MICHELE BACHMANN: DUMBEST PERSON IN THE USA.

UPDATE BELOW

Among the many things I was grateful for this past Thanksgiving was the fact that this deeply ignorant woman will never, never, never be president. Her candidacy is an anomaly [wait...Cain? Perry?...maybe not], and perhaps after the 2012 elections, this country will sober up from the drunken binge of teh stupid it has recklessly wallowed in these past months and which has embarrassed every sober-thinking American.

Her latest pronouncement has her wondering why American public schools don't teach Biblical dogma to students; and in addition to that idiocy, she repeats the imbecility that Evolution is "only a theory" and should be taught as an equal science with Intelligent Design and Creationism.

Once upon a time this country respected and admired scholarship, erudition, and those who strove to better themselves through higher education.

For some reason, the current GOP has decided that pandering to those with the least amount of education is the best way to win votes. How else to explain their absurd claim that Evolution is just a theory or that climate change is a hoax, or that cutting taxes for billionaires will create revenue and jobs, and worse, that vaccinating children against disease causes mental retardation?

The lastest twaddle from Rep. Bachmann, who will never be president, is this:


"Asked by a Catholic student why it’s not a violation of the separation of church and state for a public school to teach the religiously-tinged theories, Bachmann said evolution is just a 'theory' that even 'evolutionists' are not sure of:

BACHMANN: I think what you’re advocating for is censorship on the part of government. So the government would prohibit intelligent design from even the possibility of being taught in questioning the issueof evolution. And if you look at scientists there is not a unanimity of agreement on the origins of life. … Why would we forstall any particular theory? Becuase I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, would say that this is proven fact. They say that this is a theory, as well as intelligent design. So I think the best thing to do is to let all scientific facts on the table, and let students decide."

Michele Bachmann is an embarrassment to anyone who values education and enlightenment.

And this statement alone should disqualify Bachmann from representing anyone who has a functioning intellect:

"Because I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, would say that this is proven fact. They say that this is a theory, as well as intelligent design. So I think the best thing to do is to let all scientific facts on the table, and let students decide."

Creationism and Intelligent Design are not scientific facts.  And I don't know of any "evolutionist" [whatever that is] who denies that evolution is a fact.  Bachmann shouldn't talk about things she knows nothing about. 

Conservatives become indignant and complain that liberals and others make fun of them; call them dumb.  Here's a way to put an end to that teasing:  Stop allowing stupid people to represent you.  







"Speaking to supporters in Iowa Wednesday, Bachmann talked about the recent conflict in the Iranian capital of Tehran between protesters and the British embassy, which has led to the closure of the facility and the evacuation of diplomats.

"That's exactly what I would do [if I were president]," Bachmann said. "We wouldn't have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn't allow that to be there."



This is another example of Bachmann's ignorance. The above isn't a "gaffe." It is an example of Bachmann's profound stupidity and ignorance of basic foreign policy information.

The US has not had an embassy in Iran since 1980.

Bachmann is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Shame on the people in her district in Minnesota for allowing someone as stupid as Bachmann to represent this country in any capacity.

UPDATE:

Republican John Danforth, who served as a senator from Missouri for nearly 20 years and later as George W. Bush’s ambassador the United Nations, is not happy with the slate of Republican presidential candidates. “I’ve been watching some of these Republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible,” he told KTRS in St. Louis yesterday. “It’s embarrassing for me as a Republican to watch this stuff,” he added, calling out audiences for applauding the candidates’ morbid boastings. Via Fired Up Missouri:

DANFORTH: What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row. Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that. [...]
It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people. We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.” They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.

David Frum Asks: "When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?"

Former George W. Bush speech writer and conservative pundit, David Frum, asks an important question.



When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

All we have to do is look at the recent GOP "debates" to understand that the top contenders for the GOP presidential nomination are not serious politicians with serious ideas. And, at this moment, the leading GOP contender is a guy who left the House speakership in disgrace and who took almost $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a lobbyist while saying that Rep. Barney Frank should be thrown in jail for his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ties.  The other top contender, Mitt Romney, is a politician who has changed his position on every single major issue in order to ingratiate himself with the extremists in the GOP base.  The rest of them:  Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, and Paul, have no chance at all of winning a national election.

Frum explains:

"But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”...

Some call this the closing of the conservative mind. Alas, the conservative mind has proved itself only too open, these past years, to all manner of intellectual pollen. Call it instead the drying up of conservative creativity...

I refuse to believe that I am the only Republican who feels this way. If CNN’s most recent polling is correct, only half of us sympathize with the tea party. However, moderate-minded people dislike conflict—and thus tend to lose to people who relish conflict. The most extreme voices in the GOP now denounce everybody else as Republicans in Name Only. But who elected them as the GOP’s membership committee? What have they done to deserve such an inheritance?...

This is, unfortunately, not merely a concern for Republican voters. The conservative shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology has ominous real-world consequences for American society."

GOPers Outraged That The Reverend Barack Hussein Obama Didn't Thank God and Lead The Nation In Thanks To The Christian God During The Rev. Obama's Radio Address

ZOMG! 

The Horror! 

President and Priest/Minister/Mullah-in Chief Barack Obama didn't invoke God's/Allah's/Yaweh's/Xenu's,/Vishnu's name when he gave his radio address for Thanksgiving 2011! 

