Quickies

• Most Americans wrongly attribute Bush's endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as being the largest supplier to the national debt.  When in fact, the Bush tax cuts, and the Bush Recession quadruple the contribution of Glorious War.

• About 24,000 pages of former half-term Governor Sarah Palin's emails are set to be released today.  Get ready for the gotcha questions.

• Newt seems to be imploding only long enough to regain his footing from God.

• Sign of the times: what may hinder Mitt Romney's chances with the GOP base is not his past history of wanting to provide health care to people but his belief that the 16th century norm of science is real.

• Friday's rock.

*Update:

Email from reader "Jackie" about a comment I left on Cooper's excellent site:

Chris, came across you from a comment you left on a different site.  You say the diary on that site fired you up to write the comment.  Well your comment fired me up. It's one of the best I've read in a long time.  Yeh it was a rant of sorts.  A rant that nailed exactly what I've been thinking about the current crop of crap that produces news in this country.  I'm linking to your comment in a few different places because every time I read it I laugh and then get mad.  I'm glad to finally find someone that says it the way it is and isn't scared of who might get offended or who might read it. 

I wanted to let you know I found it a very witty way to capture what a lot of people are feeling.  Good stuff.

In case you are totally unaware of what Jackie is talking about, I left a comment sometime this week to a post by Cooper over at Wonderland Or Not.  I don't think it's any different than anything I normally say on my own blog.  But Cooper's post did jar something loose in my fingertips.  So maybe I did let it fly a little more.  I'll repost the comment below.  I hope Cooper doesn't mind.

Here’s how to get headlines in America. Yesterday, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, who is a Republican appointed by a Republican president and held over by Obama, said that defaulting on our debt would cripple what is a weak economic recovery.

So who are the people wanting to not raise the debt ceiling and default on our bills? Republicans of course. So we have the lead Republican economist in the nation saying that the political games his party is playing with the economy could send us spiraling downward like never before. And not a single mention of it on any front page news outlet and/or media. Only the blogs. ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, NBC…all of them are too busy talking about Weiner’s wiener.

Here’s my advice. Next time Bernanke talks he should have his dick in his hand. Just take it out. Hold it and then begin to speak about how catastrophic and ridiculous it is for Republicans to insist they won’t raise the debt ceiling. He might even stroke it a little while he talks. I don’t care. But at least have it in his hand for all to see so we can finally begin talking about things that really matter.

Not only is the recovery at a stand still but any time we mention that government can actually provide a huge boost to the economy by spending money– you know the world’s largest buyer of goods and services buying goods and services to boost economic activity– we delve straight into some stupid discussion about socialism and Big Government and how Republicans are trying to defend all of us from it. It’s all so stupid. So if we have to have this circle jerk then let’s do it. Take your dicks out and let’s start.

Sorry for the rant Cooper and thanks for the space. Your post got me fired up.

Not much is it? Glad to see at least one person liked it.