Bidding Beck Bye
Where will you go when your TV contract ends?
What will you do without your nutjob friends?
With your viewership shrinking,
It’s got us to thinking —
We won’t miss your blackboard or your antics, Glenn.
Month: March 2011
Verbatim
I am not making this up. Win on a game show and you can apparently run for the U.S. Senate. That was when I realized the Democratic Party was f**ked in ’04.
— Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, quoted by New York magazine, on being recruited by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to challenge Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for U.S. Senate.
Verbatim
If pessimism is not creeping on little cat’s feet into Republicans’ thinking about their 2012 presidential prospects, that is another reason for pessimism. This is because it indicates they do not understand that sensible Americans, who pay scant attention to presidential politics at this point in the electoral cycle, must nevertheless be detecting vibrations of weirdness emanating from people associated with the party.>/h3>
— Columnist George Will, arguing that credible Republican presidential candidates will be hurt by “a process cluttered with careless, delusional, egomaniacal, spotlight-chasing candidates to whom the sensible American majority would never entrust a lemonade stand, much less nuclear weapons.”
Haridopolos Made More on His Book than J.K. Rowling on ‘Harry Potter’
61,000 times more
On a per-copy basis, the amount Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R) made for his book on Florida governance compared with what J.K. Rowling did for the Harry Potter series.
Boehner, Republicans Want You to Believe U.S. is ‘Broke’
House Speaker John Boehner routinely offers this diagnosis of the U.S.’s fiscal condition: “We’re broke; broke going on bankrupt.” Trouble is, it’s not true, according to Bloomberg News.
“The U.S. government is not broke,” said Marc Chandler, global head of currency strategy for Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “There’s no evidence that the market is treating the U.S. government like it’s broke.”
- The U.S. is able to borrow at historically low interest rates, paying 0.68 percent on a two-year note that it had to offer at 5.1 percent before the financial crisis began in 2007.
- Financial products that pay off if Uncle Sam defaults aren’t attracting unusual investor demand.
- Tax revenue as a percentage of the economy is at a 60-year low, meaning if the government needs to raise cash and can summon the political will, it could do so.
The U.S. does face long-term fiscal dangers — since 2009, federal debt measured against total economic output has increased by more than 50 percent and the White House projects annual budget deficits continuing indefinitely. But as long as we are paying our bills, we ain’t broke, Mr. Boehner.
Poll: Whopping 65% of Wisconsin Voters Want Walker to Compromise
A new poll by a right-wing group based in Wisconsin finds nothing but bad news for the state’s GOP governor and his union-busting crusade. Despite the conservative bias of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, which sponsored the poll, the results clearly show that Gov. Scott Walker has lost support across the board in his campaign to end collective bargaining rights for state employee unions.
The most compelling example of eroded support for Walker may be on the question of compromise. When asked whether “Gov. Walker should stand strong for the plan he has proposed no matter how long the protests go on, OR Gov. Walker should negotiate with Democrats and public employees’ unions in order to find a compromise solution” — just 33 percent felt he should stand strong while 65 percent chose compromise.
No Trains — Boats!
“No high-speed trains!” Scott said with a glower.
The state supreme court said, “Yep, it’s in his power.”
Then wily Gov. Scott
Reached his hand in the pot
And gave Miami 77 million to dredge its port lower.
