Last Call

It seems our old friend GOP Rep. (and Presidential candidate mega-failure) Thad "Guitar Hero" McCotter of Michigan may have just even more epically failed himself right out of Congress.

Throwing his congressional race into turmoil, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter said Friday evening that he may not have turned in enough valid signatures to qualify for the Aug. 7 Republican primary in his suburban Detroit district.

In a statement, McCotter said the Michigan Secretary of State's Office notified him about the apparent problem.

"Fully respecting the accuracy and integrity of the Secretary of State's Office, we will thoroughly review our petition signatures for their sufficiency or insufficiency," the Livonia Republican said in his statement. "Out of respect for Memorial Day, an announcement of our findings will be made public on Tuesday."

According to the Secretary of State's website, McCotter had turned in 2,000 signatures, the maximum allowable. Congressional candidates must turn in at least 1,000 and no more than 2,000 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The Secretary of State didn't say how many signatures McCotter could be short by, but spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said Friday night that duplicate signatures were among the problems with McCotter's petitions. When duplicates are found, both signatures are bounced from the petitions.

"He can make his case to the Board of Canvassers," Gendreau said. "They still have to vote to certify the signatures."

The board is expected to meet the first week of June, though a firm date hasn't been set.

Yeah, whoever's running McCotter's campaign?  You're an idiot.  Also, thanks for keeping this meathead off the the ballot, possibly.   Let's remember McCotter's platform as a GOP hopeful:

He lives in Livonia, Mich., and he represents a suburban district outside Detroit. His seat on the House Financial Services Committee is credited for helping restructure General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group, rescuing both companies from bankruptcy through government loans.

“If you believe American needs manufacturing and farming, that is going to be a message you will hear,” he told the Detroit News Friday.

McCotter says he supported the federal government’s hand in helping both companies recover and adds that their restructuring can be used as an example of what can be done to Social Security and the banking system.

“If you continue to raise taxes, if you continue to massively increase government, you are crushing the chances of a recovery.... The White House should finally get the message that we are not going to make this recession worse, we’re not going to make it harder for people to recover, we want to fix and restructure government starting with the debt ceiling,” he told Huckabee on his show last weekend. 

GM bailout good, bank bailout bad.  Also spending bad.  Also taxes bad...but not if bailouts, taxes, and government spending are used to SAVE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS IN HIS DISTRICT.   No wonder he didn't last more than a month.

Not sad at all to see this particular hypocrite lose his seat for not following the damn rules.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Maha over at Mahablog tries to make sense of the latest insane right wing whatever outrage story that's motivating them towards all but calling for a second American revolution (where they wipe the Cheetos Hot Fries dust off the gun cabinet and wipe the motor oil stains off their tricorner hat and...I guess do something, maybe) but it's incoherent blather even for the winger blogs as they are all going to ragequit the country or something over Brett Kimberlin:

If you’ve been monitoring the rightie blogs today, you’d notice they’re all raging about some guy named Brett Kimberlin. Some of them have been going on about Brett Kimberlin for the past few days, and for the life of me I couldn’t make out why they were so enraged about Brett Kimberlin. One blog post after another was just a weird word salad mingling George Soros, Barbara Streisand, Bill Ayers, Mumia Abu-Jamal, world Marxism, various progressive organizations, and the left generally, to this guy Brett Kimberlin.

In other words, it's the usual crap.  Person X is the New Liberal Satan, and all liberals must be purged.  Only...this time they seem to be a bit angrier than normal.

But the weird thing is that rightie blogger after rightie blogger isn’t discussing what Kimberlin allegedly did to Patterico or McCain. They are calling for jihad on the entire Left. Everyone who has expressed even a mildly progressive opinion over the past 150 years is behind the Vast Conspiracy to silence the Right through intimidation (which, of course, bears no resemblance to what Breitbart and others were trying to do to Justice Through Music. [/sarcasm].) And so post after post rants hysterically about George Soros, Barbara Streisand, Bill Ayers, Mumia Abu-Jamal, world Marxism, various progressive organizations, and the left generally. Oh, and Brett Kimberlin.

