Rasmussen polls the Oregon governor’s race.

The first post-primary poll shows Oregon gubernatorial candidates Chris Dudley and John Kitzhaber pretty even.

In a Rasmussen poll released today, Dudley leads Kitzhaber 45 percent to 44 percent, a difference that’s smaller than the 4.5 percentage point margin of error.

So, Rasmussen shows Dudley beating Kitzhaber by one point?  You know what that means?

KITZHABER UP BY TEN POINTS!!!

Bush Derangement Syndrome versus Obama Derangement Syndrome:  Under Bush’s name, there are 47 listed rumors. Twenty were confirmed as true, and six were termed “undetermined” or “unclassifiable veracity.” That left 21 that contained at least some factual errors. There were nearly double that number of listings for Obama, and the difference between fact and fiction was even more disturbing. Of the 87 rumors, just eight were deemed true, and three undetermined. That means a whopping 76 were either completely false or at least partially untrue.

David Frum asks the question:  How is it that the GOP has lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rand Paul?

Quick question:  How is the GOP lost its antibodies against a candidate like George W Bush?  Is one, in part, an effect from another?  How is it the Democrats lost its antibodies against a candidate like Rod Blagojevich?
Say… How did the GOP lost its antibodies against a candidate like Newt Gingrich?

VIEIRA: “Can you honestly compare what’s going on with the Democrats with Nazi Germany?”

GINGRICH: “No it’s not a question of how evil they were. Nazi Germany was terrible, Stalin’s Russia was terrible, Mao’s China was terrible. It’s a question of finality. Had we lost either of those contests, we would have become a radically different country.”

Bob Bennett, Senator of Utah:  I urge all of the Tea Partyers to follow Reagan, not Carter. If they want their movement to be more than a wave that crashes on the beach and then recedes back into the ocean, leaving nothing behind but empty sand, they should stop the “gloom talk.” These are not the worst times we have ever faced, nor is the Constitution under serious threat.

Cover of National Review, now last week but probably the one available at your bookstore.
    See too: 

“Ron Paul Revolution.  Give us back our Constitution!” — Ron Paul Revolution Slogan.
… From back in the Bush Administration.

………………………………………….

Hope Top Kill goes well… too bad the Obama Administration fell into this sort of sucker’s bet, eh?

And Charlie Crist knows what he’s knowing, but he can’t say what he’s seen.  And he’s not a little child, and he knows what he wants.  And the future is certain, give Charlie Crist time to work it out.

There are several classic cases of mis-appropriating songs for political use.  Ronald Reagan had a tangle with Bruce Springsteen after praising the song “Born in the USA”, and hilariously enough hoping for his endorsement.  Reagan turned around and tried for John Mellancamp and “Little Pink Houses”.  These, at least have some grounds to interpret in a strange broad patriotic manner — to put another way: if you’re not paying attention to the lyrics, you can relay your proper signal to “Middle America”.

Rush Limbaugh adopted the Pretenders song “Ohio” for his opening theme song.  It is just the opening riff and we never get to the voice of Chrissie Hynde — currently a spokesperson for the group “PETA”.  While the song rails against over-development and ultimately goes against the policies advocated by Limbaugh, there is a kind of vague feeling of loss that can be defined in cultural terms by Limbaugh.  “What’s the matter with Ohio?”

But things get a little bit weirder with that one:
“Last month, Hynde finally got Limbaugh to pull the song but then did an about face on Aug. 18, telling him that he could use the song if he donated all the royalties to the animal right’s organization PETA, after PETA campaign manager Dan Mathews told her Limbaugh had a soft-spot for animals. She fired off the following missive to PETA to let them know of the recent developments. “In light of Rush Limbaugh’s vocal support of PETA’s campaign against the Environmental Protection Agency’s foolish plan to test some 3,000 chemicals on animals, I have decided to allow him to keep my song, ‘My City Was Gone,’ as his signature tune and to donate all proceeds from the deal to further PETA’s efforts in that regard””
This seems a bit of a cop-out: I don’t think Hynde has a say, but is just invented a rationalization for herself.  I don’t know if I believe Limbaugh, either.  In the end, the key is that the part of the song that is integral to the show elides past the lyrics.

