Writing for tomorrow, day 60, it’s 84° at my desk, and may stay cool, depending on how late the clouds burn off. Tomorrow will be a hot one. Because tomorrow is one of my prison volunteer days, I may be brief on comments to catch some extra sleep, and on Wednesday and/or Thursday, I may have no more than an Open Thread, due to the need to recover from the prison visit.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:09 (average 6:22). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From NY Times (Krugman): Recently Senator Rand Paul, potential presidential candidate and self-proclaimed expert on monetary issues, sat down for an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. It didn’t go too well. For example, Mr. Paul talked about America running “a trillion-dollar deficit every year”; actually, the deficit is projected to be only $642 billion in 2013, and it’s falling fast.
But the most interesting moment may have been when Mr. Paul was asked whom he would choose, ideally, to head the Federal Reserve and he suggested Milton Friedman — “he’s not an Austrian, but he would be better than what we have.” The interviewer then gently informed him that Friedman — who would have been 101 years old if he were still alive — is, in fact, dead. O.K., said Mr. Paul, “Let’s just go with dead, because then you probably really wouldn’t have much of a functioning Federal Reserve.”
LOL! If Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot were President, the best thing he could do for America is to voluntarily join Friedman!
From TPM: Looks like Jonnie Williams won’t be getting a Christmas card from the McDonnells this year.
After the Virginia dietary supplements maker Star Scientific announced on Friday that it did not expect to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, a spokesperson for Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) went public with criticism of both the company and its CEO, Jonnie Williams. Williams’ relationship with McDonnell is the subject of both state and federal investigations, and the governor and his family have recently returned over $150,000 in gifts and loans given to them by him in recent years.
“Apparently, the U.S. government has given Star Scientific a free pass for unspecified misdeeds in return for the testimony of Jonnie Williams,” Rich Galen, McDonnell’s recently-hired private spokesperson, wrote in a statement to The Virginian-Pilot on Saturday. “Governor Bob McDonnell has had an 37-year unblemished record of military and civilian government service. Jonnie Williams has been in trouble with government entities since the earliest days of his business career.”
What a fool McDonnell is! It doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out that the 1% vulture capitalist will throw the corrupt politician under the bus without a moment’s hesitation to save his own butt.
From Think Progress: The Republican-led House of Representatives would impeach President Obama “tomorrow” if it came to a vote, a GOP congressman revealed during a town hall over the weekend.
“I’ll give you a real frank answer about that,” Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) told constituents on Saturday on the topic of potentially impeaching Obama for high crimes and misdemeanors. “If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it,” Farenthold announced. However, because the Democratic-controlled Senate would be unlikely to convict, the Texas congressman cautioned against proceeding on impeachment because a failed attempt would send a “message” that Obama’s actions are “okay.”
The goose-stepper is right. They would impeach Obama, they would fail in the Senate trial, and Obama’s actions would appear OK. What he is not saying is that Obama’s actions would appear OK, because there is no evidence that Obama has done something worthy of impeachment. Also, they would be exposed as the frauds they are. On the other hand, if House Democrats had impeached Cheney and Bush in 2007, as they should never have promised not to do in the 2006 campaign, they also would have failed in the Senate Trial, lacking the needed 67 votes. However, it would have exposed the criminal nature of today’s Republican Party far earlier, and therefore, it probably would have prevented the 2010 fiasco.
Cartoon:
