This post originally appeared at BitsBlog.

I remember the first time that I was aware of Rush Limbaugh.

This was before his television program, even. At the time, he was just starting his talk show… the very first day, I caught the show. At the time, there wasn’t very many stations, (particularly the big guns) that were willing to take a chance on him. The one that did in my area was a little 500 watt day-timer then on 1030, WYSL. (The place has since moved to 1040, and grown into a 20,000 w powerhouse.)

It didn’t take long though, for Rush to be moved from the little rimshotters to just about every 50,000 watt talker in the nation.

And so he went on …

Last Week Steven Colbert said the results of Tuesday’s special election to fill a South Carolina House seat ‘scared him to his core’—I couldn’t agree more.

Of course he was referring to disgraced Republican Governor Mark Sanford completing his political comeback by beating Colbert’s sister Elizabeth Colbert Busch (54% to 45%) on Tuesday night.  Sanford’s victory came despite him being less than four years removed from weaving a web of lies that included cheating on his wife and leaving the country during his term as governor to be with his mistress.

What were they thinking?

The only justification for voting en mass for such a man was that palmetto Republicans didn’t at all like Ms. Colbert Bush.  I’m not saying I blame them since even …

Well, Barack Obama will be President for a second term. It is now time to take a look around, and prepare for what is likely to happen next. Based on my observations and what I’ve learned over the years, these are my predictions:

No Housing Recovery

Commentators have been calling the bottom of the housing market – and screaming with increasing urgency that it was time to buy – since 2007. The Fed has cut interest rates to nearly zero, and through quantitative easing has flooded the financial system with new money. This will continue for the near future, especially since QE-infinity was announced earlier this year. There remains no recovery in the housing market, and there won’t be a recovery.

Bad monetary policy has …

I had really hoped to get some thoughts out regarding priorities in this election this past week, but between the disaster caused by hurricane Sandy (including impacts to family and friends in the region) and finishing up fall chores, it just would not happen.  After the election and before the convening of the next Congress in January we will speak to the legislative priorities that must be addressed in Washington (beyond the typical lame-duck activities that will go on at the end of this Congress).  -Ed.

Today some brief thoughts about how the victors of the 2012 election will spin our confidence in them into mandates.  We often hear how such-and-such an office-holder has a “mandate” from their constituents, typically based on real issues discussed …

The most impressive thing about Wednesday night’s Presidential Debate is what it was not: a contentious barrage of angry epitaths like those being thrown throughout the blogosphere or even in some of the Republican Primary Debates. Both men were smiling, civil, and even appeared to be listening as the other spoke. President Obama carried on the same criticisms of Romney’s plans, and the Governor politely said that the President’s information was wrong. They both agreed with each other regarding areas of common ground. We suspect that the rules holding applause had a positive impact on the cordial nature of the debate, although it certainly didn’t hurt that Moderator Jim Lehrer’s folksy demeaner and attempts to steer the conversation helped keep the discourse on an even …

The White House this morning, is serving up fake jobs numbers… again. And they read like a fairy tale. 7.8% unemployment. But notice… the U6.. the real unemployment number… isn’t listed in the reports we all see… It stood at 14.6% as of last month. That’s a fact that has not moved substantially, for months. Here’s the breakdown from the BLS.GOV website.

There’s an interesting trend developing in open to foreign policy, and it’s been there since the outset;  sense Obama speech in Cairo Egypt, his supposed Arab reset, Arab Spring phenomenon and so on, every single attack on our interests, every loss of life, has been labeled a “Lone Wolf” Attack.  Te Obama administration invested quite a bit in the way of news cycles to prepare us for the idea that these were going to be “lone Wolf attacks, and not organized attacks by a AlQuieda or some other agency.

Consider for example Janet Napolitano, who advanced this idea quite a while back. Consider her speech at a Chamber of Commerce event in August of 2011:

WASHINGTON — “Lone

The news last week that recently hired Yahoo News Washington DC Bureau Chief David Chalian was fired for a truly unbelievable “hot mic” moment was bad enough–but digging into his background re-enforces the mess that likely awaits Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan come debate time.

Chalian was fired for yucking it up with fellow reporters by saying that “They (Republicans) are not concerned at all.  They are happy to be having a party while black people are drowning (Hurricane Isaac).”  You can hear the “hot mic” comment here along with the, almost as disturbing, huge laughs this got from the reporters he was talking to.

In an earlier piece, I made the point that the folks selected to moderate the three Presidential debates and …

Lost in the sea of coverage following Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, was the news that the moderators for the three Presidential debates, and one VP debate, were also selected.

There is a certain kind of news one receives that falls into the category of “this may or may not be bad—but it can’t be good”.  For Republicans, learning of the moderators that will be at the helm for these four debates certainly earns this distinction.

In order of appearance they are- Jim Lehrer (PBS News Hour), Martha Raddatz (VP Debate-ABC News), Candy Crowley (CNN), and Bob Schieffer (CBS News).

Since the Romney campaign had to sign off on each moderator, it is hard to imagine that they could not …

As regards Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan as a running mate, I tend to agree with David’s initial reax; “Bring it on”. I look forward to the VP debates, which should be the highlight of the campaign for me. As Ace said on Twitter, the other day,

Let’s face it, no one picks Joe Biden for his brains. They pick him for his ability to casually insult different races without consequence.

Romney/Ryan

The VP debate will be a blood bath. Aside from the fact that Biden has the IQ of the average horse dropping, there’s a 27 year gap between Ryan and Biden. That’s the largest in 108 years, for VP candidates. I wonder if in the target rich environment that Obama /Biden presents, …