Last night I dreamt of you, Abbie Hoffman peddling your books, I gave five bucks to you, the other kids just gave you dirty looks.

I said “I’m sorry it didn’t work out quite the way you planned.”

You said, “That’s silly boy, the revolution is at
hand.”

And if you got a ten spot brother, I got a dime,
These are desperate,
desperate times.

Last night I dreamt of you, Pepe Lopez strung out on a stage, It don’t even look like you, smiling like sawed-off twenty gauge.
I still remember the
Telecaster down around your knees,
It’s late November and I think I smell tequila on the
breeze.

And if you got the Cuervo honey, I got the lime,
These are desperate,
desperate times.
And if you got the shotgun honey, I got the crime,
These are
desperate, desperate times.–Rhett Miller

I’ve been too busy dealing with family issues to write or think or do anything really coherent of late. My wife retired from Federal Service after 35 years of helping to make the state function, if not optimally, at least better than if she were not there. The afternoon of her last day, she got the diagnosis of colon cancer…so, by mid-month she was in the hospital for surgery, and there she remains. Friday will be three weeks…the words rehab facility were spoken last night. I am not exactly happy about this — I have no complaints about the quality of her care for the most part, or the professionalism or kindness of the staff. I have concerns about the quantity of the staff…I think this is a problem nationwide, but probably more acute in Southern California because there are so goddamn many people…

Coke and Pepsi are changing the way they produce the caramel coloring in their soda to avoid being forced by the State of California to label their products as containing a cancer-causing ingredient.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, in February filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of ammonia-sulfite caramel coloring.

A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said the petition is being reviewed. But he noted that a consumer would have to drink more than 1,000 cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered that have shown links to cancer in rodents.

The American Beverage Association also noted that California added the coloring to its list of carcinogens with no studies showing that it causes cancer in humans. It noted that the listing was based on a single study in lab mice and rats.

Thanks to California and CSPI, I feel safer already.

10. When you call in sick, it doesn’t involve nearly as much playacting

9. You can get drunk on NyQuil even if you’re underage

8. When members of the opposite sex avoid you like the plague, you can blame the flu

7. You can catch up on your daytime soaps

6. The show “Working It” almost seems kinda funny when you’re delirious with a fever

5. When you’re rude and obnoxious, you have a good excuse

4. You like it when people say you’re hot, even if they’re only feeling your forehead

3. When you call into work, it’s nice to tell the truth for a change

2. You get such a kick, secretly licking the dinner plate of people you hate

1. You can lay around in your jammies all day and not look like a lazy slob
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Events have disappointed Massachusetts Mitt but not fatally. On the Monday before the Tuesday there were Rep Est douchebot gunslingers out on the airwaves openly speculating that if Romney couldn’t put Santorum away in Michigan!? Well, the muckies would have to entertain a late term abortion, drawing Romney out like a bi-racial bastard and replacing him, Torch-style… with whom? Jeb Bush seemed to be warming up but he did so by taking the contempt and revulsion Romney has for those who think the problem with the nation is excessive socialism, and doubling down. How this could be done, legally or even within existing Party rules is not discussed. As with the government proper, in the penumbras of Leviathan like the Party machinery there is not a disdain for the law, precedent or simple fairness. Rather these are alien concepts; really alinguist exhalations like the moan of a ghost to the bi-partisan, multi-racial and gender mixed claque of face-smilers and back-stabbers. Their enthusiasm for Jeb, the Chris Christie of the Dynastic Bushes, should be enough to cool the ignorant approbation his name and mug commands. But while Romney did NOT put away Rick, neither was he put away himself. It cost him some four times as much to earn his 41% as Santorum expended to get his 38% but what the hell? To Mitt, it’s only money.

