How Long Before David Vitter Is Hawking Pampers In TV Ads?

If you've been following the Louisiana gubernatorial election even superficially, tonight's results probably didn't come as a surprise. Conservative Democrat John Bel Edwards has been leading perverted Republican David Diapers Vitter all along. And once the jungle primary was over, it all started getting worse and worse for runner-up Vitter. Tonight, with all precincts counted, Edwards beat Vitter 56-44%. In Orleans Parish Edwards beat him 81,900 (87%) to 12,748 (13%) and in Vitter's own Jefferson Parish Edwards won 49,902 (51%) to 48,633 (49%). It was a bad night for David Vitter.

Louisiana is indeed one of the reddest states in the country at this point. In 2012 Romney beat Obama 1,152,460 (58%) to 808,496 (41%) and took a mere 10 parishes out of 64. In Livingston Parish just east of Baton Rouge Romney got 45,488 votes to Obama's 7,448-- that's an 84-14% landslide. Romney did even better in Cameron parish-- 87-11%. And last year Lousiana voted out long-time Senator Mary Landrieu for the relatively unknown Republican Bill Cassidy, 712,379 (56%) to 561,210 (44%), giving that seat to a Republican for the first time since 1883. Landrieu took only 15 of the state's parishes. Vitter did worse than any Republican since the GOP ran KKK Grand Dragon David Duke in 1991.

The last gubernatorial poll before the polls opened today, from Market Research Insight, showed what every other poll has show-- that Louisiana voters had had it with Vitter. The poll predicted Edwards would beat Vitter anywhere from 54-39% to 47-42%.

Early voting gave a good clue as to how today would go. Around 268,000 people voted before today and more than 140,000 of them were Democrats, a bad sign for Vitter. It got even worse today, worse (for Vitter) than even the polls were predicting.

Vitter has been telling the media that if he lost it would be primarily Bobby Jindal's fault, presumably because the Republican governor, disliked by 70% of the voters, had made the GOP toxic. That isn't totally fair since Edwards has made sure that this election would be all about Vitter's character. Nevertheless, this morning Dave Weigel, writing for the Washington Post pointed out that Jindal actually was working against Vitter, who he hates.

In Louisiana, it's an open secret that Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-La.) concluded a years-long blood feud with Vitter by ending his presidential campaign on Tuesday.

"You can't get anyone to admit it, but it's what everyone thinks," said Julia O'Donoghue, the state politics reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "We spent two days talking about refugees and then two days talking about Jindal. Those first two days were the only ones in the runoff when John Bel [Edwards, the Democratic nominee] was on defense."

The timeline is simple. On Sunday, news broke that a Syrian refugee's passport was found with one of the suspects in the Paris terrorist attacks. Within a day, Vitter was up with a TV ad accusing Edwards of wanting to work with President Obama-- whose toxicity Vitter had previously tried and failed to pour on the Democrat-- and let in refugees. At the final gubernatorial debate on Monday, Vitter pressed the issue. He intended to drive it home all week.

Then, on Tuesday, Jindal used a mid-day Fox News interview to end his presidential campaign. That had a direct effect on what Louisiana's press corps could cover. "There really aren't that many of us," noted O'Donoghue. Instead of spending Wednesday covering the gubernatorial race, the media covered Jindal and his failed presidential bid, and it kept covering him as he suddenly proposed a fix to the $500 million budget gap that had helped drive down his popularity in the state. The news of Vitter heading back to his day job and introducing a bill to staunch the refugee flow was buried.

Vitter's campaign, which did not respond to a question from The Post, had to scramble. Instead of following its plan for Thursday-- four press events, all on refugees-- he had to downsize. As Buzzfeed's John Stanton reported, one of the events was moved from outside of the Catholic Charities’ refugee assistance office to the steps of the capitol in Baton Rouge. Most of the questions were about the budget hole, a more immediate issue for the next governor than the settlement of refugees.

Asked if Vitter's campaign had been considered in the decision to quit the White House bid, Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin responded with a flat "no." But Jindal had refused to endorse Vitter, and even while he spoke about barring refugees from the state, he gave no cover whatsoever to Vitter's message-- which included a factually dodgy story of a refugee going "missing," even though he was quickly located and committed no crimes. "Republicans could lose the governor’s office because of Senator David Vitter’s badly damaged brand," Jindal strategist Curt Anderson told NBC News reporter Kasie Hunt.

Weigel missed one piece in his story, which seems to bolster his point. According to a Trump twitter attack on Jindal, the day before pulling out of the race, Jindal plopped down the required $1,000 to appear on the New Hampshire ballot.

Vitter, who isn't well-liked in the Senate (other than by Ted Cruz), was judged by the GOP establishment unable to win re-election to the Senate in 2016. Tonight he said he won't even try. So who will? Probably Congressmen Charles "Lord Boustany" Boustany and John Fleming and state Treasurer John Kennedy from the GOP and possibly New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, a former state rep and then two-term Lt. Governor, Mary's brother, and therefor son of the legendary Moon Landrieu, from the other side of the aisle.

It Looks Like Vitter's Prostitution Scandal May Be Finally Coming Home To Roost

Gee, that took a while. Vitter has been chasing prostitutes since at least the mid-1990s when he was a member of the Louisiana legislature. He didn't stop when he was elected to Congress in 1999 or when he got into the U.S. Senate in 2004, two years after the first of his many prostitution scandals broke out into the open (and causing him to drop out of his first attempt to win the state's governorship). Vitter, a Family Values hypocrite and serial whore-monger for at least three decades, has managed to win elections by assuring Republican rubes that God has forgiven him and by promising to never do it again. But his luck may be running out as a series of polls show him losing the gubernatorial run-off, after placing a distant second, to conservative Democrat John Bel Edwards. The election is November 21.

When the GOP's presidential clown show was stopping in Milwaukee on Tuesday, Vitter was trying to defend himself down in Louisiana as Edwards hammered him on the prostitution charges and a sleazy life lived without honor or dignity. "There's enough scandal and embarrassment here to last a lifetime. Louisiana doesn't need any more of that... you're a liar and you're a cheater and you're a stealer and I don't tolerate that... Hundreds of veterans have contacted me and they wanted to know that you were missing out on your public performance of your duties in Congress in order to engage in those extracurricular activities that you don't want to admit to."

Louisiana voters seem very excited by the election-- more than they were for the open primary last month-- and early voting indicates that voter participation could be as high as 50%, 10 points higher than it was for the primary. And early voting is attracting substantially more Democrats than Republicans.

Thursday morning, CNN's Manu Raju reported that DC Republicans think Vitter's likely defeat would lead to a defeat next year if he tries to keep his Senate seat-- and they want him to quit.

In back-channel conversations in Washington, the consensus among top Republicans is beginning to form: Vitter has become so damaged by the bitter race-- and the renewed focus on his "D.C. Madam" prostitution scandal-- that he would almost certainly cost his party a valuable Senate seat if he decided to run for a third term... [W]ith polls showing Vitter growing increasingly unpopular-- and losing by a big margin to his Democratic opponent, state Rep. John Bel Edwards-- a growing number of top Republicans privately say Vitter would need to step aside to help their party maintain control of the Senate.

"It would be best for the party if he didn't run," said one senior Republican senator who, like many others interviewed for this story, asked not to be named with the governor's race still ongoing.

