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

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"

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...

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

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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

"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...

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...

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"...

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

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...

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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...

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...

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"...

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...

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...

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

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.