That ceiling, now set at $14.3 trillion, was shattered May 16, and Congress has until Aug. 2 to find a way to avoid default. 

May 16 was the first deadline; August 2 is the second deadline.  The first was passed over, after the whole brass in the Treasury warned not “to play games with this”.  After August, the Economy will go into a tail-spin.  So the prediction goes.

Of course, the danger always lays in the precedent of becoming lax to the deadline.  That was probably the case once upon a time with semi-arbitrary figures of debt numbers and deficit numbers.  Pass a trillion — one can just go on ahead.

Boehner has said repeatedly that any increase in the debt limit should come with trillions of dollars in spending cuts and other budget changes, all aimed at erasing a sea of red ink. Boehner has consistently said that everything except tax increases is on the table to reduce the nation’s debt.

Once upon  a time a George H W Bush raised top marginal taxes.  Then Bill Clinton did.  That and some spending cuts and a robust economy produced a balanced budget.  Then this happened:

Various organizations have come in to put big money in stopping any hint of a tax cut.  It is large enough that Obama came face to face with the idea that the Bush Administration tax cut expiration was unfeasible against the newly elected Republican Congress — a new precedent has been drawn on proceeding ahead on how to solve the problem.

For “Clean Debt Limit” purposes the Republican House gives this bill:

4 The Congress finds that the President’s budget pro5
posal, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal
6 Year 2012, necessitates an increase in the statutory debt
7 limit of $2,406,000,000,000.

‘Tis a partisan game.  Generally measures meant to be passed refrain from partisan gamesmanship in favor of straight forward language.  And we’re back to the Treasury’s warning about “Playing Games.”  Not that it matters all that much:  something will get passed.  It’s just that unlike last time, a milestone in “playing games with the debt limit” was passed — up against the second deadline instead of the first — and is a new barometer.  (Whether it was necessary in order to curb the other guidelines I guess you can leave up to the Tea Party meanderings.)

STORY NUMBER ONE:  ANTI-SEMITISM SPOTLIGHT. Or maybe Book Club.  It wavers.

European already posted this, but it is worth posting every which way.  Here, available in the Second Edition here, is Dope, Inc endorsing the Protocls of the Elders of Zion, and turn to page 31 to follow along.

Britain’s new instrument of subversion in the United States was controlled elements of Italian and Chinese immigration, combined with the Order of Zion entity that had been in place since 1843. By the turn of the century, the different ethnic networks became so intertwined that, for generic purposes, the name “organized crime” applies to all of them.
The implantation of the ethnic secret societies into the United States is a complex story, but may be centered accurately in a few case histories. One is the way that the family of Sam Bronfman — the man who shipped enough liquor to the United States to double the size of Lake Eric, in the testimony of Lucky Luciano — got to North America. Bronfman’s story begins, in fact, in Romania, where the Order of Zion secret organization achieved its first major victory, a coup d’etat that brought King Charles of Romania to the throne in 1887.  In the years following the Civil War, the Order of Zion merged with the much alder Cult of Mizraem, a centuries-old covert organization that dated back to the days of Genoese and Hapsburg intrigue and assassination.
(21) From the British side. Sir Moses Montefiore. and on the Romanian front itself, American Consul Benjamin Peixotto, aided the local secret society in installing a new monarch. (22)  Peixotto held a leadership position in the American B’nai B’rith and was a member of the Order of Zion.  The Elders of Zion Romania became, in consequence, a nesting place for the most lurid form of Central European covert operations until the Second World War.  The character of the political machine the Order of Zion installed in that country is perhaps best illustrated by the strong support Order of Zion elements gave to the Romanian Green Shirt Nazis, who seized power in Hitler’s wake during the 1930s. (23) Romanian Jews show up prominently in American organized crime, as well as in the terrorist activities of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad.
The Order of Zion was simply the Jewish division of the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem, the London-centered chivalric order and secret society, whose members swear — and act on — a blood oath.  A secret meeting in Paris in 1884 yielded the famous minutes of the Order, published under the title, Protocols of the Eiders of Zion. The minutes were intercepted and published by the Russian counterintelligence service, the Okhrana.  (24) Probably, the decision to publish the captured minutes involved retaliation against the Order of Zion’s role in fomenting a sweeping destabilization against the government of Russian Prime Minister Count Witte, whose government fell during the so-called 1905 Revolution. Witte had sought an alliance with Germany and France against Britain on a program that included the industrial development of Russia. The question of the authenticity of the Protocols has been a matter of fierce, even hysterical dispute. The question may be settled with dispatch by a textual comparison between the oaths of the Order of Zion printed in the Protocols, and the blood-curdling oaths sworn by initiates into the fourth Grade of the Knights of Columbus of Mexico, which maintains close ties to the Jesuits and to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which reads in part as follows:

(25) 1. ,, in the presence of all-powerful God, the blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist . . . by the belly of the Virgin Mary, the womb of God and staff ox Jesus Christ, I declare and swear that his holiness the Pope is vice regent of Christ and sole and true head of the universal Catholic Church on earth, and in virtue of the keys to do and undo given to your holiness by my savior Jesus Christ, (you) have the power to depose kings and heretics, princes, states, communities and governments and dismiss them from office without risk. . . . I promise and declare that I will, when the opportunity presents itself to me, wage war without quarter, secretly or openly, against all the heretics. Protestant and Mason, such as I may be ordered to do, in order to extirpate them from the race nf earth, and I will not take into account either age, sex or station, and I will hang, burn, strangle and bury alive those infamous heretics: I will cut open the stomachs and wombs of their women and smash the heads of the babies against the rocks and walls, in order to annihilate the execrable race; that when this cannot be done openly, I will secretly employ the poison cut, strangulation, the sword, dagger or bullet, without consideration for the honor, rank, dignity or authority of
the persons, whatever their status in public or private life maybe, such as 1 may be ordered at any time. . .
If I manifest falsity or weakness in my determination, I consent that my brothers and comrade soldiers in the army of the Pope may cut off my hands, my feet and slit my throat from ear to ear. . – .
I promise to execute and fulfill this oath, in testimony, whereof. I take this sacred sacrament of the Eucharist and affirm it even with my name written with the point of this dagger, drenched in my own blood and sealed in the presence of this holy sacrament. Amen. (26)

Romania’s Order of Zion stronghold produced, among other criminal elements, one Yechicl Bronfman, who emigrated to Canada in 1889- Hie circumstances of Bronfman’s emigration are noteworthy. His passage was paid by the de Hirsch family fund for settlements in Canada — which conferred benefits with strings attached. De Hirsch political screening of new immigrants was so precise that a significant number of new
arrivals were sent back without funds, for unreliability. (27), The important features of the arrival of the Italian “Mafia” in the United States are inseparable from the story of the Order of Zion. Mazzini, the sponsor of the Mafia in Italy, reported directly to the most prominent of Britain’s Hofjvden. Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli, and received funding from the leading British Hofjvden bankers, Rothschild and Montcfiore. (2$)
Correspondingly, when Mazzini sent his lieutenants into the United States, the veterans of the “Young Italy” movement moved into channels already carved out by the likes of ex- General Pike and B’nai B’rith. The combination of Hofjuden controlled crime networks and the Mafia provided the framework for organized crime on a big-business scale.

And this keeps popping up again and again.

Although the Larouche historians do not say so, it appears that many members of this oligarchy were Jews. Cecil Roth writes: “The trade of Venice was overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the Jews, the wealthiest of the mercantile class.” (The History of the Jews in Venice, 1930)
As William Guy Carr points out in Pawns in the Game, both Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange were funded by Jewish bankers. The English Revolution (1649) was the first in a series of revolutions designed to give them world hegemony. The establishment of the Bank of England by William in 1694 was the next crucial step. Behind the facade, England has been a “Jewish” state for over 300 years. (pp.20-24)

Also, “Anwar is Nothing More than a Synoprant for the Jews” — as Michael Billington of Executive Intelligence Review can confirm.  I’m just reporting what the masses are saying about the Larouche org’s work.
The reaction to Steinberg’s appearances on Iran TV are always weird.