And the latest polling, from the University of New Orleans Research Center, shows Edwards with an astonishing 22 point lead over Vitter-- 56-34% with just 10% undecided. More than one in four Republicans (27%) say they are going to vote for the Democratic candidate, including one in three conservatives! (About half the voters who cast primary ballots for the other 2 Republicans in the primary, Scott Angelle and Jay Dardenne say they plan on voting for Edwards.) Bobby Jindal has a 70% disapproval rating and three-fourths of voters who strongly disapprove of him support Edwards in the runoff. Although Vitter leads in the fundraising race, since the primary Edwards has brought in $1.5 million to Vitter's $130,000.


 Vitter is almost as despised by his Senate colleagues-- he repeatedly tried to eliminate federal contributions to subsidize lawmakers' and aides' health care coverage-- as Ted Cruz is. But much of the drum beat for him to retire if he loses the gubernatorial race is coming from McConnell's office and one GOP Senate operative put it like this: "Let's face the facts: He can't win re-election to the Senate with these kind of numbers and with the difficult map that Republicans are facing, he could be a drain on the majority." New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu wants to run as do Republican congressmen John Fleming and Charles "Lord Charles" Boustany and state Treasurer John Kennedy.

The Result Of The Louisiana Gubernatorial Runoff Will Be Determined By This Ad

Unlike lunatic and fraud Ben Carson, John Bel Edwards went to West Point. where he served as vice chairman of the panel that enforced the West Point honor code. One can only imagine how he views Carson. And one doesn't have to imagine how he views another right-wing disgrace, his opponent in the gubernatorial race, David Vitter. The reason there's no need to imagine is due, in part, to the campaign ad above. It's pretty shocking-- and very straight forward in a way that politically-correct-politics forbids. In the ad, he compares his military service-- he was an Army Ranger and served in Korea-- with Vitter's many years as an inveterate whore-monger, obsessively jumping from one prostitute to another, even fathering a child with one, who he demanded abort the fetus. Last night, during the Louisiana State football game with Alabama, the ad was aired for the first time on TV.

The advertisement accuses Vitter of calling an escort service "minutes" after skipping a 2001 U.S. House of Representatives vote to honor 28 troops killed in a missile strike in 1991 during Desert Storm. The ad concludes, "David Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots. Now, the choice is yours Louisiana," and uses an ominous-sounding female voiceover during the 30-second spot.

As its source material, the ad uses phone records previously released by Hustler Magazine in 2007 showing a phone number belonging to Vitter on Feb. 27, 2001 receiving a brief call from a phone belonging to the business of D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The call came in at 6:06 p.m. Eastern Time, which was 39 minutes after the 17-minute House vote ended, according to congressional records and C-SPAN coverage.

The House adjourned at 5:35 p.m., and reconvened at 8:45 p.m. for President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech, which Vitter attended. There is no indication that Vitter participated in House business that afternoon, and that vote was the only one requiring House members to be in the chamber that day.

Thirty-five other members of Congress also did not vote on the bill, which received no opposing votes.

Although there have been questions raised about what Vitter was doing when he received other calls from the D.C. madam's business, this is the first time his opponents have attempted to connect a call with the bill honoring slain servicemen. The call Vitter received that day was the last shown in records previously released.

Last week the open primary showed Edwards considerably ahead of Vitter:

• Edwards (D)- 444,061 (39.9%)
• Vitter (R)- 256,105 (23%)
• Angelle (R)- 214,907 (19.3%)
• Dardenne (R)- 166,553 (15%)
• Deaton (D)- 11,750 (1.1%)

Since then Dardenne, Bobby Jindal's Lt. Governor and a conservative Republican, endorsed Edwards, which flipped out the entire Republican political establishment. I doubt the other Republican, Scott Angelle, has any intention of endorsing Vitter. This ad Vitter ran during the primary is why I think he won't:



Hypothetical match-ups before the primary showed Edwards beating Vitter. Now that Edwards and Vitter are in a heated battle for the Nov. 21 runoff, Edwards has expanded his lead, ahead of Vitter 54-38% according to Market Research Insight and by 52-32% according to a poll by JMC Analytics. Back to that Times-Picayune article, which went on to say that "You don't run an ad like this if you have a safe lead in the race."

Edwards has been running well ahead of Vitter in recent polls, but this advertisement isn't the type of thing a campaign puts out there when it is assured a political victory.

"If John Bel Edwards is running this ad-- no matter how many polls show Edwards above 50-- he is not in a comfortable position," said Geoffrey Skelley, who is an associated editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball, a political publication about American elections from the University of Virginia.

"He think he needs to damage Vitter so much Vitter can't recover by election day," said Skelley. "The Edwards campaign must feel like it really has to go for it if they really want to hold on to this lead that they have in the polls."

Though polling shows Edwards ahead, the campaign may be nervous because of what happened in the Kentucky gubernatorial race earlier this week. Polling in that race also show the Democratic candidate in the lead, but the Republican ended up winning the election. The Kentucky results have caused some political observers to question whether polling that shows Edwards with such a substantial lead in Louisiana can be trusted.

...[T]he gubernatorial race has largely focused on the candidates' character and personal stories, not their public policy positions. Edwards is a conservative Democrat, but Louisiana voters would still be more inclined to support a Republican if they were just looking at issues, and not taking back stories into account.

In this case, Vitter is in trouble because there are concerns about his personal life-- not so much his record as a -- according to experts. Edwards, a West Point graduate who comes from a law enforcement family, has an appealing personal backstory.

So it makes sense that Edwards would want to run an ad drawing attention to his military service and Vitter's scandal. It is a large part of what has made him a successful candidate so far... Negative ads, such as this one, tend to be run by PACs that don't directly coordinate with the candidate. They aren't usually affiliated directly with the campaign, as this Edwards ad is.

Previous advertisements highlighting Vitter's prostitution scandal during the primary campaign came from outside groups -- not directly from his three opponents' campaigns. So it's an interesting choice on the part of the Edwards' campaign to "go there."

But the Edwards campaign appears interested in owning this message, and not letting PACs handle some of the more unsavory aspects of politics. Shortly after the ad dropped, Edwards sent out a statement saying that it was important.

"Voters have a right to know who the candidates really are," said Mary-Patricia Wray, spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign. "David Vitter's hypocrisy should not go unchecked, and this is yet another reason why Louisianans can't trust him."

The non-partisan anti-Vitter Gumbo PAC targeted Vitter during the primary, so this isn't the first time Louisiana voters are being asked to look at Vitter's character.

Will David "Diapers" Vitter Lose The Gubernatorial Race To A Democrat In One Of The Reddest States In The Country?

Everyone is getting excited about the 2016 elections which are over a year away. But there's a pretty exciting little election coming up in a week. Louisianans will be picking the guy to take over for Governor Bobby Jindal.... whether he makes it into the White House or goes back to performing exorcisms. Louisiana's jungle primary pits three Republicans-- U.S. Senator David Vitter, former Lt. Governor Scott Angelle, and current Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne-- against one Democrat, John Bel Edwards, the Minority Leader of the state House of Representatives. The most recent polling, last week from KPLC, shows "undecided" winning.

