One of the highlights:

[Y]ou would think that after the results of this experiment in trickle-down economics, after the results were made painfully clear, that the proponents of this theory might show some humility, might moderate their views a bit. You’d think they’d say, you know what, maybe some rules and regulations are necessary to protect the economy and prevent people from being taken advantage of by insurance companies or credit card companies or mortgage lenders. Maybe, just maybe, at a time of growing debt and widening inequality, we should hold off on giving the wealthiest Americans another round of big tax cuts. Maybe when we know that most of today’s middle-class jobs require more than a high school degree, we shouldn’t gut education, or lay off thousands of teachers, or raise interest rates on college loans, or take away people’s financial aid.

But that’s exactly the opposite of what they’ve done. Instead of moderating their views even slightly, the Republicans running Congress right now have doubled down, and proposed a budget so far to the right it makes the Contract with America look like the New Deal.”

and …

Ronald Reagan, who, as I recall, is not accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, understood repeatedly that when the deficit started to get out of control, that for him to make a deal he would have to propose both spending cuts and tax increases. Did it multiple times. He could not get through a Republican primary today. [...]

Cap and trade was originally proposed by conservatives and Republicans as a market-based solution to solving environmental problems. The first President to talk about cap and trade was George H.W. Bush. Now you’ve got the other party essentially saying we shouldn’t even be thinking about environmental protection; let’s gut the EPA.

Health care, which is in the news right now — there’s a reason why there’s a little bit of confusion in the Republican primary about health care and the individual mandate since it originated as a conservative idea to preserve the private marketplace in health care while still assuring that everybody got covered, in contrast to a single-payer plan. Now, suddenly, this is some socialist overreach.

So as all of you are doing your reporting, I think it’s important to remember that the positions I’m taking now on the budget and a host of other issues, if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago, or even 15 years ago, would have been considered squarely centrist positions. What’s changed is the center of the Republican Party.

A resignation letter from a Reginald Scott Braithwaite, the supposed “Director of Software Development,” has made the rounds all over the Internet this week, including Reddit and Facebook, and many other sites I’m sure. People have apparently been posting it to these sites thinking that it is a serious resignation letter addressing what the author deems as bad hiring practices, including digging into potential employees’ personal information on Facebook. But  it’s just satire.

Read here for more information.

Interestingly, the letter title now reads, “I hereby (fictionally) resign” to allay any confusion. Earlier today (April 3), the word “fictionally” was not there.

Media Matters has now identified 64 advertisers who have pulled the plug on Rush Limbaugh and his pitiful and obscurantist rhetoric. How many dollars will this fringe talk show host generate going forward? Who knows. He’ll probably be pulling funds from his own personal bank account before long:

In the wake of Rush Limbaugh’s misogynistic attacks on Sandra Fluke, numerous advertisers are abandoning his show. It is also being reported that well over 100 companies have taken proactive steps to ensure that their ads don’t run on Limbaugh’s program and similar shows.

Given the range of advertisers (from national brands running local ads to local advertisers), this list should not be considered exhaustive, but rather illustrative. If you know of an advertiser that has publicly stated it will no longer run ads on Rush Limbaugh’s program but is absent from the list, you can submit that information here.

Below is the list of 64 advertisers, who have publicly confirmed that their ads will not run on Limbaugh’s program. …

Media Matters then lists the advertisers that have jumped ship. How batshit crazy do you have to be piss off more than 60 advertisers who desperately wanted to use your influence to hock their merchandise and/or services? I mean, really. Stunning.

For what it’s worth, Jon Huntsman, who has dropped out of the presidential primary race, was by far the best candidate the Republicans had to offer this year. Sadly, the GOP prefers its candidates to be bat-shit crazy rather than competent, so obviously he didn’t fit the bill.

Another reason he didn’t fit the bill, he’s pro-science, at least on a couple issues:

To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy. — Huntsman, Twitter, Aug. 18, 2011

That’s about the least craziest thing any modern GOP politician has ever uttered.

What is crazy? And detrimental to free inquiry and thought? And dangerously misleading and pernicious?

Conservapedia. I refuse to link to this silly waste of good web space, so here is an article about it.

I know this surprises no one, but as it turns out, the “Romniverse” is more like a multiverse, featuring different dimensions and political ideologies, depending on the day. Here is an interesting column along those lines:

The imagery may have been unfortunate, but Mr. Fehrnstrom’s impulse to analogize is understandable. Metaphors like these, inexact as they are, are the only way the layman can begin to grasp the strange phantom world that underpins the very fabric of not only the Romney campaign but also of Mitt Romney in general. For we have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.

A bit of context. Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidate’s position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force — the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany — compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible). This alteration, framed as a positive by the candidate, then provokes an equal but opposite reaction among his rivals. …

What does all this bode for the general election? By this point it won’t surprise you to learn the answer is, “We don’t know.” Because according to the latest theories, the “Mitt Romney” who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved children’s toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.

And all of them losing to Barack Obama.

via A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney – NYTimes.com.

