculating the interest down to the minute. A classic passive aggressive personality he has a SuperPAC to generate his many negative adverts thus keeping his own hands "clean". His best moments consist of an chilly plastic bonhomnie that impresses only the credulous, Brian McGrory for example.

Rick Santorum: A cruel nasty weasel of a politician, he is a wonderfully irksome toady to those above him and utterly insolent to those below him. A Catholic whose theology largely revolves around punishing those with differing opinions and lifestyle. He is, very much in personality and outlook an authoritarian.

Newt Gingrich: Possibly one of the meanest most vindictive bastards in contemporary US Politics regardless of his pseudo intellectual props, he also loves money like a hog loves slop, and those are his good points.

Ron Paul: Ron Paul is a utopian, a sky-grifter a man with a profound "believing mind". Ghod save us from believers sez I not when the consequences of their ideas ends in a racialized, genderized second rate nation where corporations run amok and the Army is used to guard wombs.

And yet all four of these men, want to run "positive optimistic, idea driven campaigns", or they will as soon as they are done calling each other sonsabitches and screaming for mob rule. Otherwise nothing in their personalities really suggests they can sustain a high toned intellectual debate no matter how much they insist otherwise.

Congrats to the Former Viceroy

2012-01-04T04:25:00.000-07:00

for having spent all that money on an eight vote win in Iowa against an underfunded weasel who was once considered too weird and too strident for the US Senate (which is sayin' sumthin').
Ghod the New Hampshire Primary is gonna be fun, nothing but dingbats, drama queens, would-be American Dictators and Mitt Romney, it is a Seth Rogen comedy in the making.
And me stuck her in Menotomy, it is to weep.

Meanwhile John McCain is set to endorse Romney today, apparently Mitt needs more and more GOP maachers to swim over to his leaky lifeboat & bail it out.

Oh and Rick Perry is thinking about dropping out of the race, I can't imagine why.

Mitt Romney's latest revision is that

2012-01-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

he is running for President as a cockey optimist and a politician "of hope".

All the while though, his personal SuperPac is running adverts all over Iowa calling Newt Gingrich a bed hopping baby-hating scoundrel.

So much for Mitt Romney the Happy Warrior, the Glad Gladiator & the Nation's Pal.

Well, his PAC is doin' the dirty work leaving Romney to claim he knows nothing of the attack adverts, passive aggression, in other words, typical Mitt Romney.

My only question is, how long before the punditariat wake up to Mitt's latest crass hypocrisy?
The last time he pulled this Bullshit, which was four years ago, it took forever for the David Broders out there to wake up to the fact that Romney was saying one thing and doing another (and badly at that ) with depressing reliability.

The Storm before the Calm...

2012-01-02T17:07:00.000-07:00

The current polling out of Iowa suggests a tightening race with Romney, Santorum and Paul all within two percentage points of one another.

However since Iowa is a caucus state, there is a certain amount of raw uncertainty built into the polling process since the balloting process requires a greater commitment of time and is done more or less as a collective.
Romney's numbers in Iowa have remained almost static since last summer, almost a quarter of Republicans seem ready to caucus for him, and those numbers haven't shifted at all in six months. The implications seem clear, if a creditable wingnut could emerge from Iowa that candidate would easily command a two-to-one majority over Mitt Romney in the caucuses. Under pressure like that, Brand Romney might have abandoned the state save for a cheap-ass face saving effort.
However the forces of religious reaction have not coalesced as they have in years past which has given Romney some room to manuever in a crowded volatile race.
I think Romney's goal here is simple, he doesn't so much wanna win as "not lose" the Iowa caucus, even if that means potentially ceding top laurels to an unelectable nitwit like Ron Paul or Rick Santorum.
He can afford to spot a few percentage points to either candidate, both men haven't got the money or the reach to be anything else but a vocal insurgency as the primaries grind on.
At this point, Rick Santorum might have a great day tomorrow and it only take him as far as the fifth man down on Romney's vice presidential short list.
Perceptions being more important than reality to Team Romney, their goal here is run a good race, keep the opposition volatile and divided and then try to run up a big crushing Reagan-Bush style avalanche style victory in New Hampshire.
All of this seems fairly obvious to the casual observer, likely this is exactly how things will play out in New Hampshire...Save for the fact that the Granite State GOP voters as often kicks establishment candidates as they may kiss them.
And those adverts Brand Romney is running on Boston television reek of hubris and smarm, but will it work?
Maybe...

David Bernstein from da Boston Phoenix

2011-12-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

(who is a better writer than me in every way) breaks down High Pitched Rick Santorum's chances in New Hampshire if he can pull off a last minute upset in Iowa.
Well, the only thing I can dare add is that one thing that makes New Hampshire a unique presidential primary state, is that pure luck can play a big part in the outcome.
So that having been said, I have my doubts as to whether or not Rick Santorum, nasty screech and all can fill an "inside straight" at the last minute.
Of course, if Santorum did manage to finish in the money, that would just be too hilarious for words and proof positive that the AntiMitt right will vote for anyone up to and including a would be American Dictator or some random road kill over Romney.

Affirmations...

2011-12-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

I suspect that Mitt Romney has a "life coach" who is trying to make over a cold detached & boring oligarch into "Ronald Reagan".

So every day in as sincere a voice as he can muster, Romney must chant "I AM...Ronald Reagan, I AM...Sincere. I WAS...a Great Governor, I WILL BE a game changer as President!"

This goes on three times a day into Romney's bathroom mirror. No doubt as part of coaching process, the Former Governor of Massachusetts will be coaxed to start affecting "Gipper style" football helmets, cowboy gear or that ghod awful green plaid summer suit Reagan wore to a NATO summit in his first term.

(Ghod he looked like The Riddler...)

But on it goes with Mitt Romney, the chanting, "I AM... Ronald Reagan, I HAVE...Rock Solid Conservative Principles!"

Until one night, the life coach's audio lab gets Romney's "Sleep learning CD" mixed up and this affirmation gets piped into his ear buds "I AM...Al Smith, I WAS the First Catholic ever nominated by a major party for President!"

Apparently,

2011-12-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Former State Senator Scott Brown drove all the way to South Boston (I guarantee you he had to use GPS to find it) to proclaim himself The Underdog in the upcoming US Senate Race.
Yeah thass right, an Underdog with fifteen million dollars in campaign funds at his disposal, raised in less than two years and most of it from the Usual Suspects on Wall Street.
Underdog indeed.
But then, all this proves is that Brown is a fervent reader of the Chimes at Midnight, after all Humble Elias predicted last month that would try to revert to his 2010 status as the scrappy challenger.
It is a pretty brazen move and a good indicator for whoever ends up being Brown's main opponent in the general election next fall.

For sheer comedy nothing beats

2011-12-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

watching Texas Governor Rick Perry flailing around on the ground, ineffectually snapping his fangs at passersby and stuttering imprecations against gays, women with unlocked wombs and the vast menacing saracen hordes.
Six short months ago, he was a Rightical Chic Godling, a Romulus a Titan....Now look at him?
An ass-clown's ass clown.
And all Perry did to initiate this stupendous political pratfall, was open his mouth and speak on the record.
As I've said before, in Perry we have an authentic rarity, a republican who simply too stupid to be President.
Hell, I'm not sure Rick Perry's campaign staff are sanguine about leaving the Governor alone with a box of matches at this point.
Still, ya gotta give him credit, any normal politician who ran up a string of idioitic gaffes like Rick Perry would have quit the race in tearful humiliation long ago.
Not Rick, he is stubborn in the fashion of a determined teachable, whose inexplicable and foolish willfulness is divine compensation for being born into this uncaring life.

Newt Gingrich

2011-12-28T04:18:00.000-07:00

is calling Ron Paul an "extremist", or words to that effect.

Which is akin to Benito Mussolini calling Generalissimo Francisco Franco a "fascist pig".

Ah but two short weeks ago, Newt was trying to "Run a Campaign of Ideas" now wasn't he?

It seems to me that

2011-12-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

if Mitt Romney carries the day next month, it is less because of his particular tactics this year and more a function of the fact that his rivals for the GOP nomination are a matchless collection of ass clowns and raving twits.
They have all had their two to six week stint as the "AntiMitt" du jour and each and every one of them have been undone by the same thing, a pronounced tendency to say whatever outrageous thing flits thru their tiny little heads all of it on the record going back a decade.
Shee-it I could beat this rabble and I'm a democrat.
Still, one thing this process has done, is that it has inexorably, and predicably, moved Mitt Romney to right just as it did in 2008. Count on it, a few right hooks to that glass chin of his and Mitt turns into Bourke Hickenlooper every time. Why, a mere six months ago, Mitt was running as the sensible moderate "The Grown Up" in this race and as of this weekend he has come out as a slayer of social security and a libertarian "simplifier" of gummint.
Likely though, if Romney loses next month, he'll drop this android campaign plan and simply go berserk like he did in Michigan in 2008.

The one thing on which you can rely with Mitt Romney is that he remains a hopeless amateur...

And a Very Merry Christmas to...

2011-12-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul and Donald Trump and Rick "High Pitched Rich" Santorum and Former State Senator Scott Brown and Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer and Rick Perry and Charlie Baker and all that lot.
Oh and all my friends in the local punditariat...Happy Holidays to All!

Cuz without you-all, I haven't got a blog!!

I mean shit, I'd have to go back to writing about What Is On Television Tonight, a perfectly dreadful notion in every way!

When Scott Brown is down in the polls

2011-12-23T10:44:00.000-07:00

he seamlessly morphs into this gurgling limp wristed Joe Lieberman moderate, desperately worried about po' folks and th' welfare 'o women & chillun' everywhar.

When he is up in the polls he is the very Whore of Wall Street and Mitch McConnell's Bitch in particular....Flushed with Cash like successful streetwalker at dawn.

Remember that, as this senate campaign unfolds.

I dunno about you - all...

2011-12-23T10:38:00.001-07:00

but I think Mitt Romney's Augustan Refusal to release his income tax return ought to be at least as big an issue as President Obama's god-damned birth certificate.

But of course, it won't....Not with Culture Jammers like this mook on the job.

Ah Brent Bozell, class all the way, proof positive that a pedigree with the National Review is no guarantor of decorum, you know that stuff jerks like him are always demanding from liberals.

Newt Gingrich doesn't want

2011-12-22T04:24:00.000-07:00

America to "be like Massachusetts".

Hatin' on the Commonwealth, it must be close to the New Hampshire GOP Presidential Primary....typical.

Well, Humble Elias stands foursquare for the glories of Massachusetts! Our relatively low unemployment rate (seven percent or so last I checked) allows this state to absorb ghod knows how many workers from jobless recession wracked New Hampshire...If you don't believe me, take a drive thru the parking garage at Alewife Station and count all the "Live Free or Die"license plates.
You'd think Gingrich wouldn't be so churlish as to criticize the source of many a Granite State paycheck after all....

In Memoriam, C.H.

2011-12-21T06:31:00.001-07:00

Let the record show, that in the end, the Late Christopher Hitchens' life stood as a monument to the notion that onetime fervent Trotskyites, make the worst conservatives.
Arrogant, authoritarian, treacherous, obsequious to those above, and insolent to those below him, Hitch came to America in search of a civilization to defend, he'd say anything to anyone to save us all from the Saracen Hordes or Hilary Clinton or whatever.
He stabbed his then friend Sidney Blumenthal in the back in a vain effort to get at Bill Clinton (whom he hated with tedious predicability). Hitch legitimized Leftish Clinton hatred to such a degree he gave more than a few Beltway republicans the erroneous notion that they had limitless room to maneuver in the lead up to the President's spurious impeachment.
Then of course, he made a seamless transition to post 9-11 war hawkery a pose that made him ubiquitous on cable television and beyond.
Yes, I know, Hitch was a out and proud atheist. So is Bill Maher so was Ayn Rand, in America apostasy and unbelief can be a revenue stream if you position yourself right.
And lord knows with his war whoopery and snarkery, Chris Hitchens lived and died a well positioned brand forward public intellectual...that is to say a miserable two faced wretch of the highest order.
If there is any justice in the after life, George Orwell is working over Hitchens right now with a sock full of wet sand.

Jon Huntsman's current round of campaign commercials

2011-12-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

up in NH has this wonderful whiny quality to them. "I'm the REAL CONSERVATIVE!! Why Not Meeeee as the Anti-Mitt? It's My Turn to Make the Cover of Newsweek!!!"
Check em' out quick because I strongly doubt Huntsman will last until Martin Luther King Day at the rate he is going.
Seriously, a Mormon can't be the Anti-Mitt...ain't gonna happen, I hate to traffick in such rough sentiments but it is the truth. Ron Paul or Buddy Roemer have a better shot at this point.
Frankly for serious connoiseurs of desperate hubris, the New Hampshire Primary has always been a feast and a banquet going back to the days when Wilbur Mills was staggering from door to door.

Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Monocrat of North Korea

2011-12-19T17:03:00.000-07:00

is dead.

One of the abiding strengths of Marxism Leninism is what Leonid Brezhnev called "Stability of Cadres", the party's ability to replenish itself via recruitment and self selection. However one of the great weaknesses of "Stability of Cadres" is that it all comes down sooner or later to the medieval concept of Primogeniture.

North Korea, case in point....Where Kim Jong Il is duly supplanted by his youngest son Kim Jong Un, age 28.

That makes the third generation of the Kim family to rule North Korea like a ramshackle plantation.

Well, you know what they say, from Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in just three generations.

