Another BFD and the Incredible Shrinking Men

The Nuclear Security Summit is finished. All participating countries agreed to secure all military and civilian nuclear materials in four years. And if they don't? Here's the tangibles out of the summit:
The United States and Russia agree to dispose of 68 tons of enriched plutonium
Russia has agreed to close their last weapons-grade plutonium plant
The United States and Canada have put up $10 billion to secure other countries' stockpiles
The United States will allow inspections of their neutron facilities.
Italy, Japan and India have agreed to create new national centers to study and implement better security of their nuclear materials
Argentina and Pakistan have agreed to modernize their ports to ensure nuclear security
Argentina, Pakistan,the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand have agreed to strengthen their commitments to regional non-proliferation efforts
Canada, Chile, Ukraine and Mexico have agreed to ship their enriched nuclear materials to the United States
The United States has agreed to be active in strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty
And South Korea agrees to host the 2012 Summit, with a message aimed at North Korea.

So off President Obama goes to the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski on Sunday. Next Wednesday he has invited both Democratic and Republican Senators to the White House to discuss the next nomination to the Supreme Court.

The Incredible Shrinking Men Department: Mitch McConnell met with 25 hedge fund managers in private who opposed the bank reform bill. Today he went on the floor to denounce the bill.

Mike Huckabee said that gay marriage was similar to incest and drugs.
The Virginia Governor and Attorney-General will attend a religious right convention here with Rev. Lou Engle, who prayed for the destruction of government during the health care debate and Prophet and Faith Healer Cindy Jacobs, who also specializes in the exorcism of gays.
The Oklahoma Tea Baggers and state Republican party are talking about creating a state militia to protect the state from the further infringement of the federal government on state affairs.
The Ohio teabaggers are now seeking to take over the Republican Party by contesting all the precinct elections. This is taken out of Pat Robertson's old play book for the Christian Right.

The RNC is running an ad against Barack Obama that he is seeking to tax everything in sight and looking to hire thousands more IRS agents to get your money. "It's your money but he knows where it is." So far President Obama has not raised anyone's federal income taxes and only raises Medicare taxes on those earning above $250,000. When all the refund checks come back, will people make the connection that the RNC is lying?

Two polls came out that gave some interesting insights in the upcoming mid-term elections. The Public Policy Polling group touts in their latest poll that the GOP stands posed for triumph despite the majority of Americans have a disdain for it. Only 28% approve of the current direction of the GOP; 51% disapprove. Only 18% of Independents believe GOP is heading in the right direction; and surprisingly only 54% of Republicans believe their own party is heading in the right direction. Michael Steele has a whooping 10% approval rating; Mitch McConnell 15% and Tan Man Boehner also 15%. These numbers are even worse than those in the Research 2000 weekly tracking polls. There is no counterveiling data to demonstrate the first assumption of a Republican victory.

Poll #2 is CNN's, which for the first time since last November , has 50% backing the Democrat in their congressional district and 46% for the Republicans. This is almost a ten-point switch since the end of March when healthcare was passed.

The CNN leading contenders for the GOP nomination in 2012 are:
Mike Huckabee at 24%
Mitt Romney at 20%
Baked Alaska at 15%
Newt Gingrich at 14%
Ron Paul at 8%

So we have one Morman, three Creationists and a nut.

Nice try award: Teabaggers are manufacturing websites and rumors that it has been the left who have infiltrated them and said all those racist things to make them look bad.
Best Political Ad: John McCain rose from the dead to approve a great and funny ad against J.D. Hayworth using the Lion King, Dracula and Mars Attacks as footage to attack J.D.'s bizarre view of the world. It has been on www.huffingtonpost.com and is worth a watch.

I understand the Obama narrative and the Democrat's narrative; I simply can not figure out the Republican narrative--either in terms of what they believe or what they want to do. For a major political party in the industrialized world , this is horrifying.