There has been a real benefit to the former Governor. America has gotten to know him just a bit better, and that is what all candidates claim to want, right? I need more exposure! Folks just don’t know me, they haven’t heard My Story. They haven’t heard my 59 Point Plan to Take Back America. If they had I would be at 80% and well positioned to exterminate that other twenty! But it just isn’t that simple. Only now is he realizing it. Even a dedicated student of Mitt of Mass like myself has learned more about the Hair Apparent. Here’s a rockin’ revealing quote that is decades old and prominent on wikipedia but has seen precious little daylight. ”I never want to run for something again unless I can win,” he confided to his brother after his stropping by Ted Kennedy. Whatever could this mean? Of course he COULD win, in the sense he was on the ballot and eligible for office. More than that he enjoyed the backing of a major party, even in the northeast, and was at least as well-funded as the famously heeled Kennedy Machine. We know what he meant. He would never again bet his precious dignity unless it were a Sure Thing. We will be charitable and say he was only thinking of the Primaries and doesn’t believe himself a shoo-in for the highest office. Mitt is engaging in Electoral Determinism; a concept much like Manifest Destiny except it applies to a single candidate with obvious competition and opposition. Most candidates do that for PR reasons during their campaigns, like Newt has been introducing himself as the next President since he decided to run. Mitt was making a private admission to his blood. What a secret is revealed here. The Turnaround Artist isn’t interested in getting his hands dirty or even his collar tugged. If it is not a golden chalice on a silver server he has no interest. It tells you much about this man, this alleged Captain of Industry and it tells you much about his supporters and their support.

What is the “argument” for Romney? Scare quotes are employed because I have yet to hear one. The lion’s share of his support that is not explicitly based on his appearance or image is founded on nothing but solipsistic Electoral Determinism. “He can win,” they say. In legal terms ANY of them can win, right? They are on the ballot and they fulfill the eligibility requirements. What the Romnoids mean is that Mitt can plausibly draw together 51% of this splinter and 39% of that. He might take 2% of the black vote, given that some are Mormons! What they really mean, if you probe, is that, in their usually newly formed opinion, none of these other jerks has a chance! But, as I and others contend, it is Romney who is, as Santorum put it so well,  ”uniquley unqualified” because the main pillar of Obama-ism is Obamacare which IS Romneycare. Do Mitt’s minions know the facts here? They seem to know them better than Mitt yet they have proven remarkably pliable; accepting the pebbles of diversion Mitt emits at provocation because they find that more palatable than Newt‘s bombast, Rick‘s sanctimony or Ron‘s absurdity. Here is demonstrated the nauseating fact that, as in physics, in politics there are NO attractive forces, only repellent ones that collude to push one decisively towards that person, policy or particle that is marginally less repulsive. But the Romnoids and nearly everyone else participate without understanding. This is why in politics, as Bush Sr liked to say, one has only two outcomes; to be a bitter disappointment or a pleasant surprise.

Mitt admits, in an unguarded moment, he will play only a fixed game. And he demonstrates every day that he means it. Trump, plumping Romney, complains that Santorum lost his last election by an unseemly margin, yet Mitt did not even run for re-election as Governor. Why? Bad polling. But for Mitt, that was the Smart Move, like crafting a Kennedy Approved medical contraption for Massachusetts; like being pro-choice when running locally but pro-life when running nationally. Just as the exclusion of opposition from the primaries in Virginia was the Smart Move and agitating for an open primary was a Smart Move in his Home State (thrice removed) of Michigan, until it seemed that Santorum would benefit rather than himself. Party Loyalty is also a newly acquired principle of Mr Romney who proudly campaigned and voted for Democrats while declaring himself an Independent or even a Progressive depending on the audience and their electoral profile.

Across the nation one can hear the liquid murmur of furrowed brows. The Romnoids make a counter-explosion; they have their list of similar sins by all the others AND WORSE! Still they can make no positive case for their man. Less can they rebut the Santorum Assertion that Mitt is “uniquely disqualified”. Even laying aside that largest of impedimentia, no, there is NO issue, NO legislation, NO event, NO statement, NO aspect of character, experience or background on which Mitt stands superior to any other from a Conservative perspective. None. Not one. Mitt derides Santorum for raising the debt ceiling, and so do I. Does anyone believe that a Senator Romney would have stood firmly against either Bush or Obama? Where he is adamant he is fatally vapid. Every speach he makes his stock declaration; I will repeal Obamacare! It is shocking to see this laugh line earn thundering applause from Republican Primary voters. Clearly they do not know what Obamacare is or Romney’s hand in its birth. Why will you repeal Obamacare, Mitt? What will you do about medical inflation? “Nothing” would be an acceptable answer to me, if few others but this would violate Mitt’s bedrock principle that HE is indispensable. Mitt claims that Obama is out of ideas…. oh, we could only wish! But if he were out of ideas it would be Romney’s ideas he is out of.

