Louie Gohmert's Brainless and Typically Republican Jobs Plan

By now, it should be obvious to even the most casual observer that Rep. Louie Gohmert is not burdened with the curse of genius. In fact, while there may be a lot of competition for the title of Dumbest Member of Congress, Gohmert is definitely a frontrunner. This is the guy who came up with the ridiculous "terror babies" conspiracy theory, who argued that President Obama was in league with the Muslim Brotherhood, and that passage of hate crimes legislation would lead to Nazism, legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality. This is one underachieving mind.

So it should come as no surprise that he has idiotic ideas about what will and won't create jobs. In a headline-chasing maneuver, Gohmert filed a bill titled the "American Jobs Act" before Democrats filed the President's bill by the same name. So now dems can't pass Obama's bill -- unless they change the name to something like "American Employment Act" or the "Jobs for America Act." That should really set them back about thirty seconds. What a crippling blow from a procedural grandmaster.

But it's not Gohmert's pointless poaching of the title that's so demonstrative of his idiocy -- although it's not a bad one. It's his bill itself. Two whole pages legislation is all it takes to get America back to work, according to Gohmert. And it's what's in this simplistic legislation that shows the true depth of Representative Gohmert's intellectual capacity.

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You Can't Fight Crazy -- But You Can Vote it Out of Office

I hate to say it, but part of me -- the "I told you so" portion of my brain -- wants the Republican Party to remain stupid, for the president to fail to convince them to come off the ledge, and for the US to default. This part of my brain feels that if we go over that cliff, Republicans (and the craziest Tea Party nuts especially) will have been proven wrong once and for all. After all the Tea Party, always more than happy to believe whatever horsecrap makes them more comfortable, is home to the idea of the default myth -- i.e., that if the debt ceiling isn't raised, the US won't default and anyone who says otherwise is just a commie spendthrift trying to scare you. My lizard brain thinks that when interest rates skyrocket, deficits get even worse, and unemployment goes through the roof, then they'll see...

But, of course, a more rational part of me knows that this is a fruitless hope. After all, didn't I just say that they believe whatever they want to believe? You can't convince them with proof. They'll just come up with some crazy argument that the US didn't default, that the administration held back its secret hoard of money to punish Republicans at the polls. When you're dealing with people who engage in magical thinking, "proof" is a meaningless word.

Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like the "I told you so" portion of my brain may get some satisfaction. As the August 2 deadline approaches, there are few signs that the nuts are becoming saner and that reality will finally sink in. And while that may not happen to the looniest Republicans, it's happening to their traditional backers and enablers.

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GOP Attempts to Whine Their Way Out of Their Medicare Hole

First things first; Republicans have no moral right to talk about a Democratic "Mediscare" campaign. In a (failed) closed-door meeting to knock out some sort of groundwork for an agreement on the deficit and the debt ceiling, President Obama made that about as clear as he's ever going to:

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, architect of a Medicare overhaul aimed at slashing the cost of the popular entitlement program by reducing the government's open-ended commitment to seniors, accused Obama of "mis-describing" his proposal and implored the president to ease up on the "demagoguery."

In reply, Obama said he was no stranger to cartoonish depictions, reeling off a list of conservatives' favorite attack points: "I'm the death panel-supporting, socialist, may-not-have-been-born-here president," Obama said, according to people familiar with his remarks.

No word on whether Obama's sentence ended with the words, "so quit whining," but it should've. In fact, it was fearmongering over Medicare that was the Republican strategy to whip up opposition to healthcare reform. The difference between the GOP's take then and Democrats' take now is that the latter is much, much more accurate.

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Despite Outcome of State Supreme Court Race, Democrats Definitely Have the Momentum in Wisconsin

The race for Wisconsin's Supreme Court has finally ended and, after a recount, incumbent Justice David Prosser won over challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg, an assistant district attorney. In an editorial praising Kloppenburg for conceding, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- which did not support the recount -- had this to say:

In a normal year, Prosser, a judicial conservative, might not have faced much of a challenge for re-election. But Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to curtail collective bargaining for most public employees bled over into the judicial campaign. While the race was nominally nonpartisan, conservatives tended to support Prosser; liberals tended to support Kloppenburg. A vote against Prosser became, unfairly in our view, a vote by proxy against Walker.

If this is the case, then Gov. Scott Walker lost. Kloppenburg's supporters were outspent by 38% and in a four-way primary, the incumbent took 55% of the vote to Kloppenburg's 25% second place. It was one helluva gap and JoAnne Kloppenburg closed it to less than one half of one percent. If this was a pro- and anti-Walker election, it's not hard to see which side has the momentum. Had the primary results been even fractionally tighter, Kloppenburg would've won in a walk.

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The GOP's Self-Laid Medicare Trap

The Paul Ryan economic trainwreck budget plan is dead. While not killing it outright, Senate Republican leadership have all but abandoned it. And even if it had ever gotten to the president's desk, it would've been vetoed. The path to survival for Ryan's fantasy-economics porn looks nonexistent and the whole idea exists only as a statement of principle. And that principle isn't being widely embraced by the party.

It may be that Newt Gingrich did Democrats and liberals a tremendous favor by establishing the Ryan plan as a sacred cow. By criticizing it, Newt embarked on what was the worst political week in recent history and set the groundrules for any other Republican campaigns -- the Ryan plan is the most perfect and brilliant piece of legislation ever written and Republican candidates criticize it at their peril.

Which is why Democrats are so eager to make it a campaign issue. Let me correct that; Democrats want to make it the campaign issue. Polling shows that Ryan's plan is about as popular as a fart in an elevator, making it a perplexing hill for House Republicans to choose to die on.

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Paul Ryan's "Messaging Problem"

The problem with Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan doesn't lie in its obvious flaws, but in the fact that the American public have become aware of its flaws. Things are so bad that Senate GOP aren't even going to address the Medicare "reform," because the whole idea is ballot box poison. The problem there is that, without those reforms, the whole thing is just a plan to increase the deficit.

So Ryan would rather tweak the advertising than fix his product.

The Hill:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Wednesday that Republicans are running into a "communications challenge" in selling their 2012 budget proposal to Americans.

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