• Undecided- 37%
• John Bel Edwards- 24%
• David Vitter- 21%
• Jay Dardenne- 8%
• Scott Angelle 7%

It's not likely anyone will get the 50% to avoid a runoff, so the final decision will be made on November 21 in a general election. Vitter has all the endorsements-- from George H.W. Bush to the impossibly unpopular Jeb Bush, as well as from the Gun Owners of America, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and Lord Boustany. But the same poll showed Edwards beating Vitter in the runoff, 52-33%. A poll last month from WWL-TV showed Edwards winning a runoff with Vitter 45-41% and a PPP survey the same week had Edwards up 50-38% in a runoff against Vitter. PPP Director Tom Jensen concluded that "Vitter has become quite unpopular, with only 34% of voters rating him favorably to 51% with a negative opinion of him" and that he would make the runoff and lose the general. They also found that 28% of Republican voters say right now that they would vote for Edwards before they would vote for Vitter and that his numbers with women are especially toxic. 54% of Louisiana women have a negative opinion of him and Edwards is leading him among women 57-30%. (For comparison's sake, Romney beat Obama in Louisiana 58-41%.).

Last month, The Advocate, the state's #1 newspaper, published a piece explaining why Vitter has fallen so drastically: David Vitter murky past with prostitution focus of campaign behind campaign.

This week, with a month and a half to go before the Oct. 24 primary, two developments dragged the topic out of the margins and back into the public arena.

First, Baton Rouge television reporter Derek Myers was fired Tuesday after he confronted Vitter with questions about the issue. Myers claimed he lost his job because the Vitter campaign threatened to pull its ads from the station. Although the station’s general manager denied the claim, the story spread like wildfire on websites and social media.

Next, a political action committee launched an anti-Vitter ad on television. Exactly who is behind the group and how much money its donors are putting behind the ad is not yet clear, but it was airing statewide as of Friday.

The anti-Vitter faction-- including an entity called Gumbo PAC-- is trying to dredge up and disseminate enough information to keep voters from sending Vitter into the Governor’s Mansion in January. With Vitter holding a huge lead in fundraising and enjoying a large statewide profile, some think a new and sordid disclosure-- or a cleverly packaged attack using existing information-- may be the only thing that will derail him.

It seems to have worked... with more than a little help from ex-Vitter lover Wendy Ellis, AKA Wendy Cortez (the lady in the videos), now terminally ill and hoping to set the record straight. The part of the story that was never reported was that Vitter got her pregnant and when she was 4-months pregnant he asked her to get an abortion and then dumped her when she was 6 months pregnant, after she refused to have an abortion. (She gave the baby up for adoption.) There are 4 more videos here and if this sordid story about a Republican hypocrite interests you at all, they're certainly worth watching. This one below is about the child and the abortion:

You weren't at Senator Vitter's do last night? You missed some swell eats

by Ken

I realize that this post comes a day late. I'm sure you're thinking that if only you'd known, and if you'd been in the D.C. area and had a hankering for some Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen fried chicken, you could have whipped out your checkbook and for a mere $1000 and enjoyed not just your chicken and sides (and your biscuit, and maybe some of that iced tea or lemonade) but also the company of both of Louisiana's U.S. senators.

Alas, Philip Bump's washingtonpost.com "Fix"-post ("David Vitter’s $1,000-a-head Popeye’s fundraiser could buy you A LOT of fast-food chicken") only went out at 1:51 yesterday afternoon, and I probably didn't get to it right away, and I surely didn't appreciate the urgency.

On Wednesday night, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) will host his state's new junior senator, Bill Cassidy (R), at a fundraiser benefitting Vitter's gubernatorial run this year. The invitation trumpets an unusual aspect of the event: It will be catered by Popeye's, the fast-food chicken franchise that trumpets its Louisiana roots and which, apparently, does catering.

"Apparently does catering"? Apparently? Did you look at your own link, Philip? They do catering "from our kitchen to YOUR table" and it's "perfect for parties, tailgating, reunions and more!" They have ready-listed "meal recommendations" for serving 20, 30, 50, 75, or 100.

And can you put a price on the opportunity to say a Louisiana howdy, not just to our old pal Sen. Dave "Diapers" Vitter but to Louisiana's brand-new senator, Bill Cassidy, the fellow who defeated Mary Landrieu. (I know we do a lot of whining hereabouts about "lesser of two evils" ballot choices, and Mary Landrieu was a pretty horrible senator. Still, repeat that phrase "Sen. Bill Cassidy" a few times and see if ol' Mary doesn't begin to look a little better.) Actually, I guess you can put a price on that opportunity: $1000.

Since according to Philip's lead, it was "a fundraiser benefitting Vitter's gubernatorial run this year," suggesting that the haul wasn't being split between the senators, I guess your $1000 would only have bought a tiny chunk of the governor-to-be. (Aren't you glad to know that there's talent like this waiting in the wings to slide into incumbent Gov. Booby Jindal's chair?) If you want to buy a piece of Senator Cassidy, you'll have to wait till he does a fund-raiser. I guess last night his people were building up their Rolodex.

As Philip notes, the choice of Popeyes for the catering, in addition to highlighting this great Louisiana delicacy, looked to be "a smart move for the fundraisers . . . cut[ting] down on overhead," reserving more of your $1000 for Diapers Dave's run at the governorship.

Philip decided to do some checking, and for some reason called a Popeyes in Louisiana ("just west of New Orleans, a few blocks from the Mississippi River") rather than one in the D.C. area,  where the food would actually have been purchased, "to see exactly how much their meals cost."

The manager that we spoke with gave us costs for some of the most popular items: $6.41 for the two-piece meal; $7.06 for the chicken tenders. She pitched the onion rings, which not all stores have and not all make fresh daily (small, $2; large, $3.80). She ran through the available sides: gravy on potatoes, Cajun rice, corn, green beans -- all $1.95, unless you get the meal.

For some reason Philip is really hung up on that $1000 price tag, though it seems like a pretty standard amount for a D.C. fund-raiser, and it's almost a bargain compared with the "Louisiana Bayou Weekend and Alligator Hunt," with Senator Vitter as "special guest," thrown back in September 2013 by the Fund for Louisiana's Future, a super PAC whose "goal was to support Vitter and his views." That was a cool $5000.

In any case, Philip got the curious idea of seeing how much Popeyes eats you could buy for $1000. I can't think why. If they had been serving more normal fund-raiser fare -- say, plates of banquet-style rubber chicken or roast beef, would he have tried to find out how much of that stuff you can buy for $1000? Surely the point about the $1000 is how much you net once you allow for the cost of the food plus all your other event costs. And, as we've established, keeping the food cost low should have meant more was left for the gubernatorial campaign after all the costs were paid.

Still, Philip did the math. He asked the Louisiana Popeyes manager he spoke to "how she'd spend $1,000" at her establishement, and "she figured she'd do $500 of each of the two most popular meals," which would have looked something like this:



Of course, as Philip notes, "that's not the catered rate . . . just the rate if you actually went into that store in Louisiana and dropped $1,000 at the register (don't try this, for the manager's sake). He adds: "If you're curious, it's 70,600 calories, 3,788 grams of fat, and 234,120 milligrams of sodium, just for the chicken." Well, yes, that would be the nutritional information if you ate all of the chicken. I guess that would be one way of getting your $1000 worth, if you don't place much value on rubbing elbows with Senators Vitters and Cassidy, or supporting the former's race for governor. In that case attending a fund-raiser for the purpose seems like a curious choice.