Here is a good read from James McPherson on the Republican Party candidates’ many gaffes:

Think for a minute–as much as some people hated George W. Bush, can you imagine any of those folks openly and proudly insulting Laura Bush? In fact, to find such boorish behavior toward a First Lady you have to go all the way back to … Hillary Clinton. The worst example? Another Democratic First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson.

And when people are working as hard as the current crop of GOP candidates to look stupid, it’s difficult to conclude otherwise. Perhaps it’s simply a Wall Street plot to get Obama re-elected, despite all the reasons he shouldn’t be. See a couple of the more humorous recent examples–or at least they would be funny, if these weren’t people seeking to lead the free world–below.

When it comes to knowledge of world affairs, “no news is better than Fox News,” according to a study by researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Sadly, that’s old news. Even sadder, as columnist Kathleen Parker (once considered a conservative, though now even Ronald Reagan wouldn’t qualify) has pointed out, the relative ignorance common to heavy watchers of Fox News is driving today’s Republican Party. Or, as Paul Begala has termed it, “the Stupid Party.”

I hesitate to paint with a brush so broad, though I have previously noted some activities by conservatives that seemed at least unenlightened. But presumably these are some of the same folks who actually booed the First Lady over the weekend at a NASCAR race (an action that the voice of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, actually defended).

Here is one video:

Embarrassing. And another embarrassment:

Thanks to Think Progress for the article. And here is the list of GOP politicians who once supported an individual mandate provision in health care reform. I think listing every single one of them is important.

Frmr. Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) | Frmr. Rep. Newt Gingrich (GA) | Frmr. Gov. Tim Pawlenty | Frmr. Sen. Bob Bennett (UT) | Frmr. Sen. Chris Bond (MO) | Frmr. Sen. William Cohen (ME) | Frmr. Sen. John Danforth (MO) | Frmr. Sen. Bob Dole (KS) | Frmr. Sen. Pete Domenici (NM) | Frmr. Sen. David Durenberger (MN) | Frmr. Sen. Duncan Faircloth (NC) | Frmr. Sen. Slade Gorton (WA) | Sen. Chuck Grassley (IA) | Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT) | Frmr. Sen. Mark Hatfield (OR) | Frmr. Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (KS) | Sen. Dick Richard Lugar (IN) | Frmr. Sen. Alan Simpson (WY) | Frmr. Sen. Arlen Specter (PA) | Frmr. Sen. Ted Stevens (AK) | Frmr. Sen. John Warner (VA) | Frmr. Sen. Hank Brown (CO) | Frmr. Sen. Conrad Burns (MT) | Sen. Dan Coats (IN) | Sen. Thad Cochran (MS) | Frmr. Sen. Paul Coverdell (GA) | Frmr. Sen. Larry Craig (ID) | Frmr. Sen. Judd Gregg (NH) | Frmr. Sen. Jesse Helms (NC) | Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) | Frmr. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (ID) | Frmr. Sen. Trent Lott (MS) | Rep. Connie Mack (FL) | Frmr. Sen. Frank Murkowski (AK) | Frmr. Sen. Bob Smith (NH) | Frmr. Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC) | Frmr. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (WY) | Frmr. Sen. Don Nickles (OK) | Rep. Cliff Stearns (FL) | Frmr. Rep. Jim (LA) | Frmr. Vice President Dan Quayle (IN) | Sen. John McCain (AZ) | Sen. Scott Scott Brown (MA) | Frmr. Gov. Tommy Thompson (WI) | Sen. Lamar Alexander (TN) | Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) | Sen. Mike Crapo (ID) | Frmr. President George H.W. Bush | Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) | Frmr. Sen. John Chafee (RI) | Sen. Jim DeMint (SC)

And here is a handy video that exposes the contradictions:

Thanks to John Eisenhauer @johneyes for posting this on Twitter:

When some1 talks about job creation under #Bush & #Obama show this graph: pensitoreview.com/2010/10/11/oba… | #tcot #conservative #P2 #P21 #PX #obama #ff

Here is the article and the graph: 

Just … wow:

Stephen Colbert and Herman Cain, together at last:

All was going swimmingly until the former candidate took the stage.

Apparently the only person who missed the joke, Cain segued into a version of his stump speech, itself rehashed on Thursday for the South Carolina Republican leadership convention. The crowd shuffled awkwardly and wondered if it would be OK to leave before the encore. Satire threatened to fall apart in the face of grim reality as a candidate not famed for self-awareness appeared to be under the impression the crowd was there to hear about cainconnections.com

Thankfully, Cain remembered to make a point, perhaps the most genuine of the event, given the audience of the young and largely apolitical. Urging the collected to disobey Colbert and NOT to vote for him, he said, “I am going to ask you NOT to vote for Herman Cain because I don’t want you to waste your vote. Your vote matters.”

!facepalm.

This also shows how silly some suffrage laws are in South Carolina, since some people who have already withdrawn from the race (Bachmann, Cain) will be on the ballot in that state.