I remember Al Gore using the Van Halen song “Right Now”, which is politically appropriate because the song is just this weird panoply of generic ultimately meaningless slogans.  It sounds good to have the sense of urgency, though.

This just does not make any sense.
David Byrne is suing the governor of Florida, alleging that he used the Talking Heads’ 1985 single “Road to Nowhere” without permission or proper licenses.

On the most basic of surface levels, without delving into the meaning of the lyrics, the song is titled “Road to Nowhere”.  Charlie Crist certainly has mastered that “Vision thing”, hasn’t he?

It is to laugh.

The former Alaska governor, speaking on Fox News Sunday, questioned whether there’s “any connection” between Obama’s campaign donations from oil companies and him “taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

This is demagogery from Mrs. “Drill Baby Drill”.  We are getting it now from the Republican Party at large.  A thought comes in, though, that it might be better, by way of forcing policy even from a hypocritical stance, than the ideological strait-jacket of her King Making Senate candidate from Kentucky, Mr. Rand Paul or the “Stand by My Donors” Mary Landrieu set.  Sometimes pure, cynical politics is all right.  It’s just that…

“There’s one thing they could do, under the law.  They could fire BP and Take it over.” — Lamar Alaxender, with some explanation that they might not have the capacity to do so.

No.  Seriously.  You’re killing me.  Government Take over?
But thinking through on this, I do believe I have a clarifying answer to the defense of such things as, say, moving into nuclear energy — the decent enough defense of pointing out European countries that make good use of nuclear power.  It’s the “American Unexceptionalism” argument.  They’ve maintained a better Regulatory system then the good ol’ US of A.  Our regulatory system has broken down, corrupted by a political force that believes in its illegitimacy, and by broad swarths of Corporate short-sightedness.  From any appearance, BP lied and presented public relations for their oversight.  And It is this.

Gary Quarles said during a hearing before the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee that Massey routinely sends out radio alerts that a “man” is on the property when inspectors arrive. Quarles urged stiff penalties for such warnings.

I keep hearing from Democrats, and see from a report on Democratic Party strategy memos, a message that the nomination of tea partiers is “good”.  I dread this thought.  Even if they go on to lose, they do havoc to the “Overton Window” as politicians do what politicians do — finding that rhetorical point of a broadest common denominator in a world where chicken bartering can be acceptable Health Care policy.  And speaking of that —

Voters wearing chicken costumes will be barred from polling stations in Nevada, election officers have decided.
Democrats have mocked Republican Senate hopeful Sue Lowden, accusing her of suggesting that people barter for medical care using chickens.
Activists in chicken costumes started appearing at Ms Lowden’s rallies.
Sue Lowden is quite the chicken.  Note that she is not the tea-party candidate, and has fallen in the polls.  Sharron Angle is the Joe the Plumber Endorsed candidate.  Sure, Harry Reid might win this election yet, but really —
Lowden is regarded as the favorite of the Republican establishment, which considers her more moderate than Angle, as well as a better fund-raiser.
No.  Seriously.
I’m thinking about Bob Bennett and his loss in the Republican nominating convention in Utah (a system I don’t think is democratic):

Like those who voted for Carter because they were fed up with Nixon, the Tea Party is made up of people who are fed up with Washington profligacy. The combination of the Obama stimulus package, a bloated budget, stubbornly high unemployment and an expensive new health-care entitlement program has fueled their anger, convincing them that the federal government is out of touch and not listening. To a large extent, they’re right.
Their two strongest slogans are “Send a message to Washington” and “Take back America.” I know both very well because they were the main tools used to defeat me in Utah’s Republican convention two weeks ago. They also worked in Kentucky on Tuesday. They are more powerful than most pundits inside the Beltway realize.
Yet when the new members of Congress whom these slogans elect in November take office, the question becomes: Will they be Carter or Reagan?
Will they stand firmly on partisan sidelines continuing to shout slogans? Or will they reach across the aisle in the interest of the country? Will they offer constructive proposals to help solve our problems?

