Mike Barnicle on Boehner: "How is it that he ended up as a Republican?"

That was Mike Barnicle's response after watching Luke Russert's piece about John Boehner's working class background. Russert traveled to Boehner's hometown of Reading, Ohio, visiting the small home that Boehner lived in with his 11 brothers and sisters, and the family owned tavern that he used to scrub down for 4 or 5 hours at the crack of dawn each Saturday morning. Russert also explains how Boehner took 7 years to complete his undergraduate degree at Xavier because he was working full time during the day just to put himself through college.

As for Barnicle's response, it was typical, honest and revealing. For many, it is inconceivable how someone from a working class background could eventually become a conservative Republican.

Congratulations to Russert for doing the piece. It is devastating to caricature that the left is trying to create about the Minority Leader.

Watch the video here.

By the way, like I said, I love Boehner!

A new addition to Chris Christie's greatest hits

I love this man.

Boehner is making no sense

John Boehner has called for legislation that will preserve the Bush tax rates for an additional two years in order to create more certainty for small businesses.

What? How does passing yet another temporary tax cut reduce uncertainty? Two years is an incredibly short amount of time for a business that is deciding whether or not to make investments that will produce income far out into the future.

Let's stay focused here. It's the spending that's creating all of the uncertainty. No one is certain how all of this spending is going to be paid for.

This is why I have no confidence in this guy. Paul Ryan for speaker.

Obama and the ditch

"The Republicans drove our economy into a ditch." - President Obama

"Perhaps, but you are driving the economy off a cliff." - Me

The air is thick and so are we

South Floridians know well that as the humidity rises, the natural and holy constraints on human behavior seem to fall away, and not a day goes by without at least one truly bizarre story in the local paper. A few recent examples.

For starters, here's a headline from the final days of a hotly contested Democratic primary race:

• Battle of the robocalls: Greene enlists Star Jones after Pelosi phones for Meek in Dem Senate primary

(In a turn of events that will puzzle political scientists for decades to come, the Jones charisma offensive failed to sway the voters, and Kendrick Meek prevailed handily over Jeff Greene in the primary.)

The odd behavior is not limited to politics:

• A Miami Dolphins defensive end lost his 2.5 carot diamond earring at practice.
  
  
• When a man in Delray Beach came across a dead whale that had washed up on the sand, he knelt down and cut away two feet of the beast, including its tail. He wanted to eat it, and according to a reporter, "said he wasn't worried about health issues because the body still was warm and there was only one fly on it."
  
  

There is a subtle poetry to this one, like a haiku written by Ned Clampett.

Fla. man driving lawn mower charged with DUI

ANTHONY, FLA -- A central Florida man has been charged with DUI for driving a lawn mower drunk

Marion County Sheriff's Office spotted Richard Paschen driving the read lawn mower with a cup of beer sitting in the cup holder Friday night.

He told Deputy Gary Miller he'd had "a pretty good bit" to drink and had gotten lost on his way home. Paschen refused a breath test

Pasken has had several DUIs and his driver's license has been suspended.

Come to think of it, these guys ARE like an old joke

Maddow really sticks it to Chris Christie

The hilarious and stunning Rachel Maddow demonstrates her intelligent and clever brand of wit in this segment on Governor Chris Christie. Try not to fall out of your chair from laughter!

But seriously, here is Chris Christie commenting on the stupidity of denying the state of NJ an educational grant based on a simple clerical error. His best line was his comment on the bureaucracy in Washingon: "If you are a normal thinking, breathing, human being, you pickup the phone! ... Does anyone in Washington have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number!"



By the way, is this how rationing works?

CNBC's Joe Kernan asks "how can a tax cut be paid for"

This morning on CNBC's Squawk Box, David Gregory suggested that Republicans were going to have some difficulty because many are "still clinging to the idea of tax cuts even if they are not paid for."

In this comment, Gregory is repeating a talking point that attempts to equate a tax cut with spending, as if allowing a person to keep 75% of their income instead of only 70% is somehow a government program. And Kernan politely calls him on it:

Republicans would say, what do you mean you have to pay for tax cuts? Was the Clinton level written in stone and anything beyond that we've already spent? So we need to find money to pay for taking less of the money that's already yours? Do we start at 100% taxation and anything below that we need to somehow pay for? That doesn't make sense.

David Gregory looking completely perplexed, as if he has never heard an argument likes this (which he hasn't), replies:

I don't know what part doesn't make sense. If you are concerned about deficits...and you were a proponent of the tax cuts, and then got to a point where they needed to be paid for, I don't know how you square those two things.

Kernan:

Well, why don't you spend less? So what you are saying is that the spending is already done, and you were planning on having more tax revenue from the higher rates from the 90s before they were cut...?

It was a little clumsy, but the point Kernan is making is an important one. Allowing someone to keep more of his own income is not a government program that needs to be paid for. It's always and everywhere government spending, either current spending or previous spending, that causes deficits and thus "needs to be paid for".

And his point about starting at "100% taxation" is even more important. Saying that a tax cut needs to be paid for is almost like suggesting that all income and wealth produced in an economy is by default property of the government. And when the government allows people to keep some of it, it is in effect a government program that needs to be "paid for". Kernan points out that this is completely backwards, and I think most of us would agree.

You can watch the video here.

Where can I send money to get this ad on TV?

The Republican Study Committee has hit it out of the park with this ad.



My favorite line is "The more their plans fail, the more the planners plan."

Thanks for the pointer from Claire over at Ricochet.

Actually, it's that they are being lazy

No, I don't actually believe that Chris Matthews is "not very smart" or that Joe Scarborough is "dumb". It's more that they are being lazy. It's as if they make no effort whatsoever to understand the arguments that conservatives are making. (And for Joe Scarborough, that is quite a feat since he is a self described conservative).

Speaking of being lazy, this dispute between Paul Krugman and Paul Ryan has been entertaining. Paul Ryan commenting on Paul Krugman:

“I realize he’s a columnist and not a journalist, yet he could have easily tried to have verified his claims with a phone call or an email. Instead he went with his confusion and chose to impugn motives, which strikes me as a very intellectually lazy exercise or style.”