It becomes a justification for Romney being unwilling to play a straight game that a straight game does not favor a Romney victory. This should be a sufficiently repellent revelation to eject those who oppose any party, person or policies beyond the scope of the limits placed on the federal government by the Constitution and all government by the principles of Liberty, from the Romney bandwagon. No dice. What is the hope? Oh, we might have to drag Mitt to the Right but see, he’s moved so much already, it proves we can! Bitter Disappointment Alert: Romney is as far to the Right today; denouncing the 1%, making squishy demagogic excuses for his mild opposition to the auto bailouts, with his principled support for TARP, his demonstrated enthusiasm for Keynesian economics, his open derision of energetic and frank opposition to Obama… he is as far to the Right as he shall ever get.

The good news? He is gutless. If things look difficult in the least he will shrink, cry and go on home, wherever that really is. We will see him off now or Obama will do so in the general, and quite easily. What then?

Then, friends. We get started.

From Change we can believe in to It was like that when I got here. It’s not so great a leap, really. Who thought the ocean’s level was rising disastrously in June of 2008? Who believed that Obama’s seeing off the Hillary juggernaut would stop it? No one and no one. We have simply gone from optimistic nonsense to a fatalistic nonsense. Now, instead of a Bright New Tomorrow we are offered a Bleak Repetitive Today.

If you’re willing to put in the work, the idea is that you should be able to raise a family and own a home; not go bankrupt because you got sick, because you’ve got some health insurance that helps you deal with those difficult times; that you can send your kids to college; that you can put some money away for retirement.

Let’s discuss the etymology of fascism. Fasces, to the Romans were a collection of sticks. The word means no more than bundle or sheaf but a particular bundle was relevant to their daily lives. The fasces were carried as a symbol of office by Roman bigwigs and when they walked through the streets or were carried on litters their bodyguards, called lictors, carried fasces to beat a path through the crowd. The city of Rome was supposedly disarmed by law so the fasces were not considered to be weapons except when the central stick in the bundle was a bronze ax. This symbolized MORE power, in effect the right to chop a lesser citizen into bits. The idea was that state power, as held in the fasces, was to be used coercively but lightly. At first. Stubborn resistors would be beaten. And beaten. And then beaten harder. Finally, reluctantly, sadly… the ax would be employed.

Benito Mussolini invented nationalistic socialism for the modern era. Like the Germans and British, Italian fascists looked back to the symbols of Rome to re-create some of its strength. The many Italian civic organizations, some socialist and some not, were known as fascia; meaning simply “group” or “association”. Every village had its fascio, perhaps several in serial competition or cooperation. Mussolini simply applied basic politics in gathering the groups into larger groups; each fascio being bound, by hook or crook, into a larger, more powerful sheaf by multiple and reinforcing bonds until he could claim that he held the trade unions, the Church, business, agriculture, media, land interests, finance and the lesser houses of government as one stick that he could wield; whapping any recalcitrant individual or combination of individuals out of the way if not back into line. This is Fascism.

All government is to some extent fascistic. Elections are a consensual method of allocating the collected power of the citizens; in other words a method of constructing the fasces and deciding who will hold them. Historically we had Constitutional restraints that acted above the transitory actions of the electorate, preventing government actions in certain spheres or in certain circumstances but these have been struck down just lately, as all have heard, so we will not consider Constitutionality. That has been brushed aside by the current fascists.

But how is their implement holding up? The fasces being used to pound out a clear path for the Obama bier consist of the Democratic electoral coalition. Is there a Republican set of fasces? Oh, you betcha, but they have allowed themselves to be written out of any consequence… SURPRISE!… along with the Constitution. Some 0f them helped with the sweeping up (McNasty, I’m lookin’ at you!). In any case the Republicans have laid their fasces aside, having taken enough lumps, for now. We will see that the Democrats’ loss is often, though not always, to the Republicans’ gain and vice versa but that is the least we will learn in our brief study of Crackology.

Crackology: The study of rifts. Cracks or other failures in cohesion are the stuff of nightmares to the Axelrods (and also the Roves) of the world. These statistical gunslingers make their loot predicting cracks, spackling cracks, explaining cracks, denying cracks and most importantly widening the cracks on the other side. Any stress that threatens to remove one twig from the fasces or, even worse, to break the bonds holding the whole lot together, is an existential threat. That is the explanation, if you needed one, for the comical vitriol employed by one, thick branch of the Dem Coalition admonishing a tiny twig sensed wriggling within the wrappings. The Komen charity is that twig. The branch is Planned Parenthood.

