Romney Crushes it in Arizona, Scrapes by in Michigan Romney is the projected landslide winner in Arizona, according to CNN, NBC, NPR, Fox News, and a slew of others. Michigan is still too close for the news channels to call, although on Twitter, commentators are calling it for Romney: If the exits are correct, they imply Romney will win MI by a few points, writes the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein. Santorum may have benefited from the votes of Democratic Michiganders, who’ve been enticed to the GOP polls by a combination of Santorum-campaign robocalls and “Campaign Hilarity,” a movement started by liberal blog site the Daily Kos to ensure an Obama vs. Santorum line-up in the presidential election.
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Romney Crushes it in Arizona, Scrapes by in Michigan

Romney is the projected landslide winner in Arizona, according to CNN, NBC, NPR, Fox News, and a slew of others.

Michigan is still too close for the news channels to call, although on Twitter, commentators are calling it for Romney:

If the exits are correct, they imply Romney will win MI by a few points,
writes the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein.

Santorum may have benefited from the votes of Democratic Michiganders, who’ve been enticed to the GOP polls by a combination of Santorum-campaign robocalls and “Campaign Hilarity,” a movement started by liberal blog site the Daily Kos to ensure an Obama vs. Santorum line-up in the presidential election.

Source: topix.com

Ron Paul and Mitt Romney: Secret Allies?  The Daily Caller’s Alex Pappas reports on a study by ThinkProgress revealing Ron Paul’s strange lack of charges against Mitt Romney during the course of the GOP debates. Paul has gone after Santorum on over 20 occasions, but never once targeted Romney: ThinkProgress reported that Paul attacked Santorum 22 times and Gingrich 8 times in the debates. He attacked Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain four times each and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann one time while they were in the race. Is this because Paul, a staunch libertarian, finds Santorum and his well-known anti-libertarian views a more worthy opponent? Whatever the reason, theories abound as to why Paul is staying silent vis-à-vis Romney. Die-hard Paul supporters, however, deny any collusion, telling Talking Points Memo, “There’s no way Ron Paul is helping Mitt Romney in Michigan.”
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Ron Paul and Mitt Romney: Secret Allies?

 The Daily Caller’s Alex Pappas reports on a study by ThinkProgress revealing Ron Paul’s strange lack of charges against Mitt Romney during the course of the GOP debates. Paul has gone after Santorum on over 20 occasions, but never once targeted Romney:
ThinkProgress reported that Paul attacked Santorum 22 times and Gingrich 8 times in the debates. He attacked Texas Gov. Rick Perry and businessman Herman Cain four times each and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann one time while they were in the race.
Is this because Paul, a staunch libertarian, finds Santorum and his well-known anti-libertarian views a more worthy opponent? Whatever the reason, theories abound as to why Paul is staying silent vis-à-vis Romney. Die-hard Paul supporters, however, deny any collusion, telling Talking Points Memo, “There’s no way Ron Paul is helping Mitt Romney in Michigan.”

Source: topix.com

Is there a difference between Republicans’ and Democrats’ love affair with Wall Street?  According to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, the right-wing effort to portray Obama as a crony for big business is “sowing confusion” and rank with hypocrisy. Citing the efforts of Mitt Romney’s Super PAC and an outfit called The American Future Fund to undermine Obama’s “populist message” by painting him as one of Wall Street’s biggest allies, Sargent has this to say about both: You can see one of the key reasons these outside groups exist: They can spend huge sums of money on ads that are truly amazing in their up-is-downism — ones that are designed to do nothing more than blur lines, muddy waters, and sow confusion — even as their chief beneficiaries avoid any accountability for their absurdity. The hypocrisy charge is certainly on point, but is Obama really a thorn in the side of Wall Street? Not even close, as the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney has long revealed. Here’s Carney’s report from an Obama fundraiser in 2011, written long after the passage of Dodd-Frank, the supposed bane of Wall Street. Note the long list of Wall Street donors and this telling quote from Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: “We will be among the biggest beneficiaries of reform.” But maybe hypocrisy is less important than effective hypocrisy management, and anything that hurts Obama will inevitably help Republicans. If that’s where Sargent is coming from, it’s understandable that he’d want to avoid, as he puts it, “blurring the lines.”
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Is there a difference between Republicans’ and Democrats’ love affair with Wall Street?


