You probably remember that Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) has been embroiled in a controversy over not paying tens of thousands of dollars in child support payments to his ex-wife Laura. Now he explains that he had a “verbal agreement” with Laura that he’d just keep the money.
Laura, who’s now suing him, apparently doesn’t agree.
Last night’s GOP debate will likely go down as the night Rick Perry decided to stop showing up tired for presidential debates and just go all-in and take a nap.
Of course he’s hurt himself with gaffes and followed up the debate last night by revisiting America’s decision to throw off the yoke of Henry VIII in the 1500s. And it’s too soon to say Rick Perry’s done, though it’s pretty hard to figure how he’s not. But stepping back from all the particulars, it seems to me that a key reason for Perry’s burn up on reentry into the atmosphere after his rapid ascent in August is that his key political handlers — and presumably Perry himself — simply didn’t grasp that the dynamics of national politics are just very different from those of Texas. Read More
Top sponsor of law to allow guns in bars gets arrested for DUI and possession of a handgun while under the influence.
This is worth noting: Australia has now passed a carbon tax.
True, Australia is way down at No. 15 on the list of carbon emissions by country (the U.S. emits 13 times more CO2), but among the top 20 carbon-emitting countries, Australia has the highest per capita emissions.
So this isn’t a negligible move by Australia. The goal of the tax is to reduce carbon emissions by 5 percent from 2000 levels by the year 2020.
What are we supposed to make of this outlandish alleged plot by Iranian nationals and an Iranian-American to assassinate the Saudi ambassador? We look at the details we currently know.
Apparently unsure whether he’d sufficiently demoralized supporters and pushed himself officially into the second tier of presidential candidates, Rick Perry after the debate started riffing on how the American Revolution happened in the 1500s.
Possibly after Henry VIII executed one of his wives who was born in America. Or something like that.
All jokes aside, NBC News Carrie Dann quotes Perry explaining how the “reason we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”
9:29 PM: I was misled into thinking this debate was only 90 minutes. Didn’t pace myself. Ran out of cleverisms. The blogging equivalent of bonking.
9:32 PM: I want to believe Herman Cain sang Alan Greenspan’s praises just to watch Ron Paul’s head explode. I could respect him for that.
9:35 PM: Over an hour and a half into the debate, and I think that was the first time Cain spoke without saying “999.” Small victories.
9:37 PM: Meanwhile, back in the real world, President Obama’s jobs bill has officially been filibustered in the Senate.
9:42 PM: At a certain level, you can’t blame Newt. His schtick has worked for so long, why change it now? So you get things like this:
There’s a stream of American thought that really wishes we would decay and fall apart and that the future would be bleak so that the government can share the misery. It was captured by Jimmy Carter in his malaise speech. It’s captured every week by Barack Obama in his apologias disguised as press conferences.
9:45 PM: The average low-information voter isn’t going to be exposed to any account of this debate that includes this necessary corrective: The prescription for economic recovery offered by the Republican presidential field is completely divorced from reality.
9:52 PM: At least Mitt didn’t join in the “I was born in a log cabin” hagiography parade.