The events have been poorly reported and so are poorly understood. The Komen fascio did not decide as a matter of morality that they could not support abortion providers. Rather their corporate by-laws required that any organizations under investigation by law enforcement were ineligible to receive Komen donations. There is no doubt that the Komen money amounted to little more than a coffee fund for Planned Parenthood, a half-percent of their revenue. This money itself was not the point. Komen funding represented one little trickle into PP’s coffers but the entire flow of contributions is an agglomeration of lesser flows, including near half from government. If one is allowed to withdraw then the others might start getting ideas; this is the philosophy of fascism. So not only must Komen be held within PP’s embrace, they must be publicly chastised and ritually humiliated. No one disputes that Komen’s bylaws required the suspension or says such a requirement is inappropriate in concept. Rather those in PP’s fascio claim that the investigation is a political maneuver and therefor illegitimate. Implicit in this denunciation masquerading as an argument is that, yes indeed the investigation is illegitimate (though not illegal, hmm) but further that the Komen board had the right and ability to determine it so. Finally that determination is presumed not to allow… but to COMPEL Komen to violate their own charter. And all this is not some mad project but rather has been accomplished in short order, the fascia of the Choice movement having been employed along with the Media and party apparatus.

While Komen the fascio is driven back into the fold, the elements of Komen have been weakened. The only apparent downside to Komen is no downside at all. The resignation of one-time Georgia Secretary of State and well-known Lifer, Karen Handel, from the Komen board seems but little loss especially if one considers that her hiring in the first place was certainly an effort to make Komen’s claims of neutrality on abortion more plausible. Why? To hush those who might observe that Planned Parenthood does little indeed to diagnose or treat breast cancer except charge for referrals, or that Komen itself is a high-overhead boutique charity dispensing far more in lavish salaries than it does in mammograms or research monies. Or the well-known phenomenon of increased breast cancer in abortion patients. Now that fig-leaf has gone and not quietly. Good riddance, say the Choicers, and celebrate a hollow victory. Komen’s position or lack of one on abortion does not change any of these facts but the charade of neutrality changes wildly who complains about them, a far more important question. With Handel’s public defenestration a wide crack appears in the walls surrounding Komen as Komen is bridging a crack in Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood mans a bastion of the Choice fascio, which is nearly the largest in the Democrats’ fasces.

The Choice fascio at large is also showing some cracks. Overuse will do that. Most recently the tentacles of Obamacare have quietly enveloped the Catholic church and now in place, show that they are one and the same with Choice, something vehemently denied until yesterday.  Indeed there were not a few Catholics both in office and in vestments who agitated for Obama and specifically for Obamacare. How they thought that universal coverage would somehow exclude the Catholic church, especially when some twenty-five percent of hospitals are Catholic charities, is mysterious. This is a notorious swing vote, leaning Dem but turning Rep opportunistically, often on matters of abortion and contraceptives. Sometimes called Ethnic Whites or Hardhats by pollsters; Polish, Italian, Irish and of course Latino Catholics broke for Obama by nine points. The Advanced Crackologist will note that they are also geographically dispersed to make the most of their influence. No, they did not go for Obama because he is a Lifer, not that his record was deeply delved. Rather they put aside those concerns as they were dealt with piecemeal, often by strategic personal co-options like Handel’s but more by flat denial. The idea of abortion/contraception mandates was dismissed as “far-fetched”, just as is the idea that anyone will be imprisoned for failing to comply with the statute. The Catholics (and other devout Lifers, like blacks) acquiesced but really it was the application of carrots, rather than sticks that brought them into the Obama bundle. They were as enthusiastic for the blessings of free healthcare, free education, free housing and free lunches as anyone. This is the Religious Left fascio which, for opposite reasons, both the Religious Right and Secular Left ignore. Ignored or not, they vote their beliefs and they went for Obama when their abortion concerns were assuaged. Now that they have been forced to examine the reality that Catholic charities and churches are NOT exempt from the mandates of Obamacare, what will they do?