Sure.  And Carter took a swipe at our Oil Addiction.  Had he managed to succeed at marking a lasting contribution on that front instead of failing, I actually would stick Carter as one of our ten greatest presidents instead of one of our ten worst, even as he left the office in one term in deep unpopularity.  But how he went about that, in a rather self-defeating manner, did not make any sense.  Reagan, of course, with sunny optimism, racked us into red ink, and… I don’t really want to track the records of Carter or Reagan.
Ahem, Obama — ahem Thomas Friedman.

But I wonder about Bob Bennett.  I would be for the Democratic Party nominating him for the Senate seat, with him pledging that if elected he would remain a Republican, vote for their leadeship — the General election then becoming essentially a Republican primary with an increased electorate than the party convention.  He’d ride the party’s “Obama Derangement Syndrome” out and do those things they object to — making his mark in legislation he winds up opposing.

Hell.  Do the same thing with g’damned Walt Minnick in Idaho.

Palin to Campaign for Candidate Who Thinks Puerto Rico is a Country
Sometimes the headline takes you where it takes you. Later Friday, Sarah Palin will hit the trail in Idaho, where she spent some of her youth, for congressional candidate Vaughn Ward, trying to take back the typically Republican 1st District from Rep. Walt Minnick (D). Ward has done some work for Democrats in the past — that hasn’t become much of an issue yet, as Minnick is a former Republican and has been endorsed by the Tea Party Express, scrambling the party lineup in the district.

What do I care?  I think I spy another token Democrat the Tea Party (or one organization under the umbrella title of “Tea Party”) can throw their support toward.  The thing about Sarah Palin is… once why’s she campaigning for the Republican in the district that the Tea Party has supported the Democrat?  Palin, in the hub-ub as she resigned from office, said she would be campaigning “not just for Republicans, but Democrats as well”.  If I don’t see her coming out for the most right-wing Democrat in the House and the one a Tea Party organization threw their support toward, or the most right-wing Congressional Democratic candidate — Mike Oliverio — since Larry McDonald, who would she support?

It needs to be stated that two people on the Texas Board of Education have been unelected.  The final product of the Texas Board of Education (At work here) — the most consequential elected positions in this country that nobody pays attention to — is thus the result of a lameduck administration.  The board members were a bridge too far.  Read this list, and it is hard to tell which are parodies and which are Texas’s changes.
It’s up to California to save this nation.

Arguably the most galling part, or the part that I can relate to certain electoral current events, is the white-washing of the “Middle Passage”.  Skip a beat over to a blog post I once saw from a reflective Libertarian, expressing his understanding of why there are not a whole heck of a lot of Black Libertarians, and this makes sense as a fealty and holding as sancrosant above all else the upholding of Property Rights just does not fly well to a person who, relatively recently in history, would have been private property.

Rand Paul and Libertarianism.  It does not much matter that the —

— You know something?  I am having the damnedest time finding the “gaddanged gummint” clip of Mike Enzi from this week.  It comes in part, I think, because for the life of me I don’t know how the spell what Mike Enzi said — the ms sound like vs, and so forth. —

codified, enforced, and strengthened the racist precepts of Segregations.  The Law of the Markets themselves would have surely allowed Segregation to flourish.  I guess Rand Paul believes that a niche would open up in the market as some businesses see an opening against the general public demand for Segregation.  As for the nature of keeping the government de-segregated, I turn to the geniuses of the Libertarian movement as expressed at the Lew Rockwell website on where this is going.