Steve M too has noticed this time seems vastly different in tone rather than Standard Wingnut Poutrage of the Week.  One of them said this:

Read all of the incredible, sick-making story — which includes some perfectly typical and disgusting bile spewed by some of the violence-supporting left-wing animals who think things like this are just peachy — and gird your loins. Because it’s going to come down to shooting with these vermin eventually, if we’re to retain any rights at all. Patterico wouldn’t like me saying that, I’m sure; I don’t much like having to say it myself. But it’s a mere acknowledgment of current reality: we are in a cold war with neo-Marxists who are trying to steal our country, have already done enormous and probably permanent damage to it, and will stop at nothing –absolutely nothing — to see to it that our voices are silenced. That war must inevitably go hot, unless we’re willing to surrender to them.

Yeah, these guys aren't talking about protests and rallies.  They're talking about putting bullets in people over political disagreements now because they feel "our voices are silenced".  You know, because FOX News and Rush and righty blogs will be shut down any second under the Obama Regime.

These guys are all deeply disturbed.  And yet this is exactly the outcome I've been warning of for the the last several years on this blog.

It's scary to start seeing it come to pass.

The Federalist (Single) Payers

Mitt Romney and the Tenth Amendment-loving Republicans want states to be able to craft their own health-care solutions?  Washington State Democrat Jim McDermott will take you up on your offer now.

Universal coverage, Medicare for all, single payer — call it what you will. It's clear that conservative forces are determined to prevent such a system from ever being introduced at the national level. So it's up to the states.

The catch is that to make universal coverage work at the state level, you'd need some way to channel Medicare, Medicaid and other federal healthcare funds into the system. At the moment, that's difficult if not impossible.

But legislation quietly being drafted by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) would change that. It would create a mechanism for states to request federal funds after establishing their own health insurance programs.

If passed into law — admittedly a long shot with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives — McDermott's State-Based Universal Healthcare Act would represent a game changer for medical coverage in the United States.

It would, for the first time, create a system under which a Medicare-for-all program could be rolled out on a state-by-state basis. In California's case, it would make coverage available to the roughly 7 million people now lacking health insurance.

"This is a huge deal," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. "This is a lifeline for people who want to create a Medicare system at the state level."

So yes, block grants.  Block grants for single-payer.  Naturally, Republicans will immediately rescind all of their arguments that given a chance, states can do a more efficient job of administering health care if you just give them the money.  Giving them the money to develop single payer would of course put private insurance companies more interested in profits than saving people lives, out of business.

We can't have that, of course.

Death panels for all the girls and boys.

Three Abandoned Kids Safe Now

(CNN) -- Police said Friday that they tracked down the mother of three children -- all apparently 3 years old or younger -- who were found alone the previous morning in a vacant building in Portland, Oregon.

Police released a brief statement about noon Friday, saying, "The mother of the missing children has been located, and we thank everyone who helped with information. We do not need need any additional tips."

Authorities did not offer more details, including whether charges will be filed in the case.

Whenever something like this happens, we have to know that it happens a dozen times elsewhere and isn't caught. It's unlikely this is the first time those kids have been abandoned.  Whether this was a short-term mistake or a final exit is not known.  The kids were identified and are safe, and I will follow up on the mom whenever details are released.

Way To Pick An Example, Your Honor

A judge admittedly chose a particular girl to use as an example.  He sentenced a seventeen-year-old girl to a night in jail, and a $100 fine she can ill afford. She is an honor student, but has excessive truancy.

A couple of facts the judge was aware of: their parents left her to raise her younger sister.  She maintains excellent grades, works both a full-time and part-time job, and takes care of her sister.  Attendance is important, but so are individual circumstances.  The judge could have used other means to enforce the point and be less destructive, but he chose to use this girl to make a point about truancy.  What an idiot.

"If you let one run loose, what are you gonna' do with the rest of 'em?," said Judge Lanny Moriarty. "Let them go too? A little stay in the jail for one night is not a death sentence."

He's too dumb to differentiate between a girl doing the best she can and a mall rat skipping chemistry to smoke dope.  Tell me again why this man belongs on the bench.

Diane Tran is a young hero who has taken on more than many adults would.  She deserves compassion and understanding, and instead she got a lesson in what it's like to be kicked when you're already down.

Mitt Romney, Keynesian?

Chuck Pierce points out the huge news in Mitt Romney's nerf bat interview with Mark Halperin earlier this week:

Halperin: Why not in the first year, if you're elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you'd like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I'm not going to do that, of course. 

Paul Ryan just had a stroke, because that's basically exactly what his planned budget does.  It cuts hundreds of billions in government spending right off the bat.   Mitt Romney is admitting that massive government spending cuts will put us in a recession.  Republicans want to make massive government spending cuts.  You see the problem here?  Mittens just took a steaming dump in the Tea Party punchbowl, right?

Wrong.  Working as intended.

Romney's playing centrist etch-a-sketch again.  "Sure, we're going to have to make cuts folks, but under me they won't be so bad.  The Republicans in Congress will listen to me and we'll do this in an orderly fashion.  If the other guy is in the White House, well, who do you think will lose in the end?  I'm the only guy who can control the Tea Party."

And there are millions of voters, some of the Democrats, who will vote for Mitt Romney for exactly that reason.  There's a method to his seeming madness.  And just like Orange Julius, he'll shrug and go "Oh well" when the Tea Party puts their budget on his desk and sign it.

Best part is when the economy plummets headfirst into the ground for the exact reasons Romney mentioned, it'll be Obama's fault, and we'll have to cut more spending.  See how this works?

Of course as I keep saying you can prevent that in November.

Enablers Of Destruction

Brad DeLong just absolutely hits this out of the park with the notion that the problem isn't just insane Republicans on verge of reducing the country to warring red state Christian fiefdoms versus the Union, but the "moderates" who enable these nutjobs though sins of omission as he takes on Norm Ornstein and Tom Carr about their new book bemoaning the wingnuts in their party.

Look. You two are expecting normal politics to rein in a Republican Party gone bonkers extreme. But it will not work. The press corps will continue to say "he said, she said, yadda yadda yadda" either because they are gutless cowards or because they are bought. In a world of low-information voters, the bonkers extremism and sheer total meanness of the Republican Party will not get through. The only way it could get through would be if moderate Republican barons were to announce that they had had enough and were crossing t'he aisle, and if they did so in a way that they brought their affinities with them. But I don't see Brent Scowcroft doing that, I don't see Colin Powell doing that, I don't see Greg Mankiw doing that, I don't see Marty Feldstein doing that, I don't see Gail Wilensky doing that, I don't see Bob Dole doing that, I don't see Jack Danforth doing that, I don't see Richard Lugar doing that--and I don't see you doing that, Mr. Ornstein. I don't see you calling for the defeat of every single Republican candidate this fall and every fall until the party comes back to reality.

And since all of you moderate Republicans are unwilling to take the only step that might fix the situation on your side, we have to take the only step open to us: We have to stop bringing a set of policy proposals and briefing papers to what the Republican Party has made a thermonuclear exchange. We have to oppose their noise, slime, and lie machine with a noise, disinfectant, and truth machine of our own--and at the same intensity.

That means you moderates need to pick a side and fasten your seat belts, rather than wringing your hands about how the Republicans are being so mean, and you wish they would be less so.

Any questions?

It's the guys in the middle who should know better, who should be revolting, who should be standing up for the Republican Party.  But they're too far gone, and anyone who does stand up gets their career destroyed by these thugs and replaced with another Tea Party clone.

It's sad, really.  But it's nobody fault more than guys like Ornstein and Carr.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The suspect in the murder of six-year-old Etan Patz in 1979 faces arraignment after his confession to NYPD officials.
• The FBI is now involved in the investigation of several break-ins and arson attempts at several Georgia women's health clinics this month.
• With Egyptian elections headed for a bitter runoff, US officials are bracing for the new President's almost certain anti-American stance.
• New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin has successfully trademarked "Linsanity" ending a multi-month battle over the claim.
• Game developer 38 Studios has laid off all of its staff after a disastrous deal gone wrong involving baseball great Curt Schilling.

Last Call

Hopefully another step in the permanent Last Call for DOMA:

Last night, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional in a case called Dragovich v. U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Clinton-appointed federal judge found that DOMA violates the Constitution’s equal protections clause due to the fact that, along with a provision of the state’s tax law, it limits same-sex couples and domestic partners from fully participating in the California Public Employees Retirement System. This marks the first federal court decision on DOMA since President Obama announced his endorsement of same-sex marriage on May 9. Two other judges and a bankruptcy court have similarly ruled DOMA unconstitutional.

Indeed, the equal protection violation clause is a powerful argument that has been used before to attack DOMA.  It's a law which codifies discrimination, plain and simple.   What will SCOTUS decide on this?  Who knows.

All the more reason to keep Mitt Romney out of the White House, if you ask me.

Fire Walker Chronicles: Rolling In The Deep

Team Koch is stomping a dollar sign shaped mud hole in Tom Barrett and then drying it out, with the super-PACs backing GOP Gov. Scott Walker outspending the Democrats by more than 3-to-1 in the Wisconsin recall.

Walker's campaign, which has raised a record $25 million+ for the recall campaign, spent over $7 million for TV buys from March 20 through Election Day, according to a source tracking ad buys in the state. In anticipation of the recall, the governor has been on the air since last December, with spots touting his record, including his controversial budget repair bill curbing collective bargaining for public employees. In total, Walker's campaign has spent over $12 million on recall election campaign ads.

Republicans are apparently absolutely giddy with the thought that Walker's win will usher in a new era of permanent GOP dominance.  If it takes millions of dollars to purchase said dominance, and they have it to spend, why by gum, they're going to do just that.  Thanks, Citizens United!

Walker is the frontrunner in the campaign, but Democrats released two polls this week showing the governor with only a small, single-digit lead. The outcome of the race will largely rest on which side can turn out its base. There are very few uncommitted voters, with nearly everyone holding a firm opinion of Walker. 

The two candidates will debate tonight and once more next Thursday.

It's not over with yet, folks.  It's all about getting people to the polls.  Badger, badger, badger, don't be a mushroom.

Bunch Of Bubble Heads

Conservative Michael Barone has figured out why liberals don't always win, their refusal to accept wingnut framing of arguments means we're "cocooned" away from "reality".  His clever assault begins thusly:

It's comfortable living in a cocoon -- associating only with those who share your views, reading journalism and watching news that only reinforces them, avoiding those on the other side of the cultural divide.

Liberals have been doing this for a long time.

It may be the the least self-aware passage ever penned by a conservative pundit.  It gets worse from there, but the gist of it is since Barone lives in his own impenetrable cocoon of Derp, he argues that because liberals don't choose to accept the perfection of the FOX News reality simulator, they can't win arguments with conservatives.

In other words, liberals can only win in Barone's eyes if they accept the fact they've already lost.  And since they've already lost, why bother winning?  Didn't you know all real Americans go to megachurches and watch Hannity and listen to Rush?  The rest of you people live in a cocoon.  You should try it!

Of course, the outfits that are dedicated to fighting the right's message on their own terms by listening to Rush and watching FOX and going after them?  Yeah, they don't exist in Barone's world, apparently.  Funny how that works, right?

Engagement Lawsuit Raises Questions

Either this is the worst "gold digger" ever, or she has a hell of a defense, returning a ring worth $32,000.

Kendra Platt-Lee decided she no longer wanted to get married to Steven Silverstein.  She broke off the wedding and returned the ring, only to find he was suing her.  Silverstein wants to be compensated for wedding expenses and two years of rent for the time they lived together.

I can only pray he doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to the time living together, but when it comes to legal matters I take nothing for granted.  She lived with him, with his full consent and permission, and owes him nothing (or so one would think).  As far as wedding expenses, she voluntarily returned the ring, worth over thirty grand.  It's going to be hard to portray her as victimizing or taking advantage when she initiated the return.  I found mixed results when it comes to the forced return or compensation for engagement rings, so she by no means had to be so forthcoming with it.  While splitting the wedding costs may be nice, I'm not sure how the law will fall on that one either.

Silverstein does claim she wiped out a joint account.  However, good luck doing anything with that, as it's a joint account for a reason.  It will be interesting to see if she did.  It doesn't at all jibe with the return of the ring.  If she did though, it will give some weight to his claims of greediness and shady play.  It would also be just about impossible to prosecute, so she's either very clever or he's very determined to smear her reputation.

Love hurts, baby.

Crappy News Day

Well, crap.

Three bodies were pulled out of a septic pond (a fancy phrase for poo pit).  They are believed to be those of a father and his two sons.  A tractor was found parked and still running on the scene.

The family had been working at the manure pit, but foul play has not been ruled out.  The obvious question is, who would purposely dive into something that smelled like that?

In other news, we have a woman who beat up her own mother for money.  To make sure the double-amputee could not follow her, she also took her mother's cane, ensuring she would stay put.

Jessica Strahl (Click for crazy-eyed photo goodness) jumped into a truck after assaulting her mother, and has not been seen since she pawned the necklaces she ripped from her mother's neck.

Shocked To Discover Gambling At This Establishment, He Says

Over at Salon, ex-Reagan operative and National Review writer Michael Fumento takes a long hard look at the abyss of the right-wing punditry in America and decides "That's it, I'm outta here."

This is nuts! Literally. As in “mass hysteria.” That’s a phenomenon I wrote about for a quarter-century, from the heterosexual AIDS “epidemic” to the swine flu “pandemic” that killed vastly fewer people than seasonal flu, to “runaway Toyotas.” Mass hysteria is when a large segment of society loses touch with reality, or goes bonkers, if you will, on a given issue – like believing that an incredibly mild strain of flu could kill eight times as many Americans as normal seasonal flu. (It killed about a third as many.)

I was always way ahead of the curve. And my exposés primarily appeared in right-wing publications. Back when they were interested in serious research. I also founded a conservative college newspaper, held positions in the Reagan administration and at several conservative think tanks, and published five books that conservatives applauded. I’ve written for umpteen major conservative publications – National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among them.

But no longer. That was the old right. The last thing hysteria promoters want is calm, reasoned argument backed by facts. And I’m horrified that these people have co-opted the name “conservative” to scream their messages of hate and anger.

Well, took you long enough.  But welcome to what I've been saying for almost four years now.  We need a better Republican party, because you can't always count on the Democrats to do the right thing.  But the choices in 2012 are between the Democrats and the Insane Party Of Effing Bonkers.  I'll stick with the Dems, thanks.

The Republicans?  Yeah, this house needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.  They're doing most of the tearing down themselves.  The bad news is they're trying to take the rest of us with them.

The Old Line State Gets A New Line

Yeah, I know, it's a Huffington Post article, but it's actually great news:  the streak of same-sex marriage bans on state ballots may be headed for a huge failure.

In a dramatic shift, Maryland voters overwhelmingly would vote to uphold a law allowing same-sex marriage, according to a survey released Thursday by Public Policy Polling.

Fifty-seven percent of likely voters would vote to uphold the law allowing same-sex marriage, while 37 percent would not, representing a 12-point shift from an identical survey in early March. Fifty-two percent think gay marriage should be recognized, while 39 percent do not. Both polls were commissioned for Marylanders for Marriage Equality.

Maryland passed a gay marriage law, but it doesn't take effect until January 1, 2013. Opponents of the law are seeking to get 55,736 signatures to force a referendum on it by June 30, which is likely to happen. Maine and Minnesota will vote on gay marriage in November.

The poll notes that the shift can be explained "almost entirely" by a change in black voters' attitudes. Previously, 56 percent said they would vote against the new law, with 39 percent saying they would vote for uphold it. Now, 55 percent say they will vote for the law and 36 percent are opposed.

And yes, PPP attributes the shift in Maryland's black voters entirely to President Obama backing same-sex marriage.  The end result is that if this trend continues, Maryland's expected ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage in the state's constitution before the state's same-sex marriage law can take effect in January 2013 will go down to a serious defeat.  Ta-Nehisi Coates sums it up:

It would not simply mean that same-sex marriage held by a majority vote, but that it did so in one of the blackest states in the country. I don't think that says anything distinctive about African-Americans, except that in the climate, it seems exceptional to point out that black people are, in fact, not aliens permanently in the grip of pathology, but Americans.

I was skeptical that Obama would actually influence black opinions. I'm not sure he has. But I can't rule it out. It's clear that the trend was toward support. Maybe Obama gave it the final push. On a related note, preachers who thought they were going to use this to test, for better or ill, the most popular man in black America, should reconsider.

Amen.

StupidiNews!

• The SpaceX Dragon unmanned spacecraft is expected to dock with the International Space Station today, delivering supplies to astronauts.
• PFC Naser Jason Abdo has been convicted by a jury of a terrorism bomb plot to kill his fellow soldiers, and faces life in prison.
• Lockheed Martin will hire temp workers in Texas to get around striking machinists at its aircraft production plant in Fort Worth.
• The latest plan to save money in Detroit?  Putting out half the city's streetlights.
• Google has revealed for the first time who is asking it to remove searches over copyright issues, and #1 is Microsoft.

Last Call

If you want to know why Republicans are so very interested in vote suppression among Latino voters (and minorities in general, but especially Latino voters) at the state level, it's because of this right here:

Less than six months before November’s presidential election, President Obama enjoys a sizable lead over Mitt Romney among Latino voters, according to a new national NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll of Latino respondents.

The challenge for the Obama campaign, however, will be turning out these voters, who aren’t as interested in the election as all other Americans are.

The GOP vote suppression efforts are working at an organic level.  You decrease turnout of minority voters, Republicans win.

In this survey, Obama holds a 34-point lead over Romney among registered Latino voters, 61 to 27 percent. In 2008, according to the exit polls, Obama defeated McCain among this key voting bloc, 67 to 31 percent.

In addition, Obama’s approval rating among all Latino adults stands at 61 percent (compared with 48 percent of all Americans in the new NBC/WSJ poll), and approval of his handling of the economy is at 54 percent (versus 43 percent overall).

Meanwhile, Romney is struggling with Latinos, the poll shows. Just 26 percent view him positively, while 35 percent see him in a negative light. By comparison, Obama’s positive/negative score among Latinos is 58/23 percent.

State efforts like Arizona's ridiculously racist immigration nonsense (mirrored in other Southern states), Voter ID laws, voter ballot language laws, all designed to keep minority turnout down, but it's absolutely weighted towards killing Latino turnout.  If Latino turnout is high, Barack Obama will win, and Democrats will keep the Senate.  If they don't...

But here’s a troubling sign for the Obama campaign: Latinos aren’t as excited about the upcoming election. A combined 68 percent of Latino voters say they are highly interested in the upcoming election (registering an “8”,”9”, or “10” on a 10-point scale). That’s compared with 81 percent of all voters who express high interest.

Getting Latino voters to the polls will decide it in 2012.   The GOP knows it.  They've been preparing for this for years now.  There's a method to this madness, folks.  And it's working for them.

Number Crunched

I was going to engage in my favorite sport of pointing out why Jim Pethokoukis is a meathead, but John Cole handily and beat me to it.

You’d think that would be the end of it. But not when you have outrageous hacks like James Pethokoukis on the case. You all remember him, right? He’s the clown who, in AUGUST OF 2008, was denying that we were in a recession. He then, a few months later in October 2008, was forced to admit we were in recession (since the economy had crashed and the DOW had dropped 5,000 point), decided that the reason the economy tanked and the DOW dropped was because investors were afraid that Obama was leading in the polls, otherwise known as the Goldberg theorem. He later theorized that Obama’s interaction with Joe the Plumber would cost Obama the election. His crimes against reality and reason are so severe that we’ve almost had to dedicate an entire server to document the atrocities, but yet, for some reason, he is still held in some regard in some circle-jerks circles.