Sadly for the Democrats, one thing they are most unlikely to do is forget. As the general euphoria for Obama has worn off, in specific the Catholic fervor has been BLOWN off; they would say, violently. The Secularists of all stripes may cluck their teeth and giggle at the flat-heads who think a couple ounces of gelatin deserves all the protections of legal and moral personhood; but still they do. And they will. Neither will they forget that their beliefs were considered no more than an obstacle to progress, as so many beliefs and persons are proving to be, best dealt with through bombast and deception. You will find some interesting aspects to abortion as an electoral issue. It may be unsurprising to everyone that abortion is the largest “Single Issue Voter” controversy out there but these break to the Life side significantly and nearly all the movement is from Choice to Life. This particular crack it seems can only widen and is one of few that offers Republicans a chance to pick up those escaping elements and add them to their own fasces. One player is almost genetically engineered to do exactly that.

His name is Rick Santorum.

Kudos to the city council and mayor of Los Angeles, California for exhibiting rare leadership by mandating that pornographic film actors wear condoms when they make their films within the LA city limits.

With just a few strokes of his pen, the mayor has saved literally dozens of lives, probably. Actually, it’s probably millions of lives, because now not only will the performers in pornographic films be completely protected from uncovered penises, but the people who watch pornographic films will be reminded of how great condoms are, and they will emulate their pornographic film performer heroes and put them on when they engage in their own coitus.

That is what you call a “win-win.”

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about pornographic films, myself. If I tried to talk to you about pornography, I’d come off like Mitt Romney talking about shooting “small varmints, if you will.” But I would like to think that seeing James Deen wrap up his pecker before sticking it into the buttocks of, oh let’s say Naomi Russell, would be a welcome development for the pornographic film connoisseur, of which I am not one. Seriously, if you presented me with a lineup of Tori Black, Stoya, Carmen Kinsley, Eve Lawrence, and Jennifer White and told me to tell you which of them was whom, I would probably not be able to tell you, especially if they weren’t wearing any makeup. I understand they all look different without makeup.

I don't know who this is.

It’s just not my world, you see. As far as I know, the letters “ATM” stand for “Automated Teller Machine,” and nothing else. The only “Bang Brothers” I know are Archie and Chester Bang, of the Hampton Bangs. I met them while summering in the Hamptons in my long-ago youth. Oh, the times we had! That special summer I learned the true value of the word “teamwork,” when I and Chester and Archie and Bobo and Fritzy and the Jimster all worked together to win the big regatta against an upstart team led by the son of the groundskeeper. I digress. Anyway, the LA government has been on this beat for awhile now:

Los Angeles County public health officials backtracked Tuesday on their statements last week that at least 16 unpublicized cases of HIV in adult film performers had been reported to them since 2004.

Despite their release of data to The Times describing the cases as “adult film performers,” the county’s top health official acknowledged that the agency does not know whether any of those people were actively working as porn performers at the time of their positive test.
…
County public health officials said they had mislabeled all reports from the AIM clinic as adult performers when, in fact, information about their occupation is unclear. Although the clinic was created primarily to serve the porn industry, it serves other clients.

I would also like to commend the Los Angeles city council for the money-saving steps they took in adopting this requirement without going to the mess and bother of holding an actual vote on the subject.

The city would have had to spend over $4 million to hold the election, and city officials said a decision to simply adopt the condom requirement allowed them to dodge that costly poll.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz, who brought the measure, said he expected residents at the ballot box would have overwhelmingly approved the condom requirement, so it was a “no-brainer” to adopt it now.

“For us right now, our only real policy issue is do we spend $4 million and have this become law? Or do we not spend $4 million and have this become law?” Koretz said.

The LA city council is known for its frugality. They’re always looking for ways to save money. Not only does this save the city the cost of holding an election, it also saves the pornographic film companies the expense of mounting some kind of campaign to convince voters to let their workers decide for themselves whether they want to use condoms or not. It’s my hope that the city council will extend this money-saving practice to other “election” issues. For instance, it’s pretty clear that Barack Obama is going to carry Los Angeles. So why don’t they just pass a resolution saying that Barack Obama carried Los Angeles, and then spare the expense of holding an actual vote? The city council can use that money to go toward Los Angeles’s storied mass transit system.

As happy as I am that the city of Los Angeles has adopted this no-brainer condom mandate, I have to wonder why it is that the mayor and the city council are only looking to protect pornographic film performers? After all, they’re not the only ones having coitus. It’s my understanding that a lot of people who don’t actually film themselves also enjoy having sex. And yet, the city council has said to these people, “Go ahead and have unprotected sexual relations with each other! Go ahead and catch diseases. We don’t care! If we did, we’d pass a law mandating that everyone who has sex wear a condom!”