“Yes. I would have voted yes.” — Rand Paul.
No.  I do not believe Rand Paul.  You only have to do a cursory glance of pursue the debates of the voters on each side of the ledger — the 27 to 6 Republican vote and 46 to 20 Democratic vote — to know Rand Paul would fall where the man he had to mention to deflect the controversy by bringing up fell — the former KKK member in West Virginia who probably supported Barack Obama in the presidential primary to cleanse his soul as against the 40 point whooping Clinton put on Obama in that state.  Rand Paul lacks the courage of his convictions.  His father would go on and forge ahead.  I have to question Rand Paul here, though — I mean he has the black BASSIST OF THE ALLMAN BROTHERS backing him up!!!!!!!

So, Rand Paul will be joining Louis Farrakhan and Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia cancelling a prior agreement to appear on Meet the Press.  This, I gather is the first step of a Media Retrenchment (or is grumbling about not having a honeymoon and attacking Rachel Maddow — the show from where he announced his Senate candidacy — the first step?  Throw in the mention of his huge lead in the Rasmussen [at the moment, not a credible poll outfit, though he probably was ahead right off the primary shoot by a good margin.])

The cocoon awaits, and pondering this I wonder if it’s a bit of a “no”.

The second point, which gets directly to why Rand Paul is suddenly flailing, is that the local Kentucky media–in particular the newspapers, and especially the flagship Louisville Courier-Journal–has been decimated by job cuts, as has happened across the country. This came up several times in discussions with Kentucky politicos and local journalists. The reason it matters is that because there is no longer a healthy, aggressive press corps–and no David Yepson-type dean of political journalists–candidates don’t run the same kind of gauntlet they once did. They’re not challenged by journalists. And since voters aren’t as well informed as they once were (many are “informed” in the sense of having strongly held views about all manner of things–they’re just not “well informed”), they can’t challenge the candidates either.

It needs to be noted that the Louisville Courier-Journal has its interview on its website.  Rand Paul is expressing his views on the matter.  Decimated though the local newspaper may be, it still relays raw facts and opinions from the people seeking higher office.

I see in the “Meet the Press” story comments about how this signifies a move into the safe Conservative Republican bubble.  In terms of a sort of broader picture, Jack Conway has to fight with a local strategy.:

Rand Paul is promoting a narrow and rigid ideology and has repeatedly rejected a fundamental provision of the Civil Rights Act. He is focused on the Tea Party whereas I am running to be a senator for all the people of Kentucky, who are really hurting right now.
 
No matter how he tries to spin to the contrary, the fact is that Paul’s ideology has dangerous consequences for working families, veterans, students, the disabled, and those without a voice in the halls of power. Kentucky voters have a choice between Rand Paul’s ideology and our campaign to create jobs, cut the deficit, and bring accountability to Wall Street and Washington. We are reaching out to Democrats, Independents and Republicans across Kentucky to ask them to join our campaign and stand up for Kentucky families.

Meet the Press didn’t ask Jack Conway, but I guess he’s not interested in a “National Movement”.   But wherefor does Rand Paul head?  Rand Paul is going to be going the route of the moles — down, down, down, below the surface.  The thing here is that commenters on news and blogs about the Meet the Press brush-off are suggesting he’ll go back to Conservative Media, to Fox News and conservative radio.  Is that where he is heading, or is he heading back to his base — by which I mean amping up appearances on Alex Jones, talking to his Constitution Party supporters, and to various Militia meets.