Ron Paul’s Newsletter commentaries in the 1990’s and his Quixotic 3rd Party Libertarian bid for Prez in 1978 and the racial overtones remind one of Lyndon LaRouche and these LaRouche wackos outside my U.S. Post Office this past winter.

STORY NUMBER TWO:  AL GORE IS WORSE THAN HITLER

Most of the species unique to the rain forests are in imminent danger, partly because there is no one to speak up from them.  In contrast, consider the recent controversy over the yew tree, a temperate forest species, one variety of which now grows only in the Pacific Northwest.  The Pacific yew can be cut down and processed to produce a potent chemical, taxol, which offers some promise of curing certain forms of lung, breast, and ovarian cancer in patients who would otherwise quickly die.  It seems an easy choice — sacrifice the tree for a human life — until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated, that only specimens more than a hundred years old contain the potent chemical in their bark, and that there are very few of these yews remaining on earth.  Suddenly we must confront some very tough questions.  How important are the medical needs of future generations?  Are those of us alive today entitled to cut down all of those trees to extend the lives of a few of us, even if it means that this unique form of life will disappear forever, thus making it impossible to save human lives in the future?

Al Gore, from Earth in the Balance.   Something along the lines of this happened — this quotation is frequently used — by Limbaughs and Republican congress-members, or that old website “Al Gore or the Unabomber?”.  This diced quote is also found in Larouche’s literature, as I guess you might expect.  It’s a reason only soundbytes can get elected to anything.  There’s a straight line between this area of thought and this story, in the realm of Larouche’s cousin, “Italian government officials have accused the country’s top seismologist of manslaughter, after failing to predict a natural disaster that struck Italy in 2009.”

(Shrug)  ‘Tis why you can never really sympathize with this crap, and view the post Larouche organization as one field of fleighty junk to appeal to this:

Larouche is not paying attention to this and he one article on the Mississippi flood but if you watch the Agenda21 critical awareness sites, then both the floods and this Joplin tornado are consistent with an Agenda21 clearing of human settlements in the area. AND THIS

I know that this is his policy.
My point is that LaRouche’s own actions in the 1980′s and 1990′s have destroyed any credibility he may have had. As long as his name is still attached to this movement it will lack credibility as well. Ir he really believes in this cause, then he will remove his name from it for its own good.
Like it or not, public opinion does matter.
Although I think Lyndon LaRouche is a certifiable nutcase, this video is spot on.
This is one of the few groups which actually grasp the physics of the problem of supplying energy to power an industrial society. If only they would break off from LaRouche and form their own group, they might be taken more seriously by the general public.

What is to be done?

Pick up some LaRouche propaganda from your local LaRouchies and leave it on a couple of seats at the antivax conferences. This will either a) get some of them interested in LaRouche, thereby cross-pollinating between two nut trees, or b) cause those who are aware of LaRouche and creeped out by him, to feel highly uncomfortable with “LaRouchies showing up at our conference.”
You could also have someone go in undercover and recruit for the local LaRouchie organization. Do it overtly for example by “asking questions” that link vaccination to the various conspiracies the LaRouchies are always blabbering about. Alternately you can go in there spreading 9/11 truther stuff, or “we never landed on the Moon” stuff, or any other conspiracy theory you choose. Just be sure to read up on the one you’re going to spread, so you can do an expert job with it, and come off as a True Believer in both that stuff and the anti-vax stuff.
If someone claims that black helicopters are hovering over his house, sending black helicopters to hover over his house just proves him right. If someone believes mysterious strangers are trying to use mind-control devices on him, putting unidentified disruptive devices at his meetings proves him right. If someone believes he will be persecuted for his antivax beliefs, sending apparent undercover agents to spy and report on him proves him right. It may be ever so funny to see antivaxxers running around thinking that your psy-ops are the work of the One World Government, but the fact remains that they would be absolutely right to believe that they were the subjects of psy-ops by enemies.

Just the kind of subversice kick that Erin B was on, right?

STORY NUMBER THREE:  LAROUCHE ORG UNVEILS NEW BLOG.