I am given to think that

2011-12-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

the GOP base dislikes Mitt Romney so very very much that they will vote for Barack Obama to spite the former Massachusetts Governor.
I mean why not?
They've countenanced far more dubious Anti-Mitts this past year, From Michelle Bachmann who is as batty as Dracula's Castle (and proud of it) to cheap Babbitish philander Herman Cain.
Right now, they are in turn, conjuring with Newt Gingrich's candidacy (whose pugnacious bluster neatly covers up the suspicion he'd shit himself loudly if he ever heard a shot fired in anger) and waiting in the wings shooting his cuffs, Ron Paul a libertarian mystic who nonetheless believes in the sanctity of the womb and the right of revealed religion to dictate terms to a free people.
Given all this mishaugas, the problem for Romney is that problem isn't going away even if he somehow cinches the nomination early and decisively.
I doubt any of these useless dingbats have the sheer guts to bolt and form a third partei (though we will hear lots of palaver about that from the punditariat over the short term believe me) but they can hang on mutter whine and curse which devalues the nomination as time goes on.
At which point, Barack start looking pretty good to all sorts of divergent cohorts...who can tell?

Newt Gingrich wants to arrest Federal Judges

2011-12-18T18:02:00.000-07:00

who actively defy his ideological agenda should he become President.

Why stop there Newt?
Why not arrest congresspersons who obstruct your agenda, shit for that fact you could jail the portion of the electorate that did not vote for you?
But I snark, in the arid pseudo intellectual mind of the Former Speaker, one literally does not vote for candidates, one empowers via voting an entire ideology to Total Power....And lets not quibble about divorces or gays or gamey conservative payola.
***
Now...There is one observation I'd like to make here, and that is, Newt Gingrich is not anti-judiciary by nature and more than he was ant-executive when he screamed up impeachment against Bill Clinton.
What Newt opposes violently, is anything that impedes conservatives Right to Rule. Now if that means wrecking the separation of powers and creating a despotism in the process, he is fine with it so long as it is a conservative despotism.
You have to read a lot of books, immerse yourself in political science for years on end and think a great deal to come up with a public philosophy that destructive to liberty.
So much for the scholar in politics eh?

If there is a God of

2011-12-16T06:49:00.001-07:00

Mercy and Irony and Justice in Heaven Above, then the late atheist Christopher Hitchens is arraigned before a robed & bearded Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, even as I write this....

And just possibly, George Orwell will be waiting for him with a pipewrench in hand to prove once and for all, who was really the conscience of Western Civilization. My money is on Orwell, those Spanish Civil War vets play fer keeps.

The New Hampshire Primary

2011-12-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

and beyond it the GOP Presidential stakes, is rapidly becoming the political equivalent of a Trencherman's Feast, I hardly know what delicacy to sample first.
Lets start with Newt Gingrich a nasty greedy foul mouthed distempered pseudo hack who can trill on and on about "running a campaign of ideas", just as soon has he is done comparing the competition to Adolf Eichmann.
The notion that Newt (that sophomore's sophomore) can somehow reconfigure himself into a nice scholarly unthreatening Wingnut Woodrow Wilson has Humble Elias in stitches.
That is not how he became Speaker of the House kids...count on it.
But then, in Mitt Romney, Gingrich has the almost perfect assymetrical opponent, smarmy, disengaged, toxically wealthy and passive aggressive to a fault.
If indeed Gingrich can bootstrap himself into the "AntiMitt" position then the emerging debate between these two vain cowardly shrewd and ambitious men will be extremely interesting to watch.
Or who knows, maybe Ron Paul can sneak into the money? The man is a 21st century Robespierre in every sense of the word, unlike Newt and Mitt, Ron really believes his own bullshit a "Man must be forced to fit the plan" type if ever there was one.
I'm telling you, this is the greatest political show on earth, and sadly for personal reasons, Humble Elias can't seem to disengage to get up to NH to see any of it.
Irony, I hate it .

Congrats to Will Brownsberger

2011-12-14T04:21:00.000-07:00

who has won the democratic nomination for State Senate in the Second Suffolk District in a special election yesterday. I've seen Will around Arlington for some time now in his capacity as Belmont's state representative (also has few Arlington precincts in his district doncha know). He is a honest man and will do well in the State Senate.
And of course, thanks to the Primate Research Center we call the Joint House Senate Redistricting Committee, my precinct in sacred inviolate Menotomy, is about to be grafted onto Will Brownsberger's old House District (largely dominated by Belmont, shitty roads and all).
So I have a front row seat (albeit on the wrong side of Route Two) on the race to replace Brownsberger in the House...Too bad I don't know squat about Belmont politics or personalities.
Yeah it is nice starting from the bottom again, thanks again to the trained anthropoids in the lege, this and casino gambling are your legacies in this session, sheer genius in both cases.

Radio Tyrant Michael Savage....

2011-12-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

(who is as crazy as a shit house rat) has publicly offered Newt Gingrich One Million Dollars to get out of the GOP Presidential Race.
Shit Newt can make that kind of dough in an hour peddling his ass on K-Street, chump change is what that is.
However I do wanna take a moment to accuse Michael Savage of plagiarism of the lowest kind. Scroll back to the summer of 2003 or so, and you will find a Chimes at Midnight posting idly joking about how much bribery money it would cost the US taxpayer to get George Bush Jr. to resign the Presidency.
It was a joke!
But Michael Savage, having no sense of humor and no creativity proposes to enact it for real with Newt Gingrich....goddamn goniff!
Well who is Michael Savage backing anyway? Galleazzo Ciano? General Quiepo De Llano? Admiral Yamamoto?
The mind reels...

Tom Conroy has

2011-12-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

bailed out from the democratic US Senate Primary, and endorsed Citizen Warren.

So much for Humble Elias' naive' hopes of a full and complete debate arising from said primary eh?
Money is voting early and voting often and long before the polls actually open as well...Hence Conroy couldn't compete and thus he graciously benched himself alongside Khazei and Setti Warren etc etc.
One of the things I truly detest about the current fundraising & campaign finance environment is that the flow of money, can very easily stifle debate. And that is exactly what is happening here, although to my own discredit I should have seen it coming.
That is not a rap on Citizen Warren, under the circumstances she cannot be upbraided for "seein' her opportunities and takin' em", but if we want free and fair debate, it starts with reappraising the centrality of money to the electoral process.

Forget his statesman/frontrunner pose...

2011-12-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

Gimme the old Mitt Romney any day of the week, callow, cowardly, amateurish, desperate to win and conniving endlessly in an inept sort of way.
Like quoting off of Ann Coulter to put himself to the right of Newt Gingrich...I mean that is the Old Mitt Romney, you can smell the flopsweat a half mile away.
But that is Romney in a nutshell, the race tightens and he starts panicking and throwing clumsy haymakers, $10k bets with the semi-mongoloid Governor of Texas and then harvesting clips from Ann Coulter...and ghod knows what else before all is said and done.
Can't wait, this is the best show in town, Romney in the final weeks before a primary a clown show to put Emmett Kelly to shame.

So MItt Romney

2011-12-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

tried to bet Rick Perry $10K that he'd never ever ever been FOR an individual healthcare mandate, before he was against it?
Honestly, is it good politics for Mitt Romney to publicly offer a big money bond on his own craven sense of opportunism?
And what kills me about this mishaugas is that Perry did the first smart thing in the last twenty years of his life, he turned down the wager.
It won't be enough to save Perry's candidacy at this point, but it will keep him out of the Texas School for Incorrigible Teachables after he bails.
This is Romney at his ugliest, flinging his money around with heedless arrogance and offering bets on subjects about which he ought to dummy up.
Amateur...there is no other word for Willard Mitt Romney.