Oh, I’m being farcical. Obviously I don’t think that everyone who has sex should have to wear a condom. Just those who are not currently married. Think about it. These people are out having sex with who knows whom, catching who knows what kinds of diseases, and then we all end up having to pay for it.

I am tired of it. We have to do something about it.

People do not have the right to abuse themselves. We don’t allow people to take just whatever drug they want. We don’t allow people to sell their own organs. We don’t allow people to just walk on an airplane without being frisked. We don’t allow people to drive without wearing a seatbelt. We have decided — as a society — to make certain decisions for you. In case you’re too stupid to make the right one.

Just as I don’t want to have to pay for your lung cancer treatment because you smoked, just as I don’t want to have to pay for your diabetes or heart disease medicine because you’ve eaten too much fast food, just as I don’t want to pay for your drug treatment because you got addicted to the marijuana, so too I don’t want to pay for your Valtrex because you think you’re too “cool” to remain in a committed relationship with one single sexual partner for the rest of your life like society says is the right way to do things, and you signed that social contract when you were born here if you didn’t like it you should have been born elsewhere.

I am totally unbiased in this argument. I don’t know Sunny Lane from Faye Reagan, and if they and Lexi Belle invited me to engage in some MFFF action I wouldn’t know what the hell they were talking about. But I do believe in protecting people; especially those people who refuse to protect themselves in the manner that I know is best.

I don't know who this is, either.

Rick Perry seems to be adjusting his meds with some success. After sleeping through a couple debates and partying through a couple more his native cunning produced a good, if limited result, assuming the goal was to let some air out of Mitt Romney. Maybe there is real benefit to these bi-weekly debates since there is only ever one or two highlights that make it out into the wider world. The Massachusetts Princeling is wishing he had skipped this one after boldly betting Rick Perry ten thousand dollars that his book says one thing and not another.

One question that no one is addressing is the simple legality of Mitt’s proposal. As I understand it, outside of Nevada and a few other locales, wagering is explicitly illegal. Sporting events? Card games? Shell games? If an ordinary citizen bets on such things he is breaking any number of statutes. Is the disputed content of a piece of paper different? This doesn’t qualify as a state lottery, does it? Recall Michael Moore, advocate of metaphysically strict campaign finance rules dishing out cash, in public but without accounting to his candidate. Picking nits is for The Little People. That ain’t Moore and that ain’t Mitt.

The amount; a cool ten large, has been tagged as the revealing nub by the predictable and well-seasoned detractors on the Left. Throwing a Salmon on the table demonstrates that Mitt is a One Percenter, ’nuff said. Only those contesting Romney’s presumed coronation will bring up the real core of this disgusting little episode; Who is right? And if it is Rick (and it is) what is going on here?

Jon Huntsman couldn’t cut the polling mustard for this round but if he is fading out, he is fighting it, and fighting Mitt. The most forceful pushback came from his campaign. After the lights were out and cold but not long after that, his crew put up a website with all the details, going back years documenting Romney’s approval of the “individual mandate”; compulsory participation in medical reforms and his application of it in Massachusetts. The crux of Mitt’s bet is the subtle revision between the original print of his campaign manifesto, “No Apologies” and subsequent editions. Mitt reads from the latter. Rick from the former.

Whether Romney’s revision amounts to a full-throated denunciation of his now burdensome position or a new nuance to go with new facts is not the question. Not at all. That is because he does not admit that he has changed his position in the least. He did however alter his book and also do as expert an internet scrub as one can accomplish. Huntsman still has the goods to which Perry alludes but Mitt will have none of that. He seems to lay claim to his own private memory hole and assumes that the obsolete copies have been recovered and pulped. Rick misses out on true stardom here, sadly. If he had produced the troublesome tome he would have had Mitt sputtering and red faced on live TV, perhaps carried out in wraparound couture muttering, “No, it’s not what I said. It’s what I’m saying….” but instead the Texas cowhand declines to bet, possibly on religious grounds, revealing that he is as ignorant of what the damn book said as is Romney, having rehearsed this interchange with his handlers rather than ever forming his objections for himself.