That unGod president blasphemer needs to be hounded and stoned (hmmmm) out of office for not carrying out his Constitutional duty by thanking the Christianists' god and blessing us all like little Tiny Tim did in "A Christmas Carol" [remember that? Heart-warming, huh?], and making the sign of the Padre, Figlio, Spiritus Sanctus, Flying Spaghetti Monster all over One Nation, Sotto Dio, Indivisible and Invisible and Keeping US Safe from every DFH and godless Commie Atheist. Awmayn.

The Atheists Are Coming!  And it's the unGod Obama's fault.  Floods and pestilence, ice capades all over the land. Tornedos, hurricanes, Black Friday, frogs, locusts, and Teh Gaii! teaching our kids how to make tofurkey in our schools!

I DON'T WANT TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE!

All because unGod Obama didn't thank God and ask her to keep us in the name of the Something, Something, and the Something, and every other Everything that the god- afraiding religionists want Obama to do in the name of the Constitution and where it says--COMMANDS--Mr. unGod Obama to lead us in prayer always, always he...yes and...  thought well...as well him as another and then [we ]asked him with our eyes to ask again yes...and then he asked us would [we]...yes to say yes...yes...and yes [we] said yes [we] will Yes...We...Can...Yes"  Ohmayn.

Here is an exerpt of Mr. Obama's OFFICIAL Thanksgiving Day Proclamation for 2011:



"In times of adversity and times of plenty, we have lifted our hearts by giving humble thanks for the blessings we have received and for those who bring meaning to our lives. Today, let us offer gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their many sacrifices, and keep in our thoughts the families who save an empty seat at the table for a loved one stationed in harm’s way. And as members of our American family make do with less, let us rededicate ourselves to our friends and fellow citizens in need of a helping hand.

As we gather in our communities and in our homes, around the table or near the hearth, we give thanks to each other and to God for the many kindnesses and comforts that grace our lives. Let us pause to recount the simple gifts that sustain us, and resolve to pay them forward in the year to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 2011, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage the people of the United States to come together — whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors — to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

Who Are These 47% of Americans Who Don 't Pay Taxes and Where Do They Live?

The GOP candidates have been eager to talk about and bash the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal taxes, but what you won't hear Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Rand, Romney, or Santorum tell you is that the majority of these "nontaxpayers" are from red states. 

The conservative candidates won't talk about that fact because it's too embarrassing for them to acknowledge that most of the people too poor to qualify for paying federal taxes are from states with GOP governors and that traditionally vote Republican.

This is just another example of the dishonesty rampant in the GOP campaign for the presidential nomination.  We've already seen Romney's blatantly dishonest video where he attributes John McCain's words to President Obama; we've heard Michele Bachmann falsely claim she's made no gaffes during her quest for the nomination; and Newt Gingrich wants people to believe that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave him almost $2 million to advise them as an historian.



From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Ramesh Ponnuru chides the GOP for indulging in reverse class warfare, pitting the 53 percent against the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes. He debunks the "freeloader myth":

"That 47 percent of all tax filers have no income-tax liability is now one of the most widely known statistics on the right. (Actually, according to the Tax Policy Center, the figure was 47 percent in 2009 and will be 46 percent for this tax year, but 47 is the number that has lingered in the public debate.) Economist Michael Boskin, a veteran of Republican administrations, fretted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that tax policy “can create a majority paying nothing and voting more spending at the expense of a taxpaying minority.” When he announced his presidential campaign, Texas governor Rick Perry said, “We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.” Michele Bachmann, also running for the Republican nomination, says she will reform taxes so that everyone pays some amount in income taxes.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin echoes this concern. “We’re coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers versus makers in society and that could become very dangerous if it sets in as a permanent condition,” he said in a recent speech to the Heritage Foundation.

[skip]


The ten states with the highest number of non-payers are a strongly Republican bunch: Eight of them went for John McCain in 2008, and nine of them have Republican governors. Keith Hennessey, an economic adviser in George W. Bush’s administration, notes that the historical data suggest that the child credit was the main reason for the increase in the number of non-payers between 1995 and 2007."



The next time you hear conservatives whining about Americans who don't pay any federal income taxes, tell them to take their complaints to the GOP governors of the GOP states.  That's where you'll find the Americans who are causing them this fake conservative angst.

Poem for Thanksgiving

Around Us
by Marvin Bell
We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work, and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, will cause a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap-- to close round the moment and the thought of whatever good we did.

These Are The Folks Who Booed Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden

NASCAR attendees booed Michelle Obama and Jill Biden:

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden  













And Rush Limbaugh says these folks don't like Mrs. Obama because they think she's "uppity."

Rush Limbaugh insulting the FLOTUS again? And water is wet.

Rush Limbaugh is a talk radio hate jockey, and Michelle Obama is the First Lady of the United States of America.  She lives in the White House.

Rush Limbaugh was involved in an illegal drug scandal where he had his cleaning lady score drugs for him since he didn’t have large enough testicles to do it himself.

Rush Limbaugh humiliated a 12-year old girl on his national teevee show when he compared Chelsea Clinton to a dog.

Michelle Obama has degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law School.

Limbaugh dropped out of college, and his own mother said he even failed ballroom dancing.

Rush Limbaugh lost his job with ESPN because of his racist remarks about a football player. Rush Limbaugh ALWAYS brings Mr. Obama’s race into discussions about the president.

Michelle Obama has never said an unkind word about the disgusting sack of fetid fumes that goes by the name of Rush Limbaugh.

Should we get angry over Limbaugh’s description of Mrs. Obama as “uppity?” Or should we just ignore the swine?

I say we go for the latter rather than the former. 