How come I'm the last to know

2011-12-09T11:05:00.000-07:00

That Donald Trump is thinking about running as an Independent Candidate for President next year??
The only thing that could beat for sheer hilarity this would be if Pat Paulsen rose from the dead and ran as a Vegetarian or maybe a Whig.
Still Trump is basically kidding us, he lacks the guts and the focus to run, he likes the attention his bluster gets nothing more, anyway who'd he pick for veep...Gary Busey?

If Donald Trump

2011-12-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

can moderate a GOP Debate in Iowa, then why can't Bill Maher do likewise and the same?

Or Howard Stern for that fact?

Bill Maher is much smarter and funnier than Donald Trump, he has for example actually read the US Constitution and can relate that quaint imperiled document to today's radical conservative with ease.

Howard Stern on the other hand is much better interviewer than either Trump or Maher, put him at the moderator's table and nothing will be moderated, but we will find stuff out believe me.

To put it bluntly, Donald Trump is as thick as a brick, despite the entertainment value of his gaudy mono-mania, the only topic he can talk about authoritatively is himself, thus The Donald is a bad choice as a debate host.

Well from the looks of things, even the sky grifters and shifty mooks that comprise the GOP Field get that, thus the debate ranks are looking mighty thin. My guess is the debate itself will be cancelled before noon today.

And Romney was right to turn it down, the Former Viceroy is exactly the sort of handsome credulous fool who gets fired first on "The Apprentice".

According to the Boston Herald

2011-12-08T04:11:00.000-07:00

Citizen Elizabeth Warren has opened up a seven point lead over Former State Senator Scott Brown, 49% to 42%.
Yipes bad news for Team Brown given that the general election is almost eleven months away.
But therein lies my admonition for the day, the election is eleven months away, the democratic primary isn't until September 2012 and a lot will happen between now and then. Moreover, forty nine percent is a plurality not a majority, those numbers are bound to change once the media scrutiny heats up....Hell Joanie Vennochi has not yet begun to cast a pox on both their houses yet.
The most important thing to remember is that seven point deficit potentially puts Brown in UnderDog Status, which is his preferred position, an UnderDog with a seven million dollar warchest all shaken down from the elite of Wall Street.

TR

2011-12-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

"The constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make good that promise good. But it does not grant the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth".

Theodore Roosevelt, 1910.

Y'know,

2011-12-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

the Brian McGrory's of this world will go sighing into the night, insisting that this time, Mitt Romney is at peace with his "Legacy As Governor of Massachusetts".
But then news like this comes thru, to the effect that the Former Viceroy spent 100K scrubbing state databases of emails and other important indicators that his governorship really was in Massachusetts after all.
It is a popular cliche' out there, that Mitt Romney has no soul, no core beliefs, at least he cares not to share any of it with the voters.
Humble Elias though, thinks this is a misapprehension. Romney does have a very deeply held core belief, his actions above and his public statements proclaim it unambiguously.
And that is, Mitt Romney firmly believes with religious conviction that if he had been elected Governor of Colorado or Utah or Michigan or New Hampshire (all states where I think he owns property) he'd be President by now.
To an outside observer, that is a remarkably cynical notion, but given Romney's almighty opportunism, it is the local conclusion in every way.

At this point...

2011-12-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

a motley collection of bohos, progressive activists, borderline "scientific socialists, anarchists and greying folksingers, the core of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement would seem to be the only cohort out there desperately trying to save the middle class in the USA.
The irony is killing me fuh sherrr.
During the prior prosperity, wealth was transferred to the top 2% from the Middle Class, to keep up debt was incurred, second and third mortgages rung up on residential properties.
Then the crash, credit got cut off, but the transfer of wealth continued unabated.
For better or worse the "Occupy Movement" stands athwart that process and cries "HALT!"
Why do they come to the defense of the "Babbit Bourgeoisie"?
Because for better or worse they've read enough history to realize that no democracy has ever survived without an economically healthy and politically engaged middle class.
If Mom and Dad lose their ranch house in Fort Myers Beach, it can't long before Seth loses his artist's loft by the Merrimack in Lowell.
It is as simple as that, the issues that the Occupiers are trafficking in are life and death for the American Middle Class, the politician who gets that, can ride to glory in 2012.

Jeff Jacoby adopts a prim

2011-12-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

sorrowful tone in today's Boston Globe column with respect to Congressman Frank's alleged tart tongue.
No doubt Barney will make Jeff's phony-ass end of the year "Liberal Hate Speech" list in 2011.
Not for nothing but when FM 96.9's Michael Graham goes into one of his paranoid Muslim eliminationist frenzies, where is Jeff's sorrowful clucking tone?
Just curious...

Herman we hardly knew ye...

2011-12-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

A month or so after Newsweek put him on the cover and dubbed him a serious contender for the GOP Presidential nomination, Herman Cain (awash in The sort of bimbo eruptions that would gratify a Mary Matalin) bails out of the race.
As the GOP field goes forward, Herman Cain will be remembered as someone who kept up such a shrieking din of tax crackpottery as to drown out any sensible discussion of the issue to the point of suppressing even the use of the "indoor voice".
Keep that in mind next summer when the republican national convention has to debate tax policy, if it all degenerates into a race to say the stupidest and craziest things, recall please what sort of candidates got all the attention & enthusiam in the previous winter.

If Cain is really bailing tomorrow

2011-12-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

per this news item, I wonder how much his endorsement is worth?
I'm guessing, based on the specific nature of the allegations, it ain't worth much, but for purposes of building momentum and comity, it might be a nice "get" for Newt Gingrich.
Don't see how Romney is in position to grab it off...but I could be wrong.
MiGhod, a mere month ago, Cain was a front runner in some polls, the Rising Man of the Hour.
Now look at him, a busted clown with a bad taste for alleged bimbos.

Oh well we live in an era of "instant candidacies" and the downside is that you plunge as fast as you rise.

Waaaal I swan....

2011-12-02T10:50:00.000-07:00

But the Boston Globe reports that Citizen Elizabeth Warren has pulled even with Former State Senator Scott Brown in the current round of polling.
This is after a round of crudely executed attack ads from "Brand Brown" and a series of introductory adverts from Citizen Warren's campaign.
Right now, Scott is campaigning exactly like a swollen headed rube who got himself slapped awake forcefully. He hasn't figured out how to come to grips with the challenge, but that won't last.
Warren on the other hand has made a decent impression on the basis of a few commercials and a round of coffee klatsches, likewise that won't last either.
And no one has started campaigning for real yet, huge blogging opportunities, a race for the ages, it'll make Weld-Kerry look like one of Senator Claghorn's stumblebum runs.
Of course, there are "feints within feints" here (to quote the late Frank Herbert), if Brown fades to black on election night, this might put a premium on getting a Republican elected governor in 2014 to "balance out" the state's alleged democratic tilt.
Advantage...Charlie Baker (who by all accounts wants another crack at...something)
On the other hand, Martha Coakley (currently suing the Money Changers in the Temple, the Gospel of Matthew is now "exhibit A" in the people's lawsuit) might construe vindication from a Warren victory and go staggering off on the campaing trail trying to grab off the Governorship.
So a lot of things are riding on this senate race...starting with an unending stream of "sarcastic rant driven chatter" from yours truly, Humble Elias Nugator.

