Iced Harrar at the Last Manatee Cafe

The hits keep coming. Tan Man Boehner claims his miscues with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review were really part of the strategy to win back the House. I'm sure he didn't figure on fellow Republicans accusing him of being a lazy drunk and recalling his days partying at The Tunnel in Manhattan during the Republican Convention. I think he underestimates the fact that Cantor will pull a coup de grace on him if the GOP regains the House. For some reason, Boehner actually thinks it's a great idea to pick a fight with President Obama like...say, Newt Gingrich stopping the Government during Clinton.

Miichael is the man of Steele. After calling Afghanistan "Obama's War" and saying we shouldn't be there, little Billy Kristol called for his resignation and even Liz Cheney. Having Liz Cheney call for someone's resignation is like Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan making a political statement. President Obama's favorite Republican, Lindsey Graham criticized Steele statement and John McCain openly asked Steele to consider whether he was up to leading. He's staying because Republicans can't afford mayhem four months out from the election.

Sharon Angle, the teajihadist candidate in Nevada, has sent Harry Byrd a "cease and desist" letter demanding he not refer to her past political positions because they are insane.

Meg Whitman has gone over the $100 million mark in the California election and Jerry Brown hasn't spent anything. But Democrats are worrying about Brown, who still leads by 3-4 points, because he is not mobilizing the party yet. They worry that Whitman will continue to up the ante and blow by Brown in the end. Boxer still leads Fiorina. That's generally good news because Boxer always polls lower than her eventual tally.

PPP has a poll out today that shows the Jack Conway-Rand Paul race as dead even. That's great news for Conway because over 40% of the voters don't have a clue as to who he is.
PPP has another poll that shows Elaine Marshall only 6 behind Burr in the Senate race. That's good news for her. Republicans are still wondering what Burr does for a living. Marshall is banging him for filibustering the jobs and unemployment bill. This seems to be working. Wisconsin's Senator Feingold appears to be in a tight race against teajihadist Tim Johnson, a mega-millionaire. He's running ads touting his support from right-wing Republican groups, claiming he is a fiscal conservative.

The Democratic Party seems to have adopted Nate Silver's regressive logarithms in projecting the political races this year. At this stage, they claim they will hold the House by only 6 seats and will only lose 4 in the Senate. Republicans aim to pick up considerably more Governor's seats. Why I don't discount this projection is that Mark Plotkin has reached a very similar conclusion about the House with the Democrats holding it by eight. Charlie Cook still says a Republican hurricane is coming.

No surprise, Gallup has a poll of teabaggers that showed 79% were Republicans and they represented the extremes of the party if anyone else is left.

26% of Americans can't name the country from whom we gained our independence. That's roughly the same percentage as those who have favorable opinions of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin.

Prophetess Janet Porter has been continuing the Religious Right's refrain that the BP oil disaster is the judgment of God on Obama's abandonment of Israel. I guess God is touchy. But no matter, Bibi and President Obama sat down today and said everything is hunky-dory between the United States and Israel. Pundits said that this was vital for the Democrats' chances in the mid-terms because Republicans have been making hay on Obama dissing Israel, our most dependable ally in the Middle East. Bibi has slightly adjusted the Gaza embargo and is prosecuting 3 soldiers for gunning down Palestinians.

Prior to this meeting, AIPAC flooded the town with visiting Israeli military experts, who had meetings with everyone relevant to the issues at hand. One of the themes was to trash Turkey, Israel's longest standing ally in the Middle East.

Dominionist churches are seeking financial damages from BP for loss of revenues. The Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin's church, claims their collection plates are hurting because of the devastation to local Gulf families.

Eric Holder is finally suing the state of Arizona to prevent its immigration law going into effect by the end of this month. The federal government is asking for an injunction to stop it. John McCain fighting for his life in the primary there, said that he thinks all illegals should be deported to where they came from. This from the champion of immigration reform. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, weighed in with an op-ed for immigration reform, pointing out what solid citizens Latinos became. Other bloggers have noted that the United States really has never wanted to do anything about our porous borders because illegal immigrants are the source of cheaper labor for our businesses and agriculture.

Fareed Zakaria gave a devastating critique of our Afghanistan policy. He singled out Leon Panetta's opinion that there are only 50-100 Al Qaeda members left in the country. General Petraeus testified there were maybe double digits with another 300+ in Pakistan. Zakaria mentioned that over $1 billion a year is leaving the country as far as we know from their own customs declarations. So, why are we fighting a major war there?

No problem. There exists a new synergy of terrorist groups ,which have formed a "fusion" that represents a greater threat to the United States than even Al Qaeda during 9-11. I just get the feeling that we are creating an endless feedback of terrorist threats the longer we stay.

Jolting Joe Biden travelled to Iraq to say everything is on track for us to leave in August, even though they are still at a stalemate over forming a new government.

Mitt Romney appeared today to write an op-ed piece in the Washington Post condemning the New Start Treaty. While it was detailed to demonstrate his alleged knowledge, it was wildly wrong on a number of points, particularly about missile defense systems and the treaty's applicability to the situations in Iran and North Korea. Mitt is only visiting the territory of his Heritage Foundation speech where he called for an increase in the Defense Budget, which only equals the defense spending of all the entire earth combined. Mitt argued we were threatened by military buildups in China, Russia and conflict in the Middle East. The reason the Chinese budget was lower was because they don't have to pay their soldiers much. Of course, it really doesn't matter that we are in a Depression and that somehow the Republicans have become deficit hawks to stop Democratic social programs.

A point about Chinese military spending. While the G-20 believe that China can carry the global economy, it's growing clearer that they deeply fear the prospects of instability. Their military and their policies on internet censorship show there is more concern there than meets the eye. Last year, the country experienced several thousand mass rallies protesting all sorts of issues. Currently, we have been learning about labor strikes in plants of overseas companies.

Finally, China Mieville's Kraken is out and is fantastic both literally and metaphorically. London is beseiged by an "epidemic of eschatologies" and the special branch of their police that have to deal with cults must find whether the end-time is really occurring. To flush all the dissident Gods out, they stage a simultaneous apocalypse for two competing sects. Each has their apocalypse on the same date. This spells trouble. They don't want to be upstaged. We are treated to Chaos Nazis, Jesus Buddhists, who are actually a quite violent syncretistic religion, and worshippers of a Giant Squid. One of the investigators is a fundamentalist Christian who has lost his faith because of evolution. The worshippers of the Great Flood play a key role in persuading the Sea to intervene for justice. As always, Mieville creates a fantastic London as he did in City and City.