Personally, I just can’t get angry over what a talking pig says.

Gingrich Blames Child Labor Laws for America's Economic Woes

There seems to be no end to the stupidity coming out of the conservative candidates' mouths.

Here's what a guy who wants to be president said recently:

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.” [...]

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

Child labor laws are truly stupid. 

Let's go back to the good old days of allowing corporations to exploit children and work them to death. 

CHILD LABOR IN U.S. HISTORY

Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to the South. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement. By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in the U.S. peaked. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s Societies. These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.
U.S. Federal Child Labor Laws.  Link here.

Child labor involves at least one of the following characteristics:

• Violates a nation’s minimum age laws
• Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being
• Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or illicit activities
• Prevents children from going to school
• Uses children to undermine labor standards

Where does most child labor occur?

Of an estimated 215 million child laborers around the globe: approximately 114 million (53%) are in Asia and the Pacific; 14 million (7%) live in Latin America; and 65 million (30%) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

And Gingrich would like to add American children to those statistics.

More here.

There's nothing wrong with teens having part time jobs.  The problem with Gingrich's "unconventional" suggestion to get rid of child labor laws that protect those teens who work is that that idea opens the door for corporations to abuse children who need to earn money. 

Gingrich trusts corporations to do the right thing while wanting the bottom line to grow?

This miserable idea combined with Michele Bachmann's  
proposition to get rid of the minimum wage would make way for a conservative paradise:  Poor children working for corporations for little money, so that those corporations will continue to fill the pockets of politicians like Newt Gingrich who would work tirelessly to represent the interests of the very wealthiest in America.


Source: Raw Story
By David Edwards
"New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that Newt Gingrich is just the latest of the 'fools and clowns' in the Republican presidential race to become a frontrunner.

'I have a structural hypothesis here,' Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. 'You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.'

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan spoke up in Gingrich’s defense.

'We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,' she remarked. 'The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.' "



"Newt Gingrich Is 'The Classic Rental Politician,' "--George Will         

Newt Gingrich:  "A stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like." --P.Krugman

"You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer."

Wouldn't you love to have been in that chair and the one to pwn the arrogant ass, Alaska GOP Representative Don Young?


Good one, Professor Brinkley!


"Ever wanted to tell a congressman in person that they work for you, the taxpayer?

Well, Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University professor, certainly did, although perhaps the middle of a House hearing wasn't the best time and place.

At a Natural Resources Committee hearing Friday on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) mistakenly addressed the professor as 'Dr. Rice' while calling his testimony 'garbage.'

Brinkley interrupted, saying: 'It's Dr. Brinkley, Rice is a university,' and  'I know you went to Yuba [Community College in California] and couldn't graduate — '

Then it was Young's turn to interrupt. 'I'll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair,' he told the witness. 'You just be quiet.'

Brinkley countered: 'You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer.'

DECLARATION OF THE OCCUPATION OF WASHINGTON, DC

The Declaration of the Occupation of Washington, D.C.
Consented to in committee November 15th, 2011

We have been captives of corrupt economic and political systems for far too long. The concentration of wealth and the purchase of political power stifle the voices of the increasingly disenfranchised 99%. 

Corporate dominance subverts democracy, intentionally sows division, destroys the environment, obstructs the just and equitable pursuit of happiness, and violates the rights and dignity of all life.

Occupy D.C. is an open community of diverse individuals, founded on equality for the common good. We are peaceably assembled at McPherson Square, practicing direct democracy on the doorstep of K Street, the center of destructive corporate and governmental relationships. We insist that our political and economic systems serve the people’s interests. Now is the time to advance and complete the struggles of those who came before us.

We are assembled because...

It is absurd that The 1% has taken 40% of the nation’s wealth through exploiting labor, outsourcing jobs, and manipulating the tax code to their benefit through special capital tax rates and loopholes. The system is rigged in their favor, yet they cry foul when anyone even dares to question their relentless class warfare.

Candidates in our electoral system require huge sums of money to be competitive. These contributions from multi-national corporations and wealthy individuals destroy responsive representative governance. A system of backroom deals, kickbacks, bribes, and dirty politics overrides the will of the people. The rotation of decision-makers between the public and private sectors cultivates a network of public officials, lobbyists, and executives whose aligned interests do not serve the American people.

The entrenched 2-party system overlooks public interests by pursuing narrow political goals. This climate encourages candidates to polarize voters for individual power and personal gain. Citizens’ meaningful input has been compromised by gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and unresponsive politicians. Residents of Washington DC continue to lack autonomy and legislative representation.

Those with power have divided us from working in solidarity by perpetuating historical prejudices and discrimination based on color of skin, perceived race, immigrant or indigenous status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability, among other things.

Corporations broke the financial system by gambling with our savings, property, and economy. They needed the public to bail them out of their failures yet deny any responsibility and continue to fight oversight. They loot from those whose labor creates society’s prosperity, while the government allows them to privatize profits and socialize risk.

Corporate interests threaten life on Earth by extracting and burning fossil fuels and resisting the necessary transition to renewable energy. Their drilling, mining, clear-cutting, overfishing, and factory farming destroys the land, jeopardizes our food and water, and poisons the soil with near impunity. They privilege polluters over people by subsidizing fossil fuels, blocking investments in clean energy and efficient transportation, and hiding environmental destruction from public oversight.

Private corporations, with the government’s support, use common resources and infrastructure for short-term personal profit, while stifling efforts to invest in public goods.