Jim attacks this solid article by Rex Nutting at CBS Marketwatch showing that the Obama administration's "record deluge of government spending growth" is in fact...not.

Here are the facts, according to the official government statistics:

• In the 2009 fiscal year — the last of George W. Bush’s presidency — federal spending rose by 17.9% from $2.98 trillion to $3.52 trillion. Check the official numbers at the Office of Management and Budget.

• In fiscal 2010 — the first budget under Obama — spending fell 1.8% to $3.46 trillion.

• In fiscal 2011, spending rose 4.3% to $3.60 trillion.

• In fiscal 2012, spending is set to rise 0.7% to $3.63 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the budget that was agreed to last August.

• Finally in fiscal 2013 — the final budget of Obama’s term — spending is scheduled to fall 1.3% to $3.58 trillion. Read the CBO’s latest budget outlook.

The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat.

Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4%.

There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear. 

You want to know why deficits have exploded?

THE BUSH TAX CUTS.

And that's because during the recession, revenues have plummeted.  Because Barack Obama cut taxes even more on middle class families and businesses, just like economists advised him to do and Republicans screamed at him to do.  Again, total government spending has remained flat.  Revenues have dropped.  Republicans will never, ever let us raise revenues.  Ever.

And that's where Jim comes in, saying that as a percentage of GDP, spending under Barack Obama was up.  This is true.  You want to know why? 

THE ECONOMY CRASHED.

The economy crashed, to spending remained constant but the GDP contracted.  Therefore spending as a percentage of GDP went up.  That's called "math."  When revenues and GDP both decrease, and spending remains constant, deficits and debt go up.

The other thing that's constant?  Jim Pethokoukis is a hack.

I Believe I Am Detecting A Policy Trend Here

Mitt Romney's solution to public education?  Add profit motive at the expense of the taxpayer.  Actually, that's Mitt Romney's solution to everything, now that I think about it.

Mitt Romney proposed a series of steps to overhaul the public education system, reigniting the debate over school choice as his campaign intensifies its effort to introduce the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to a general-election audience.

The education plan, detailed in a speech today in Washington, would create a voucher-like system to give low- income and disabled students federal funds to attend charter schools, private institutions and public schools outside their district.

“I don’t like the direction of American education, and as president, I will do everything in my power to get education on track for the kids of this great land,” Romney told a gathering of Latino business owners at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

Hey, if vouchers are good enough for Grandma's health care, they're good enough for Junior's edumacation.  Best part:

“President Obama has made his choice, and I have made mine: As president, I will be a champion of real education reform in America, and I won’t let any special interest get in the way,” he said. “We have to stop putting campaign cash ahead of our kids.” 

You know, like the campaign cash from charter school lobbyists eager to take tens of billions in taxpayer dollars and wring out profits rather than graduates.

Even better part:

Romney’s plan wouldn’t increase the federal budget, said domestic policy adviser Oren Cass. 

Just like the Bush tax cuts, am I right?

The Bon Salutes You

A man teeing off at the 14th over the weekend hooked his shot, watched the ball disappear and then heard screams, according to a Murfreesboro Police Department incident report. He followed the scream to find a woman clutching her bloody mouth.

Her husband told police that they were riding their motorcycles when he saw the ball bounce across the road and near her motorcycle. There, it careened into her face. She was able to avoid wrecking her bike, but the ball knocked out “several” teeth, the report said. She was taken to Middle Tennessee Medical Center for treatment.

Scream?  I freaking bet she did.  I don't have the brain processing power to handle so much pain, and with zero time to prepare for it.  And you know what else is incredible?  She kept her bike up.  That is one tough bird, folks.  Stud muffin doesn't even come close to touching this.  It is clear she is riding a motorcycle because those GIANT BRASS BALLS making flying such a hassle.

Dear Lady: If you ever read this, I really did salute you, after horrified tears on your behalf dried up.