Gov. Huntsman Goes for Losing Plan, Republicans Don’t Want Their “Plan to End Medicare” to be Called a “Plan to End Medicare” . . .

And Other News That Needs Commenting on

Salon reports that former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is dusting off Sen. John McCain’s 2000 strategy of skipping the Iowa Caucuses and going after a big win or good showing in New Hampshire.  Uh, Mr. Huntsman, uh, Sen. McCain lost the nomination, maybe you ought to dust off someone else’s strategy.

Mediaite, through Taegan Goddard reports that Fox News’s report on Sarah Palin involved showing a photo of Tina Fey impersonating Ms. Palin. Remember Liberty Valance, When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.  It just feels so good to know that Fox News takes their cues from old John Wayne movies.

Republicans Want a TV Station to stop airing campaign ads that say their plan to end Medicare would end Medicare.  The Dismal Political Economist has covered this issue and concluded  that it does end Medicare and replaces it with private insurance. He has also suggested that Republicans trademark the name Medicare so they alone can call their plan Medicare but so far they have declined to do so.

South Carolina had slipped out of the political news recently, a good thing given the notoriety over the previous Governor’s “I am hiking the Appalachian Trail when I am really in Argentina with my girlfriend”.  Now it turns out that the Republican Governor and the Republican State Senate ended up in a lawsuit fight about the Governor’s ability to call the State Senate into session when they were on recess from already being in session.  Well, the Governor lost, but it was close and she was able to retaliate by not inviting a bunch of legislators to the End of Session BBQ (which could not really have been the end of the session since the legislature was still in session).

The Dismal Political Economist considers himself a BBQ aficionado, and has had South Carolina BBQ and his message to those not invited is “Count yourself lucky” and if  you need a BBQ fix we here in North Carolina are happy to oblige.

Finally, when The Dismal Political Economist wrote about a plan for Germany to Buy Greece, he was doing so using the ancient tradition of absurdity to make a point.  As this article from the Financial Times shows,

If any of these countries were to default, the immediate consequence would be a large fiscal transfer from the creditor countries. I cannot see the Germans, the Dutch or the Finns simply handing over the cash and keeping on smiling. In return, they would demand that the recipients accept a partial loss of fiscal sovereignty. The recipient countries would call this colonialism and demand that everyone else accepted the same

reality is now entering the realm of absurdity.  If this trend continues The Dismal Political Economist will start placing disclaimers to distinguish between the real and the absurd, if indeed that can be done.