The U.S. government engages in drawn-out, costly conflicts abroad. These operations are often pursued to control resources, needlessly overthrow foreign governments, and install friendly regimes. These wars destroy the lives of American soldiers and innocent civilians and are a blank check to divert money from domestic priorities.

Government authorities cultivate a culture of fear to invade our privacy, limit assembly, restrict speech, and deny due process. They have failed in their duty to protect our rights. Exacerbated by profiteering interests, the criminal justice system has unfairly targeted underprivileged communities and outspoken groups for prosecution rather than protection.

Corporatized culture warps our perception of reality. It cheapens and mocks the beauty of human thought and experience, while promoting excessive materialism as the path to happiness. The corporate news media furthers the interests of the very wealthy, distorts and disregards the truth, and confines our imagination of what is possible for ourselves and society.

Leaders are trading our access to basic needs in exchange for handouts to the ultra-wealthy. Our rights to healthcare, education, food, water, and housing are sacrificed to profit-driven market forces. They are attacking unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, creating an uncertain future for us all.*

A better world is possible. To all people,

We, the Washington D.C. General Assembly occupying K Street in McPherson Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble and reclaim the commons. Re-conceive ways to build a democratic, just, and sustainable world.

To all who value democracy, we encourage you to collaborate, and share available resources. We stand with you in solidarity.


*These grievances are not all inclusive.


I invite conservatives and liberals to express and discuss any disagreement  they may have with the above declaration.

h/t Crooks & Liars

"WE NEED A LEADER, NOT A READER."

Oh Herman, you're so droll!

Yeah!  Who wants a president who reads and stays informed so he or she can lead? 

Not your followers! 

Herman Cain:  The unReader!!



Now we know where Herman gets his ideas.  From video games [SimCity 9-9-9, and The Simpsons].  LOL!

h/t HuffPost

The GOP: Keeping Millions of Americans Out of Jobs So They Can Get One Man To Lose His

via Angry Black Lady Chronicles:

Interviewer: Harry Reid said yesterday, and frankly we’ve heard this from a lot of Democrats, the Republicans oppose the jobs bill for political reasons, that it helps them if the economy stays in bad shape. But, is that fair?

Sanchez: Well, it certainly is fair. I mean, I’ve heard my own colleagues on the Republican side say, “We just want to make Obama look so bad. We don’t care how bad the economy gets. We can win this election, we want our president –”

Interviewer: You’ve heard them say that?

Sanchez: Yes. They have said that. They’ve said that! They’ve said that behind closed doors to me! They said, “Nothing is moving.” They said, “We want to make him look bad. We want to get rid of him. We want to get rid of the health care reform bill.” They only way they believe they can get rid of health care reform is to get rid of President Obama.

Interviewer: Who is saying that, Congresswoman?

Sanchez: Well, I’m not gonna … these are actual friends on the other side who have said, “This is what is happening in our conference”, in their groupings when they’re meeting.



Representative Sanchez, you should have named names. Those GOPers are NOT your friends, they are fiends.

And we, of course, have known this ever since Senator McConnell admitted it a long time ago.

Imagine putting a party back in charge of government whose single most important goal is to unseat a sitting president.  I wouldn't trust them with changing my pet gerbil's  wood shavings. 

Perhaps that's why so many conservatives support the incompetents leading the GOP presidential nomination race.  They want to prove that government is incapable of doing anything right; and if one of their bumbling contenders makes it into the WH, they could watch their belief come true.

THIS IS WHY HERMAN CAIN WILL NOT BE PRESIDENT

We'll hear from the rightwingers that the "lamestream media" destroyed Herman Cain, but this video, in addition to many others that demonstrate Cain's incompetence and appalling lack of understanding on foreign and domestic policy issues, clearly shows Cain's profound indequacies.  And that observation doesn't include his awful handling of his sexual harassment accusations.


Cain is unfit to be president.

In this video, you will see him evade, squirm, and then finally  blather on about nothing, constructing a non-answer to the question put to him.


Over the past few weeks we saw and heard Rick Perry stumble again and forget the name of a federal agency he wants to eliminate; we saw and heard Michele Bachmann come out in favor of socialist/communist China, while bashing an American president; and we heard Cain, Bachmann and Perry say that they approve of a criminal act, torture, and would use "enhanced interrogation" [that's waterboarding] to retrieve information from America's enemies. [Mitt Romney was too much of a coward to give us his opinion on this subject.]

Here's how someone with courage talks about torture:

"Waterboarding is torture. It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice. If we want to lead around the world, part of our leadership is setting a good example. And anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture. And that's not something we do -- period,"- Barack Obama,


Here's Herman Cain, showing us how unprepared he is to be president:




The "lamestream media" are not to blame for Cain's drop in the polls, Cain and only Cain is responsible. Just like Palin and only Palin was responsible for her massive failure to be taken seriously as a vice presidential and presidential candidate, just as Bachmann is too silly a candidate to be taken seriously, and the guy from Texas who can't remember an agency he dislikes enough to eliminate.


Next in line for an invitation to the GOP nomination prom?


Newt Gingrich:

"Gingrich is the only Speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.


