Are You Rapture Ready?

The world ends this Saturday and it won't come too soon. I actually envy the people who sold everything and have been wandering around the country waiting for Rapture. The local Tea Party leader here in Alexandria repainted his bus with the end-time warning, replacing his teabagging mottos. There is a little Jack Kerouac to all this. Jack wandered the country in his beat days searching for satori. So the end time won't happen. At least, they'll have some good stories.

In the immortal words of Charles Krauthammer, Newt is "toast". The Newt is all in knots after his criticism of Golden Boy Paul Ryan and the push back from movement conservatives. Newt is on a fifteen state tour and began it in Iowa where local Republicans took after him in person. His defense was that he had been taken out of context and that he had not been prepared for the grilling he received on Meet the Press. Meet the Press would only say that the Newt had appeared on the show some 35 times before.

Even Rushbo told his audience that Newt's comments on the Ryan Plan were inexplicable.

Teabagger Congressman West objected to Newt's suggestion that we have a history test for voters, reminding everyone that such tests were outlawed with the Civil Rights Act. Newt claims his remarks about President Obama as the "best food stamp president" were not racist. And I suppose references to the President's playing basketball or turning America into Detroit were benign. Republicans are beginning to count the days until Newt's campaign ends. Heavy betting is placed on a June date.

It also isn't helping Newt's reputation as a fiscal conservative that he wracked up $250,000 in bills at Tiffany's. Earlier he was caught out on owing taxes in Georgia and elsewhere.

I liked Newt's line to an angry conservative that he should not believe the liberal media because they always distort what conservatives say. What liberal media? The Nation, Mother Jones, the Progressive, Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz. That's it.

Jon Huntsman looks tanned and ready for the plunge but he outraged conservatives because he re-iterated that global warming was a real scientifically proven phenomenon.

Luckily for everyone--if she survives Saturday, Michelle Bachmann will speed up her announcement to run for President.

Paul Ryan has opted out of the Wisconsin Senate race. Observers felt that he was trying to recoup from being blasted for his Medicare scheme. Ryan doubled down on it in Chicago during a speech and said that President Obama was inciting class warfare. Please, Mr. President, let's go.

The Republican Wisconsin senate slot looks like it's Tommy Thompson for the asking.

I'm amazed at all the Repubican congresspeople around the country who, when confronted by their vote for the Ryan budget, say casually that it's only one plan. But it's the only plan you guys voted into law. Quayle, Jr. was terrific in his townhall meeting where he just flat out lied about tax subsidies for oil companies. He just claimed they didn't exist. I guess this will be the new strategy--just pretend it didn't happen.

2012 may well be a bizarre election. Right now, there is a good chance that the Democrats will win back the House. And the Republicans win back the Senate. That would be very unusual if President Obama wins re-election. It's never happened that an incumbent President with control of the Senate wins and loses the Senate. Right now,to lose the election, President Obama must lose Virginia, Ohio and Florida. And that isn't even certain if he picked up two other smaller states.

On the three states, remember you have three Republican governors and three Republican attorney generals. While voter backlash in Ohio and Florida should favor President Obama, we know what aggressive attorney-generals can do for Republicans. Bush's 2004 election depended on malleable officials in Ohio. And Koch-funded lawyers did the trick in Florida in 2000. So anything can happen.

Eugene Robinson warns Democrats not to get cocky when looking at the GOP's clown car of candidates. He promises there will be a serious candidate at the end of the day and the GOP will have buckets of money to wage a competitive campaign.

I'm heading out to John Boehner land tomorrow so will be off-line for a few days. The Tan Man tried to explain to his teabagger friends that the United States will have to raise the debt ceiling several times in the next few years and he was roundly booed. Polls actually showed that a plurality actually want the United States to default on its debts.

Paul Ryan told his Chicago audience that the Wall Street he knows doesn't mind if the debt ceiling isn't raised that fast. The entire Chamber of Commerce and every business association is screaming just the opposite.

The situation on the debt ceiling has gotten so desparate that Democrats are using Ronald Reagan's own letters to Congress urging them in the 1980s to raise the debt ceiling and the reasons why the United States can not default.

Treasury Secretary Geitner promises at least a double dip recession, a possible re-run of the 2008 global financial metldown and skyrocketing costs for everyone, including the United States to borrow in the future.

What people seem to miss about the debt ceiling is that we already spent the money owed. This has nothing to do with incurring more debt. It's to pay for the wars, the Bush tax cuts and Medicare D.

Which brngs me to Mitch Daniels. It's almost impossible for me to imagine the Budget Director who created this mess to be a viable Presidential candidate. But he has gone over the line and actually defunded Planned Parenthood in Indiana. So he's declared a position in the war against the uteri--which is a pre-condition for seeking the republican nomination. If you look under his hood, he is as right-wing if not more so than Wisconsin's Scott Walker, who said he will endorse him.

So I am on the Road again. And if Rapture comes, all our troubles will be over.