Perhaps this is all you really need to know about the new “Factnet (mostly) Watch” blog, named after “Justice for Jeremiah“.  This is their avatar, the face of the movement I guess:

I suppose there is a good way of measuring ranks in terms of how big one’s name gets in the taglines.  But by that measurement, the biggest friend of Queen Elizabeth is Captain Frank.  It figures.  The org reposted this item, and I guess I see no reason not to post it here — with one correction:

A couple weeks ago, I went down the previous 500 “Ace” posts and came down to this 21 day line-up. (This was a quick enough count that it might not add up to 500 — I just wanted to get the general idea.)

13-May 39+    12-May 39   11-May 8   10-May 9   9-May 9   8-May 2   7-May 16
6-May 29    5-May 31    4-May 20    3-May 22    2-May 11   1-May 26   30-Apr 17
29-Apr 14   28-Apr 30   27-Apr 74   26-Apr 64  25-Apr 12   24-Apr 12   23-Apr 16+

I imagine the last week would veer closer to the above 40 range than the below a dozen. I can’t picture myself posting any more than 8, and that would be an extreme outlier if I were sucked into a discussion on something.
It was a “Rapid Response” system that included posting replies of “Oh goody [fill in the blank] is online and about to post”, a lot of crypto-threats (told Peter Tenenbaum “I’m keeping a scrap-book”), and pushing unrelated articles about Tony Blair (not even bothering contextualizing to the Larouchian view that Larouche is somehow involved — ’cause its self-evident.)
The most superficial end point came with Ace’s “I own this forum” and link to the youtube video on trolling. That’s essentially a challenge of “What are you going to do about it?” — I have seen a board administrator respond to that by changing all of a troll’s posts to some gratuitous self-insult.

Curiously, the blog’s response has it in the frame of me, a dismissive reference, “Playing Detective”.

We see more of the stylings of the Larouche org with the response to this funny piece by Erin B.  In this case, they refer to Erin B as having mental problems, and then say King is laughing at a Schizophrenic.  I suppose we now have a feeler on how the post-factnet dynamic will proceed, as the blog later finds validation in and posts Xandafur’s post.

It turned out that she had been hiding severe psychological problems, and that she was being heavily medicated. I honestly felt sorry for her, and I wish I could have helped, regardless of anything to do with LaRouche. I tried, and failed.

Respecting Xandafur’s “reach out” — I hardly trust this cult with sensitivity toward (minor or major) mental illnesses — one which does a good job of trivializing such by using it as a slur (honestly understood to be the case) to everyone from the Puerto Rican Socialist Party to Michael Dukakis.  (Enduring Question — in some of those joint causes done by the Larouchies as well as the Rev Moon’s Washington Times, the latter gets cited.  It is, I guess, a suggestion on how Larouche will be remembered.)  The Dope, Inc book suggests that the un-raveling of Western Civilization began with Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which taught that that “the people out there are the crazy ones” (I’m paraphrasing from memory.)  “No comment?”
But, you know — Tavistock!  And this is sort of the public view on some matters here:

Although the idea of being brainwashed is frightening, some people voluntarily undergo brainwashing-type activities. Followers of Lyndon LaRouche, a political activist, underwent a process he called “ego-stripping” that involved emotional abuse. LaRouche wanted to make his subjects feel like there was nowhere safe for them except in his movement. People administering ego-stripping insulted and belittled their colleagues, friends, and partners on every topic they could think of. LaRouche believed, at one point, that a member of his movement had been implanted with the idea to assassinate him. He recorded his ego-stripping session with the man. The recordings of the sessions indicate that the subjects were deprived of food and receiving electric shocks, adding physical pain to the sense of isolation and worthlessness. Not only did the man confess, but large segments of Larouche’s followers claimed that they had been brainwashed by the CIA or the East German secret police and programmed to kill. None of those claims were substantiated by psychologists.

Anyway, Erin B’s piece is funny, and informative.  I recommend it.  Since the cult has the reaction it gave to it, I guess you can up my recommendation to a “Highly Recommended”.

More youtube commentings:  jasonjasonjason1 says: Wow! Good thing you’re monitoring comments or otherwise sane people might say something true and your cult members might get savvy! Nice thinking Jim Jones.
Laroucheisright says: Jason: can you post the phone number where a person could get on Libeling LaRouche for 15$ per hour.