 According to the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent, the right-wing effort to portray Obama as a crony for big business is “sowing confusion” and rank with hypocrisy. Citing the efforts of Mitt Romney’s Super PAC and an outfit called The American Future Fund to undermine Obama’s “populist message” by painting him as one of Wall Street’s biggest allies, Sargent has this to say about both:

You can see one of the key reasons these outside groups exist: They can spend huge sums of money on ads that are truly amazing in their up-is-downism — ones that are designed to do nothing more than blur lines, muddy waters, and sow confusion — even as their chief beneficiaries avoid any accountability for their absurdity.
The hypocrisy charge is certainly on point, but is Obama really a thorn in the side of Wall Street? Not even close, as the Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney has long revealed. Here’s Carney’s report from an Obama fundraiser in 2011, written long after the passage of Dodd-Frank, the supposed bane of Wall Street. Note the long list of Wall Street donors and this telling quote from Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein: “We will be among the biggest beneficiaries of reform.” But maybe hypocrisy is less important than effective hypocrisy management, and anything that hurts Obama will inevitably help Republicans. If that’s where Sargent is coming from, it’s understandable that he’d want to avoid, as he puts it, “blurring the lines.”

Source: topix.com

Is the Endless GOP Primary Making America More Conservative? The answer is yes, absolutely, says Salon’s David Sirota: I believe the longer the Republican primary battle continues, the more the GOP’s most extreme proposals are given a mainstream platform, the more their ideas are granted public credibility and the more conservative propaganda is invisibly woven into our most basic political assumptions. Sirota probably has a point. After all, the dark side of contraception wasn’t a major talking point until the Santorum et. al. pushed the issue onto the national agenda.
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Is the Endless GOP Primary Making America More Conservative?

The answer is yes, absolutely, says Salon’s David Sirota:

I believe the longer the Republican primary battle continues, the more the GOP’s most extreme proposals are given a mainstream platform, the more their ideas are granted public credibility and the more conservative propaganda is invisibly woven into our most basic political assumptions.

Sirota probably has a point. After all, the dark side of contraception wasn’t a major talking point until the Santorum et. al. pushed the issue onto the national agenda.

Source: topix.com

motherjones: Chart: Contributions from military members to presidential candidates. Not quite what you expected, eh? Full story here.
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motherjones:

Chart: Contributions from military members to presidential candidates.

Not quite what you expected, eh? Full story here.

Source: motherjones

Santorum Digs Himself a Hole at GOP Debate Earmarks are one thing that all voters loathe, and the GOP crowd at the Arizona debate was no exception. When Santorum got deep in the weeds defending earmarks, the audience reacted with uneasy silence, in contrast to the loud applause that followed his previous demolitions of Romney. Even Santorum looked like he was thinking, “why the hell am I saying this out loud?” and started tripping over his words. “Earmarks” are “the wacky system whereby individual congresspersons can tack on unrelated spending to bills,” writes the Guardian’s Richard Adams, leading to bloated bills involving hundreds of lines of federal spending. Romney also came out of the tangle looking the worse for wear, after Gingrich got off a zinger about his double standards. Romney essentially said, “earmarks are bad when you guys do it, except for my earmarks, which were awesome.” GINGRICH: “I just think it’s kind of silly for you to then turn around and run an ad attacking somebody else for getting what you got and then claiming what you got wasn’t what they got because what you got was right and what they got was wrong.” The skirmish turned into a circular firing squad, with candidates shouting over each other and a lot of head-shaking and derisive laughter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Santorum to Romney. “I didn’t follow all of that,” retorted Romney. Watch it here (7:40).
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Santorum Digs Himself a Hole at GOP Debate

Earmarks are one thing that all voters loathe, and the GOP crowd at the Arizona debate was no exception.

When Santorum got deep in the weeds defending earmarks, the audience reacted with uneasy silence, in contrast to the loud applause that followed his previous demolitions of Romney. Even Santorum looked like he was thinking, “why the hell am I saying this out loud?” and started tripping over his words.

“Earmarks” are “the wacky system whereby individual congresspersons can tack on unrelated spending to bills,” writes the Guardian’s Richard Adams, leading to bloated bills involving hundreds of lines of federal spending.

Romney also came out of the tangle looking the worse for wear, after Gingrich got off a zinger about his double standards. Romney essentially said, “earmarks are bad when you guys do it, except for my earmarks, which were awesome.”

GINGRICH: “I just think it’s kind of silly for you to then turn around and run an ad attacking somebody else for getting what you got and then claiming what you got wasn’t what they got because what you got was right and what they got was wrong.”

The skirmish turned into a circular firing squad, with candidates shouting over each other and a lot of head-shaking and derisive laughter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Santorum to Romney. “I didn’t follow all of that,” retorted Romney.

Watch it here (7:40).

Source: topix.com

New Jersey Senate Says “I Do!” to Gay Marriage New Jersey lawmakers just voted 24-16 in favor of a bill legalizing gay marriage. But gay Jerseyites won’t be walking down the aisle any time soon, because Governor Chris Christie has promised to veto the bill. His veto means passing up a gay marriage tourism boom for his state, but it’s also means he’ll avoid getting stuck with the Log Cabin Republican label when he makes his presidential run, as he inevitably will.
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New Jersey Senate Says “I Do!” to Gay Marriage

New Jersey lawmakers just voted 24-16 in favor of a bill legalizing gay marriage. But gay Jerseyites won’t be walking down the aisle any time soon, because Governor Chris Christie has promised to veto the bill.

His veto means passing up a gay marriage tourism boom for his state, but it’s also means he’ll avoid getting stuck with the Log Cabin Republican label when he makes his presidential run, as he inevitably will.

Source: topix.com

Obama’s Budget Hits the Wealthy, the Wars, and the Deficit Hawks Americans can look forward to another government stand-off after Obama’s budget is released later today. “Like the 2012 budget, it has no chance of being adopted by Congress,” writes The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. GOP-ers will be incensed by the budget, most of all because it breaks Obama’s promise to halve the deficit. Republican Paul Ryan has fired the first shot in this battle, telling POLITICO that We face a totally predictable debt crisis, and this is the fourth year in a row that the president has ducked it. I honestly thought he would triangulate after the 2010 elections, but he’s moved left. WaPo’s Klein defends the broken deficit promise, arguing that “fulfilling that promise” would have been “a dumb thing to do.” Who are the winners of Obama’s budget, released later today? Roads, infrastructure, manufacturing, and education all get a cash injection. The unemployed get extended benefits, and workers get a longer payroll tax holiday, according to The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery. And the budget’s losers? Corporations and the wealthy, who’ll see tax hikes adding up to $1.5 trillion, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which get spending caps.
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Obama’s Budget Hits the Wealthy, the Wars, and the Deficit Hawks

Americans can look forward to another government stand-off after Obama’s budget is released later today. “Like the 2012 budget, it has no chance of being adopted by Congress,” writes The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein.

GOP-ers will be incensed by the budget, most of all because it breaks Obama’s promise to halve the deficit.

Republican Paul Ryan has fired the first shot in this battle, telling POLITICO that

We face a totally predictable debt crisis, and this is the fourth year in a row that the president has ducked it. I honestly thought he would triangulate after the 2010 elections, but he’s moved left.

WaPo’s Klein defends the broken deficit promise, arguing that “fulfilling that promise” would have been “a dumb thing to do.”

Who are the winners of Obama’s budget, released later today?

Roads, infrastructure, manufacturing, and education all get a cash injection. The unemployed get extended benefits, and workers get a longer payroll tax holiday, according to The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery.

And the budget’s losers? Corporations and the wealthy, who’ll see tax hikes adding up to $1.5 trillion, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which get spending caps.

Source: topix.com

Obama: Most Moderate President Since WW2, Also the Most Polarizing Wouldn’t it surprise you to hear that Obama is the most moderate president since World War II? That’s what a new study has shown: President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era. However, Obama’s moderation has likely not been of his own choosing. The Washington Post’s Ezra Kelin notes that Obama’s been forced to the right by the “extremism” of Republican politicians: The GOP, in closing ranks against almost every major initiative Obama has attempted, has taken away most of his opportunities to be truly liberal.” Paradoxically, Obama is America’s most polarizing recent president, as well as the most moderate.
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Obama: Most Moderate President Since WW2, Also the Most Polarizing

Wouldn’t it surprise you to hear that Obama is the most moderate president since World War II? That’s what a new study has shown:

President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.

However, Obama’s moderation has likely not been of his own choosing. The Washington Post’s Ezra Kelin notes that Obama’s been forced to the right by the “extremism” of Republican politicians:

The GOP, in closing ranks against almost every major initiative Obama has attempted, has taken away most of his opportunities to be truly liberal.”

Paradoxically, Obama is America’s most polarizing recent president, as well as the most moderate.

Source: bit.ly

Conservatives Lose It Over Romney’s Gaffe, “I’m Not Concerned About the Very Poor” Romney is in all sorts of hot water with his conservative supporters, who are freaking out over the ten billionth major gaffe of his campaign.  In case you hadn’t heard, yesterday Romney followed up his Florida win with a mindbogglingly tactless remark: “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” Romney said in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. “What is wrong with this guy?” asks conservative opinionator Jonah Goldberg in The National Review. And over at the conservative journal of record The Weekly Standard, John McCormack writes, Romney’s remark isn’t merely tone-deaf, it’s also un-conservative. Readers in the comment threads of both pieces had even more colorful things to say about Romney’s gaffe: Romney loses people when he opens his mouth. and Romney will get destroyed in November.
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Conservatives Lose It Over Romney’s Gaffe, “I’m Not Concerned About the Very Poor”

Romney is in all sorts of hot water with his conservative supporters, who are freaking out over the ten billionth major gaffe of his campaign. 