Kultur Note

2011-12-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Robots" are running amok in Davis Square tomorrow night...

"Live by the ABM (Anyone But Mitt)...

2011-11-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

Die by the ABM..."

It would seem that Herman Cain's presidential campaign, which bestrode this earth liken unto a colossus a mere month ago, now hangs by a slender thread.
Cain's rapid rise and fall, in sequence with Perry's flameout and Bachmann's hour of glory, points to a larger issue within the GOP, namely the persistence of a ideological core in the republican party that would vote for a Wart Hog Pig before they'd go with Willard Mitt Romney.
How else to account for Newt Gingrich's sudden rise in the polls, the desperate need for and alternative to Romney has now finally alighted on a thrice married corruptard with a cheap mouth and a sophomore's grasp of history.
What I don't get is, why can't this core come to grips with Romney? They've certainly vopted for richer more opportunistic men in their time. And it isn't like Mitt isn't eager to promise them all free hookers in return for their votes...but no matter how much he panders and glad hands this lot dismisses him.
I suspect it is because Romney just isn't a very adept panderer, and there is no feeling of doom quite like the one engendered by an eager clean cut candidate who falls flat on his face every time he flip flops.
Thus we can be sure to hear more and more about Mitt's craven opportunism as the campaign gains momentum tracking neatly with yet another ABM driven counter candidate.
The ideological core of the GOP has simply fossilized too completely for this to play out any other way.

Mitt Romney wants to remove the "magnets"

2011-11-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

that supposedly draw illegal immigrants to this country, like I dunno emergency room health care and the Micky D's ribwich I guess.
Of course the biggest and baddest "magnet" is a job, a shitty job to be sure, cleaning pools and or taking care of some monied slob's hapless offspring, but a job nevertheless. So if Mitt Romney really wants to drain the swamp, why not simply reclassify all those shitty jobs as closed shop positions?
The AFL-CIO will swoop down like a Klingon Bird of Prey and fill those slots up overnight with dues paying members all of them will rock solid birth certificates...problem solved no more Mexicano hedgeclippers.
Granted, the cost of a pool cleaning will increasing exponentially, but shouldn't we be willing to pay some price to keep the wogs out?
Granted this is all sheer sarcasm on Humble Elias part, but if you were to propose it to Willard's face, his poor head would probably explode because while he panders incessantly he is nonetheless bad at it.
Put two beneficial political outcomes into mutual opposition before Mitt and the explosive bolts that hold his psyche together auto-detonate every time.

Barney we hardly knew ye...

2011-11-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

Congressman Frank throws in the towel, won't run for re-election in 2012.

Aside from being an effective exponent of liberal ideals and a fighter in the best sense of the term, Barney Frank will be missed because he had real wit.
And good rapier witticisms is in short supply in our congressional delegation these days (sorry Congressman Markey tis a truth tellin' time so it is).
Which tells you a lot as to why the local clowns among the punditariat always hated Barney Frank, he was funnier than they. Clowns always whither in the face of true wit.

Godspeed Congressman Frank you will be missed.

There is just something about Mitt Romney

2011-11-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

that the Manchester Union Leader does not like.
Faced with his candidacy for the GOP Presidential Nomination for the second time in four years, the Union Leader airily endorsed thrice married money worshipper & notorious grouch Newt Gingrich for President.
Mitt cannot catch a break no matter how many endangered swimmers he pulls out of Lake Winnepausakee (sp).
The last time the Union Leader went for that surly divorcee' John McCain...clearly as far as Brand Romney is concerned, a pattern begins to assert itself.
As for Newt this is a good "GET" after his uncharacteristically humane response to the illegal immigration issue, the Union Leader's reach is much diminished these days but it motivates a aging cohort who vote very reliably. Assuming Gingrich can make this a tight race in New Hampshire the endorsement might be enough to tip the state in the former speaker's favor.
"Might"being the operative word here.

This seems like a good idea...

2011-11-25T06:31:00.000-07:00

The President's re-election campaign only sells "made in America" tchotchkes.

The GOP candidates are nowhere near as consistent in their policies....surprise surprise eh?

Well it is "Black Friday" today, if you are gonna consume, at least consume in a way that puts an American Worker to Work.

Well today is a sad day in the Commonwealth I think

2011-11-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

the Governor signed the casino gambling bill. Normally I can place great trust in Deval Patrick's judgement & personal probity, but from the bottom of my heart I wish this was one campaign promise he had broken.
But the fight goes on regardless, any well reasoned attempt to get the issue on next year's ballot will find a firm friend (for what it is worth) in "The Chimes at Midnight".
And I can only hope I am wrong about gaming being the downfall of the Commonwealth's democrats.

Oh and Mitt Romney has

2011-11-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

officially backed down from last week's scheme to privatize the VA and thus throw Elias Nugator Sr into the tender and efficient clutches of the US Nursing Home Industry.
I love how the Former Viceroy backs down, he makes an art of insisting that he never meant what he said.

Did anyone out there really think

2011-11-22T10:44:00.000-07:00

that the so called "Super Committee" was going to turn in a worthwhile budget plan?
I surely did not.
Even with John Kerry there making a good faith bid to ease the deficit to a soft landing.
Well what can I say...democrats compromise, republicans fantasize.
And theese days the GOP's opposition to taxes borders on the theological....I am not sure they can even conceive of any circumstances whatsoever that would require higher revenues.
Therein lies the whole of the story.
Moreover no one seems to have been invested in this committee's success, clearly sequestration suits everyone's political calculus much better than a budget plan that spreads the pain out equally.
At the very least the Bush Tax Cuts may finally expire, although I can sense Congress will leap thru hoops of fire to preserve, protect and defend the right of rich people to evade paying their fair share of the burden.
It will be interesting to see what half assed nonsense John Boehner will dredge up to preserve the literal sanctity of those tax cuts.

Other than that, I'd like to recall the immortal words of the late William S. Burroughs:

"When you are doing business with a religious son of bitch, get it in writing! His word doesn't mean shit not with the Good Lord telling him how to screw you on a deal".

Thought for the Day

2011-11-21T06:28:00.001-07:00

Now that he is up in the polls, I'm just waiting for Newt "Three Marriages and Counting" Gingrich to show up at a Francistown NH Middle School to eructate one of his celebrated harangues, this time on behalf of abstinence education.

And then, if the next day, Mitt Romney came to the school and one of the children asked him to clarify his sketchy views on natural selection based on the persistence of drug resistant strains of tuberculosis...that would be just too gawd damned delightful to be sure.