The news cannot be understood as it should be without the Classical Humanist frame of reference that Larouche has created over the past 40 years. And our personal lives are not divorced from the news as correctly interpreted, although most people try to live their private lives as if they can’t do anything about the big picture– as if understanding reality has no value. That’s bad citizenship and multiplied across a population, crashes that civilization. The first step in civilized behavior is to uphold the best civilized awareness of the big picture.

But that doesn’t stop his believers, who form an indescribably strange cult. It’s hard to overstate the insanity required to belong: first, you have to believe in visibly insane things, for instance that Lyndon LaRouche was only convicted of tax evasion and wire fraud because Oliver North brainwashed the judge, jury, and court reporters.
Second, because the traditional political divide entirely disappears with LaRouche. He began on the extreme left, but more out of vogue than anything else; his rhetoric has always been characterized by loopy authoritarianism. The Democratic Party has forever refused to have anything to do with him, and he has bent further to the right with each passing year as he seeks the new “libertarian” identifier.

Here’s European on Jeremiah Duggan.

STORY NUMBER FOUR: WIKIPEDIA?

The Larouche Wikipedia Team would like to change the line about “moving to the far right” with “sough alliances with” etc etc — including “The Reagan Administration”.  The comedy comes in the form of the Larouche Wikipedia Team’s suggestion that a consensus was made based on a 2 to 1 — which is a 66.6666 percent — opinion.  All matters up for some mediation, and we will see this work out somehow or other.

Frankly, this new intro is something of a travesty.  I don’t know how you can say that their new opinion expressing support for the Protocls of the Elders of Zion does not represent a move to the “far right”.  But we are moved into some of that typical “right and left are false dichotemy” arguments being made (by non-Larouche wikipedians — to a certain point a better frame, but limiting itself.  “Unintentional Comedic Irony of Mamatass Fascists for Che“.

Here’s the Wikipedia Review on the matters –take it away HK: However, if Wikipedia is ever going to become something like an encyclopedia, instead of “the biggest and most prolific defamation machine that the world has ever known,” something must be done to check the unrestricted use of news media as sources, especially for BLPs.  We also see some conspiracy in action at that link.

Hm.  I don’t know the answer to this question:
With what sort of outre poetic sentiment may we not then agree with LaRouche that time is not mere sequential happenstance but a function by which we enrich retrodictively the contributions of humanity’s better angels?

STORY NUMBER FIVE:  ROUND UP OF EVENTS

Some activists go to a town hall with Congressman John Larson (D,1, CT).  While the Larouche org will react by penning something like this:  Watch Diane Sare put New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to shame as she intervenes with the LaRouche program at a public meeting held by the governor on Thursday, the Republican activists have this going for them:

We rocked him for two hours.  He came in very partisan, placing blame for all things wrong with the economy at the feet of GWB and the Republicans.  Would not recognize the unsustainability of Medicare.  Plenty of class warfare against the rich – disgusting.  We interrupted him, corrected him and motivated plenty of seniors to chime in early.  His straight-faced solution for Medicare is eliminate fraud/waste, contain costs, and go back to the Clinton tax rates.  Most of the questions were critical.  There were even a group of LaRouche people giving him hell about the bailouts.  He didn’t expect it going in, but he got an earful.  He can be nasty, we’ve seen it before – he raises his voice dictatorial style – Mussolini would be proud – ha!  Hopefully he’ll re-tool for the next one cause from his team’s perspective this had to be a disaster.  We took video and that should circulate over the weekend.

This particular group of Republican activists need to get out of bed with Larouche right now. Lest this happen, following with people such as:

Tell them eagerly that you have a bunch of friends who would be interested in their message, and help yourself to as much of their propaganda as you can get without having to make a donation.
Then take it to a Republican event and hand it out there.
They’ll eat it up because it’s anti Obama.
Then one of two things happens.
a) They freak out when they discover they’ve been LaRouched, or,
b) they start promoting LaRouchism thereby neutralizing their effectiveness with undecideds and with a decent chunk of Republicans as well.