So, as is often the case, Rick blows a big debate opportunity. Very well. But Romney’s actions are far worse than a flub. What he wants is not a pass on rhetorical incompetence or ordinary political exaggerations or even outright lies. He intends to re-write his words and deeds, live, on camera, without concealment of any sort to suit his momentary requirements. And anyone who notices has no standing to complain if they are not fixed well enough to drop ten grand on a spa weekend. This should be a revelation but for reasons well understood by the gunslingers who are really calling the shots, the self-interest of the involved parties are contradictory enough to keep a full reckoning at bay. Romney has already revealed how calamitous he fears this might prove by going nuclear in his defense. He has brought in the wife, in an obviously contrived scenario, and she has admonished him, No more bets! That is supposed to end the matter. How? By invoking the perpetually abused Spouse Clause Mitt has now declared that he has taken a hiding for this from the REAL boss and further chatter is either piling on a man who can’t defend himself for fear of a blow up with the missus or intrusion in a private, family matter. See how easy this stuff is?

But it has NOT ended the matter, nor should it. Newt is on the hunt denouncing Romney as a silk-stocking bankster. He sees his opportunities well. After Romney and others have pulled HIS finances front and center Newt sees an opening for a crippling counter. Mitt has exposed his throat, will Newt decline to take a bite? Why? From shame at his own double and self-dealing? From fear that his own tactical wafting from this position to that will be re-scrutinized? Oh, perish the thought! What we see from both men is a petty scale version of Big Lie Theory in action. Mitt makes his declarations; abandoning that old centrist compromiser from way up north and in a snarl DARES anyone to say different while declaring just as firmly that he has never changed his positions a whit! His recruitment of Chris Christie to do this dirty work is another black mark on his ledger (and Christie’s as well). Newt takes blank denial and slick one-off rationalizations to an art so fully developed that even the most cynical citizen can only gape and grudgingly admit that anyone with a glib answer to everything must be “smart” and frank. Lies so baroque could not be relied upon.

That is the world we inhabit and more important issues than Mitt or Newt’s relative consistency have been brushed away by such maneuvering. No one… and that is NO ONE ever questions Mitt’s assertion that, whatever the Constitutional or ideological problems with Masscare if brought to the nation at large, the result in his state has been good. No, it has not. Costs are UP, not down. Results are WORSE, not better. The hard numbers say that. The polling also says that. And even Mitt’s carefully revised book pukes up an abhorrent lie when he claims that his program did not amount to a government takeover of medicine. Apparently only a government appointed Star Chamber can satisfy that definition which is all that awaits the doctors and hospitals of Massachusetts. Still less remarked is that Masscare relies heavily on one-time financing from a federal windfall that was a use-it-or-lose-it Medicare fluke that poured cash into the state from federal coffers; the exact malady that all healthcare reform is supposed to address.

The bluster amounts to little, though, even if one of these dreadful men attains his aspiration. If Medicare is to be “saved” the payments OUT must be curtailed and the payments IN expanded which was the state of affairs in ’08 and in ’10 and will be in ’12. It is the goal of the Doc Fix which forcibly cuts payments to doctors as it is for the hikes in taxes or cuts in therapies like the recent scrapping of Avastin treatment for breast cancers. Yes, this is also what Obamacare claims to do and it is what all “solutions” have done over forty years while the costs of the program only escalate. Anyone who wants to preserve a leading federal roll in healthcare (and this is not me) has only one viable option; radical means testing which would in essence end Medicare, intended to cover “seniors” and expand Medicaid, coverage for the indigent. Who proposes that? Not even the allegedly voracious Paul Ryan proposes anything so dire but the alternative is not some lumbering behemoth that delivers our necessities without charm. It is collapse; that is the checks bounce. And if you don’t want the checks to bounce, as no one does on their shift, they are backed with printed money with all that implies. Are either of these men or Obama going to resist such temptation? Only now does that strange transmission gain coherence….

Resist we much.

10. While slicing the pumpkin pie, you cut your finger and gravy came out

9. Your belly button, formerly an innie, is now an outie

8. People kept saying, “Happy Thanksgiving, Gov. Christie!”

7. NASA is considering one more mission to photograph the other side of you

6. A policeman came up to you and ordered you to disperse

5. You just woke up from your tryptophan coma

4. You’ve gotten inquiries from the Guinness World Records people

3. Old Country Buffet just issued a lifetime ban

2. Your relatives took a picture of you in your Pilgrim outfit, and it’s still printing

1. You just caught the flesh eating bacteria, and were given 67 years to live
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

The McRib is a miracle sandwich. It’s something delicious that is made from a bunch of seemingly non-delicious ingredients. This apparently bothers some people.

Some people are just never satisfied.