Robert Maginn

2011-11-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

last seen getting his ass kicked by Shannon O'Brien in the State Treasurer's race, is Mitt Romney and Scott Brown's joint nominee to head the State Republican Committee.
Both these guys have critical races in 2012 and need someone to run interference for them at state party headquarters.
The problem is, the GOP base in the Commonwealth (increasingly an angry tea partyish contingent) really really really hates this guy with a mortal passion.
Lord you think the Chimes at Midnight hates Romney you should see what the local wingnut bloggers are saying about Maginn.
Apparently his wife (a political refugee from the PRC) is insufficiently anti-Darwin or some damn thing...And that is just for starters.
This is bad news for a state party with little ongoing ground game and is therefore dependent on fundraising TV commercials and a smooth outreach to independents.
And all this infighting just when the GOP has a good toehold in the State Legislature and a seat in the US Congress comes into play...tsk tsk.
Well I'm a democrat so I'm used to infighting...Always interesting to see it as a pure spectator.

BTW...

2011-11-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

There is a poll out there that indicates Newt Gingrich has pulled even with Romney in New Hampshire!

If this truly is the case, I may need to rent out Harvard University Stadium for a prolonged fit of ugly guffaws.

Well I've said it before and I'll say it again, Mitt Romney can screw up a two car funeral and that goes for blowing a big built in lead up in New Hampshire.

Well, I say that, but the reality is that Newt Gingrich is the biggest serial corruptard to contest the GOP nomination since the Glory Days of James G. Blaine, I don't believe for a moment he can build any momentum off of this poll.
Honestly, Newt loves money and mistresses the way a hog loves slop.

Still it'll be plain fun to see if Mitt starts squirming, the primary is getting closer and closer and he tends to get flustered when the heat is on.

Y'know it costs a lot of

2011-11-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

"billable hours" for a lawyer to come up with legal justification that allows gubernatorial aides to buy back their state issued hard drives.

And there is something so quintessentially "Brand Romney" about such a move, underhanded, heavy handed and smarmy all at the same time.
And not for nothing but didn't Romney spend four full years in office ranting and raving about the nefarious back room deals and secrecy on Beacon Hill??
I mean not a week went by when the Governor's Office didn't eructate some press release denouncing the "culture of corruption" in state government.
"Culture of Corruption" indeed.
Ghod if Mike Dukakis' posse pulled a stunt like this the Howie Carr's of this state would have themselves A Jubilee.
But Mitt? Butter wouldn't melt in his mealy mouth....

Confluence...

2011-11-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

I read with no great surprise in today's Globe that before leaving the governorship, Team Romney deleted virtually their entire backlog of emails to the point of buying their state issued hard-drives with their personal cash.
Apparently, if the Globe can be believed, this is legal in the Commonwealth if not entirely ethical.
Now, I doubt any particularly actionable is on those emails, Romney's corruption is rooted in his opportunism and ambition, his greed has already netted him a fortune so mere financial advantage probably isn't in play here. No, the worst that might be on there is the revelation that Mitt's presidential dementia probably predated his election to the Governorship of Massachusetts.
That is speculation on my part, but I'll be I'm close to the mark.
No...my big point today is, that any state that would allow state employees to buy their computer hard-drives as part of a bid to keep private and secure messages that are part of the public records, is a state that ought to give second thoughts to legalizing casino gambling.
If we have these kinds of holes in our public ethics statutes, imagine the mishaugas that'll blow up once casino lobbyists camp out permanently on Beacon Hill.
Shit they are there already and ground hasn't even broken on any casinos yet.
I urge the Governor (admittedly hopelessly) to veto the gaming bill on his desk now for the Good of the Commonwealth.
He won't but I had to do that.
Which is why I am fine with any effort to get casino gambling as a ballot question next year, this might be our last best hope to lobby Beacon Hill "en masse".

We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here folks, think about it.

Job Creation...

2011-11-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

From Citizen Romney we are gonna hear a lot of this in the coming months.
So it is important to set the record straight.
In that Mitt Romney never created a single job by risking any of his own money.
If he did create any jobs (and his record begins and ends with the 2002 Winter Olympics which is a very unique case indeed) it was only by the grace of the full faith and credit of Other People's Money.
Mostly he is know for loaning money to other rich white men, I'm sure he knows how to buy low, sell high and charge an arm and a leg for interest, but job creation he knows about as much as Humble Elias.
Which is why Romney's job creation program is pretty much nothing but what he knows, I.E. low taxes, lotsa loopholes and a better opportunities for financials to run amok unmolested by the public interest.
I mean, if a job is created for someone somewhere it's almost by accident.
Beyond this, the Romney record on job creation is limited to cash tips to the Dominoes Pizza Delivery Guy in Belmont Ma.

Crawling on his knees back to "The Vital Center"...

2011-11-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Former State Senator Scott Brown after two years of carrying water for Wall Street in a particulary obnoxious & servile way has abruptly endorsed Richard Cordray's nomination to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Clearly the Senator realizes that Citizen Warren's anti Wall Street cred has some resonance in the Commonwealth and is therefore tacking to Port as a consequence.
Typical Scott Brown in other words, No on Monday Means Yes on Friday Assuming the Usual Fatcats Get Their Cut.
He has made his money, now he needs to secure his political prospects.
The above endorsement BTW doesn't make a damn bit of difference, the GOP auto-pilot filibuster is still rock solid even with Brown's defection.
Think of this a good measure of how quickly Citizen Warren has influenced the emerging debate in next year's senatorial election.

America's Sophomore

2011-11-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Newt Gingrich, is creeping up and up in the current GOP polls.

I can see why, Newt is a career pseudo intellectual and the DC punditariat love a pseudo intellectual in politics especially if he is a conservative and brags about all the books he has read.
Meanwhile I have to wonder if all this political instability is about creating a viable alternative to Mitt Romney, then does it make sense to drop one candidate with a crude thing for mistresses (Herman Cain) for another candidate(Newt Gingrich) who simply marries his mistresses and then dismisses them in fiercely ugly divorces?
Dunno if that is good bargain with the GOP "values base" over the long term. On the other hand sexual hypocrisy is pretty much a plank in the Republican Platform these days...As long as you can bang the pots long and loud for old fashioned puritanism all sorts of personal debauchery will be resolutely overlooked.
How else to explain the political career of Newt Gingrich the very embodiment of the "Say One Thing and Do Another" conservative ethic?

Mitt Romney Makes It Personal...