I don’t talk to cult members. And I keep walking.
I hate libertarian shills!
Which reminds me….so I was at the post office and started talking to a man with a literature table outside the building. He was talking about getting wise to how the President (he called him “Obama”) was double crossing the people who voted for him.
So I engaged him in conversation and some of the things he said made sense, some were off the wall and then he started talking about using the 25th amendment to have the President declared incompetent and removed from office.
It was at that point that I noticed (my eyes widening in horror) that the literature on his table bore the name “Larouche”.
Being polite it took me about 15 seconds to wrap up the discussion and skedaddle out of there.

Close & Goodnight: Glenn says, “Thanks so much for joining us tonight, and remember to tune in to the show tomorrow for…”
2. “My exclusive interview with an angry chimpanzee dressed as Lyndon LaRouche.”

That would be more like it.

Interesting.  A CEC “Media Release” to such media as the famed “Thank You White Knights Blogspot” source.

I was walking behind two women, late 20s or early 30s.  I kind of knew one of them, barely, who spoke these words “God.  I want to have sex right now.”  That is, I suppose, good news for her boyfriend in short order — or maybe bad news? — but I had half a mind to make an utterance along the lines of “All right.  Let’s go.”  But I of course didn’t, because I only barely knew her and wouldn’t have gotten away with that surprised joke.

I was at a grocery store, and departed from the store clerk when he gave me, “Have a good day, Justin.”  I was surprised, and looked over.  I didn’t know him — I assume he knew me from sometime or other in some point in the past (or present).  In this particular case, it would’ve been a good idea to say that a few second earlier to give me a probing chance of scratching my itch of curiosity.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

Yeah, Sure.  But at least they got televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion.  Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised.  There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.  The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Wait.  Were Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville Junction ever “so demaned relevant”?

The 1970–71 season failed to gain a top 30 Nielson placing^[15] and the show was cancelled in 1971 after 274 episodes. The CBS network, prompted by pressure from advertisers seeking a more sophisticated urban audience, decided to refocus its schedule on several “hip” new urban-themed shows and, to make room for them, all of CBS’s rural-themed comedies were simultaneously cancelled, despite some considerable Nielsen ratings.^[16] This action came to be known as “the Rural Purge.” Pat Buttram, who played Mr Haney on Green Acres, famously remarked that, “It was the year CBS killed everything with a tree in it.”^[17]
In addition to The Beverly Hillbillies, the series that were eliminated included Green Acres, Mayberry R.F.D., and Hee Haw, the last of which was resurrected in first-run syndication, where it ran for another twenty-one years. Petticoat Junction had been canceled a year earlier due to declining ratings following the death of its star, Bea Benaderet.

And thus was born Spiro Agnew’s “Silent Majority” of (rural) (white) (square) resentment, seeing their old comfortable favorites ceasing to be televised?  The Complacency will not be televised.

At the 2007 Conservative Political Action Committee Conference, John McCain and Mitt Romney were both pilloried as fakers, Mitt Romney memorably followed around by people wearing dolphin costumes to denote “Flipper”.  One year later, after the New Hampshire primary put John McCain on a glide to the Republican nomination, Romney was moving around the conservative talk radio circuit in a last dash for the nomination, and was greeted as a hero at the CPAC conference whence he bowed out with a speech that craftily placed him to McCain’s right in looking ahead to 2012.

Was there any reality to these political placements?  Politics is like that, and as often as not the media and conventional wisdom narrative of how the electorate jibes comes across as arbitrary or false.
The 2012 Republican scramble, after a few high profile adieus, seemed to settle into something digestible.  Mitt Romney would try to steer that front runner’s path with Tim Pawlenty positioning himself to his right.  In effect, Romney would have assumed McCain’s circa 2008 spot with Pawlenty assuming Romney’s circa 2008 spot.  A wildcard is toosed in the mix — that candidate who had seemed to quietly being departing the race but now seems to be moving in for a run with a defiant movie in Iowa designed to tout her gubernatorial record.  I  gather it is key to reinvent herself from Tina Fey shadow.  I do find it difficult to see how she can escape quitting — I guess her political clout is built around grievances, but her movie narrative on why she had to quit doesn’t hold up as — like, what?  Obama and Clinton haven’t been tarred with inanities while still moving forward on the elected job?

