Few evangelical figures have been bigger on the political scene in the last decade or fifteen years than James Dobson and his Focus on the Family empire.

But did he just get dumped by the organization he founded back in 1977? I hadn’t heard anything about this. And few seem to want to speak openly about it. But it looks like that’s what happened. And his radio show, which is where Dobson’s fame and power began, has had to set up shop outside of the Focus media world. The new crew at FoF apparently believe Dobson’s confrontational approach to the political world had become counterproductive.

Colorado GOP Senate candidate Jane Norton: Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.”

Would the House ethics committee have dropped its Massa probe so quickly if the congressman were accused of serially harassing female staffers?

As a publisher and editor, I have to confess that entertainment value is an important consideration for me as I think who I’d like to see get into a campaign this fall. We took a big hit yesterday when Ralph Reed announced he’s not running for Congress. On the other hand, there’s increasing evidence that Dan Senor, chief spokesman for Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq during the early glory days, is seriously looking at running against Kirsten Gillibrand in New York. So all hope is not lost. Read More

Colorado GOP Senate candidate says “Social Security” is a ponzi scheme and seems to suggest it may be unconstitutional. See the article and video.

Colbert demonstrates Massa-style “non-sexual groping” with an intern. Watch.

I guess it wasn’t such a hot idea after all to let Rep. Ryan (R-WI) score his own budget.

This is a story that deserves a lot of attention. For weeks, DC has been fawning over Rep. Paul Ryan’s ‘courageous’ Social Security and Medicare-slashing budget as a brave attempt to deal with mounting federal deficits. But it turns out the CBO didn’t really score his budget as he suggested. He asked him to score it on the basis of assuming his numbers were right.

But now an outside group has actually scored it and it turns out it leaves deficits much bigger than President Obama’s budget plan.

But hey, he’s the toast of Washington even though his numbers are pure fantasy.

When I heard yesterday that the House Ethics Committee had dropped the Massa probe I thought it was basically a given since he’d already resigned. The Committee has no jurisdiction over anyone who’s not a member of the House. But it turns out it wasn’t automatic that they had to drop. There’s actually good precedent for an investigation continuing after someone resigns.

A really bad graph … if you’re the black line and not the red one.

Click here to see the full size graph.

This is the trend graph for the Republican senate primary race in Florida, pitting incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio.

The second poll in two days just came out showing Rubio with a better than 30 point margin over Crist. Read More