Still, Philip is determined to find "another context" for the $1000 price, and seeing as how he's done the math, we might as well follow along:

Louisiana doesn't have its own minimum wage law, so it's subject to the federal minimum wage. Assuming Popeye's employees make that $7.25 an hour, the $1,000 price tag for tonight's event would cost one of the people making the food about 138 hours of salary -- three-and-a-half weeks.

Or put another way: It's 1/37th of the median household income in Orleans Parish in 2013 -- meaning that the price tag for the fundraiser is about 9.8 days of income.

Yes, um, okay. I think we can probably agree that not many folks back in Orleans Parish planned to make the trip to D.C. for the fund-raiser last night, or for that matter would have shelled out the $1000 if the do had been held back home. I guess I'm just not following this, so let me just ask one last question --

DID THE SENATOR USE COUPONS?


Online, Popeyes has coupons customized to the customer's most convenient store location, and I'm sure no one would think less of Senator Vitter if he couponned to trim the costs for last night's do. On the contrary, who wouldn't admire his frugality? (If there's a limit to how many coupons you can use per order, his staff could have broken it into a couple of hundred orders, or however many were needed.) The senator might have saved enough to pay for an extra hooker session or two.

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Rob Ford-- Four More Years?

When Richard Nixon was narrowly elected president in 1968-- beating war-tainted Herbert Humphrey by seven tenths of a percentage point, 43.4 to 42.7%-- I decided to move to another country. I travelled around the world and finally settled down in Amsterdam. By the summer of 1972 it was obvious to me that Nixon couldn't possibly win another term and I started thinking about moving back to America. When the votes were counted on November, Nixon-- who we later found out stole the election through a criminal fraud that later forced him to resign in disgrace-- had 47,168,710 votes (60.1%) to George McGovern's 29,173,222 (37.5%), a rout. Nixon won every state but Massachusetts (and DC). By the time he resigned on August 9, 1974, I wasn't that eager to return to the country that had reelected him so overwhelmingly.

Nixon? How could anyone vote for that cesspool to begin with-- let alone after 4 years confirmed everyone's worst fears about him. Apparently not quite everyone's. A couple decades later I was living in the U.S. and it happened all over again. Canadians may have been looking on in horror and wondering how America could reelect George W. Bush… but they did. Really-- and he beat John Kerry 62,040,610 (50.7%) to 59,028,444 (48.3%). Well, the shoe is on the other foot finally, Canada. We may have reelected a collection of bizarre political characters and criminals like Jesse Helms (NC), David "Diapers" Vitter (LA), Mark Sanford (SC) and, just 2 weeks ago, Scott DesJarlais (TN) but most of the jokesters are from the backward parts of the Old Confederacy where people are expected to be especially dumb. Canada may be about to reelect Rob Ford in Toronto, their 3rd smartest city (behind Vancouver and Montreal).

Rob Ford’s support appears to be rising as the gap between him and frontrunner John Tory narrows with two months left in Toronto’s mayoral race, according to a new poll.

The Forum Research opinion survey also found that Olivia Chow’s momentum continues to slip.

The poll, which was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, put support for Mr. Tory at 34 per cent, 31 per cent for Mr. Ford and 23 per cent for Ms. Chow – the three leading candidates.

...The poll suggests Mr. Ford is enjoying support levels not seen since March.

In addition to his rising popularity, fewer poll respondents want Mr. Ford to step down than did in previous Forum Research surveys. Half of Toronto voters said they want the mayor to resign, down from 58 per cent two weeks ago and 63 per cent in early June.

The poll found that Mr. Ford’s support was highest among men, those aged 18-34, residents of Etobicoke and Scarborough, people with a household income between $60,000 and $80,000 and those with a high school education or less.

By contrast, support for Mr. Tory was highest among senior citizens, North York residents, voters with household incomes over $250,000 and those who have gone to graduate school. His support is almost evenly split between men and women.

Just hope there's still room to book the Diaper Man's $5000 gator hunt

by Ken

Forgive me if you've already gotten this breaking news -- and already booked your place on this not-to-be-missed excursion. I've been away from home and a little out of the loop. A day or two ago the <i>Washington Post</i>'s loopmaster, Al Kamen, reported:

Hunting gators with Sen. David Vitter

by Al Kamen

Most folks think being "up to your neck in alligators" is not a good thing. But a super PAC supporting Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) thinks it's an excellent fun time, worth $5,000 a person.

Yes, it's a "Louisiana Bayou Weekend" alligator hunt and "airboat swamp tour" Sept. 5-7, our invitation says, "with special guest David Vitter."

"Save your place for this exciting ad­ven­ture in the swamps and bayous of south Louisiana," and do it now the invite says, because "space [is] very limited.”"

GOP strategist and mega-fundraiser Charlie Spies -- co-founder of the Romney super PAC Restore Our Future -- set up the Fund for Louisiana's Future in January, telling the Associated Press the super PAC's goal was to support Vitter and his views.

A similar alligator-hunt fundraiser by former Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.) in 2011 sparked a counter, "animal-friendly alternative" on-line fundraising appeal by liberal Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who told supporters they "can send me $500 and you don't have to kill an alligator."

Lest you think this is a weekend just riding around some swamp in a boat, Lisa Spies, who's also a prominent GOP fundraiser, assures us that we "will go on a real alligator hunt where all guests will receive a license . . . to hunt an alligator" and "professional alligator hunters" will be along to guide you.

Unclear if gator wrasslin’ is included.

If you're wondering whether a "Hunting Sen. David 'The Diaper Man' Vitter with gators" outing is on offer, not as far as I'm aware.

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Tom Perez... And The Republican Party War Against Hispanics

To avoid a discussion of the Republican Party Austerity agenda fiasco, Rience Preibus' sad GOP Autopsy Monday focused around the edges, carefully skirting the real issues that make the Republican Party anathema to so many Americans. "We've got to reach out to more Hispanic voters" doesn't work while the party is blocking attempts to pass popular and rational immigration reforms. And it doesn't work when a notorious Republican senator, whoremonger and s&m freak, David Vitter-- who last made national headlines when his wife threatened to cut his dick off if she ever heard about him hiring another prostitute, something he's been doing addictively for decades (and on the public dime)-- is viciously demonizing a well respected Latino government official nominated for a Cabinet position. Vitter has put a hold on Perez, the son of poor Dominican immigrants, who's personal story is the prototypical American Dream. Vitter has cooked up some kind of spurious nonsense about Perez being a Black Panther sympathizer and "helped illegal immigrants." Stepping on Preibus' story-line just a little?

With Hilda Solis moving on-- probably towards an eventual run for California governor-- Obama nominated Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez as the next Secretary of Labor. Predictably, Vitter and the anti-minority Senate Republicans went bonkers. As head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, Perez concentrated on protecting voting rights for all American citizens. Guess who that brought him into a battle with! The attack is being led by Alabama's KKK senator, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions and Vitter, each committed to discouraging minorities from voting, regardless of Rience Preibus' meaningless Autopsy report, which mentions that "By 2050, the Hispanic share of the U.S. population could be as high as 29 percent, up from 17 percent now” and that unless Republicans “get serious” about tackling their minority outreach problem, “we will lose future elections.” As Adam Serwer explained in Mother Jones last week, when Republican racists started attacking the prospect of Perez, "When Perez was nominated to head the Department of Justice's civil rights division, some congressional Republicans sought to block his confirmation over since discredited allegations regarding a voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panther Party and Perez's advocacy on behalf of undocumented immigrants. During the Bush years, the division had been marred by partisan politics and declining civil rights enforcement. But since Perez took the helm, the division has blocked partisan voting schemes, cracked down on police brutality, protected gay and lesbian students from harassment, sued anti-immigrant Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for racial profiling, stood up against Islamophobia, and forced the two largest fair-housing settlements in history from banks that discriminated against minority homeowners."