She might be 2012’s Mike Huckabee?  If it were not for Mike Huckabee, and his victory in the Iowa caucuses slicing up Romney’s (or anti-McCain) electorate, Mitt Romney would have been the Republican nominee.   Or she might hog the media oxygen and prove palatable to the Republican primary voter after all.

The media insist on priming John Huntman as a contender — nimble enough to track conservatives who are exhausted by a sense of outrage?  It is hard for me to imagine this coming to pass — is he like this year’s Henry Cabot Lodge of 1964?

The others, I suppose eat into the main contender’s base, but have their followers all alone.  Newt Gingrich’s defenders think Gingrich might win with the Youth Vote — due to them not remembering his record and battles of the 1990s.  This is not likely to get him anywhere — or… he could win the vote of the megalomaniacal?

The literati sent out their minions to do their bidding. Washington cannot tolerate threats from outsiders who might disrupt their comfortable world. The firefight started when the cowardly sensed weakness. They fired timidly at first, then the sheep not wanting to be dropped from the establishment’s cocktail party invite list unloaded their entire clip, firing without taking aim their distortions and falsehoods. Now they are left exposed by their bylines and handles. But surely they had killed him off. This is the way it always worked. A lesser person could not have survived the first few minutes of the onslaught. But out of the billowing smoke and dust of tweets and trivia emerged Gingrich, once again ready to lead those who won’t be intimated by the political elite and are ready to take on the challenges America faces.

Bachmann and Caine won’t win dipsticks.  (Is it possible Bachmann and Rick Santorum will eat away at Palin’s totals in Iowa?)   The writers at Reason are probably right with their belief that seeing that neither Ron Paul or Gary Johnson are going to win the nomination, for their purposes it is just as well to have them both on the road amplifying their Libertarian message in appealing to the same slice of the electorate.

Clyde Lewis.  Worth a listen, if for no other reason than…

… than to hear him occasionally go ballistic at being compared with George Noory (or, in a previous time, Art Bell)?

Actually I wish he were confined to the three (or two) weekend shows, as he once was.  I suppose I can stick to that old habit of listening two or three times a week.  Somehow five seems like overkill and an item of over-stretching for his showmanship broadcasting skills.  Less is More.

… Unless you want to take him fully seriously, I guess.  Last night he waded into the idea that we’ve seemed to be in a time-loop for the past decade or so, repeating ourselves.  Obama’s mistaken dating in the Queen’s guestbook was given for a reason to look on what was happening in 2008 — and — Lo and Behold! — Natural Disasters!

Also, there was a religious cult marking the end of the world for June — which seems as big a reach as Clyde Lewis could hatch, but there you go.

Question of the day.

Dennis Kucinich.

In general, redistricting fights are highly partisan affairs.  As Ohio recently went into Republican hands, this means the new lines will be drawn for Republican benefit — if there is a Democratic congress-critter they desire to get rid of, a high ranking riser, they will seek to squash him.  The Democratic Party of Georgia sought to do this to Newt Gingrich in the early 1990s, which prompted a move of Gingrich to a district impenetrable fortress of upper class suburban sprawl (where he nearly lost a Republican primary).

So Ohio is losing two seats, you might expect them to squish away a despised Democrat here, while packing in voters for a safe Democrat who is of no real consequence —

— Take, for instance, Dennis Kucinich, who has stuck out his place as a Champion for the “Pacifica Radio Archipelago” (as I once saw it coined.)   It may be that the only way to “pack” the city of Cleveland is to leave a single Democrat Congress critter, such that it is a coin flip on the advantages of leaving either Kucinich or Betty Sutton.  Otherwise, I don’t know why the Republicans would really want to get rid of Kucinich — for them, he’s harmless enough and a useful enough foil.

As it goes, Dennis Kucinich is running around Washington State, thinking of trying to snag that state’s new Congressional district. I suppose if the Democrats in control of redistricting (I’d have to look up to see if the state has devised a nonpartisan approach to that) are dreading the effects of Kucinich running in suburbia, they can devise a gerry mander shape that can sneak him aside Jim McDermott, but I’m guessing the computer algorithm equation to thread the needle of demographics that carefully has not been developed.