It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Paul Ryan's "bipartisan" "compromise" to "end" the government shutdown, in which he would graciously accept all of the Social Security and Medicare cuts the Obama budget offered, but none of the tax hikes the Obama budget demanded in return (though he'd give back the sequestration cuts, what a guy!). Seriously, though, I always said that the Obama budget offering Social Security and Medicare cuts would come back to bite him.
Rep. Lee "Danged Straight!" Terry (R-NE) will draw a formidable opponent for Nebraska's 2nd in 2014, an Omaha City Councillor named Pete Festersen. While I know the old saw that Nebraska actually has two Republican parties but one of them just happens to refer to themselves as Democrats, a Pete Festersen victory won't be anything to celebrate -- he's another one who calls himself "pro-business" as if those of us who won't give corporations everything they want are somehow "anti-business."
Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) told furloughed federal workers on Facebook that if they're facing tough times, they should just take out a loan. I thought everybody had to balance their budgets, sir! How dare you encourage fiscal irresponsibility in this manner! Seriously, his district's fairly right-of-center, but a Democrat just served a term there from 2008-10, and New Mexico Democrats don't just fall down for anybody, so this could be a faux pas you see in TV ads incessantly a year from now.
Maryland state police reports depict state Attorney General Douglas Gansler (also running in the Democratic primary for governor) as the kind of guy who'd order them to hit the lights and sirens and speed and run red lights just so he could get to mundane appointments on time. Mr. Gansler, in response, concedes a certain amount of "backseat driving" and nothing else -- but if the accusations are true, they're extremely damning; a man capable of disrespecting the law that greatly is capable of doing pretty much anything to anybody, and shouldn't even be Attorney General, let alone Governor.
In case you thought racism was so over already, behold: a 7 GB map of America, with each American represented by one dot, and each dot colored to represent a person's race. You'll notice some areas are quite, well, like-colored. Some folks will say well, that just means people like to stay with their own kind, and I suppose those folks have never talked to a real estate agent even once in their lives.
Finally, seminal Tea Party group FreedomWorks has had such bad money troubles lately they've had to take out a $1 million line of credit. Fiscal responsibility! That's what they get for paying Dick Armey $8 million late last year to go away. When I think of FreedomWorks, I'm actually tempted to think more fondly of the John Birch Society ("at least they weren't total clowns!"), but I'm almost certain a little more research would cure that with a quickness.
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