2011-11-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

Candidate Romney, caving in to pressure to be just as wingnut crazy as everyone else in the GOP presidential sweeps, has now proposed privatizing the Department of Veteran's Affairs.
Let me put it simply, Over My Cold Dead Body Willard!
My old man, he is ninety years old, and at the Crossing of the Rhine in 1945 he sacrificed everything short of his life for this Republic
Elias Nugator Sr. is ninety, riddled with Alzheimer's Disease, punished with war wounds,wheelchair bound and vexed by a list of health problems that would turn your hair gray.
By Act of Congress, the Department of Veteran's Affairs has to see to his care given the extent of his war related injuries.
Thank Ghod for the VA, they are taking exemplary care of him at a time in his life when he has a lot of medical needs.
Can't imagine the sort of raw deal he'd get if the care system was privatized, certainly the ratio of caregiver to veteran would go down...and if you don't like the paperwork from the VA, wait til your local HMO gets it's snout in the trough!
I know a lot of contemporary Vets are having big problems with the VA, Humble Elias sympathizes, the department is in sore need of sensible reform.
Mitt Romney though, he wants to throw everything on the tender mercies of A.I.G.
Just once, can't an institution that serves the common man or in this case the common soldier get the coveted designation "To Big To Fail".
I mean a well run efficient service oriented Department of Veteran's Affairs has to be at least as important as bailing out General Motors or Bank of America.
Privatization benefits the Mitt Romney's of the world, period end of story.
If I didn't like the man before, I plainly despise him now.

Sooo Karl Rove is backing Scott Brown to the hilt eh?

2011-11-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

Even has a campaign video attacking Citizen Warren for being a comsymp or some damn thing.
Seems like Karl's mojo has run stale, but ya never know, the depths of his hatred for liberals and democracy itself are still pretty vital.
Of course, Scott Brown is the usual sort of evasive opportunistic "Edward M. Jason" character that La Famiglia Arbusto would normally casually betray and or primary out of existence if possible.
However, Mitch McConnell wants to be Senate Majority so he can outlaw the last one hundred years entirely, so he need's Scott Brown's vote in caucus...Hence the intervention from Karl Rove.
Of course the utility of deploying Rove in a state where he polls below Lavrenty Beria in public admiration is in and of itself, questionable.

So Citizen Rick Perry could not recall

2011-11-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

just which Federal Departments he wanted to abolish during last night's debate?

That is pretty pathetic if you asked me. A demagogue who cannot recall his own bluster in sequence is almost never destined for The Purple. Recall please Senator Joseph McCarthy who could never get straight just how many communists were supposedly infesting the US State Department, fifty, seventy five, two hundred, it varied. Of course, McCarthy got dropped to the canvas by the first brahmin who could line up on his chin...Perry had better take some time to memorize his own bullshit thass all I can say.
Well, whatever, we all know he will do no such this, the man is just plain dumber than a bag of hammers, and like they say "You Can't Fix Stupid".
What I wanna know is just who convinced Perry to parachute into this race to begin with? I mean as dumb as the Texas Governor is, the sheer credulity of his backers must be an awe inspiring thig.

Congrats to Ayanna Pressley

2011-11-09T10:45:00.001-07:00

once rumored to be "on her way out" of the Boston City Council she topped the ticket in last night's municipal elections and neatly refurbished her status as a "Woman of Destiny".
Just don't inhale kiddo, that is Humble Elias' advice.
As usual, the Globe etc will make much wampum about her Mayoral Prospects (whoever "tops the ticket" is instantly granted "Future Mayor" status among the local punditariat), however lets be real and note that Mayor Menino is likely to remain the dominant playa in City Politics for some time to come. I'd give him odds that barring some controversy or a health issue Menino will run for re-election next time around.
It seems crazy, Menino ran out of ideas a full decade ago and his looking awfully long in the tooth but his patented classic early 20th century brand of politics has kept him safely in office for twenty years, why stop there?
That is the context that really greets Ms. Pressley...Until Tom Menino steps aside she has risen just as far as she can go, unless she gets a yen to see the sights along the Potomac or something.
Still and all that, she gave that glass ceiling a good shaking didn't she?

This is a long comprehensive take down of Mitt Romney

2011-11-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

from a fairly prominent conservative blogger/DC pundit. It is significant to Humble Elias simply because much of the arguments could have been cribbed from the Chimes at Midnight itself.
It is, nonetheless, food for thought.
Meanwhile this mook is living large on his Anti Mitt bona fides while I clip "Building 19" coupons...Clearly I'm working da wrong side of da street.

A moment of silence please

2011-11-08T04:25:00.000-07:00

Smokin' Joe Frazier, the man who laid Muhammad Ali out on the canvas, has up and died.

And if there is a life after this one, you just know Joe is livid that he did not outlive Muhammad Ali and thus must wait for his rematch.

How long before Senator

2011-11-08T04:21:00.000-07:00

Kay Bailey Hutchison walks back her ringing defense of Herman Cain yesterday, given the graphic descriptions of the alleged act by one of his accusers live on TV?
It is important to remember that Citizen Hutchison voted to remove Bill Clinton from office over Monica Lewinsky et al, Herman Cain though, is held to no such exacting standard by the Senator from Texas...at least for now.

It does not surprise me one whit

2011-11-07T10:47:00.000-07:00

that Herman Cain came up in the polls after he was accused of sexual harassment by no less than three former employees (and counting).
The GOP is famously deaf to the pleas of women for workplace equality and lets face it, the decline of movement conservatism can be easily measured by their sheer imperviousness to irony.
Sexual harassment as such is an accusation one flings joyously at democrats and liberals, not something one applies with equal ferocity at one's co-ideologues.
This is why Ann Coulter can rise so vehemently and seemingly guilelessly to Cain's defense having cut her teeth back in the late 1990's on Bill Maher's old show calling Bill Clinton everything short of a rapist.
Again, the absence of any irony here is a strong indicator that conservatism is still mired in it's post Bush ideological sink hole.
So for the moment, Herman gets a pass, unless those embers start to blaze up and then if the polling can be believed a good chunk of Cain's base will desert to Newt Gingrich and his all ex-wife orchestra.

Yesterday,

2011-11-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

Peter Canellos, who is normally the executive editor of the Boston Globe's editorial devoted a considerable amount of time and effort to an argument in favor of retaining Scott Brown in the US Senate on the grounds that he is "a moderate".
I would link to the specific op-ed, but Morrissey Boulevard is playin' for keepsies these days.
So this guy is the source of the Globe's strange mission to bang the pots for the cold grey corpse of moderate republicanism.
Of course, the problem with this thesis is simple, Scott is not a moderate republican, he in reality a sort of fireman, that is he publicly pours cold water on the embers of any good idea in Washington DC when he isn't strenuously diluting the potent brew of justice.
And for this "ganymede act" Senator Brown collects boffo bucks from Wall Street, assuming he can avoid eating babies or coming out for free hookers this is enough to pass as a "moderate" in the eyes of the Boston Globe.
As I've said before, the whole moderate republican thing is pretty much a fundraising flag of convenience and a pose by which to stultify the senses of the susceptible members of the punditariat, nothing more.
Scott Brown figured that out long ago, he does not need to give up much to receive such plaudits, you'd think the Globe would catch on, but no...this is the just about the ten thousandth Sunday in a row where some Globe columnist has gone sighing helplessly after the still silent spirit of Wendell Willkie.

So anyway...

