In case you missed it…
- The national Republicans, having botched the payroll tax debate to the point that even the Wall Street Journal editorial board was begging them to retreat, have thrown in the towel and, supposedly, will agree to the Senate’s two-month extension. This is of course a 180-degree turnabout for the Tea Party caucus, and the second 180 on the issue for Speaker John Boehner, who must be getting dizzy. The House Republicans in particular have come out of this looking absolutely awful, and have handed a huge gift to President Obama, who has seen his approval numbers rise in the wake of the standoff.
- George Will, everyone’s favorite conservative curmudgeon, is feeling especially curmudgeonly these days about Newt Gingrich. Will wrote Gingrich off early as “not a serious candidate.” But Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls has Will freaked out. Today’s column is an example:
When discussing his amazingness, Newt Gingrich sometimes exaggerates somewhat, as when, discussing Bosnia and Washington, D.C., street violence, he said, “People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz.” … Although not a historian, Gingrich plays one on TV, where he cited Franklin Roosevelt (and Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln) as “just like” him in being “prepared to take on the judiciary.” … Gingrich’s unsurprising descent into sinister radicalism — intimidation of courts — is redundant evidence that he is not merely the least conservative candidate, he is anti-conservative….
Atop the GOP ticket, Gingrich would guarantee Barack Obama’s re-election, would probably doom Republicans’ hopes of capturing the Senate and might cost them the House. If so, Gingrich would at last have achieved something — wreckage, but something — proportional to his swollen sense of himself.
Awesome.
Peter “Booze Cruise” Blute, the former congressman, former head of Massport, and until recently radio host, is back in politics: he’s been tapped as the number 2 guy under new Mass. GOP chair Bob Maginn. Personally, I find it to be a gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Herald, which captured the booze cruise in all its wonderfulness, not to have reprinted its famous photo that resulted in Blute resigning from Massport. I assume that the Herald will shortly remedy this ghastly oversight; in the meantime, we’ll have to do their dirty work for them. (Click for larger.)- After a couple weeks of hemming and hawing, Lt. Gov. Murray has asked the State Police to release the contents of the “black box” from the car that he totaled early in the morning of Nov. 2 – records that have been requested by both the Globe and the Herald. Supposedly, the police have agreed to do so. Good. Either the data will contradict the report of the incident given by Murray and the police, or they won’t; either way, we need to know.
Is she on the sex offender list? Why are women so eager to do that Girls Gone Wild flashing stuff? Is it to intimidate and bully and show off their unmatchable power?
How will we know the data hasn’t been tampered with? Stomv will tell you that only physical paper ballots are trustworthy, because digital data is so easy to alter, with no way of knowing it has been altered.
ended our war in Iraq. As a United States Senator, he had voted against the Iraq war, as had our United States Congressmen Barney Frank and Jim McGovern.
My favorite part of the whole payroll tax debacle was this quote from John Boehner yesterday:
Talk about cutting to the heart of the Republican agenda in 2012! This time, “what we want” lost out to “the right thing for the American people.” That’s a refreshing change for the GOP!