During his term as Speaker, eighty-four ethics charges were filed against him; eighty-three of them were dropped. The remaining charge concerned a 20-hour college course called "Renewing American Civilization" that Gingrich had taught through a tax-deductible foundation, Kennesaw State College Foundation. Allegations of tax improprieties led to two counts "of failure to seek legal advice" and one count of "providing the committee with information which he knew or should have known was inaccurate" concerning the use of a tax exempt college course for political purposes. To avoid a full hearing, Gingrich and the House Ethics Subcommittee negotiated a sanctions agreement. Democrats accused Gingrich of violating the agreement, but it was forwarded to the House for approval. On January 21, 1997, the House voted 395 to 28 to reprimand Gingrich, including a $300,000 "cost assessment" to recoup money spent on the investigation."--Wikipedia

MICHELE BACHMANN PRAISES SOCIALISM

Does this woman ever think about what she says?  She and her party have repeated hundreds of times that Mr. Obama's policies are socialist policies.  How many Tea Party signs have we read that have labeled this president a socialist?  How many malcontented bloggers have used that adjective to describe Mr. Obama? 

Incredibly, during Saturday's GOP "debate," Michele Bachmann uttered this:


"If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security…They don’t have the modern welfare state and China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they’d be gone."


This is how Wikipedia describes China:

The People's Republic of China's government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the Internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and freedom of religion.^[109] Its current political/economic system has been termed by its leaders as "Communism with Chinese characteristics".

A Republican/Tea Party United States Representative, who hopes to be president, was on national teevee praising the Communist policies of China and threatening to dismantle the safety nets that a democratically elected US president and Congress passed.

Please go back and read that paragraph.

I'm wondering if the bloggers on the Right picked up on her little love note to Socialist/Communist China while bashing America.  Michele Bachmann praised socialism.

I don't understand these people. 

But I do understand that Michele Bachmann is an embarrassment to this country, but most of all, to herself.  How low we have fallen when someone of her tiny intellect could appear on the national stage, say something as  deeply unAmerican as she did, and not get booed into oblivion.

In the GOP, only US soldiers who are gay get booed, not a woman who is pro-torture [a crime], praises a Communist nation over her own country, and then hopes the American people will elect her to lead it.

Hello God? It's me, Herman. And Rick. And Rick. And Michele.

And we're all so happy we had this nice little talk, Y'know, the one where You told each one of us that we should run for president?

But we just had a thought.  Didn't you once say "Many are called, but few are chosen?"

So...

Who will it be?

And we're kinda, like...excuse me?  But did You have to talk to those others and tell them to run too?  Wasn't one of us enough to earn Your Very Omnipotent, Very Celestial Endorsement?  Did You really have to tell all four of us we should run? 

It's all so confusing for us, since we thought that sharing this Divine Revelation with our supporters and the "lamestream media" would surely give us the Godmentum we need to pull past that other guy, (y'know, the one with the wrong religion.) 

Speaking of which, who was it who said that when popes and bishops hear You "speaking" to them, that's Divine Revelation, but when "just folks" hear Your voice, that's schizophrenia?

Could You get back to us on this?  We desperately want to know which of us You will anoint as "The One," and we're running out of End Times.

Thanks.

Later,

Rick Santorum

Michele Bachmann

Rick Perry

Herman Cain

THE PENN STATE SEXUAL CRIMES SCANDAL

I've had a while to think about this terrible news. I've read a lot of people's opinions, and I think there's a simple way to deal with this sort of crime: If someone tells you that a child is being sexually molested, you report it to the police. Child fondling, molestation, and rape is a felony. A terrible, terrible crime. Period.

For everyone who thinks Joe Paterno has been dealt too harsh a punishment, here's what I'd ask her or him:

If a colleague came to you and told you he saw someone you've know for 20 years "being inappropriate" with or "fondling" one of your children or grandchildren, what would you do?

The damage this sort of crime does to a child is horrendous. Some children recover, some don't. Those who don't, carry feelings of betrayal and worthlessness inside themselves forever. Some are never able to form healthy relationships, some never trust again.  And some destroy themselves.

No institution, religious or otherwise, and no one who enabled such criminal acts against children should escape the full punishment of the law for one of humanity's ugliest and most evil crimes.

There is more disgustingly sordid information coming out about the monster that was Paterno's assistant coach. For all the good things Paterno may have instilled in his players, it appears he failed in the worst possible way when it came to protecting innocent children.

Penn State and Coach Paterno didn't do what they should have done: Protect children.

Andrew Sullivan gives us his view on the issue in a response to one of his reader's comments:

"...Sandusky was an assistant coach and once likely [a] successor to Paterno. I don't think it changes the point. Sandusky was in in the inner sanctum. He was one of them. Because he was one of them, his grotesque abuses did not seem to grotesque. Loyalty, friendship, the bonds of sports ... all probably contributed to the decision to fire him (traumatic enough) but not to send him to the cops. You and Megan are missing the psychological impact of being worshipped and immune in a community, and all the corruption that comes from that.It was surely, rationally, in the Catholic Church's interests to report all these things immediately. Look what damage it has subsequently done. But authoritarian insitutions, based on religion and cults, are not guided by reason, but by emotion.

Knowing, as they did, that he had created access to countless other troubled kids makes it all the more wicked. To my mind, Paterno needs to be prosecuted just as Ratzinger needed to be prosecuted back when he did the same thing in Munich. They are accessories to child rape. The only reason they weren't prosecuted was their status."

JOE POSNANSKI, the author who is writing a biography of Joe Paterno wrote this on his blog:

1. Joe Paterno is responsible for what happens on his watch. Period.

2. People are making assumptions about what Joe did or didn’t know, what Joe did or didn’t do, and I can’t tell you that those assumptions are wrong. But I can tell you that they are assumptions based on one side of the story.

