rick santorum

There has always been something about Republicans and their circling the wagons around the younger George Bush.But you would think that even the "fiscally conservative" members of America's right would cut their loses when it comes to Bush's economic performance. Instead they have constantly defended him and even attempted to rewrite history making the current economic situation start under Barack Obama.

Of course they are totally wrong and today Bruce Bartlett, a man who worked for Ronald Reagan, Ron Paul and even daddy Bush. tallies up the tab of Bush's damage:

Putting all the numbers in the C.B.O. report together, we see that continuation of tax and budget policies and economic conditions in place at the end of the Clinton administration would have led to a cumulative budget surplus of $5.6 trillion through 2011 – enough to pay off the $5.6 trillion national debt at the end of 2000.

Tax cuts and slower-than-expected growth reduced revenues by $6.1 trillion and spending was $5.6 trillion higher, a turnaround of $11.7 trillion. Of this total, the C.B.O. attributes 72 percent to legislated tax cuts and spending increases, 27 percent to economic and technical factors. Of the latter, 56 percent occurred from 2009 to 2011.

And how Bartlett gets to this conclusion is the most interesting part. He highlights just how bad Republican policy is fiscally:

The projected surplus was primarily the result of two factors. First was a big tax increase in 1993 that every Republican in Congress voted against, saying that it would tank the economy. This belief was wrong. The economy boomed in 1994, growing 4.1 percent that year and strongly throughout the Clinton administration.

While speaking to a rally at Janesville, Wisconsin yesterday, Rick Santorum almost made a slip that sounds like it maybe the worst of racial slurs:

Transcript:

"We know, we know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like. The anti-war government nig- uh, the uh America was a source for division around the world."

So what do you think? Did Rick almost call the President of the United States the N-word? It sure sounds like it and I can't think of much else that would fit in there.

PORN!

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says that “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography” because the Obama administration favors “pornographers over children.”

In an undated statement on his official website, the former Pennsylvania senator promises that he will “vigorously” fight to make sure porn isn’t easily available in the U.S.

“Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships,” the statement says. “It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.”

“Current federal ‘obscenity’ laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier,” the statement continues, adding that these laws should be “vigorously enforced.”

The GOP constantly talks about rights, freedoms and personal responsibility, yet they want to turn this into a nanny state over things they morally object too. They are the biggest bunch of fucking nannies to ever walk the planet and their hypocrisy reeks through and through.

And what about real problems, Rick? What about the economy, terrorism, millions of Americans and children starving and without affordable healthcare? You don't give a rat's ass about any of that; just your moral crap. Sorry but I won't take morality lessons from someone who sleeps with a dead baby.

The Republicans just love government telling people what they can and can't do:

Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich have all told the group Morality in Media that they would enforce federal obscenity laws that prohibit the distribution of pornography.

Those laws, the anti-pornography group said, are being ignored by the current administration.

“Federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced,” Santorum told the group. “If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.”

Romney told the group it was “imperative that we cultivate the promotion of fundamental family values.”

I'm sorry, but shouldn't "family values" be a personal/family issue and not one of the United States government? Common sense would say so. But we are talking about the GOP, who believes that the government should control every aspect of our lives, while telling you that government is bad.

At least we are seeing the GOP candidates jumping further into the social conservative waters, where they will alienate the true Americans that believe in personal responsibility, including the ability of our citizens to make appropriate choices for themselves. This will do nothing but help Obama even more this fall.

Iowa is now the Florida of primaries:

In a stunning turn of events, Rick Santorum now appears to have won the Iowa caucuses, though the state’s Republican Party says there are too many holes in the results for them to ever be able to say for certain.

The party, which runs the caucuses, has done a recount since the Jan. 3 voting, and told the Des Moines Register the tally now shows Mr. Santorum up by 34 votes. On caucus night the party said Mitt Romney had won by eight votes.

The news dents Mr. Romney’s air of inevitability — he had claimed he’d gone two-for-two in the first nominating contests, and was poised to try to land a knockout punch with a victory in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday.

And there's even more drama to this:

The deadline for final certification of the results was Wednesday. Party officials said eight precincts failed to follow the rules and fill out the official forms on caucus night, meaning those results can never be certified, while other precincts turned in forms that didn’t meet the legal requirements.

“It’s a split decision,” Chad Olsen, the party’s executive director, told the Register, which was given the final results Wednesday, a day ahead of when the party was to release them.

Instead of worrying about being the first in the nation, maybe Iowa should worry about making sure every vote counts.

I guess Santorum's strong showing in Iowa helped them decide:

After a two day meeting at a ranch outside of Houston a group of 150 Christian leaders, business leaders and conservative activists have coalesced behind Rick Santorum.

Friday night surrogates from every GOP campaign (except that of Jon Huntsman) attended the meeting and made the case for their candidate. Saturday leaders took part in a "passionate time" of discussions about what they're looking for in a conservative leader. After three rounds of balloting Santorum emerged as the candidate leaders feel they can support.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council says conservatives are looking for a candidate who will repeal the nation's health care law, fight for pro family values and address the national debt.
"Not a lot of time was spent talking about Mitt Romney" Perkins says. He added, "it's not news" that there's not a lot of support among conservatives for Romney. Perkins says Romney's Mormon religion was not discussed among those participating in the meeting.

I like how they say this wasn't about Romney, yet I don't recall this kind of gathering to support a presidential candidate before. Why is that? Because Romney is a Mormon and they don't want him. Sure Perkins said it didn't come up, but I never believe a damn thing that asshole says.

I also hope the IRS has a list of attendees from this conference so they can monitor them and make sure no one is breaking their tax exempt status.

Mitt Romney's win in New Hampshire last night was a given the pundit world has talked about for months. Interesting enough though many are calling this the end game and now saying Romney is the nominee. I wouldn't count on that quiet yet.

Romney has constantly polled best in New Hampshire of all 50 states. Going into last night's primary his RCP average was at 16.6%, which is eerily close to the margin between him and second place Ron Paul. But Romney's numbers have been dropping in New Hampshire over the past several weeks. It was only in November Romney was seeing numbers giving him a 30+ point lead, so his support has about dropped in half.

Then we have the big factor in the horse race - the delegate count. Last night's contest only accounted for 12 delegates (New Hampshire's delegates was cut in half do to a RNC penalty). New Hampshire is also one of the few states in the GOP primary that isn't "winner take all" in the delegate race. Including last night's race, Mitt Romney now has 23 delegates. Ron Paul comes in second with 10 and Rick Santorum is third with 8. But we still have a long ways to go. 1,144 delegates are needed to win the GOP nomination and we start seeing some bigger states coming up in the next couple of weeks. If those races do go to Romney then I think we can safely say he has it, short of some major fubar on the campaign trail (not that unlikely given it is Mitt).

I guess we should declare Rick Santorum now on suicide watch:

While addressing America’s entitlement crisis at his first New Hampshire event since his stunning near-victory in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, Santorum said Reagan contributed to the entitlement crisis by pushing Social Security’s sustainability issues down the road instead of dealing with them head-on in the 1983 bipartisan deal to fix Social Security.

“If Rick Santorum gets elected and we do what I said that we need to do, which is to deal with the entitlement programs now, not 10 to 20 years from now,” Santorum said.

“You’ll know — unlike Ronald Reagan who maybe was a better politician than me — you’ll know that it was Rick Santorum that worked together and got the American public to gather together to fix this problem. Why? Because it is our problem.”

He just broke Reagan's 11th commandment by attacking Reagan himself. Hear those loud pops? That would be the sound of Republican heads exploding all around the country.