In case you hadn’t heard, yesterday Romney followed up his Florida win with a mindbogglingly tactless remark:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor,”
Romney said in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien.

“What is wrong with this guy?” asks conservative opinionator Jonah Goldberg in The National Review.

And over at the conservative journal of record The Weekly Standard, John McCormack writes,
Romney’s remark isn’t merely tone-deaf, it’s also un-conservative.

Readers in the comment threads of both pieces had even more colorful things to say about Romney’s gaffe:

Romney loses people when he opens his mouth.
and
Romney will get destroyed in November.

Source: topix.com

Salon’s Joan Walsh has written a moving piece, “Demonizing the Decent Guy Who Is President,” on Republicans’ “shameful” mischaracterization of Obama.  Apparently last weekend GOP anti-Obamaism “hit a new low” when RNC chairman Reince Priebus compared Obama to the Italian captain of the Costa Condordia, who is accused of abandoning passengers on his sinking cruise ship. The money quote of the piece is when Walsh asks, Has there ever been a more decent, upstanding, all-American president, with his dog and his family and his Apollo Theatre song solos, treated more shamefully by his opponents?
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Salon’s Joan Walsh has written a moving piece, “Demonizing the Decent Guy Who Is President,” on Republicans’ “shameful” mischaracterization of Obama. 

Apparently last weekend GOP anti-Obamaism “hit a new low” when RNC chairman Reince Priebus compared Obama to the Italian captain of the Costa Condordia, who is accused of abandoning passengers on his sinking cruise ship.

The money quote of the piece is when Walsh asks,

Has there ever been a more decent, upstanding, all-American president, with his dog and his family and his Apollo Theatre song solos, treated more shamefully by his opponents?

Source: topix.com

Gingrich last night promised Americans the moon (yes, really) when he reiterated a campaign promise made last Friday: “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” Under Gingrich’s lunar-tic plan, moon colonists could form a U.S. state. Newt definitely isn’t interested in rational problem-solving, writes The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, and his fascination with moon colonization reveals why. Friedersdorf hones in on a revealing moment in which Gingrich defends his “large” visions: Gingrich: “The reason you have to have a bold and large vision is you don’t arouse the American nation with trivial, bureaucratic, rational objectives.” “That is telling,” says Friedersdorf. “Problem-solving isn’t [Gingrich’s] object. He aims, as he tells us, to arouse the American people.” Friedersdorf riffs on this to create a “bold” slogan for Gingrich’s campaign: “Newt Gingrich — he’s like Viagra for the national psyche.” (Side effects may include nausea, bigger deficits, self-aggrandizing speeches, foreign wars, demagoguery against Muslims, ethics scandals, and shameless demonstrations of moral hypocrisy. Not to be combined with actual executive power.)
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Gingrich last night promised Americans the moon (yes, really) when he reiterated a campaign promise made last Friday:

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.”

Under Gingrich’s lunar-tic plan, moon colonists could form a U.S. state.

Newt definitely isn’t interested in rational problem-solving, writes The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf, and his fascination with moon colonization reveals why.

Friedersdorf hones in on a revealing moment in which Gingrich defends his “large” visions:

Gingrich: “The reason you have to have a bold and large vision is you don’t arouse the American nation with trivial, bureaucratic, rational objectives.”

“That is telling,” says Friedersdorf. “Problem-solving isn’t [Gingrich’s] object. He aims, as he tells us, to arouse the American people.”

Friedersdorf riffs on this to create a “bold” slogan for Gingrich’s campaign:

“Newt Gingrich — he’s like Viagra for the national psyche.” (Side effects may include nausea, bigger deficits, self-aggrandizing speeches, foreign wars, demagoguery against Muslims, ethics scandals, and shameless demonstrations of moral hypocrisy. Not to be combined with actual executive power.)

Source: topix.com

At the GOP debate, Florida, Jan 26: PALESTINIAN AUDIENCE MEMBER: How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people? As a Palestinian-American Republican, I’m here to tell you we do exist. BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, you got into a little hot water when you said the Palestinians were an invented people. GINGRICH: It was technically an invention of the late 1970s, and it was clearly so. Prior to that, they were Arabs.  The map of Palestine, above, dates from 1924. 
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At the GOP debate, Florida, Jan 26:

PALESTINIAN AUDIENCE MEMBER: How would a Republican administration help bring peace to Palestine and Israel when most candidates barely recognize the existence of Palestine or its people? As a Palestinian-American Republican, I’m here to tell you we do exist.

BLITZER: Speaker Gingrich, you got into a little hot water when you said the Palestinians were an invented people.

GINGRICH: It was technically an invention of the late 1970s, and it was clearly so. Prior to that, they were Arabs. 

The map of Palestine, above, dates from 1924.