… As an aside, I knew (in peculiar fashions) a person who left the Constitution Party because he deemed it too moderate.  But he was a person who the New York Times reported as one of the “big names” in the “Justified Violence Movement”.  Pertaining to Alex Jones, I carefully hedge with him — I don’t think guest appearances with him disqualifies a politico — certainly Alan Grayson can acceptably spout off about the Paul / Grayson Fed bill (just as I once heard Harry Reid make an appearance with Art Bell over Yucca).   The idolizing and coziness with the Pauls is strictly creepy, though — weaving them into “New World Order is out to get Paul” conspiracy theories where nothing ever happens, or everything bad happens because of the gumvint.  Note to the Jack Conway campaign: watch Rand Paul’s appearances on Alex Jones — what you’re watching for is cues of basically verbal “head nods”:
Throughout this particular show, Paul graciously accepted Jones’ support for his pending Senate candidacy. He gave the impression that he and Jones were like-minded foes of the globalists and international financiers plotting to undermine, if not destroy, the United States for their own gain. And Paul noted that career politicians are no match for this enemy force: “the ones that evolve to the top of the Republican and the Democratic Party end up being the people who don’t believe in anything…and they get pushed around by the New World Order types.”

That sort of head nod that if someone had found with Barack Obama in relation to his pastor (you know the one), would have destroyed his candidacy — not even the FIGURATIVE throwing off the bus would have saved.

Sooner or later, I will break off my Daily Paul.  But not yet.

Once upon a time a long age ago, either in the wake of a Democratic Party defeat in 2004 or some Western Democratic Party victories in 2006, a debate raged over parts of the blogosphere about a supposed “Libertarian — Democratic Party” alliance.  From my mind, it was a debate dead on arrival, and amusing in its irrelevance.  But there were a few upshots, offered by the writers and bloggers at Reason magazine.  In the wake of the great Libertarian — Democratic Party debate, Reason offered up a hilarious celebratory article about some odd forgotten Gilded Age Democrat who fought the battles against William Jennings Bryan as an exemplary figure that the Democrats might model themselves after (No… seriously).  A bit more relevant was a pretty well deserved scolding that for Libertarian consideration, the Democratic politicians really would have to be “good on the issues” they should be good on as for swarths of their Liberal constituency — you know: cut defense, decriminilize drugs — but generally are not.  Touche, and touche indeed.

Do you know why I hold a special enmity toward Rand Paul that I do not hold toward Ron Paul?  Well, he’s not any good on those issues he should be good on.  As per a Time article which I saw from Te Nesha Coates who saw it with Andrew Sullivan.

Then again, in relating to the Ron Paul enthusisasts at the “Daily Paul” — Hey!  Where’s my Hemp???  So, if Rand Paul were to move these types of periphery interests into the forefront of what he’d fight tooth and nail, I’d probably go ahead and begrudgingly welcome his campaign, and a victory as a shake up of the Status Quo.  But I don’t see a coaliton building for that Patriot Act Reform to crowd in to the middle with Senator Feingold, and I don’t see any “Alternative Sources of Energy”, market driven or otherwise, crowding in to the middle coalition with, oh say Bernie Sanders…
… particularly as you consider today’s Rand Paul shoe drop (Media Smear to his Partisans).
Quote of the day, as from a link to talking points memo from prison planet’s “All Hands on Deck for the Great Rand Paul” coverage:

“I’m delighted that Rand Paul said that.  I think it’s magnificent. I didn’t realize that he was that good.  The spirit of non-discrimination ends you right up in compulsory bisexuality.”  — Walter Block, a libertarian professor of economics at Loyola University, and a senior fellow with the libertarian Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
Dearly dearly dearly.  Are we having fun yet?

But I have certain luxuries with Ron Paul.  Devoid of any meaningful “he’s not good where he should be”, what we are left with in Rand Paul is, oh I don’t know, the fiery pits of Hell — or the oily tarpits of Hell.:
“What I don’t like from the president’s administration is this sort of ‘I’ll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.’ I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business.  I’ve heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.”