So while some Republicans are trying to change the GOP's anti-Hispanic image, the news is filled with Republican bigots and racists blocking a highly respected and highly qualified Hispanic nominee to a cabinet job. When Priebus was on CNN Monday, he criticized Mitt Romney for implying that the Republican Party wants Latinos to "self deport." He told Wolf Blitzer that "One of the issues that I think really cut pretty badly within the Hispanic communities [was] when Mitt Romney talked about self-deportation... "[I]t's a concept that really doesn't-- it's not our party's position. But it was something that I think hit every Hispanic kitchen table across America." But Priebus was wrong. It was official GOP policy, enshrined in their party platform by Priebus' RNC: "We will create humane procedures to encourage illegal aliens to return home voluntarily, while enforcing the law against those who overstay their visas... State efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked."

The Republican ideal for a Secretary of Labor, of course, is a virulently anti-worker corporate shill like Miss McConnell's "wife," Elaine Chao, who spent her tenure getting personally wealthy by shipping American jobs to China. Obama has enough Wall Street-oriented crap in his cabinet already. I hope he and the Senate Democrats will not let the obstructionists and bigots in the GOP get away with blackballing Perez after the initial tumult does down.

Why Is David Vitter Backing Progressives In Their Attempt To End "Too Big To Fail?"

Sherrod Brown is one of the most deep-thinking progressives in the Senate. And David Vitter is a sleazy, mindless reactionary-- even worse than the average fringe lunatic the GOP runs in the South. But the two of them are preparing a joint bill that addresses a pressing and even existential problem-- banks that are too big to fail. Odd to see this unlikely pair working together-- on anything. Brown: “Wall Street has been allowed to run wild for years. We simply cannot wait any longer for regulators to act.”

And Vitter backed him up on the Senate floor Thursday. “We have objective numbers and evidence that ‘too big to fail’ is alive and well. The fact is that since the financial crisis, the mega banks have only continued to grow in size and dominance in market share.” The legislation the two of them are crafting will reduce the amount of capital and subsidies for large banks if another financial crisis hits and will likely cause them to restructure. “I want to talk about the subsidy that these six largest banks get,” Brown said. “The market views their investments as not risky because the markets believe they are too big to fail because government would bail them out so they’re allowed to borrow at a lower interest rate... Only these six largest banks have that advantage... they are in a sense being subsidized.” It's exactly what Elizabeth Warren was grilling Fed Chaorman Ben Bernanke about this week. Watch:



I understand why this is important to Sherrod Brown and why this is important to Elizabeth Warren and, obviously, why this is important to normal working families across the country. But I honestly don't understand what David Vitter has to do with any of this. I can hardly believe he even understands it. In his book, Republican Gomorrah, Max Blumenthal offers the most insightful look into what motivates David Vitter and what drives him as a politician and a man. It's hard to grasp how "too big to fail" fits in. It's important to remember that Vitter, always a serious flawed candidate going back decades has a severe sex addiction and had been paying prostitutes for many many years before he was finally caught. Right-wing religionist charlatans like James Dobson, Gene Mills, Billy McCormack, and Tony Perkins-- a Louisiana crony of Vitter's-- have had Vitter on a string for his entire federal career and "have exploited the secret transgressions" to ensure Vitter's servility. He always carries their crackpot bills, puts in earmarks for their projects and does all he can to enrich them and their sleazy families. He's always fit in very nicely to the right-wing religionist honey-trap and personal crisis industry that feeds off their sick trauma-wracked subculture. Blumenthal, writing about the 2004 election that saw Vitter win a Senate seat:

[No] candidate gained more from Dobson's blessing than David Vitter, a conservative Louisiana congressman running to become the firs Republican U.S. senator from his state since Reconstruction. In 2002, he had withdrawn from the governor's race amid a storm of lurid rumors... that he had repeatedly patronized a notorious Canal Street whorehouse.

Always enablers for morally paralyzed right-wing politicians they can get their hooks into, Dobson and his cronies grabbed Vitter, accepted his obvious lie-- "There are no skeletons in my closet"-- and pushed him on the unsuspecting, easily duped evangelicals who don't understand that Dobson's preaches an anti-Jesus perversion of Christianity. The evangelical vote controls the Louisiana GOP and it took Vitter-- and his diapers-- all the way to the U.S. Senate.

Although Vitter's culture war cant propelled him to victory, the lurid rumors about his prostitution problem continued to haunt him. In 2002, New Orleans newspapers reported allegations that Vitter had paid $300 an hour for services at a bordello on the city's notorious Canal Street. Operated by Jeannette Maier, the brothel specialized in satisfying the fetishes of the Big Easy's power Elite.

Maier made certain that chains, whips, cuffs, and leather accoutrements were always available, particularly when a prominent Republican client had booked time with one of her girls. After all, she explained, Republicans were her kinkiest cients. "They wanted to be spanked and tortured and wear stockings-- Republicans have impeccable taste in silk stockings-- and these are the people who run our country," Maier said.

...Dutifully, Vitter manned the trenches against the onslaught of gay marriage. In June 2006, as the Republican Party sought to energize its Christian-right base for the upcoming midterm elections, Vitter co-authored a bill to ban gay marriage. Even as his constituents reeled from the damage of Hurricane Katrina, Vitter preached on the Senate floor, "I don't believe there's any issue as important as this one [keeping gays from marrying each other]. I think the debate is very healthy and were winning hearts and minds." Yet many members of Vitter's party, including Senator John McCain, disagreed, sending the bill to easy defeat.

...I did't have a crapload of clients," Wendy Cortez, Vitter's favorite escort, disclosed in an interview with Hustler. Cortez, whose real name is Wendy Yow Ellis, said that Vitter visited her twice a week for several years at a French Quarter apartment. He instructed her not to wear any perfume or lotion, and even forbade her to shower, for fear that the scent of another woman would pique his wife's supsicions. She described him as "a clean old man." When he finished, Vitter took his used condoms along with him, thus ensuring that the evidence would be destroyed... The escort explained that her motive in revealing his identity was that he had lied about seeing her. He lacked "Cojones," she said. She added, cruelly, "His penis was very small."

Now Vitter publicly confessed to employing the DC Madam at a press conference on July 16, 2007. When Vitter made his grand confession, however, he stage-managed it to appeal to the sensibility of the Christian right, emphasizing his redemption from crisis through the wonder-working power of God.

...Perkins rushed to Vitter's defense... Why did Vitter's allies so casually forgive his sins? Certainly political expediency factored into their motives. Vitter was a fervent culture warrior froma a state led at the time by a Democratic governor. If he resigned, his defenders reasoned, a Democrat would fill his seat, and the balance of power in the Senate would tilt even more against the Republicans. But there was more meathod to their madness than was apparent on the surface. Just two months after Perkins, Mills and other Christian-right figures leapt to Vitter's defense, Vitter earmarked $100,000 in federal money to the Louisiana Family Forum, the policy council that Perkins founded and Mills directed. Whether or not the earmark was a financial reward to his two most ardent defenders, it reprsented at the very least a troubling conflict of interest.

...Just as Reverend Billy McCormack pedicted, Vitter's redemption made him more determined than ever to demonstrate his fealty to the Christian right. In October 2007, Vitter introduced a bill the Family Research Council had long advocated that banned federal grants to women's health centers for STD testing, contraceptives, and pap smears... another token of his gratitude to his masters in teh movement.

To Satanic figures like James Dobson and Tony Perkins, morality only matters to the extent that it is convenient. In 2010 Vitter was up for reelection and, predictably, all the charlatans of the religious right were banging their drums for him. He faced an extremely weak Blue Dog Democrat, Charlie Melançon, who had very weak support even among Louisiana Democrats. Vitter beat him 715,415 (57%) to 476,572 (38%) winning all but 8 parishes statewide, including all the evangelical Bible Belt parishes.

When Bob Woodward tells you to read something, you stand up and READ -- plus other Woodward enhanced interrogation techniques

Watch out, Diane! If Bob doesn't like your question, he can have you get up on the table and cluck like a chicken.

by Ken

I think I've established that I'm not a great fan of make-believe journalist Bob Woodward -- having posed such questions as "Is Bob Woodward the very best person to review George Tenet's book? Or maybe the WORST? (Can you guess which way the Washington Post voted?)" (May 2007) and "Is it possible that Bob Woodward really believes he's giving us first drafts of actual history?" (October 2010). All the same, I wasn't expecting to find myself laughing out loud -- along with some eye-rolling, admitedly -- at the Bobster's grandiose self-fluffing.

However, since I do have some curiosity about the prospect of former Sen. Chuck Hagel's installation at the Pentagon, I was curious enough to take a look at what our Bob has to say in a WaPo column called "Why Obama picked Hagel." And he does have some interesting things to say.

There is, notably, a quote from Hagel presented in the now-familiar Woodwardian journalistic spinoff of insider trading, where the practice of journalism consists of gathering insider information with a view to its highly selective release at the most opportune moment -- "most opportune" for the opportunist in question, that is. Thus we are told that in the early months of President Obama's first term his former Senate colleague came "to the White House to vist with the friend he had made during the four years they overlapped in the Senate" and was asked what he thought about foreign policy and defense issues.

According to an account that Hagel later gave, and is reported here for the first time, he told Obama: "We are at a time where there is a new world order. We don't control it. You must question everything, every assumption, everything they" -- the military and diplomats -- "tell you. Any assumption 10 years old is out of date. You need to question our role. You need to question the military. You need to question what are we using the military for.

"Afghanistan will be defining for your presidency in the first term," Hagel also said, according to his own account, "perhaps even for a second term." The key was not to get "bogged down."

Obama did not say much but listened. At the time, Hagel considered Obama a "loner," inclined to keep a distance and his own counsel. But Hagel's comments help explain why Obama nominated his former Senate colleague to be his next secretary of defense. The two share similar views and philosophies as the Obama administration attempts to define the role of the United States in the transition to a post-superpower world.

I've boldfaced that first part because, hey, are you gonna tell me you couldn't use a good laugh? This business of the later-given account and its being reported here for the first time -- such a gaffishly executed exercise in either fake modesty or circumspection, avoiding the central word in all of Woodwardia, ME-ME-ME-ME-ME.

But this isn't the belly laugh I promised at the outset. Indeed, I have to acknowledge that it will be old news to anyone who read Bob's book, oh, whichever-book-it-was. I can't be expected to keep them straight. Oh, I see it was Obama's Wars.

When I interviewed President Obama in the summer of 2010 for my book "Obama's Wars," his deeply rooted aversion to war was evident. As I reported in the book, I handed Obama a copy of a quotation from Rick Atkinson's World War II history, "The Day of Battle," and asked him to read it. Obama stood and read:

"And then there was the saddest lesson, to be learned again and again . . . that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and the superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained."

"I sympathize with this view," Obama told me. "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech."

No, no, it's not the president saying, "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech." I admit that's pretty funny, even if by chance the president actually said those words. Maybe it's even funnier if he did. And after all, our Bob has been slammed so hard and so often over his "journalistic" career for suspicious quotes that almost certainly couldn't be actual quotes that you'd think by now when he manufactures quotes to dramatize something that somebody told him somebody else said, he'd do it better than "See my Nobel Prize acceptance speech."

Again, no, though. The hilarious part is our Bob handing the president of these United States a book quotation with the order to read it and the president by golly standing up and reading it out loud.

At first this may not sound odd to anyone who's watched enough TV courtroom dramas, where lawyers are always handing witnesses stuff and ordering them to read "the highlighted portion," and uncomfortable as they appear, they do, even when they have no direct connection to what they're reading, and you'd figure somebody ought to be objecting.

But the president is an under-oath witness subject to "gotcha"-ing by a crafty cross-examining attorney about to blow the whole case wide open. He's, you know, the president. And Bob is just, you know, whatever it is you want to call it, what he is. And our Bob hands him the quotation and tells him to read and he by God stands up and reads. And in just a year or two the world gets to read all about it.


REPORTED HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME: MORE
RECENT WOODWARD ENHANCED INTERROGATIONS

House Minority Leader NANCY PELOSI, on her objection to the House majority leadership's expenditure of millions of dollars to prop up DOMA

Required to read highlighted passages from the 1953 Nancy Drew mystery (No. 31) The Ringmaster's Secret

Senate Minority Leader MITCH McCONNELL, on his search for a Plan B to put in place of his old Plan A ("to make Obama a one-term president")

Instructed to put on a Boy Scout uniform and order five dozen boxes of his favorite variety of Girl Scout cookies (anything but those ridiculous Thank U Berry Much-es)

Supreme Court Justice ANTONIN SCALIA, explaining why his practice of prejudging cases and his habit of hanging out with rich right-wing parties to cases never call for him to recuse himself

Made to sign up for Weight Watchers Online -- though with sign-up fee waived (special "friends of Bob" deal)

Vice President JOE BIDEN, offering exclusive not-to-be-published-till-2016 details about his plans to run for president

Had to stand up and read -- and pick his favorite from among -- a David Letterman-style Top 10 List of "Favorite Joe Biden Gaffes" found online

Treasury Secretary-designate JACK LEW, detailing all his fiscal and monetary plans for these next four years

Asked to recite from memory the Gordon Gekko "Greed is good" speech from the original Wall Street film

Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID, explaining his strategy in the recent filibuster "reform" to-do

Required to stand on the desk and sing his college fight song

New Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair DAVID "THE DIAPER MAN" VITTER, discussing techniques for hiring hookers without leaving a paper trail as well as his recent precedent-defying decision to dump virtually all the committee staff left behind by GOP-term-limited chair James Inhofe*

Called on to strip naked to enable Bob to body-paint the image of Carl Bernstein's genitalia all over him


*SPEAKING OF CHAIRMAN VITTER'S PURGE, HIS
STAFF DENIES ANY ANIMOSITY TOWARD INHOFE

We won't know till the relevant Woodward book is published what Senator Vitter may have told Bob about reports of personal discord with Senator Inhofe and "The Diaper Man" 's purge of Environment and Public Works Committee staff. Like this from National Journal:

One rumor, according to an aide who used to work for Inhofe on the panel, is that the two senators didn't get along.

"From what I've been told, it was due to the fact that Vitter was pissed at Inhofe because Inhofe refused to help him fund-raise because of the prostitution scandal that Vitter faced," the aide said, who was not among the dozen or so most recently let go. "Vitter wanted to purge and get rid of everyone."

However, a source close to Senator Vitter says he told Bob W:

I respect the heck out of my colleague from Oklahoma, and if I found myself in need of a hooker on short notice in the Sooner State, he'd be my first phone call. Besides, nobody has done more to give substance to the belief that God gave us the environment to rape, pillage, and plunder. But every raper/pillager/plunderer has his own style.

Meanwhile at least two energy-industry lobbyists so far confirm receiving e-mails in which the senator wrote:

The only difference between my good friend Jim Inhofe and me on raping, pillaging, and plundering the environment is that he always thinks of it like a one-man mission whereas I'm a strong believer in being a team player, being on the team -- as long as my friends in the environmental-raping industries remember, when it comes time to spread the cash and goodies and cut the checks, that I'm now the guy in charge.

#

Even Without A Direct Hit From Isaac, Romney Has His Hands Full

This thing doesn't look like the Unity Convention Romney desperately needs it to be. Last night's David Brooks column in the NY Times-- he's their conservative guy-- was like a harbinger of bad tidings for Romney. The fake bio is probably not Romney's idea of a joke-- not like asking for Obama's passport.

Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become the Arrow shirt man.

Romney was a precocious and gifted child. He uttered his first words (“I like to fire people”) at age 14 months, made his first gaffe at 15 months and purchased his first nursery school at 24 months. The school, highly leveraged, went under, but Romney made 24 million Jujubes on the deal.

Mitt grew up in a modest family. His father had an auto body shop called the American Motors Corporation, and his mother owned a small piece of land, Brazil. He had several boyhood friends, many of whom owned Nascar franchises, and excelled at school, where his fourth-grade project, “Inspiring Actuaries I Have Known,” was widely admired.

...Romney is also a passionately devoted family man. After streamlining his wife’s pregnancies down to six months each, Mitt helped Ann raise five perfect sons-- Bip, Chip, Rip, Skip and Dip-- who married identically tanned wives. Some have said that Romney’s lifestyle is overly privileged, pointing to the fact that he has an elevator for his cars in the garage of his San Diego home. This is not entirely fair. Romney owns many homes without garage elevators and the cars have to take the stairs.

After a successful stint at Bain, Romney was lured away to run the Winter Olympics, the second most Caucasian institution on earth, after the G.O.P. He then decided to run for governor of Massachusetts. His campaign slogan, “Vote Romney: More Impressive Than You’ll Ever Be,” was not a hit, but Romney won the race anyway on an environmental platform, promising to make the state safe for steeplechase.

After his governorship, Romney suffered through a midlife crisis, during which he became a social conservative. This prepared the way for his presidential run. He barely won the 2012 Republican primaries after a grueling nine-month campaign, running unopposed. At the convention, where his Secret Service nickname is Mannequin, Romney will talk about his real-life record: successful business leader, superb family man, effective governor, devoted community leader and prudent decision-maker. If elected, he promises to bring all Americans together and make them feel inferior.

At least no one expects Mike Huckabee to use his prime time speaking slot tomorrow right before Condoleeza Rice for a Mount Carmel Moment on behalf of Todd Akin, who he feels has been wronged. He wouldn't dare cast the Mormon in the role of Baal... would he? Well, he did tell a coven of radical right Baptist preachers that “I’ve never seen an effort like what I’ve seen this week with party leaders coming together expressly for the purpose of taking one of their own wounded soldiers on the battlefield-- and instead of coming to get him off the field and to the hospital-- basically opening up rounds and rounds of fire on him, and then running over him with the tanks of the trucks, leaving him to be ravaged by the wolves of the other side.” He was talking about, among others Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, NRSC Chair John Cornyn, RNC Chair Reince Priebus and Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, among others.

But I sense Huckabee is trying to calm the waters a little. I don't know if he still can, especially not with the other side-- the Country Club Establishment-- still working hard to undermine Akin and force him out of the race. Over the weekend Mary Matalin told ABC News that the Establishment would run a write-in candidate of their own and screw Akin over completely. "We are going to win Missouri and Wagner is going to be our candidate," the former Cheney flack told George Stephanapolous. "The party is going to get Ann Wagner in... Or we’ll run a third party, we’ll run a write-in. We can do it. We have the money to do it. We are going to transfer the money. It’s not as easy. But it’s a good state for Romney and we will get it back." Can Huckabee defuse that kind of derangement?

“Today, the rhetoric was dramatically dialed back,” he said. “You did not see the NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, coming out with the kind of harsh statements because they’ve dialed it back. They’ve assured me that they will no longer be threatening the business of some of the vendors in politics and telling them that if they do anything to help Todd, they’d be blackballed and not get any business.

“That kind of stuff’s been going on, and I told these people yesterday that I talked to: That’s got to stop. It can’t continue. That’s what union goons do: breaking people’s kneecaps when you cross a line. And Todd Akin has done nothing but make a mistake for which he has roundly repudiated the comment and apologized. There’s nothing else he can do.”

The NRSC went on record to say Huckabee made up the whole thing and that "no one at the NRSC has even spoken with the governor this week.” Huckabee later admitted he lied but excused lying because his lies were "on my own forums of radio and to the people who choose to receive communications from me." OK. I think he'll make believe there's no such thing as Todd Akin on Wednesday night.

Another one of the kooks, John Yeats, said if David Vitter could survive his multiple prostitution scandals, Akin could weather his problems too. “David had been exposed for going places he shouldn’t have been going. And there were calls for him to step out, but he stayed by his campaign and restored his relationship with his wife. As I think about Congressman Akin, his quote, ‘transgression,’ was not nearly as vile as Vitter’s. So I think this thing is survivable. And beyond survivable, I still think he has a real shot at winning the race here in Missouri. One of the things we have to remind ourselves of and remind our people of is that Congressman Akin represents the mainstream of our values. He is the mainstream of our values.” A fellow Baptist preacher, David Baker, agreed that Akin had to stay in and fight: “We have a responsibility as prophets to speak out. One thing I know about Missouri Baptists is that we don’t like to be told what to do.” Akin is also a Baptist preacher.

So while the Romney folks deal with this insanity on the extreme right of the party-- a nasty fight Romney and Ryan have personally weighed in on-- and in a way that doesn't please the base-- on the more mainstream end of the party they already have a major defection. We're not talking about some desperate publicity hound like Artur Davis looking to get wingnut welfare... we're talking about former Republican Governor Charlie Crist. He endorsed Barack Obama... the day before the convention was due to start in his hometown. And he didn't just endorse Obama; he savaged his old party.

As Republicans gather in Tampa to nominate Mitt Romney, Americans can expect to hear tales of how President Obama has failed to work with their party or turn the economy around.

But an element of their party has pitched so far to the extreme right on issues important to women, immigrants, seniors and students that they've proven incapable of governing for the people. Look no further than the inclusion of the Akin amendment in the Republican Party platform, which bans abortion, even for rape victims.

The truth is that the party has failed to demonstrate the kind of leadership or seriousness voters deserve.

And then beyond the realm of right or left, there's the Ron Paul problem. Maine Governor Paul LePage is boycotting the convention-- some say because Romney laughed when he demanded a speaking slot, but he claims because of the shabby way Ron Paul is being treated. Romney wouldn't let him speak-- not even at his own video tribute Wednesday night!-- unless he endorsed the ticket... and allowed them to edit his speech. He refused both demands, saying he can't endorse Romney until he sees what he's hiding in his tax returns. As for letting the Romneybots have veto-power over what he says... “It wouldn’t be my speech,” Mr. Paul said. “That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president.”

The Fight To Break Up The Mega-Banks Is Bi-Partisan... But So Is The Fight To Protect Them

I have to admit, I don't read RedState much but this David Diapers Vitter tweet early yesterday got me to take a look. And, I admit, I was surprised. It looks like the far right-- or at least the populist version of it-- is picking up one of the key threads progressives have been working towards. I suspect that for them, like for our own left-leaning populists, the whole idea of breaking up the banks, transcends partisan politics.


The Republican Establishment adamantly opposes the idea, of course-- but what about Establishment Democrats like Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel, Joe Crowley, Rahm Emanuel... all that DLC/Blue Dog/Third Way garbage? On the day that vote is taken the Democratic and Republican careerist Beltway Establishments will stand together against America's working families. This is how Erick Erickson put it:

BREAK UP THE BANKS

I hope the Romney campaign seriously takes on this idea. We have created a financial situation in this country, with Dodd-Frank and other policies, that have stacked the banks against the American people. They have become so massive that they can do pretty much what they want because they can hire all the lobbyists they need to get what they want from Washington and if they falter or fail, the nation goes belly up.

It is absolutely a conservative imperative to break up the big banks. Conservatism should eschew public-private partnership at this level. The banks have, in effect, become an extension of the government in that they now exist in a wholly symbiotic and unhealthy relationship with Washington. If we want smaller government, we need smaller banks too.

Romney isn't going to care what Erick Erickson says and they're not going to care what Simon Johnson said-- which is that link that Erickson is reacting too and with which he starts his post. The big banks are Romney's world and they're the toxic world his campaign is being financed by. Erickson's analysis might sound off-kilter-- and it should; it is-- but the route the right takes is bringing them to the same goal sane people want as well... breaking up the big banks. Robert Reich has been talking about it for a long time. And the most trustworthy man in the U.S. Senate, Bernie Sanders has as well. Three months ago:

"The debacle at J.P. Morgan Chase reaffirms my view that the largest six banks in this country, including J.P. Morgan Chase, which have assets equivalent to two-thirds of our GDP, must be broken up.  This is important in order to bring more competition into the financial marketplace and to prevent another ‘too-big-to-fail' bailout. At a time when 23 million Americans are either unemployed or underemployed, huge financial institutions should not be involved in ‘making wagers or high-stake bets.' They should be investing in the productive economy creating jobs and improving our standard of living." 

Earlier Bernie was in the well of the Senate explaining why the big banks have to be broken up. It makes a lot more sense than Erick Erickson while bringing us to a similar goal:



Bernie castigates conservatives, but I suspect Erickson and his pals would agree that the Establishment shills standing in the way of breaking up the banks feels towards them the way progressives feel towards Harold Ford, Rahm Emanuel, Joe Crowley, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel and other "Democrats" in the employ of the banksters. How about if I told you that earlier this month Vitter and Sherrod Brown co-wrote a letter to Fed Chair Ben Bernanke urging the Fed to increase the capital requirements of megabanks and force the mega-banks to bear their own risks? The Wall Street Journal reported it a couple weeks ago. It's a long letter and I've taken a few excerpts, although you can read the whole thing on Brown's website.

We write today to impress upon the Board the importance of robust and reasoned capital standards that will preserve the safety and soundness of our financial system for years to come. Your proposed rule on capital standards misses a huge opportunity to address the too-big-to-fail issue by setting the so-called SIFI-surcharge too far low. We urge you to revisit your proposed rule and modify it so that mega banks fund themselves with proportionately more loss-absorbing capital per dollar of assets than smaller regional or community banks. The surcharge on the mega banks should be high enough that it will either incent them to become smaller or help to ensure they can weather the next crisis without another taxpayer bailout.

Placing higher capital requirements on megabanks is a common sense way to fix the dangers of too-big-to-fail. As you have said in the past, research done by the Federal Reserve and other regulators shows the tougher capital requirements will "significantly reduce the threat of a massive financial crisis" while doing little to limit economic growth. The mega banks should bear their own risks and have their financial incentives positively aligned in a way that protect the taxpayers. 

...The largest U.S. banks have substantial footprints in both commercial banking and capital markets activities.  George Washington University Law Professor Arthur Wilmarth estimates that these firms were responsible for, “about $9 trillion of risky private-sector debt … in the form of nonprime home mortgages, credit card loans, CRE loans, LBO loans and junk bonds … [and] $25 trillion of structured-finance securities and derivatives whose value depended on the performance of that risky debt, including MBS, ABS, cash flow CDOs, synthetic CDOs and CDS[.]”

There is still a high degree of concentration among the largest institutions across various financial products:

• As of September 30, 2010, the six biggest banks accounted for 35 percent of all U.S. deposits and 53 percent of all banking assets;

• The six largest banks also service roughly 56 percent of all mortgages, and nearly two-thirds of the mortgages in foreclosure;

• In 2011, the top 10 banks underwrote 70 percent of the municipal bond offerings, with the top three-- JPMorgan, Citi, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch-- underwriting 38.3 percent of all business.

Finally, the largest U.S. bank is also the second-largest player in the settlement of contracts in the $1.8 trillion-a-day tri-party repo market.

...As we have discussed at length, robust capital buffers will more appropriately align financial incentives and prevent future financial sector bailouts. However, in order to do so properly, you must have the Board to revisit the proposed rule to implement Basel III and modify the rule to include a SIFI surcharge significant enough to change the incentives for the largest banks. 

We agree with the Board’s belief that enhanced capital requirements for the largest, most complex institutions will “meaningfully reduce the probability of failure of the largest, most complex financial companies and would minimize losses to the U.S. financial system and the economy if such a company should fail.” And, we further agree that G-SIFI capital surcharges “would help require that these companies account for the costs they impose on the broader financial system and would reduce the implicit subsidy they enjoy due to market perceptions of their systemic importance.” However, the proposed rule is ultimately just a baby step in the correct direction. The Board must do more in order to protect taxpayers and the financial system. Properly constructed capital standards will take into account the extent to which institutions are already subject to capital requirements imposed by their respective regulators. Regulation of these institutions should not dramatically scale up or fall off a cliff once particular benchmarks have been reached. As Governor Tarullo has argued, $51 billion bank holding company should not be treated significantly differently from a $49 billion bank holding company, and we are encouraged to hear him say that that, “the supplemental capital requirement for a $50 billion firm is likely to be very modest.”

Oversight should not remain constant once particular thresholds have been crossed, so that a large regional bank that makes loans to consumers and small businesses is not treated the same way as a trillion-dollar money-center bank. Rules for capital and leverage should move on a sliding scale, with a focus on the largest and most complex megabanks.

That was signed by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R-LA). Here's Brown on the floor of the Senate.