2011-11-04T10:46:00.000-06:00

Citizen Elizabeth Warren went down to Brockton to speak in front of a VFW-ful of volunteers only to be called a "socialist whore" by a tea partei heckler.
Well so much for Joanie Vennochi's notion that The Candidate is somehow being kept sequestered in a "bubble" eh?
And not for nothing, but I ranged up and down the Boston Globe this morning not word one about this disgraceful encounter. I guess all the pundits need time to figure out how to spin this as a victory for republican moderation or as yet another misfire from John Kerry, blah blah blah.
Meanwhile let the record show, I've been to my share of GOP events, even ones where questions were taken from the aud, never once did I stand up and call Mitt Romney a "fascist pig".
Maybe I should have, I mean lord knows my mother would never have read about it in the Boston Globe.
I mean talk about keeping the news sequestered in a bubble....

If I had to guess...

2011-11-03T10:51:00.000-06:00

then I think it possible that the Romney campaign leaked that damaging sexual harassment info on Herman Cain to Rick Perry's outfit.
Seems like the sort of sneaky ass stuff the former Viceroy's minions would pull...and besides from the looks of Rick Perry's campaign staff they are to a man dumber than a bag of hammers and likely incapable to dredging up damaging personal info about a rival.

What Massachusetts needs is a"Yul Brynner Law"...

2011-11-03T10:47:00.000-06:00

Remember that line he had in "The King and I"?
"No head can be higher than MINE!"
Over in Chelsea, the Housing Authority Chief was until today, collecting a yearly salary of over three hundred thousand dollars!
And all over the Commonwealth the story is much the same, we have dozens of obscure boards, commissions, directorships and other public sinecures that have HUGE salary compensation built into them.
My solution is simple, no public salary in the Commonwealth may exceed that of the Governor's, as a matter of fact all other salaries are hereby capped at ten thousand dollars less than the Governor's gross yearly paycheck which is currently $140,535. That means the top salary category outside the corner office would be $130,535.00.
Mind you this only applies to boards commissions, local officers and the Commonwealth Executive Department etc, because lord knows the State Legislature will work 37.5 hours straight to exempt themselves from any such restriction.
But we have to start somewhere I guess...

"Governor Huntsman...

2011-11-03T10:39:00.000-06:00

Your footnote is calling..."

There is nothing more hilarious to me than a bunch of has been political operatives ginnin' up some deadbeat "nonpartisan" third party option all in an effort to get back in the headlines and maybe just maybe get the phone ringing again.
Why, they've even raised twenty two million dollars to fund their effort, sheee-it, I'm not even sure 22 large gets you from the Iowa Caucuses thru the New Hampshire Primary these days.
I'm sure all the David Broders and Scot Lehighs out there are just awestruck with the potential of this all new and improved Third Partei.
Otherwise this is happening right on schedule, the New Hampshire Primary date is now set, the GOP-Democratic actors are prettuy much set in stone, the punditariat has heard everyone's stump speech ten times over and is now off in search of some deep dark Third Partei Kicks.
They are even spinning this as a big threat to Barack Obama, never saw that one a-coming believe me.
Meanwhile, these meatheads are probably gonna try and get John Huntsman to switch up, they need a marquee name and he is likely their best bet at the moment, which speaks volumes about their "nonpartisan" electoral prospects.

Scot Lehigh has it wrong...

2011-11-02T10:48:00.001-06:00

its not that the mysterious intangible "republican right" is enforcing a rigid orthodoxy on the current GOP presidential aspirants, it is that most if not all the GOP presidential aspirants have themselves long records of enforcing a rigid conservative policy on the rest of us.
And if they deviate, (which is the point of his article) well...what can I say, crazy people & opportunists are never consistent.
Meanwhile I've come to the conclusion that Scot Lehigh might actually be a reasonable writer someday, if only he could get over his compulsive attempts to recast Mitt Romney as nice friendly GOP moderate a'la Thomas Dewey.
Moderation is dead in the republican party, it isn't coming back in our lifetimes, Scot seriously needs to confront that diresome fact. Wishing and hoping that the famously selfish and self interested Mitt Romney will emerge from the cocoon as Wendell Willkie V2.0 ain't gonna cut it.

I guess this means

2011-11-01T10:44:00.000-06:00

that Herman Cain really was just another flavor of the week in the GOP Presidential Stakes.
Advantage...Romney.
Oh and clearly Rick Perry has gone from A Future Dictator of the USA to the Andy Dick of the current republican presidential contenders. If he keeps this up, he'll be finishing behind "High Pitched Rick" Santorum and the write in vote for botulism in the New Hampshire Primary.
Again...advantage Romney.
But still I like to think that somehow someone will rise up to challenge the Viceroy, he is hardly gaffe-proof after all....hell the man can hardly improvise in front of a microphone at all.
Well, a lot depends on the date of the New Hampshire Primary, if it is a short date then it's hard to dislodge Romney from his front runner status, if its a longer date then there is still time for someone to catch fire (and I don't mean the way Rick Perry's prospects are burning either).
And after all this is Willard Mitt Romney, he could screw up a two car funeral.

This is pretty sick and sad...

2011-10-31T10:44:00.001-06:00

a homeless themed office Halloween party at a top Foreclosure Firm.

Honestly, where are the pickets and protesters when you need em'??

Say what you like about the old Robber Barons, they at least had class and sense of decorum. Today's overclass are the worst bunch of overindulged vulgarians imaginable.

(Autumn Parable) A Governor of Texas rode to New Hampshire on a brand new

2011-10-30T17:47:00.000-06:00

Harley Davidson motorcycle, wearing a black cowboy hat, well worn blue jeans, ivory handled six shooters strapped to his hips and a Winchester hunting rifle casually slung off the side of his "hog".
When he got to Antrim, he got off, shook the dust of the road from his gleaming cowboy boots and announced to a feckless and unimpressed crowd "Ah fixin' ta run fer President in these here parts! Better vote fer me..."
"What if'n we don't..." drawled a voice mockingly from the back.
"Waaal then I'll have ta persuade yew, Texas style", he smiled & stroked the butt of his revolver for emphasis.
Whereupon said firearm promptly discharged a round into the Governor's foot, who emitted a high pitched scream and started comically hopping up and down holding the injured foot in his hands.
While hopping around shrieking and cursing, his cuff got caught in the hammer of his other pistol which, did it's duty by firing another round into the remaining uninjured foot of the aforementioned Governor of Texas who promptly fell in such a way as to bring his motorcycle down on top of him breaking both legs with a sickening snap.
Enraged and humiliated and unburdened by common sense, the Governor of Texas attempted to "Shoot the motorcycle off him"with his rifle but was thwarted at the last minute by his listeners who'd temporarily put aside their laughing jags to wrestle the Winchester away from him.
Thus the flinty natives of Antrim NH were treated to the heartening spectacle of a certain Governor of Texas pinned under a motorcycle with two neat bullet holes in his feet and alternately cursing liberals when he wasn't bawling for his mother in a sad desperate and cringeworthy way.
And as the EMTs were loading him into the ambulance the Governor of Texas was heard to wail "As soon as I scale back on my dee-bate commitments I'm gonna git the candy assed liberal community activists that snuck up and shot me in my feet!!"