I am prepping myself for a blasting of Barack Obama and his administration for his deference and corporate fealty.  For that, I bring about the Obama — Bush merger image — I trust you’ve seen it.  Understand, BP has pursued one hair brained scheme after another, whilst brushing off and minimizng the damage.  It is to stare at this quote:
TONY HAYWARD, BP CEO: The environmental impacts of this disaster is like to have been very, very modest. It`s impossible to say, and we will mount as part of the aftermath a very detailed environmental assessment as we go forward. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impacts of this will be very, very modest.
And then to jump over to:
The British energy major – already under pressure from the US government – admitted the well was gushing out more than the 5,000 barrels a day it had previously estimated. It could not give a new figure for the flow, three weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig owned and operated by its contractor Transocean exploded and sank, killing 11 men.
It is now siphoning 5,000 barrels a day up to a boat, but said although the flow had “noticeably reduced” there was still a plume of oil leaking into the ocean.
One scientist, Steve Wereley, associate mechanical engineering professor at Purdue University, believes as much as 70,000 barrels could be emerging per day, based on a video released by BP.
“This is not rocket science,” Mr Wereley told a US congressional panel. “All outside estimates are considerably higher than BP’s.”

The failure of the Obama Administration pops in the failure to, until now, regulate one of British Petroleum’s “Sweeping Under the Rug” manuevers.:

The U.S. government is ordering energy giant BP to find less-toxic chemicals to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill amid evidence that the dispersants are not effective and could actually make the spill more harmful to marine life. The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that BP has to choose an alternative dispersant by today and must begin using it by Sunday. So far, BP has put about 600,000 gallons of the chemical mixture Corexit 9500 on the surface and 55,000 gallons on the sea bottom.
“EPA wants to ensure BP is using the least-toxic product authorized for use,” the agency said in a statement. “We reserve the right to discontinue the use of this dispersant method if any negative impacts on the environment outweigh the benefits.”

Rand Paul doesn’t bring us much forward, does he?
Before I locate the Obama Bush image, I should really locate or create a Rand Paul — Bush merger image.  Notwithstanding that his shedding of various Libertarian impulses brings him to the Neo-Conservative position (Rand Paul: Neo-Con — suckers!!!), Rand Paul stands on the shoulder of his father and trades off of his name.  His organizational and fund-rasing apparatus, as kooky as it may be in spots, is essentially a stealing of Ron Paul’s.
Go back to the prison planet article, and we see quotations from Ron Paul.  We are back to the discomforting vision of George Herbert Walker Bush’s defenses of his son.  It occured to me, as I flickered past the opening of the Alan Colmes Show at midnight, and as he framed the Rand Paul controversy suggesting he’d be defending him, I had to wonder: what the hell is Alan Colmes doing interviewing Ron Paul?  I am reminded of November 2000, as the chads hung in Florida, when out from the shadows popped into view… James Bakker from the George Herbert Walker Bush Adminstration to do battle for George W Bush.

Rand Paul is the new George W Bush.

………………………

Rand Paul is actually a citizen of Somalia. I can’t prove it, but you can’t prove it’s not true, therefore it probably is.
Ba De Boom!
Well, their governing attitudes are about the same.  And I’m not really kidding all that much — here’s the lewrockwell website at the time of the Somali Pirate Hostage Crisis.  Lew Rockwell is the man who wrote, anonymously, the horribly racist pieces in the Ron Paul newsletters of the early 1990s, disavowed by Ron Paul in the 2000s, defended in blog comments by Ron Paul fans saying “But those won’t written by Ron Paul.  They were written by Lew Rockwell!”.

So, as we move into the New Era of the Rand Paul Revolution, I ask the question: Are we having fun yet?  I would like to say that the current hub ub over the … is that right?  Civil Rights Act of 1964? … is that “Other Shoe Dropping”, but the thing is, that metaphor would have to suggest a limit of two shoes available to drop — we’re in a weird world with Rand Paul where we may just well have some weirdo on the  balcony with a bizarre compunction to drop an unlimited number of shoes overboard.
Or… if you wanted to, you could tee the ball up and take a swing a day.  I don’t know if “Do you support the Violent Overthrow of the Government?” is a fair question, even if he spoke next to people expressing such an opinion, but there are plenty of avenues to explore short of such a thing.

