Paul Ryan: A One-Man Fiscal Cliff?

Paul Ryan demonstrating his patented "Budget Karate Chop"

There were a couple of funny hashtags trending on Twitter the day Romney announced Paul Ryan as his choice for Vice Presidential running mate. Republicans were giddy about the prospect of a Romney/Ryan ticket, and together with horrified Democrats, they propelled the #RomneyRyan2012 hashtag to the number one spot for at least a full 14 hours. One excited tweeter cited the top-trending status as proof that Romney had knocked it out of the park, to which I felt obliged to reply, "Yes, haven't seen this much excitement since McCain picked Palin."

The thrust of the #BidenDebateLines thread seemed to be that Biden was a doddering fool, and that the silver-tongued Ryan would give him a sound thrashing in a debate. My contribution to the campaign is this debate line: "My opponent is on record as wanting to dismantle Social Security and Medicare... I think we're done here." Go ahead, Joe. That joke is on the house (pun intended).

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Only Nixon Could Invent ObamaCare

Brent Budowsky of The Hill nails it:

"[T]he totality of the healthcare law as enacted closely tracks healthcare proposals offered in the 1970s by President Nixon, offered in the 1980s and 1990s by senior Republicans in Congress, and enacted into law in Massachusetts under a governor whose name I cannot remember, who stood next to Ted Kennedy celebrating passage of the state law that became the model for current federal law. Isn't it strange that Republicans now demonize plans that were originated by Republicans"

Shocker: Right Wing News Editor Seriously Misinformed About Breast Health

I know, I know. I hate article titles that begin “Shocker:” too, but after reading the idiotic Townhall.com piece by idiotic news editor Katie Pavlich, “Shocker: Susan G. Komen Pulled PP Funding Because They Don’t Perform Mammograms,” I simply couldn’t resist. Now, Townhall has never been known for its intellectual rigor, but even in that notoriously obtuse shed, Pavlich isn’t the sharpest tool. Even so, she manages to plumb new depths of ignorant asshattery in this ponderously dull-witted piece. Now that Komen has apparently reversed course on Planned Parenthood, Townhall has “updated” Pavlich’s article with a cut-and-paste statement from Komen’s website, rendering the original article following the update as an object lesson in rhetorical face plants.

House Republicans Hit New Low By Passing The Year's Dumbest Bill

While grocery shopping, I often chuckle at (for instance) the myriad varieties of vegetable oil lining the shelves, proclaiming "No Cholesterol!" It's vegetable oil, for crying out loud. Damn well better not have cholesterol. This sort of nonsense often sets me off on another tongue-in-cheek rant, remarking for the umpteenth time that Crisco ought to tout their product as caffeine-free and sugar-free while they're at it. Why, they oughtta introduce a whole new line of "fill-in-the-blank-free" oils and shortenings (at a premium price, naturally) and even beat the competition to market with an ultra premium line Certified Free of Death Crystals. After all, why would one worry about saturated fats or trans fats now that we're all threatened by Death Crystals? You don't want your family eating Death Crystals, now, do you? Of course you don't! And so on....

Orrin Hatch Chides Struggling Americans While Defending Big Oil

When asked why he robbed banks, the legendary outlaw Willie Sutton reputedly quipped, "that's where the money is." In those days, people had what we call "horse sense," which is why no one asked him a follow-up question such as "why don't you rob orphanages instead?" Nowadays, the equine-mentality-challenged abound, and conspicuously so at the offices of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.

Picking The Lock Boxes At Social Security And Medicare

Sociologist and author Margaret J. Wheatley once made the eminently sensible observation, "Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather," she said, "the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole." Sadly, Dr. Wheatley neglected to add a necessary exception to her otherwise serviceable rule—politics.

Pat Buchanan Blames Obama For Spooking S&P

My first article at PoliticusUSA.com:

Conservative scribbler and erstwhile Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has always been crazy, but apparently it hasn't kept him from going insane.
In a recent American Conservative article ludicrously titled "Barack Hussein Hoover," Patrick "Sybil" Buchanan begins by raising the specter of "a debt crisis to dwarf the one that befell us in 2008," a frightening prospect indeed. The theory is that if the US is unable to arrive at some consensus and get our debt under control, a global crisis will ensue, and the myopic soothsayers at Standard & Poor's have recently stoked such fears by revising their outlook to "negative" on their triple-A rating of US debt. In an overwrought attempt to forecast a catastrophe before it happens, S&P offers their prediction "that congressional negotiations could result in no agreement on a medium-term fiscal strategy until after the 2012 congressional and presidential elections."