3. We are in a top-you world where everyone is not only trying to report something faster but is also trying to report something ANGRIER. One guy wants Joe Paterno to resign, the next wants him to be fired, the next wants him to be fired this minute, the next wants him to be fired and arrested, the next wants him to be fired, arrested and jailed, on and on, until we’ve lost sight of who actually committed the crimes here.

4. I think the University could not possibly have handled this worse. It was disgusting and disgraceful, the method in which they fired Joe Paterno after 60 years of service, and yes, I do think Paterno was a scapegoat. Of course he was. I’ve already said that he had to be let go. But to let him dangle out there, take up all the headlines, face the bulk of the media pressure, absolutely, that’s the very definition of scapegoat. Three people were indicted and arrested. A fourth, I hear, will be indicted soon. Joe Paterno is not one of the four.

5. It is still unclear what Paterno did in this case. It will remain unclear for a while. You might be one of the hundreds and hundreds of people I’ve heard from who know EXACTLY what Paterno did. He HAD to know this. He DEFINITELY knew that. He COULD have done something. I respect that. Joe Paterno’s a public figure. You have every right to believe what you want to believe and be absolutely certain about it.

This is what Joe Paterno told the Grand Jury:

1. His assistant told him fondling and something of a sexual nature occurred between Sandusky and a 10 year old boy.

2. He found his assistant's report to him to be credible.

I disagree with Posnanski's assessment of Paterno's involvement in this, and dislike his attempts to make Paterno look like a victim.  I agree with this commenter:

Chris Clarke17 minutes ago "It was disgusting and disgraceful, the method in which they fired Joe Paterno after 60 years of service," That THAT's what strikes you as disgusting and disgraceful speaks volumes. You say this: "I think Joe Paterno had the responsibility as a leader and a man to stop the horrific rapes allegedly committed by Jerry Sandusky" and then you follow it up with this: "Joe Paterno has lived a profoundly decent life." I think of the people I know who I would consider as having led profoundly decent lives, and I search my memories for the times when they failed to react when informed that children were being brutalized by their subordinates, and I come up empty-handed. As someone who has risked his job in the past to report on allegations of sexual harassment, I have no sympathy for Paterno. But you, Mr. Posnaski: you are willing to give Paterno the benefit of the doubt for allegedly not speaking up, reporting Sandusky to the authorities, or taking any of the dozen other no-brainer steps to keep more children from being brutalized, but you call it "shameful" that people haven't stepped forward to defend Paterno? You can't have it both ways... unless your point is that the career of an "important" man is more important than the stolen well-being of innocent kids. And I find that profoundly disgusting. Shame on you.

RICK PERRY: TOAST OF THE GOP DEBATE, 11/9/11

After last night's debate, is there any doubt about what Rick Perry is:

Why are certain elements of the GOP so attracted to empty-headed clowns?  Rick Perry should go back to Texas.  Apparently, that state can function with a disconnected, confused amateur.  Incredibly this guy has won every election he's been in. 


Can someone explain this?



From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Quote For The Night


"I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you're either a revolutionary or you're not, and if you're not you might as well be an artist as anything else. Secondly, if you can't be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary. . . . I forget the third thing," - Henry Carr, in Tom Stoppard's play, so appropriately called "Travesties."

Rich Lowry:

That might be the most uncomfortable moment I’ve ever witnessed in presidential politics.

Larry Sabato:

To my memory, Perry's forgetfulness is the most devastating moment of any modern primary debate.

Allahpundit:

[Perry is] down to 4.9 percent now on InTrade; before the debate he was at 9.3 percent. Remember two months ago when he was going to be the guy who saved us from Romney?

Adam Sorensen:

Watching Rick Perry fail to recall the third part of his own answer in tonight’s debate was like watching a thoroughbred get euthanized on the track. It was shocking, grisly and impossible to look away.

Alex Massie:

You can stick a fork in [Perry], he's done.

Joe Gandelman:

I wonder: Will Rick Perry remember which office he’s running for? Impressions: I can’t see Cain losing any ground with this debate (even if it increasingly seems like a fitting campaign slogan for Cain would be “The White House or bust.”) Romney holding firm. Gingrich waiting in wings as Anti-Perry understudy for Cain.

And on and on and on...

HERMAN CAIN'S CAMPAIGN CHIEF TELLS A BIG FAT LIE ON FOX NEWS

Okay, that's like saying the sun is hot.

Mark Block, the smokin' dude in Herman Cain's ridiculous political YouTube ad, appeared on FAUX NOOZ and lied about Karen Kraushaar's son, [Karen Kraushaar, 55, is a registered Republican who works at the Treasury Department. Through her attorney, she has described the alleged harassment as "a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances from the CEO," NPR reported. She reportedly received a payout in 1999.] claiming Josh Kraushaar worked for Politico, the blog that broke the Herman Cain sexual harassment story.

Here is what Block claimed on FAUX NOOZ:

"Mark Block, Cain's chief-of-staff, spoke to Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday, and wrongly claimed that the son of a woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s works at POLITICO.

'At the press conference it was brought up that Karen Kraushaar had come out as one of the women, so we've come to find out that her son works at POLITICO, the organization that originally put this story out,' Block said."

When Hannity asked if the information about Kraushaar's "son" was confirmed, Block said: "We've confirmed that he does indeed work at POLITICO and that's his mother, yes."

Except Block, Cain's chief of staff, was either lying or incompetent because he named the wrong guy.

This is what Josh Kraushaar, the guy Block accused, had to say:

"Kraushaar acknowledged working at POLITICO from 2007 to 2010, but said he had been at the National Journal for over a year. His Twitter bio lists his current job title as the executive editor of the publication's blog The Hotline. He's also not related to Cain's accuser.