Here’s the thing I’m looking forward to:  Election Day.  The Democratic candidate Jack Conway wins, 55 to 40 percent (I will assume there’s a third party in there).  Alex Jones, seen here (the Mitch Mcconnell candidate, whatshisname, who Rand Paul defeated split up parts of this video for use in an ad — which was online on Tuesday but taken off by the “user” on Wednesday — split with the shots of ) — after a relentless march from now until then relaying the Vast Conspiracy of the New World Order Media, the Neocons, and the Obama-bots to slur Rand Paul in some kind of unfair Persecution–

— and I will note that the commentary on Rand Paul today in blogosphere is pretty damned civil, focusing on how Rand Paul’s position demonstrates the limitations of his ideology in dealing with the Real World moreso than a latent racism — ahem and ahem — but there we are: in lalaland.

blames the election loss on Vote Theft.  Such as the article before the Kentucky Primary Contest where they alerted everyone to possible vote rigging …

In the meantime — when’s the “They’re Planning on Assassinating Rand Paul” thing going to come up?…

Reportedly, Rand Paul’s Republican allies — Jim DeMint — have pulled him aside for a little talk.  He is getting the hang of Republican Politics already: he regrets appearing on Rachel Maddow, and did a stint with Laura Ingraham for a friendly interview.

Freaking Alabama!

Jefferson County teacher picked the wrong example when he used as­sassinating President Bar­ack Obama as a way to teach angles to his geome­try students.
 […]

A Corner High geometry teacher picked the wrong example, President Barack Obama, to use in a lesson on angles. The lesson resulted in a Secret Service investigation. (AP) Sexton said he generally doesn’t discuss threat cases, but confirmed his of­fice investigated the inci­dent. No federal charges followed the probe.



The teacher was appar­ently teaching his geometry students about parallel lines and angles, officials said. He used the example of where to stand and aim if shooting Obama.



“He was talking about angles and said, ‘If you’re in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president,’ ” said Joseph Brown, a senior in the geometry class.


This might be boorish and completely inappropriate to ask, but…
What was the lesson?  If you are in this building… you need to take this angle…
Is it a crowded room with a bunch of obstructions, such that the angle would have to be one particular angle?  Is there a specific body part that’s being aimed at?  This story is “Useless Without Pictures”.
And, yes, the teacher needs some “Time off” without pay.

Sigh.  There’s one problem with this chart and this question from Ezra Klein and answer from Robert Boatright.

But primaries — and the anti-incumbency sentiment that’s supposedly generating them — are the big news of the day. To get some context, I called Robert Boatright, a professor of political science at Clark University. Boatright had previously written a paper (pdf) tallying every primary challenge in which the challenger received more than 25 percent of the vote since 1970. It’s an interesting data set, and as you can see in the graph atop this post, it suggests that, in the aggregate, serious primary challenges are declining rather than increasing. That doesn’t mean 2010 won’t see a spike (look at how 1992 skews those results), but it helps keep things in perspective.

25 percent is not a “Serious Challenge” threshold.  For instance: had DC Morrison received that against Blanche Lincoln, sans the Bill Halter campaign, would anyone consider his campaign a “Serious challenge”?

BUT… interesting results last night, right?

#1:  The Obama Administration reportedly braced themselves for the Pennsylvania Senate Outcome.  Obama, Biden, and Kerry did their horse-trading duty in backing Specter.  One more Specter Incoherency for the road: “Must Be Smoking Dutch Qualades!”: “When You talk about ‘Vigor’, it’s all on Arlen Specter’s side.”
Go Sestak!

#2:  Rublican House Minority Leader John Boehner predicted Republicans will pick up 100 seats. Newt Gingrich predicted 78.  If they say so.  To pick up the 40 necessary for a “Speaker Boehner” Republican Majority, they really would need to win that Pennsylvania House seat — carried by McCain in 2008 — vacated by the deceased Jack Murtha, or seats with that profile.  The fact that they didn’t suggests that we’ll still have Speaker Pelosi to kick around next year.