'For a presidential spokesman to go on TV and make up blatant falsehoods doesn't speak well for his boss, either,' Kraushaar wrote.

Kraushaar did manage to keep his sense of humor about the whole situation. 'The only positive benefit about being smeared by Mark Block on Hannity is I'm getting 100 new Twitter followers a minute.' "

So there we have it.  More incompetence from the man who wants to be president.  Is this another joke, Mr. Cain?  Or is it a continuing side-show where, it appears, your campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is nothing more than street theater and not a serious effort to win the nomination.

But wait, Cain is leading the GOP polls.  Imagine that.  A pizza marketer who tells us that his policies are jokes, whose chief of staff names the wrong guy on a national cabal teevee station as one of his accuser's sons, and who now has, how many now?  4? 5? women accusing him of improper sexual advances.

Sounds like the perfect candidate to lead the GOP into next year's presidential election.

SUNDAY NIGHT FUNNIES

Found via Infidel753

HOW TO SPEAK REPUBLICAN

America (United States of): A country located in the N. Western Hemisphere that is #1.

Bible: A sacred text that provides incontestable answers when thumped.

Birth Certificate: An official birth record required of all US Presidents, regardless of race, since 2008.

Capitalism: A system of economic organization that has never been attempted.

Christmas: A holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, now rarely celebrated due to persecution by atheists.

Compromise: (uncommon) A form of political suicide.

Coast (East): A very bad coast of the continental United States.

Coast (West): Another really inexcusable coast.

Communism: The belief that the government should ever do anything.

Condescending: Accurately informed.

Constitution (U.S.): The hallowed founding document of the United States, the text of which must be interpreted strictly and amended immediately.

Corporations: Large people who are overtaxed.

Deficits: 1) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Democrats that threaten to bankrupt the country. 2) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Republicans that don't matter.

Democrat: A political party.

Election: A method of selecting representatives, the fraudulence of which may be determined by the outcome.

Elitist: Qualified.

Endangered Species: Animals that have it coming.

Evolution: A theory of human origins that is out there.

Extremist (Liberal): Espousing or adhering to political beliefs that are held by only a majority of Americans.

Fact: Information that has been verifiably posted to a RedState comment board.

Forest (National): Trees that have it coming.

Gut: Region of the body from which decisions should be made.

Homosexuality: A membership-only lifestyle organization that perpetuates itself through youth recruitment.

Hitler: A man to whom it would be inappropriate to compare President Obama in spite of the many uncanny similarities.

Jesus: Charismatic religious leader and son of God; born in Bethlehem in the year 0; beliefs include love, charity, enhanced interrogation, privatized healthcare, elimination of the estate tax, and the right to carry concealed semiautomatic weapons.

League (Ivy): an association of eight Eastern universities and colleges, the lack of a fancy education from which qualifies a candidate for political office.

Liberal: A person who should be rounded up and shot but not really.

Marxism: A political and economic philosophy developed by Karl Marx and promulgated by Paul Krugman.

Media (Mainstream): Where you won't hear things.

Medicare: A fraudulent, socialistic boondoggle that is sacrosanct.

Mexicans: Brown people who have it coming.

Mountaintops: Ancient rock formations that have it coming.

Muslims: Brown people who have it coming.

News: Fox News

Obamacare: A Federally-mandated policy to address the national oversupply of grandparents through euthanasia.

Organic: Eaten by lesbians.

Party (Tea): A grass-roots movement of patriotic Americans fighting for the principle of "No Taxation With Representation."

Poll: A survey used to determine, to within a margin of error, what percentage of Americans are right.

Poverty: The condition of having inadequate financial or material resources due to not trying hard enough.

Propaganda: The politically motivated dissemination of biased information, opinion, or data through its publication in the New York Times.

Punishment (Capital): The legally authorized killing by the State of someone who is definitely guilty.

Racism: A form of discrimination that typically happens in reverse.

Regulation: Rules issued by a government agency for no reason.

Ronald Reagan: A fictional character based loosely on President Ronald Reagan.

Scientist: A person who employs a rigorous system of observation, experiment, measurement, and verification to perpetuate his Godless left-wing agenda.

Social Security: A redistributionist Ponzi scheme that is sacrosanct.

Socialism: An economic system invented by FDR.

Taxes: Levies imposed by the government that raise more revenue the lower they are.

Torture: A method of interrogation that does not rise to the level of torture.

Terrorist: A person to whom a person who threatens to destroy the U.S. economy unless his demands are met should not be compared.

Unbiased: Giving equal weight to both sides of the looking glass.

Wealthy (the): People who earned every penny.

Up: A direction which, depending on circumstances, is down.

Warming (Global): An anomalous, anthropogenic increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures that isn't happening.

Welfare: A government program to distribute Cadillacs to unwed mothers.

Yes: (no translation available)

Ann Coulter: "OUR BLACKS are better than their blacks." Yes, she really said that.

"OUR blacks?" 


In this Daily Show segment, Jon Stewart comically destroys Donald "I've Always Had A Great Relationship With The Blacks" Trump and, then he and his fellow comics  go on to annihilate the consistently horrid Ann Coulter, who disgraces herself with her sickening "Our blacks are better than their blacks," comment and her stupifying boast that "Herman Cain is a blacker black than Obama."

If there is a more devasting example of Coulter's and the Right's patronizing treatment of an entire group of Americans, I have yet to see it. Watching Coulter's stunningly insensitive description of African-Americans leaves absolutely no doubt in any thinking person's mind as to the true nature of the Republican Party--condescending arrogance.

HERMAN CAIN AND THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CHARGES

Reporting news about a candidate who is running for his party's presidential nomination is not a "high-tech lynching," as certain bloggers and pundits on the right have characterized the mess Herman Cain is in.  

Cain is responsible for these revelations, and he alone is responsible for the clumsy handling of it.  Each day a new piece of the story comes out showing the public that Mr. Cain was well aware of the sexual harassment charges, the women who made them, and the payouts given to those women to be quiet.  It would have been better had Mr. Cain come clean about the charges instead of allowing the story to become the focus of his campaign.  Bad move on Cain and his advisers part and a disturbing example of Cain's ineptitude.

Here are some assessments of Cain and his handling of this story:


The New York Times

"Mr. Cain knew the harassment charges would become public 10 days ahead of time, but still he stumbled for three days. First he said he knew of no settlement between his accusers and the National Restaurant Association — rather implausible, considering he was its chief executive. Then he said he was aware of it but didn’t know the details. Then he put out the details. [...]


None of this should be surprising. From the start, Mr. Cain has made outrageous statements, then taken them back, then modified them. He said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, then apologized, then railed about Shariah law creeping into the courts. He said he wanted a border fence that would electrocute illegal crossers, then said it was a joke, then he still wanted one.

Mr. Cain’s core supporters don’t seem to care about such minor details any more than he does. But, eventually, a campaign run solely on charm and hokum tends to wind up in a ditch. The question now is how much of the Republican Party will follow him there."

This is truly disturbing:

Dana Milbank gives us a revealing anecdote about Cain under pressure:

"At his next stop, a Hilton hotel in Alexandria, the amiable candidate finally blew his stack – and the scene quickly escalated into violence. It began when a reporter asked Cain if he would release his accusers from their confidentiality agreements.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” Cain snapped, “so don’t even bother asking me all of these other questions that y’all are curious about. Okay? Don’t even bother.”
“It’s a good question,” the reporter pointed out. “Are you concerned?” asked another. Evidently, Cain was. “What did I say?” he hissed at the reporters, then attempted to break through the pack, shouting: “Excuse me. Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!” At that, his bodyguards began throwing elbows and shoving the reporters and photographers. “Stand back! . . . Do not push me! . . . Pushing is against the law!. . . Watch out!. . . Get a grip on yourself!” In the melee, a young boy and his father were shoved up against a wall.

His campaign’s fisticuffs with Washington journalists probably won’t do Cain any harm among his supporters in Iowa; in fact, it will probably help. But Cain’s loss of control is a reminder of why he’s never going to be president, no matter how high he rises in GOP primary polls."

Jonathan Capehart:

"On my first day at an all-white school in North Plainfield, N.J., and then again in Hazlet, N.J. and then again before I took off for college in Northfield, Minn., my mother delivered a lecture not unfamiliar to other kids of color (and women, for that matter). You have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to not be seen as inferior, deficient and not as up to the task (whatever the task might be) as your white classmates. It ain’t right. It ain’t fair. But that’s the way it is. 

On a near-daily basis, Herman Cain, the front runner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, denigrates the high level of expectation and preparation demanded by my mother and mothers everywhere. [...] Sarah Palin was rightly eviscerated for her lack of knowledge on just about everything when she was the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee. She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. Even though she’s pro-life, she told Katie Couric that she believed there was a right to privacy in the Constitution, which is a cornerstone of Roe. v. Wade. And she tried to claim foreign policy experience because “as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s right over the border.”

That Cain can’t even rise above this decidedly low bar set by Palin is an insult to my mother, who demands excellence of “us,” and to every American who believes his or her nation deserves better from those who would lead it."

h/t dailykos 

And finally, from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish:

What Does Herman Cain Say About Us?

"Nothing good, according to Dreher:

Expertise does not guarantee wisdom. But that doesn’t mean the amateurism puts us on the side of the angels, either. You wouldn’t trust an amateur to spay your cat or to give you sound investment advice for your 401(K) — yet there are millions of Republians who think an avuncular amateur like Herman Cain would do a great job as president of the United States, or at least a better job than Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, or anybody else on offer who has actually worked in politics. I’m not thrilled with these choices either, but come on, what is wrong with us?"

And:

"When Herman Cain sang at the National Press Club the other day, I thought it was absurd. There he goes again, the clown. Looking at the performance in greater context, I found it easier to smile at, and not in a hostile way. Still, if you think about it, it says something bad about America that here we are, facing the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and looking at a future of crippling indebtedness unless our leaders take drastic action … and the top candidate for the Republican nomination a year from election day is a charming businessman with no political experience, who knows nothing about the world (and makes jokes about his own ignorance), and who is given over to camping it up on the campaign trail. If times were great, there would be serious reason to doubt whether America could afford a man like Herman Cain in the Oval Office. But times are terrible, and could easily get far worse. It’s really quite an indictment on the unseriousness of our country, or at least the conservative electorate, that Cain is at the top of the polls now. The media play their own role in perpetuating this circus."

 **********

Herman Cain will never be POTUS.  He is unable to control himself and his message.  Plus he's ignorant about the most basic foreign policy issues.  Let him go back to hawking his books and singing to his adoring crowds.

This is the caliber of candidate that gets the base of the GOP excited:  A preening, loud-mouthed bully who's ignorant [Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan?] on many important issues and proud of it.