#3:  I’m thinking about declaring War on Rand Paul, on this blog.  I suppose the good news is his Democratic opponent is Jack Conway beat Daniel Mongiardo — meaning the “good parts” of Rand Paul where he’d outflank a Democrat are offset by a “good Democrat” as opposed to a bad Democrat.  The problem is reading through Rand Paul, I get the distinct impression — as I said before — he’s like Ron Paul with everything I like about Ron Paul chopped off — his civil liberties positions are weakened as compared to his father.

I can’t quite make sense of where this race is going.  Is there this base of the “sensible” within Grayson’s voters who’ll turn against Rand Paul?  We’ll know fairly shortly.
I’ve been batting about this Cliff Kincaid piece, for AIM, about Alex Jones’s supposed “Infilitration” into the Tea Party.  Kincaid is full of it on several counts, and something worth mentioning to Kincaid as Rand Paul declares his victory a “Message from the Tea Party”.  During the primary campaign, a campaign ad popped in — a donut hole with Alex Jones shouting about how the New World Order and the Globalists, in the middle Rand Paul on the Alex Jones show saying how thankful he is for crashing his server with donations.  It was up yesterday on youtube.  Today, it has been “removed” by its user — perhaps a suggestion that the Grayson supporter has pulled up stakes, ready to vote for the Republican Rand Paul.
Go to the Rand Paul videos on Alex Jones — whose favorite American politicians are, in order #1: Ron Paul, #2: Ron Paul, #3 Rand Paul, #4, Ron Rand Paul, #5: Dennis Kucinich, #6: Jesse Ventura, #7: Alan Grayson, #8: Cynthia McKinney, #8: Ron Paul, #10: Rand Paul, and you will see why this comment is laughable:
I don’t worry about the general, since he could simply say that if he had to agree with the interviewers, he wouldn’t talk to anyone. He couldn’t talk to the Fox News hosts who supported the bailout.
I think it is safe to say that Alex Jones was pretty instrumental in fund-raising for Rand Paul, particularly early.

The “Tea Party Movement” is not really a unified entity — but Alex Jones fits into it more than Cliff Kincaid does — Kincaid managing to call various Libertarian strains from out of Cato and Reason magazine — and thus infiltrating the Glenn Beck Show — “Leftist“.

#4.  Chris Dudley.  I saw and heard the reports on Chris Dudley’s Election Day Victory Party.  It was at the freaking Rose Garden.  A host of Portland Trailblazers — the play by play radio announcer and former player Terry Porter — were on hand.  The total effect is naseau.  It is sort of telling that John Kitzhaber made his media interviews last night, and Chris Dudley took off for the night — weird, because Election Night is going to throw at the candidates softball interviews.
So, Chris Dudley is Oregon’s Celebrity Candidate.  It speaks to the small fry nature of Oregon that the state’s Celebrity Candidate is a Journeyman NBA player — he holds the record for longest string of missed free-throws.

#5:  Not an election item, but utterly hilarious, and probably more people are talking about it than goddanged Specter and Sestak:

Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) had an affair with a part-time staffer named Tracy Jackson, Fox is reporting. Jackson played the role of interviewer for a Souder Web video show on the issues of the day — including one on the value of abstinence.
Dubbed “Congressional Update with Congressman Mark Souder,” the show hit on issues like intelligent design and fencing the border.
In the November 2009 abstinence video, Jackson introduces Souder this way: “You’ve been a longtime advocate for abstinence education and in 2006 you had your staff conduct a report entitled ‘Abstinence and its Critics’ which discredits many claims purveyed by those who oppose abstinence education.”

#6:  In the end, I don’t think the Bill Halter / Blanche Lincoln match-up adds up to much.  Either candidate will lose in November.  But yesterday was a good outcome, as Blanche Lincoln falls into a two week legislating window where she has to hew to a Primary Battle electorate — Deriviatives Reform Game On!